6 ms·

Why do we think that the moebius estate deserves that revenue? Why is that the optimal state of the world, rather than just a capitalist incentive to create mor

Why do we think that the moebius estate deserves that revenue? Why is that the optimal state of the world, rather than just a capitalist incentive to create more art?

rendall 3y ago
Your issue is with capitalism apparently. Like it or not, creators rely on copyright to make a living and have an incentive to create more, and quality, art.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  My issue is not with capitalism but with assuming the present rules of asset ownership are optimal! If we could make housing free - conjure it out of thin air - it would be really bad for landlords. They rely on that income to make a living! We should still obviously do it. More of a thing that people want is usually good.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    What exactly would we want to incentivize landlords for if land was free? ??? They are not creating anything unique or otherwise. It’s not remotely comparable.
  - yffi_bit 3y ago
    Conjuring things out of thin air also tends to have side-effects, and it's better not to stop at the first-order effect of an action before going ahead and "just doing it". Concretely with content generation: if the disregard for copyright leads to a world where people no longer make the effort to produce and think about new things, the only things that you will consume will be produced by AI. Reminds me of The Matrix :-)
    - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
      Conjuring things out of thin air does not have side effects because it is not possible. The whole point of the phrase was to describe a hypothetical situation with no side effects to avoid sideways arguments about "but actually here's some bad things that would happen if you did that unrelated to the central argument".
      - yffi_bit 3y ago
        I actually agree completely with that; my initial reply doesn't quite put the focus where it needs to be. So let me try again: in my view, you shouldn't think of policies or laws impacting real people by ever placing yourself outside of the reality in an ideal case, because the hard bit is not conjuring ideals but finding a way of making them happen. It's always a lot messier where the rubber meets the road. People have already died and suffered because ideals (specifically around asset ownership) that weren't quite thought through, but caught on. Take communism as an example. Part of my point is that such "implementation details" are not as unrelated to the central argument as they seem. This is very different from the software world where it might be ok to assume that in 2 years we'll have the computations be 10x as fast and work out a solution backwards from there.
- deeviant 3y ago
  Copyright protects the work, not the thoughtspace. Unless the LLM recreates their work in a form similar enough to be legally defined as the copyrighted material, there is no copyright issue, period. Starting a legal precedent that copyrights spreads like fungus and encompasses any thought related to the copyrighted work seems like a horrible idea, one that can only lead to a dystopian future.
  - rendall 3y ago
    > Copyright protects the work, not the thoughtspace. I think that is a good argument, but conflates is and ought, and I have two counters: copyright owners can dictate how their work is used (with some exceptions), and if that use hurts the copyright owner, the owner should have the right to forbid it. the intent of copyright is to reward and encourage creators and creativity. If a script kiddie can just train a model and duplicate the hard-won aesthetic work of Molly Crabapple or Ralph Steadman or anyone at all, and either dilute the value of it or actually profit from it, what is the incentive for creators to create new work at all?
    - clucas 3y ago
      > copyright owners can dictate how their work is used (with some exceptions), and if that use hurts the copyright owner, the owner should have the right to forbid it. Consider a poet who publishes poetry in some unique meter, or has some other unique stylistic structure for which they are well known... should they be allowed to sell copies of their poems that can be used for reading only, but prevents usage of those stylistic devices by other authors? I'm going to assume that we agree the answer is "no, the author should not be able to prevent those uses" at least for human consumers of their works. This is how art has always developed... even though that use "hurts the copyright owner" by diluting the market for works with that style, the owner does NOT have the right to forbid it. Now, let's say that same poet drew a lot of inspiration from a bunch of out-of-copyright poets. Let's also say that I train an AI model on the poet's inspirations, but NOT on the poet's work directly. Then I ask the AI to write a poem in the style of the poet's inspirations, and to include the unique stylistic device for which that poet is famous. In your world, is this OK?
Nevermark 3y ago
Uh, no. There is a distinct lack of capitalist incentive to spend your time developing a novel style only to have your style replicated for anyone to use, based on your work, and without permission. In terms of automation used to destroy incentives for original creators, based on original creators’ works, photocopying machines and generative models are in the same quadrant.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  Yes, it is value destroying for the creators. It cheapens their work. However, it gives millions more people access to their ideas. Maybe that’s better.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    So you are against copyrights? Please say so if that’s your point of view. Because the argument is the same either way. Either we protect creative works from being devalued by automation, to maintain an incentive to create, or we don’t.
    - Zetobal 3y ago
      Protectionism never works it just delays the inevitable.
      - Nevermark 3y ago
        I don’t know what that means. My entire career has been selling copyrighted works for good money. And I have been able to confidently do that for many years because of copyright protection. So “it just delays the inevitable” means what? I have to give my money back later?
        Zetobal 3y ago
        The transition from horses to automobiles is a prime example of how protectionism can't halt technological progress. When cars first arrived, they faced stiff opposition, especially from the horse and carriage industry. Some countries even introduced protectionist policies, like high tariffs on imported cars or regulations favoring horse-drawn vehicles, to shield their traditional industries. In the end the end user will decide or better said they already did in regards of generative art. The inevitable is that your industry will change and the distinction between what is an "Artist" and an "Operator" will change even more. If most of your clients come to you for the end product you are most likely an "Operator". ie. "Do X like I want it to be done." if you are an "Artist" clients come to you because you are either in the Zeitgeist or people like your way of thinking and the process behind your art. The end product is collaborative. If you are an "Operator" you will have problems in the near future if you are an "Artist" you will be fine. It's like in VFX and the mark the writers strike made on the industry the "Aritsts" are all fine because the studios want to retain them and the "Operators" are left on the street.
freejazz 3y ago
>rather than just a capitalist incentive to create more art? That's the entire point. It's in the US constitution, stating that exact reason.

Why do we think that the moebius estate deserves that revenue? Why is that the optimal state of the world, rather than just a capitalist incentive to create more art?

rendall 3y ago

Your issue is with capitalism apparently. Like it or not, creators rely on copyright to make a living and have an incentive to create more, and quality, art.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago
My issue is not with capitalism but with assuming the present rules of asset ownership are optimal! If we could make housing free - conjure it out of thin air - it would be really bad for landlords. They rely on that income to make a living! We should still obviously do it. More of a thing that people want is usually good.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  What exactly would we want to incentivize landlords for if land was free? ??? They are not creating anything unique or otherwise. It’s not remotely comparable.
- yffi_bit 3y ago
  Conjuring things out of thin air also tends to have side-effects, and it's better not to stop at the first-order effect of an action before going ahead and "just doing it". Concretely with content generation: if the disregard for copyright leads to a world where people no longer make the effort to produce and think about new things, the only things that you will consume will be produced by AI. Reminds me of The Matrix :-)
  - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
    Conjuring things out of thin air does not have side effects because it is not possible. The whole point of the phrase was to describe a hypothetical situation with no side effects to avoid sideways arguments about "but actually here's some bad things that would happen if you did that unrelated to the central argument".
    - yffi_bit 3y ago
      I actually agree completely with that; my initial reply doesn't quite put the focus where it needs to be. So let me try again: in my view, you shouldn't think of policies or laws impacting real people by ever placing yourself outside of the reality in an ideal case, because the hard bit is not conjuring ideals but finding a way of making them happen. It's always a lot messier where the rubber meets the road. People have already died and suffered because ideals (specifically around asset ownership) that weren't quite thought through, but caught on. Take communism as an example. Part of my point is that such "implementation details" are not as unrelated to the central argument as they seem. This is very different from the software world where it might be ok to assume that in 2 years we'll have the computations be 10x as fast and work out a solution backwards from there.
deeviant 3y ago
Copyright protects the work, not the thoughtspace. Unless the LLM recreates their work in a form similar enough to be legally defined as the copyrighted material, there is no copyright issue, period. Starting a legal precedent that copyrights spreads like fungus and encompasses any thought related to the copyrighted work seems like a horrible idea, one that can only lead to a dystopian future.
- rendall 3y ago
  > Copyright protects the work, not the thoughtspace. I think that is a good argument, but conflates is and ought, and I have two counters: copyright owners can dictate how their work is used (with some exceptions), and if that use hurts the copyright owner, the owner should have the right to forbid it. the intent of copyright is to reward and encourage creators and creativity. If a script kiddie can just train a model and duplicate the hard-won aesthetic work of Molly Crabapple or Ralph Steadman or anyone at all, and either dilute the value of it or actually profit from it, what is the incentive for creators to create new work at all?
  - clucas 3y ago
    > copyright owners can dictate how their work is used (with some exceptions), and if that use hurts the copyright owner, the owner should have the right to forbid it. Consider a poet who publishes poetry in some unique meter, or has some other unique stylistic structure for which they are well known... should they be allowed to sell copies of their poems that can be used for reading only, but prevents usage of those stylistic devices by other authors? I'm going to assume that we agree the answer is "no, the author should not be able to prevent those uses" at least for human consumers of their works. This is how art has always developed... even though that use "hurts the copyright owner" by diluting the market for works with that style, the owner does NOT have the right to forbid it. Now, let's say that same poet drew a lot of inspiration from a bunch of out-of-copyright poets. Let's also say that I train an AI model on the poet's inspirations, but NOT on the poet's work directly. Then I ask the AI to write a poem in the style of the poet's inspirations, and to include the unique stylistic device for which that poet is famous. In your world, is this OK?

Nevermark 3y ago

Uh, no. There is a distinct lack of capitalist incentive to spend your time developing a novel style only to have your style replicated for anyone to use, based on your work, and without permission. In terms of automation used to destroy incentives for original creators, based on original creators’ works, photocopying machines and generative models are in the same quadrant.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago
Yes, it is value destroying for the creators. It cheapens their work. However, it gives millions more people access to their ideas. Maybe that’s better.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  So you are against copyrights? Please say so if that’s your point of view. Because the argument is the same either way. Either we protect creative works from being devalued by automation, to maintain an incentive to create, or we don’t.
  - Zetobal 3y ago
    Protectionism never works it just delays the inevitable.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      I don’t know what that means. My entire career has been selling copyrighted works for good money. And I have been able to confidently do that for many years because of copyright protection. So “it just delays the inevitable” means what? I have to give my money back later?
      - Zetobal 3y ago
        The transition from horses to automobiles is a prime example of how protectionism can't halt technological progress. When cars first arrived, they faced stiff opposition, especially from the horse and carriage industry. Some countries even introduced protectionist policies, like high tariffs on imported cars or regulations favoring horse-drawn vehicles, to shield their traditional industries. In the end the end user will decide or better said they already did in regards of generative art. The inevitable is that your industry will change and the distinction between what is an "Artist" and an "Operator" will change even more. If most of your clients come to you for the end product you are most likely an "Operator". ie. "Do X like I want it to be done." if you are an "Artist" clients come to you because you are either in the Zeitgeist or people like your way of thinking and the process behind your art. The end product is collaborative. If you are an "Operator" you will have problems in the near future if you are an "Artist" you will be fine. It's like in VFX and the mark the writers strike made on the industry the "Aritsts" are all fine because the studios want to retain them and the "Operators" are left on the street.

freejazz 3y ago

>rather than just a capitalist incentive to create more art? That's the entire point. It's in the US constitution, stating that exact reason.