[stereolambda]

I would just establish that all references to "theft" and "stealing" in the realm of copyright (with the notable exception of plagiarism) is metaphor and emotional rhetoric. Historically it would come from copyright interest groups who want(ed) to use criminal police to enforce their state-granted copyright privileges[1] against regular people.

Sadly these things are often decided by rhetoric in society, but then again, there's no actual debate if it's just throwing slogans.

Now some of the same rhetoric is used in the AI battle. The only question worth asking here is what's the social benefit, as human culture is by nature all commons and derivation. But in this case, the AI companies are also accumulating power, and LLMs are removing attribution which could be argued to discourage publishing new works more than piracy. A "pirate" may learn about you and later buy from you in different ways, a LLM user won't even know that you exist.

[1] Not even discussing how exaggerated these privileges are from what would be reasonable.

[jachee]

Why the carve-out for plagiarism? And how does an LLM reciting all or part of a work verbatim not qualify as plagiarism?

[stereolambda]

Because if you present yourself as the author, it follows that the actual author is deprived of attribution. So you are actually taking something from that person.

LLM could commit plagiarism if authorship of generated media was claimed for either the LLM or its creators.