---
id: "quote-alsup-piracy"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["§ Lessons for Gen AI Companies", "¶14"]
tags: ["piracy", "infringement", "statutory-damages"]
related: ["concept-piracy-caveat", "claim-piracy-financial-risk", "entity-judge-william-alsup"]
speaker: "Judge William Alsup"
speakers: ["Judge William Alsup"]
sources: ["tail2"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail2"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-tail-126-genai-copyright"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/07/can-gen-ai-and-copyright-coexist"
sourceTitle: "Can Gen AI and Copyright Coexist?"
---
# Judge Alsup on the Piracy Caveat

> "piracy of otherwise available copies is inherently, irredeemably infringing even if the pirated copies are immediately used for the transformative use."

— [[entity-judge-william-alsup]], *Bartz v. Anthropic* (¶14)

The single most legally consequential line in the source: it establishes the **piracy caveat** ([[concept-piracy-caveat]]) that separates lawful computational learning from unlawful acquisition, and it is the doctrinal trigger for the statutory-damages exposure in [[claim-piracy-financial-risk]]. Corroborated by Copyright Alliance analysis ("downloading books from pirate sites is 'inherently, irredeemably infringing'").