3 ms·

> The fundamental problem here is about consent. What would a reasonable person expect? 10 years ago certainly no one expected this. I just don't think that's

> The fundamental problem here is about consent. What would a reasonable person expect? 10 years ago certainly no one expected this. I just don't think that's the right angle. I think if you're in the public sphere, the way that you anticipated your creations to be used just shouldn't matter at all. If you've given something to the public, the public should not be limited to whatever you thought they'd use it for. And the conversation keeps coming back to that because people keep making that argument. I specifically agree that private Facebook posts are not covered under this argument! However, I also think that consent as a basis for analysis just doesn't apply to public posts.

godelski 3y ago
Why does everything have to be binary these days? We aren't machines. The world is messy and so are we humans. Removing nuance from conversations and ideas does not help anything. The scenario you laid out, continued, leaves no person with privacy anywhere. I specifically don't want to explain because I specifically want more people thinking and thinking hard. To specifically attempt to break from their way of thinking and try to see things from a different point of view. This is important especially when there is disagreement. You don't have to be convinced by my arguments, but you certainly do have to understand them. There definitely isn't enough of that happening these days. Our interconnectedness has only made the world more complicated, not more simple. It has made communication more difficult too, as we talk with many who have far larger differences in priors than we would were we constrained to in person communication. As for consent, you may disagree, but that's how our entire legal framework works, and I for one am happy about this. Consent is the foundation of any democracy. A world without consent isn't figuratively tyranny, it is literally tyranny. Agree or not, the law does not give you the right to use any information (words spoken, pictures taken, bits, or whatever) that is publicly available/viewable in whatever way you want. There are rules. It is why Taylor Swift can't even post a picture of herself on Instagram and why you can't follow someone around all day taking pictures of them (aka. stalking). There are limitations because we live in a society and I for one think this is a good thing. Yes, you are right when posting something public that people shouldn't limits on use for only what the poster explicitly intended. But that freedom is neither unlimited. That's the point I'm making. The line of public and private is getting blurrier by the day. These laws are always made by that of a reasonable expectation. Certainly no one that posted on Facebook 10 years ago had a reasonable expectation that their post would be used to train an LLM.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  Personally speaking: all the art I consume is remixes. Almost all the books I read are fanfics. If the repurposing of cultural content without the consent of the author becomes illegal, my cultural universe will vanish overnight. As such, I think I'm just on the other side of that fight. If we have to lose privacy and control in order to keep our participatory culture, I'm sorry, I'll take culture. If it's a multidimensional topic, I'm for tightening privacy in private spaces and loosening privacy in public spaces. If there's only one axis, I'll push the lever towards loose.
  - godelski 3y ago
    > Personally speaking: all the art I consume is remixes. Almost all the books I read are fanfics. If the repurposing of cultural content without the consent of the author becomes illegal, my cultural universe will vanish overnight. You'd be surprised because these industries have figured these problems out. What is allow without license, what needs royalties, what needs permission, and what can't be done. This was a huge conversation in the 90's and you can find many discussions about hip hop (around sampling) and copyright law. Your culture is not in danger, even if you don't know its history. I'd suggest learning it though, because that's the best way to ensure your culture stays out of danger (a culture I am also part of fwiw).
    - FeepingCreature 3y ago
      To the best of my knowledge, all claims that fanfiction is in the clear, that it's okay to do derivative works if you aren't charging money, and so on, are all just fandom folklore. If any author wanted to legally shut down fanfic, to my knowledge they could. And I'm against that - hell, in my opinion fanfiction writers should be able to sell their work even without authorial consent. Look at the Touhou scene, look how much cultural production was achieved just by one popular creator being chill about copyright. The idea that you can own exclusive rights to a story or a setting is a historical aberration.
      - godelski 3y ago

godelski 3y ago

Why does everything have to be binary these days? We aren't machines. The world is messy and so are we humans. Removing nuance from conversations and ideas does not help anything. The scenario you laid out, continued, leaves no person with privacy anywhere. I specifically don't want to explain because I specifically want more people thinking and thinking hard. To specifically attempt to break from their way of thinking and try to see things from a different point of view. This is important especially when there is disagreement. You don't have to be convinced by my arguments, but you certainly do have to understand them. There definitely isn't enough of that happening these days. Our interconnectedness has only made the world more complicated, not more simple. It has made communication more difficult too, as we talk with many who have far larger differences in priors than we would were we constrained to in person communication. As for consent, you may disagree, but that's how our entire legal framework works, and I for one am happy about this. Consent is the foundation of any democracy. A world without consent isn't figuratively tyranny, it is literally tyranny. Agree or not, the law does not give you the right to use any information (words spoken, pictures taken, bits, or whatever) that is publicly available/viewable in whatever way you want. There are rules. It is why Taylor Swift can't even post a picture of herself on Instagram and why you can't follow someone around all day taking pictures of them (aka. stalking). There are limitations because we live in a society and I for one think this is a good thing. Yes, you are right when posting something public that people shouldn't limits on use for only what the poster explicitly intended. But that freedom is neither unlimited. That's the point I'm making. The line of public and private is getting blurrier by the day. These laws are always made by that of a reasonable expectation. Certainly no one that posted on Facebook 10 years ago had a reasonable expectation that their post would be used to train an LLM.

FeepingCreature 3y ago
Personally speaking: all the art I consume is remixes. Almost all the books I read are fanfics. If the repurposing of cultural content without the consent of the author becomes illegal, my cultural universe will vanish overnight. As such, I think I'm just on the other side of that fight. If we have to lose privacy and control in order to keep our participatory culture, I'm sorry, I'll take culture. If it's a multidimensional topic, I'm for tightening privacy in private spaces and loosening privacy in public spaces. If there's only one axis, I'll push the lever towards loose.
- godelski 3y ago
  > Personally speaking: all the art I consume is remixes. Almost all the books I read are fanfics. If the repurposing of cultural content without the consent of the author becomes illegal, my cultural universe will vanish overnight. You'd be surprised because these industries have figured these problems out. What is allow without license, what needs royalties, what needs permission, and what can't be done. This was a huge conversation in the 90's and you can find many discussions about hip hop (around sampling) and copyright law. Your culture is not in danger, even if you don't know its history. I'd suggest learning it though, because that's the best way to ensure your culture stays out of danger (a culture I am also part of fwiw).
  - FeepingCreature 3y ago
    To the best of my knowledge, all claims that fanfiction is in the clear, that it's okay to do derivative works if you aren't charging money, and so on, are all just fandom folklore. If any author wanted to legally shut down fanfic, to my knowledge they could. And I'm against that - hell, in my opinion fanfiction writers should be able to sell their work even without authorial consent. Look at the Touhou scene, look how much cultural production was achieved just by one popular creator being chill about copyright. The idea that you can own exclusive rights to a story or a setting is a historical aberration.
    - godelski 3y ago