logoalt Hacker News

simonwyesterday at 10:14 PM2 repliesview on HN

Yeah, I find that really frustrating.

I understand why they do it though: if they presented the actual content that came back from search they would absolutely get in trouble for copyright-infringement.

I suspect that's why so much of the Claude 4 system prompt for their search tool is the message "Always respect copyright by NEVER reproducing large 20+ word chunks of content from search results" repeated half a dozen times: https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/25/claude-4-system-prompt...


Replies

Zopieuxyesterday at 11:38 PM

This is no secret or suspicion. It is definitely about avoiding (more accuratly, delaying until legislation destroys the business model) the warth of copyright holders with enough lawyers.

I find this very hypocritical given that for all intents and purposes the infringement already happened at training time, since most content wasn't acquired with any form of retribution or attribution (otherwise this entire endeavor would not have been economically worth it). See also the "you're not allowed to plagiarize Disney" being done by all commercial text to image providers.

NoraCodestoday at 3:16 AM

I don't understand how you can look at behavior like this from the companies selling these systems and conclude that it is ethical for them to do so, or for you to promote their products.

show 1 reply