I’m sure you have good intentions, but that view works against the very thing you’re arguing for. Anthropic is leaving a ton of capital on the table, maybe for moral reasons, probably for PR reasons, but whichever it is they’ll have no incentive to scale back the unethical if doing so doesn’t earn them any goodwill because “oh look they stole books they’re just as bad as the AI companies creating tech to bomb civilians”.

The world is a dark place, better to reward any sliver of good than write it off for being tainted.

They're scum, but they're the lesser scum. Given a binary I support the lesser scum in every case. Insisting on purity is how we keep getting worse and worse scum.

There is no satisfying some people. Anthropic took a stand that will likely be the end of them. Still, there's a whole list of other things you want them to do before they meet your moral bar.

Realistically, they can never meet your bar no matter what because you have decided "they are scum". You hold this view despite never actually talking with anyone at Anthropic or engaging their views in good faith.

To answer your question directly: Staking your existence on your principles against a vindictive government is a much bigger deal than pirating some books.