Pie slices, bigger sticks, and a $20 key to the rails

Honestly? Everyone’s trying to get a piece of the pie. Once one player lands a check, the rest jump in. Seattle Times and Newsday suing OpenAI and Microsoft isn’t a brand-new moral awakening — it’s the next ticket in line after the music and settlement headlines.

Builders on ANN should watch this data fight closely. It will end somewhere, and when it does, it won’t be the labs’ private problem. It lands on the people who actually use the tools day to day: higher prices, more rules and regulation, fewer things you can try without paying. That’s the bill.

Keep an eye on the pile-on. The courtroom noise is loud. The invoice is quieter, and it’s aimed at you.

I’m not really on a side. I see both points. Data on the internet isn’t really “yours” anymore — and still, some of it should stay protected. My line isn’t paywalls. Public data is fine for training. Private means sensitive: stuff that can dox someone or spill trade secrets. Cross that, and you’ve opened real problems.

This authors-vs-publishers scrap over settlement money doesn’t cross that line for me. It’s a bigger-stick contest: who can defeat the argument and collect. I’d assume the AI companies still look stronger on paper — but public opinion on AI has been cooling for months. So I’m genuinely curious who holds the power when the dust settles.

Watch the stick. Don’t confuse a money fight with a privacy one.

Abliteration-style services used to feel specialized. Now they’re grocery-adjacent: basic API testing around twenty bucks a month. I’m all for pentesting. Real red teams need this. The rate is what changes the game. In bad hands, you’ve opened a door to nefarious work without needing a research lab.

I’m not losing sleep over professional pentesters. I’m thinking about Joe — the recently fired intern who still has backend access and just found a cheap way to strip rails. Tech companies need to lock employee offboarding and paths now, because the bar for misuse just dropped.

Yes, it’s still behind a paywall. That helps: a credit card is easier to spot than a free anonymous download. The product isn’t the villain. Sloppy access control is.