Bad Apple but It's Traceroute

Re:Bad Apple but It's Traceroute by tialaramex on Friday July 31, 2026 @05:15AM (#49120799)

I don't think this is in the same category as Lenna. Lenna is more like the situation with Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line. HeLa is a cell line which is "immortalized" as a result of a cancer mutation. If you try to keep normal healthy human cells alive they'll just die eventually, it is what they're programmed to do. But Henrietta Lacks had cancer and one of the ways cancers survive and grow is with a mutation which eliminates that "always die" rule. Henrietta died in 1951, but this cell line lives on, used in countless experiments.

Lena Forsén sold her image rights - she's a Playboy model, but not to be used in decades of image research - whereas Henrietta was never even told her cells were being collected for science experiments at all. This isn't Tuskegee - she was given reasonable medical care for her cancer given it was 1951, but she didn't sign a waiver saying "I'm fine with you using my cell line to do whatever you want" in perpetuity.

For "Bad Apple" it's just embarrassing for some people, which doesn't even seem like a big deal.

The other thing which distinguishes Lenna is that it's obsolete. It's a scan of a Playboy magazine, not even a scan of the photo itself, let alone a direct capture of the scene - and it is by modern standards low resolution. Even if you (like modern AI companies) don't care about rights or people the Lenna image is a poor choice on technical grounds.

Bad Apple isn't like that, a substitute would just be some other black-and-white video, probably similar length and resolution.

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Re:Bad Apple but It's Traceroute by neuroticnews25 on Friday July 31, 2026 @05:43AM (#49121024)

Both cases sound to me like there is absolutely no moral right being violated. Maybe there's a line somewhere, like you shouldn't copy someone's brain and torture it in a simulation, but this is nowhere near it.

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Re:Bad Apple but It's Traceroute by tialaramex on Friday July 31, 2026 @06:56AM (#49121565)

Then you'd certainly be surprised that today making HeLa without Lacks' prior authorisation would be illegal. You'd need consent from the patient before taking these samples for any purpose other than directly treating them, if you've got samples you took for treatment and now you wish you could use them for another purpose either you need to go back and ask for that or too bad. I've signed off on paperwork for this numerous times this century because they have samples from my cancer which are doubtless much less useful than HeLa but might be valuable to someone so why not ask.

Lacks' estate have obtained settlements (with undisclosed terms) from several companies which profit off HeLa. We could choose to imagine the terms were just enough to pay lawyer fees, but equally they could be substantial. So apparently the lawyers for major pharma firms either don't believe you that no moral rights were violated or they believe jurors wouldn't believe you on this.

Now, as I said, for Lenna she was compensated by Playboy, the rights rest with the magazine publisher, and they've apparently felt that suing scientists for popularizing an image of one of their models wasn't commercially sensible. But morally it does still seem like a problem, that's not what she was consenting to.

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Re:Bad Apple but It's Traceroute by neuroticnews25 on Friday July 31, 2026 @09:58AM (#49123213)

I've read more about the case and yeah, profiting out of a cell line from a tissue literally stolen with a scalpel doesn't seem ok, because stealing a part of someone's body is not ok in the first place. Even though it was apparently legal at the time.

> that's not what she was consenting to

It's not clear that we're obliged to care - what if I don't consent to having this comment argued against, or read? What about Virgil's Aeneid? I think where consent is clearly applicable is in cases regarding body autonomy and personal property, and it gets murky with abstract concepts like "likeness".

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