5 ms·

ownership is a concept in dire need of revision

by somrand0 4y ago

riedel 4y ago
[flagged]
- scotty79 4y ago
  Which had, as a concept and in practice nothing to do with code ownership.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    Depends I guess, there are a million definitions of communism, but commonly the idea is, to give the tools and factories into the hand of the workers (in theory), so you probably could argue that code ownership of productive code falls under this.
- bediger4000 4y ago
  There used to be a concept called public domain. The purpose of copyright was to make increase the public domain. What's your point?
  - riedel 4y ago
    My point is that there is socioeconomic theories which were based on the goal of common ownership of all means of production (which in a digital society would often translate to code). I guess all movements that have tried to transition to such societies have failed (thus my comment: they are alternatives, the trick is to make them working). While public domain is (except maybe for government agency) is a model you chose, this is completely different. If we are talking about alternatives to ownership we cannot do this without thinking in political dimensions.
marc_io 4y ago
Yes, as long as it doesn't disregard the original creator's intentions in the formulation.
- c7b 4y ago
  Even that notion is tricky in the context of text AI. It doesn't seem obviously clear to me what the implied stance towards AI training would be for many popular license types. It seems more like the creators of many licenses didn't explicitly consider this use case. And the more meta question is whether the creators' rights should even extend to that realm. Can you specify in a license "This text must not be read by students in the context of an educational course" (which is arguably the closest analogue to AI training)? If that's not possible, then where do we draw the line between tools-assisted learning by humans and human tools learning on their own? You can arrive at answers, but it seems to me like there are many possible reasonable interpretations.
  - marc_io 4y ago
    > (which is arguably the closest analogue to AI training) It would be more accurate to compare those students with the corporate interests involved in AI training, not the model's use of the content.
  - thn-gap 4y ago
    Why is it fair use if you train a model on copyrighted material and use its transformative output, despite going against the will of the author? Can we all legally pirate educational books since it's for self training and producing transformative outputs? Can I consume all media (books, movies, music) the same way, and call it fair use? Also for software?
    - TchoBeer 4y ago
      yeah, I struggle to see how training AI on illegally gotten data is legal.
    - c7b 4y ago
      Content that hasn't been legally obtained wouldn't be legal to consume in any way. That's not what I meant, and I think that's a bit of a disingenuous interpretation of my comment. The debate is about content that is generally legally obtained, but might come with certain restrictions. Where restrictions is a broad term and might also just come in the form of a copyleft license, eg. My main point was that in many situations, eg involving open source licenses, it's really not clear from the terms what the creator's intent regarding AI training was. And the broader question is whether training is fair use, or something else, maybe even a new legal concept that would have to be established. Or, what's the difference between art students going to the museum to be inspired, and Dall-E 'looking' at public domain images?
crawfordcomeaux 4y ago
Yes, like scientific grounding or abandonment. If only we held all myths to such high esteem as we societally hold ownership.
cyber_kinetist 4y ago
The only way to truly own something, is to either share it or destroy it.
- friesandties 4y ago
  I really like this, it rings so true to me in the current times. Temporal everything, air, food; a life even-keel.
bodyfour 4y ago
Once we have AI-generated laws I'm sure this will be sorted out.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
or abolition but to do that without any reasonable social support nets is absurd
- somrand0 4y ago
  but what does it mean to destroy the concept of ownership (i.e. the notion of property) if we take that > The only way to truly own something, is to either share it or destroy it. could I argue that then, we would be taking ownership of the concept of ownership?? ahahha... I think this is kind of funny. And I'd admit that it's not very helpful to the goal of revising the very concept of ownership. my own parent comment is already controversial with many replies and exactly 0 points (at the time of this response)
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    private property successfully didn't exist in various societies, including larger scale societies and ones that had discovered agriculture, and not only under communist regimes. it does mean to share, without ownership.
claytongulick 4y ago
Agreed. You don't mind if I borrow your car do you? And your house? Let's not quibble about the particulars of me ever giving them back.
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  I don't want you taking my car because I need to use my car and only one of us can use it at a time. Intellectual property can be endlessly copied without anyone losing anything. This is not a defense of IP theft (and it's pretty reasonable to think that IP law serves an important purpose protecting creatives' ability to get compensated for their work) but it means that they require a fundamentally different approach.
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    > ownership is a concept in dire need of revision GP did not limit the scope of their opinion on ownership to IP.
- somrand0 4y ago
  indeed, the first step (IMO) towards revising the notion is to recognize that physical (material, tangible) assets inherently work differently than digital assets. As I understand so far the main reason to seek a revision of the concept of ownership is exactly due to the existence (enabled by internet technology) of digital assets. copy-pasting is HOW computers work. copy-pasting does not do well in society ruled by the exclusivity-mindset inherent to marketplaces (and their societies) of tangible assets
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    I'm not exactly an IP hawk, from from it. I agree with you that digital "asset" ownership is new, unexplored territory for humans. We've never been able to separate the content from the distribution medium before now, and we're struggling to recreate a model we're familiar with (physical media) by imposing absurdities like DRM. NFTs are also an absurd way of trying to solve the same problem. The issue we wrestle with is mistaking "ownership" with a access. I can own a physical book, but I do not own the content of the book, I've paid for access to that content and the book is the medium. Digital assets are the same, I don't own them, they are a form of access to content that someone else owns, and has granted me an either implicit or explicit license to use. I think this is the concept of ownership that needs to be revised. Rather than a mp3 being treated, and thought of, like a book - it should be thought of more as a movie ticket. Something that grants me access to content within the limits defined by the content owner.

ownership is a concept in dire need of revision

riedel 4y ago

[flagged]

scotty79 4y ago
Which had, as a concept and in practice nothing to do with code ownership.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  Depends I guess, there are a million definitions of communism, but commonly the idea is, to give the tools and factories into the hand of the workers (in theory), so you probably could argue that code ownership of productive code falls under this.
bediger4000 4y ago
There used to be a concept called public domain. The purpose of copyright was to make increase the public domain. What's your point?
- riedel 4y ago
  My point is that there is socioeconomic theories which were based on the goal of common ownership of all means of production (which in a digital society would often translate to code). I guess all movements that have tried to transition to such societies have failed (thus my comment: they are alternatives, the trick is to make them working). While public domain is (except maybe for government agency) is a model you chose, this is completely different. If we are talking about alternatives to ownership we cannot do this without thinking in political dimensions.

marc_io 4y ago

Yes, as long as it doesn't disregard the original creator's intentions in the formulation.

c7b 4y ago
Even that notion is tricky in the context of text AI. It doesn't seem obviously clear to me what the implied stance towards AI training would be for many popular license types. It seems more like the creators of many licenses didn't explicitly consider this use case. And the more meta question is whether the creators' rights should even extend to that realm. Can you specify in a license "This text must not be read by students in the context of an educational course" (which is arguably the closest analogue to AI training)? If that's not possible, then where do we draw the line between tools-assisted learning by humans and human tools learning on their own? You can arrive at answers, but it seems to me like there are many possible reasonable interpretations.
- marc_io 4y ago
  > (which is arguably the closest analogue to AI training) It would be more accurate to compare those students with the corporate interests involved in AI training, not the model's use of the content.
- thn-gap 4y ago
  Why is it fair use if you train a model on copyrighted material and use its transformative output, despite going against the will of the author? Can we all legally pirate educational books since it's for self training and producing transformative outputs? Can I consume all media (books, movies, music) the same way, and call it fair use? Also for software?
  - TchoBeer 4y ago
    yeah, I struggle to see how training AI on illegally gotten data is legal.
  - c7b 4y ago
    Content that hasn't been legally obtained wouldn't be legal to consume in any way. That's not what I meant, and I think that's a bit of a disingenuous interpretation of my comment. The debate is about content that is generally legally obtained, but might come with certain restrictions. Where restrictions is a broad term and might also just come in the form of a copyleft license, eg. My main point was that in many situations, eg involving open source licenses, it's really not clear from the terms what the creator's intent regarding AI training was. And the broader question is whether training is fair use, or something else, maybe even a new legal concept that would have to be established. Or, what's the difference between art students going to the museum to be inspired, and Dall-E 'looking' at public domain images?

crawfordcomeaux 4y ago

Yes, like scientific grounding or abandonment. If only we held all myths to such high esteem as we societally hold ownership.

cyber_kinetist 4y ago

The only way to truly own something, is to either share it or destroy it.

friesandties 4y ago
I really like this, it rings so true to me in the current times. Temporal everything, air, food; a life even-keel.

bodyfour 4y ago

Once we have AI-generated laws I'm sure this will be sorted out.

wahnfrieden 4y ago

or abolition but to do that without any reasonable social support nets is absurd

somrand0 4y ago
but what does it mean to destroy the concept of ownership (i.e. the notion of property) if we take that > The only way to truly own something, is to either share it or destroy it. could I argue that then, we would be taking ownership of the concept of ownership?? ahahha... I think this is kind of funny. And I'd admit that it's not very helpful to the goal of revising the very concept of ownership. my own parent comment is already controversial with many replies and exactly 0 points (at the time of this response)
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  private property successfully didn't exist in various societies, including larger scale societies and ones that had discovered agriculture, and not only under communist regimes. it does mean to share, without ownership.

claytongulick 4y ago

Agreed. You don't mind if I borrow your car do you? And your house? Let's not quibble about the particulars of me ever giving them back.

TchoBeer 4y ago
I don't want you taking my car because I need to use my car and only one of us can use it at a time. Intellectual property can be endlessly copied without anyone losing anything. This is not a defense of IP theft (and it's pretty reasonable to think that IP law serves an important purpose protecting creatives' ability to get compensated for their work) but it means that they require a fundamentally different approach.
- claytongulick 4y ago
  > ownership is a concept in dire need of revision GP did not limit the scope of their opinion on ownership to IP.
somrand0 4y ago
indeed, the first step (IMO) towards revising the notion is to recognize that physical (material, tangible) assets inherently work differently than digital assets. As I understand so far the main reason to seek a revision of the concept of ownership is exactly due to the existence (enabled by internet technology) of digital assets. copy-pasting is HOW computers work. copy-pasting does not do well in society ruled by the exclusivity-mindset inherent to marketplaces (and their societies) of tangible assets
- claytongulick 4y ago
  I'm not exactly an IP hawk, from from it. I agree with you that digital "asset" ownership is new, unexplored territory for humans. We've never been able to separate the content from the distribution medium before now, and we're struggling to recreate a model we're familiar with (physical media) by imposing absurdities like DRM. NFTs are also an absurd way of trying to solve the same problem. The issue we wrestle with is mistaking "ownership" with a access. I can own a physical book, but I do not own the content of the book, I've paid for access to that content and the book is the medium. Digital assets are the same, I don't own them, they are a form of access to content that someone else owns, and has granted me an either implicit or explicit license to use. I think this is the concept of ownership that needs to be revised. Rather than a mp3 being treated, and thought of, like a book - it should be thought of more as a movie ticket. Something that grants me access to content within the limits defined by the content owner.