10 ms·

Everybody just buying into the corporate narrative that anyone can actually own these sorts of things. Who truly owns the tales of Snow White and Cinderella?

• iainctduncan 3y ago
  Copyright has never been based on a moral stance. It has always been determined by the lobbying power of various groups. The idea that we should dispense with it to let generative AI companies make even more money seems totally bizarre.
  • logicchains 3y ago
    >The idea that we should dispense with it to let generative AI companies make even more money seems totally bizarre. How's that bizarre, if as you state copyright has always been based on "money makes right" not some moral stance?
  • RecycledEle 3y ago
    > The idea that we should dispense with it [copyright] to let generative AI companies make even more money seems totally bizarre. The idea is that we should remove abuses of copyright to allow our society to move forward, and thereby continue to exist. Imagine if there was a law at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that said when non-human labor was used, the Animal Welfare Office had veto power. Then imagine that the Animal Welfare Office declared steam engines to be immoral, and so steam engines were never used in industry, at least not in the Wester World. The Orient would eventually rise as the world's only industrial power. In the same way, if we let the copyright industry veto generative AI, it will destroy the Western World. Our students are already at a huge disadvantage compared to Chinese students who get every book ever translated into Chinese for free (except a few immoral works that they would not want to see anyway.) Those who pose an existential threat to our civilization are rent seekers who abuse copyright in the US to go beyond protecting "science and the useful arts," who seek infinite copyright terms, who grab every creative work We The People create and register lying paperwork to ensure they can steal our creative genius to enrich their cabal. If this was only a for-profit scheme, it would not be so bad. Do you remember when they Hollyweird degenerates sued a Christian company that wanted to put our G-rated versions of the movies aimed at children? The Christian company never suggested they not pay for the movies. No matter what the Christian company was willing to pay, they were not allowed to publish child-friendly versions of the movies. This proves Hollyweird's goal is to push degeneracy. The battle against abuses of copyright is a fight for Western Civilization. The fight against abuses of copyright if a fight for our souls.
    • noitpmeder 3y ago
      This is an insane amount of fear mongering. Chinese shops have been shamelessly ripping IP from Western companies for years, should we now throw out those laws and let it happen in the US too for the sake of competitive advantage? Why stop there? There's a ton of child labour in China and other part of the world that yield economic advantages. Should we let that happen in the western world too? AI is wonderful in so many ways. But we should not throw out our entire way of life to adapt to a new technology.
    • shkkmo 3y ago
      > Do you remember when they Hollyweird degenerates sued a Christian company that wanted to put our G-rated versions of the movies aimed at children? The Christian company never suggested they not pay for the movies. No matter what the Christian company was willing to pay, they were not allowed to publish child-friendly versions of the movies. If anyone is curious, this is what is being semi-accuratly referenced: https://www.crosswalk.com/culture/features/editing-companies-show-family-friendly-r-films-are-possible-1339204.html https://www.crosswalk.com/culture/features/editing-companies... Whole I disagree that the motivation is "degeneracy" and I doubt that there isn't a sum large enough to get studios on board, it is a pretty interesting example to bring up when discussing how much control we should give copyright holders. Notably, it is legal to have a filter that changes playback not legal to provide a modified version of the original, even if you paid for that original.
• jerf 3y ago
  "Who truly owns the tales of Snow White and Cinderella?" If you want to make your point, you need to choose something that isn't already public domain. Disney already only owns their own interpretations, and, arguably, whatever penumbric emanation they can convince a court is stealing from them, but it still certainly isn't the entire space of Snow White and Cinderella stories. There is some fairly recent stuff being used in the images in the article and there isn't even any question whether or not it's Mario or Coca Cola; if Nintendo and Coca Cola did a cross promotion I could believe the exact images that popped out. If they were trying to claim the entire concepts of dumpy plumbers dressed in any manner vaguely like Mario that would be one thing... but that's Mario and Luigi, full stop. That's Robocop. That's C3PO. It's not even subtle. If we can AI-wash those trademarks away then we can AI-wash absolutely anything.
  • lovecg 3y ago
    I think the world would be completely fine without a copyrighted C3PO or Robocop. George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind when working on his wild and thought unlikely to be successful science fiction movie in the 70s. Robocop was also a labor of love. We don’t really need Nth Star Wars sequel powered by those extra profits. The art form could be healthier overall.
    • livinginfear 3y ago
      > George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind... Doesn't copyright stop other people from making billions in merchandising revenue off of George Lucas' ideas without his consent? > We don’t really need Nth Star Wars sequel powered by those extra profits. Without a copyrighted C3PO, he could start turning up in just about anyone's derivative works. There could be horrible Star wars sequels forever, or TV ads with C3PO selling household cleaning products.
      • kevindamm 3y ago
        "As a protocol droid, I cannot actually recommend the best smelling cleaning product, but these are the most purchased cleaning products:" ...followed by a semi-hallucinated list containing at least a few being marketed by C3PO.
• walt74 3y ago
  Agreed, but to tackle the problem from that perspective would require making LLMs a public good, preferably run by the state, akin to public libraries. This could not only solve for the copyright problem, the state may even make it mandatory for publishers to contribute their published writings to the public LLMs. I'm sure libertarian tech bros have that in mind when they insist on open source development (which then opens another whole can of worms when you consider interpolative knowledge as intellectual nuclear fission, but that's another story).
• greenthrow 3y ago
  This reply is so incredibly out of touch with reality. Copyright law is very clear. If anything the "corporate narrative" here is that "AI" is somehow something new and different and these laws don't apply. Which is nonsense.
• pardoned_turkey 3y ago
  Oh come on. Copyright is a fairly ancient concept that benefits normal people as much as it benefits big corporations. Most book authors, songwriters, and so on aren't fat cats, and they would be harmed if we had zero protections for the duplication of their work. They'd need to depend on state sponsorship or charitable private patronage, both of which are problematic for obvious reasons and limit the range of artistic expression more than the market does. Instead, we came up with a system where you can actually derive fairly steady revenue by creating new works and sharing them with the world. And critically, I think you misinterpret it as calling dibs on shared culture or on stories. Copyright is usually interpreted fairly narrowly, and doesn't prevent you from creating inspired works, or retelling the same story in your own words. Generative AI is a problem largely because it destroys these revenue streams for millions of people. Yeah, it will be litigated by wealthy corporations with top-notch lawyers, for self-interested reasons. But if we end up with a framework that maintains financial incentives to artistic expression, it's probably a good thing.
  • shkkmo 3y ago
    This is full of so many inaccuracies. > Copyright is a fairly ancient concept The idea is fairly old, but it's current implementation in law is not nearly that old. > that benefits normal people as much as it benefits big corporations Clearly false if you measure that benefit in monetary terms. > Copyright is usually interpreted fairly narrowly, and doesn't prevent you from creating inspired works, or retelling the same story in your own words. Absolutely false. You can absolutely be stopped from retelling copyrighted fictional stories. You can even be stopped from telling new stories with derivative characters or settings. > Generative AI is a problem largely because it destroys these revenue streams for millions of people. How? The restrictions on selling images of Mickey Mouse exist regarless of if they were created with or without AI assistance. > But if we end up with a framework that maintains financial incentives to artistic expression, it's probably a good thing. We already have that framework and arguably it is already far more restrictive than it needs to be to maintain incentives for artistic creation. Indeed, these rules now often limit new artistic expression or prevent artists from monetizing their creations. The types of art that are helped the most today by the copyright laws of tosay are the kinds that require large budgets to produce. The types of art that are most hurt are those produced by fans who want to build new things upon the narratives in our shared culture. We need to shorten copyright durations and expand fair use protections and monetization options for derivative works. We don't need to make copyright even more powerful than it already is. Edit: If you disagree, I'd be curious to hear your answer to this question. A character like Harry Potter is so widely known that it is now a ubiquitous part of our culture. To incentive new novels, what is the minimum duration we need to give J K Rowling control of who is allowed to write stories about this cultural touchstone?
• syndacks 3y ago
  Did you read the article? Who owns Mario? Nintendo owns Mario, full stop. Your argument completely eschews the legal system of which modern society depends on to function as effectively as it does. There’s a reason you can’t steal other people’s work.
  • ben_w 3y ago
    Nintendo owns both the trademark (even if not specifically registered) and the copyright, but these are distinct things. As I'm not a lawyer I don't want to embarrass myself by opining whether or not Nintendo has any claim over photographs of cosplays or other fan art, especially given quite how close two of the "video game plumber" images seemed to be to what they do own. The other two images, being a lot more fan-art-like, are examples where I think it would be an interesting question rather than incredibly obviously too close to Nintendo, although even there "interesting" means I wouldn't be surprised by an actual lawyer saying either of "this is obviously fine" or "this is obviously trademark infringement regardless of what it was trained on". Now I'm wondering if there even are any videogame plumbers besides Marion and Luigi…
  • shkkmo 3y ago
    Mario is a 30 year old culural touchstone that is well known by people who have never played a Nintendo game. I don't see why we need to give Nintendo the exclusive right control the use of Mario for the next 65 years. That duration of control is absolutely not necessary for society to function. Society would function just fine of the copyright on mario had expired two decades ago.
    • Aeolun 3y ago
      On the other hand, I kind of like knowing that all sold Mario stuff has some affiliation with Nintendo. I don’t want to deal with thousands of chinese knockoffs.
• fnordpiglet 3y ago
  While a great concept in practical reality we live under a system of laws not of our individual devising, and known to be imperfect. While we can advocate for reform, reality is, LLM makers will be judged under the current law as it currently is formulated. The novelty will be the LLM and its technologies, not a total rethink of copyright under some noble cultural openness concept. So, it’s not actually a corporate narrative, it’s actually the law that the narrative stems from, right or wrong. Maybe corporations had a huge role in shaping the law (I’d note copyright benefits individuals as well, though), but it is not mere propaganda or shaping of a shared reality through corporate narrative. It’s enforced by the guys with the guns and jails, as arbitrated by a judge. It absolutely must be about the technicalities of the law as it’s at the basis a legal issue. By hand waving it away and claiming the social narrative is the right discussion you ignore the material consequences and reality in favor of a fantasy. We absolutely should -also- discuss the stifling nature of copyright and intellectual property, but you can’t ignore what’s actually happening here at the same time.
  • kelseyfrog 3y ago
    We can do what we will. If someone wants to construct an extra-judicial narrative that contradicts the law so believably that it influences and ultimately compells reality through legislative changes, that's their prerogative.
• wwweston 3y ago
  > culture is a communal property Public domain / communal property is also part of copyright, so it's not as if this is some forgotten concept that needs to be restored to the discourse. Georgism is underconsidered, though. > By focusing solely on the legal implications and ignoring the historical context of cultural storytelling The legal implications are human implications and as much a part of culture as anything else. They have to do with what's fair and how rewards for effort are recognized and distributed. Formalizing this is less important in cultures that aren't oriented around market economies, which seems to be what much of this "rich tapestry of folklore" discourse wants to evoke and have us hearken back to, but that doesn't describe any society that's figuring out how to handle AI. > we might actually limit the tools of cultural expression to comply with some weird outdated copyright thing is just...bonkers. What's bonkers is the life in the literally backwards idea copyright is (or should be) mooted or outdated by novel reproduction capabilities. Copyright became compelling because of novel reproduction capabilities. The specific capabilities at the time were industrialized printing. People apparently much smarter than the typical software professional realized that meant some badly aligned incentives between (a) those holding these new reproduction capabilities and (b) those who created the works on which the value of those new reproduction capabilities relied. The heart of the copyright bargain is in aligning those incentives. Specific novel reproduction techniques can change the details of what's prohibited or restricted or remitted and how and on what basis and powers/limits of enforcement, etc etc. But the they don't change the wisdom in the bargain. The only thing that would change that is a better way of organizing and rewarding the productive capacity of society.
  • 8note 3y ago
    The incentives remain poorly aligned though. Otherwise the people who actually author the copyrighted works (actors, special effects artists, etc) wouldn't have had to go on strike for so long to get proper compensation. The value still remains with the people who own the reproduction capabilities, and only scraps go to the artists. Artists can get scraps without selling copyright too, just look at patreon
    • wwweston 3y ago
      What you're mentioning here is basically about other advantages that accrue to capital vs labor, not copyright. Hence the fact strikes happen across the boundaries of where copyright matters -- auto manufacturing work doesn't have anything to do with copyright (acting doesn't really yet either), yet there are strikes for comp and other job benefits. In situations where scraps go to artists, it's because they don't have the capital to invest creating/distributing their work, so as part of their contract or employment agreement, they sell the copyright to the work. This isn't copyright's fault: this situation would exist without any copyright at all (though it would likely be worse). And it is not universal. There are people who do create the work on their own time/dime, and copyright gives them immense leverage when it comes time to distribute & sell the work. Patronage is another leg on the stool that can support a creator's career, but it's no replacement for copyright -- it leaves the creator with all the same problems and none of the benefits. You either end up with similar problems with relationship with capital (a few wealthy patrons who want to invest in you) or you end up having to build your wide audience and hope that as you do some of those convert even though there's no obligation and the culture increasingly normalizes the perception that free access to the fruits of other people's creative labor is how things should be. And in a career as tenuous as creative work, knocking out the copyright leg from the stool is going to make the balancing act harder.
• up2isomorphism 3y ago
  You probably have to make one thing very clear before venting on big corporations: do you think these ips have value or not? If they do why you do not want to pay to the owner? If it does not then you shouldn’t use it. Either way there will be no conflict.(BTW OpenAI is an also a corporation in fact backed by one of the biggest corporation in the world).