I think that the point is that instances can choose thier own rules. Article is about an instance. Not about the entire platform.

The way copyright law works, by default you don't have any right to make use of anything, even if it's posted publicly. Why do people allow Fediverse platforms to do the thing they do? Leniency on their part.

Gathering data from Mastodon for AI training is technically feasible, but that doesn't mean it's legally justified. Many people will object to that. Many already do!

That is not true. The terms of service cover "your access and use of Server Operator's ("Administrator", "we", or "us") instance". Access includes reading data from the server.

No it doesn't because all mastodon data is public and does not require ToS agreement to be collected.

ToS are legalese bullshit. They mean next to nothing since most stuff if it comes to court, gets annuled.

ToS kind of does protect you, but holding tge service hostage or not (as in you can't watch one little youtube video without selling your soul to Google) doesn't make a big difference - rrasonable expectations are that users own their content (as is the case in youtube's case - youtube doesn't ponce on your videos afaik), although they do own rights to distributing it (obviously), and using sane technological measures to prevent what they don't want. In youtube's case that's watching e.g. privated videos, and in another case it can be AI scrapers.

Robots.txt is, just like a ToS, a contract. It just isn't legalese as it isn't meant to scare people, but be useful to programmers making the site and those using the scraper. They're programmers, not marketers or lawyers, of course they won't deal with legalese if they csn avoid it.

Again, law is not leagese.

A robots.txt file is a contract by use,like when you park in a charge zone - entering the zone, you accept the obigation to pay.

When you scrape a site you first check for robots.txt in all the reasonable places it should be, look for its terms, and follow them... If you don't want to riskgetting sued.

Similarily, entering a store, you are expected to pay for what you take. There is no entry machine like on a metro where you, instead if swiping a card, read the store's T&C's, but know that it's common sense security will come after you, if not the police. Yet you clicked no "I agree"? How come you don't just take what you want?

And robots.txt is a mature technology and easily a "standard". Any competent lawyer will point that out to the jury and judge, who will most likely rule appropristely. The Internet is not the Wild West anymore.