Just a point of clarification: Copyright is about the right of distribution. So yes, a company can just “download the Internet”, store it, and do whatever TF they want with it as long as they don’t distribute it.
That the key: Distribution. That’s why no one gets sued for downloading. They only ever get sued for uploading. Furthermore, the damages (if found guilty) are based on the number of copies that get distributed. It’s because copyright law hasn’t been updated in decades and 99% of it predates computers (especially all the important case law).
What these lawsuits against OpenAI are claiming is that OpenAI is making a derivative work of the authors/owners works. Which is kinda what’s going on but also not really. Let’s say that someone asks ChatGPT to write a few paragraphs of something in the style of Stephen King… His “style” isn’t even cooyrightable so as long as it didn’t copy his works word-for-word is it even a derivative? No one knows. It’s never been litigated before.
My guess: No. It’s not going to count as a derivative work. Because it’s no different than a human reading all his books and performing the same, perfectly legal function.
As expected, nobody cares about “reader mode”. Only once in my life has it ever come in handy… It was a website that was so badly designed I swore never to go back to it ever again.
I forget what it was but apparently I wasn’t the only one and thus, it must’ve died a fast death as I haven’t seen it ever again (otherwise I’d remember).
Basically, any website that gets users so frustrated that they resort to reader/simplified mode isn’t going to last very long. If I had my way I would change the messages:
“This website appears to be total shit. Do you want Firefox to try to fix it so your eyes don’t bleed trying to get through it?”
I want an extension that does this, actually! It doesn’t need to actually modify the page. Just give me a virtual assistant to comiserate with…
“The people who made this website should have their browser’s back button removed entirely as punishment for erecting this horror!”