4 ms·

The artist or author might end up being the loser, and the multi billion corporation harvesting their work might make an unearned profit off it. To me personal

by naet 3y ago

The artist or author might end up being the loser, and the multi billion corporation harvesting their work might make an unearned profit off it. To me personally it's crazy how many people think that we would be better off without any kind of copyright protection. Copyright solves many real world problems and protects people against having a company profit off their work... but as soon as AI is involved so many people start to advocate for throwing it away.

encomiast 3y ago
I don't think most people believe we are better off without copyright. I think people believe that copyright protects specific concrete expressions and that fair use exists to allow others to build on ideas in transformative ways. It's not clear where building a learning model from this work sits in this context, hence the court cases. Also, it's a subtle difference, but copyright is not intended to solve the problem of companies profiting off of artist's works, it is intended to promote the progress of science and useful arts. It attempts to do this by giving creators limited exclusive rights.
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  How does locking away most of the knowledge, research and learning materials in the private vaults of a few publishing houses for their personal profit promote the progress of science I wonder? Even scientists are tired of the predatory and rent seeking behaviour of the publishers they have fallen prey to and are looking for any way out. This is not promoting progress this is the opposite of it
  - encomiast 3y ago
    I think it grossly mischaracterizes what copyright protects to describe is as "most of the knowledge, research and learning materials". Still I agree, that the extensions of copyright length and the behavior/incentives of publishers works against the original intent of copyright. Having said that, publishers only have control of copyright because authors give it to them. Copyright rests with the creator — the system where people are compelled to sign this over to publishers is a different (but of course related) problem. Scientists who are tired of the predatory behavior of publishers have other choices today. It's not clear what alternative you are proposing.
  - nomel 3y ago
    > vaults of a few publishing houses for their personal profit Because they made it, it wouldn't exist without them, and others value it. If this data wasn't objectively valuable, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
letmevoteplease 3y ago
If companies are required to purchase licenses for everything they train on, it will guarantee that only huge corporations with deep pockets can produce powerful models. Microsoft will be slightly inconvenienced, Stability AI will be destroyed. Some artists might get a payday, but most of the money will go to companies with large copyright libraries like Getty. The general quality of all models will decrease. I don't see any other possible outcome.
- teddyh 3y ago
  Almost a year ago, I made¹ the following prediction: It looks like to me that many companies want to use the new generative tools, and many others want it not to impact their stake in the copyright system. I’m pretty sure they will both come to a compromise which will leave most users without any benefits, either from reduced copyrights or from availability of generative tools. It’s what would make both powerful parties satisfied (if not happy), and will impact the status quo the least. Say, for instance, that they instituted a mostly mandatory licensing scheme, so that an individual artist had no choice but to allow use of their art as input when creating generative tools. People using art in this way have to pay a rather high licensing fee, but it is not paid to the artist, but to some sort of central copyright office. Huge copyright holders can also pay an exorbitantly high fee (to the same recipient) to opt out of licensing. Win-win-win; Existing copyright holders keep their existing copyrights, only large-ish actors can create new generative tools, new political positions and institutions are created with lots of money flowing in. Of course, artists then get screwed by being co-opted by generative tools which they can never afford to create themselves, and the general public get robbed both of the opportunity of using and creating new generative tools, and of any less restrictive copyright law. 1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35191112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35191112>
  - et1337 3y ago
    I hope you’re wrong, but I think you’re right.
  - kolinko 3y ago
    For music there are already similar mechanisms in place in many countries - in Poland it's ZAiKS, in US it's ASCAP. They collect fees from organisations playing copyrighted music publicly. (I agree that it would be terrible if they began enforcing other copyrighted content and for training purposes, because it would lead to centralisation)
sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
How does it protect a small artist against a large corporation profiting off their work? I don’t even have the means to start litigation, let alone see it through. It only protects those who are already moneyed and/or famous enough to negatively impact a large corporation’s reputation - and even in those cases it’s mostly for the benefit of the lawyers and bureaucrats who make a living off it.
- encomiast 3y ago
  If you register your work, which requires some effort, but is not prohibitively expensive or difficult, you can sue for statutory damages, which are substantial enough (up to $150k for willful infringement) that lawyers will work on contingency. There are many individual artists how have been successful here. The law actually has some real teeth that individuals can use to protect their work.
  - nomel 3y ago
    It would be nice if there was a preventative concept, where the role of the creator being a predator, seeking and suing, would be mostly reversed, so that others would instead ask for permission, and maybe get the rights to copies through a fair exchange of money, like a license. We could call this "copy rights".
Kuinox 3y ago
> but as soon as AI is involved so many people start to advocate for throwing it away No, it's been years I've heard it. Don't try to portray some people opinion as they are some AI zealot. It's brought up on discussions about torrent, Disney, streaming platforms, music, etc...
- andybak 3y ago
  Yes. I've been aware of the intellectual property debate at least back to the great crackdown on sampling around when Paul's Boutique was released. And following it in depth from around the time Lawrence Lessig made arguments to the Supreme Court. A large chunk of the tech community was following that case and most on HN seemed to be highly sceptical of the current status quo.
realusername 3y ago
> The artist or author might end up being the loser, and the multi billion corporation harvesting their work might make an unearned profit off it. Exactly like before AI you mean then? Except instead of OpenAI it was Disney, Universal and other large corporations on that same seat. >to me personally it's crazy how many people think that we would be better off without any kind of copyright protection. Why should I care that the old billionaire copyright corps are dying exactly? What would I benefit defending them for me as what they did was privatizing culture as far as I remember for their personal benefit and even had a large negative influence on tech. The copyright system being so unequal and skewed towards multi billion companies dug its own grave by itself.

by naet 3y ago

encomiast 3y ago

I don't think most people believe we are better off without copyright. I think people believe that copyright protects specific concrete expressions and that fair use exists to allow others to build on ideas in transformative ways. It's not clear where building a learning model from this work sits in this context, hence the court cases. Also, it's a subtle difference, but copyright is not intended to solve the problem of companies profiting off of artist's works, it is intended to promote the progress of science and useful arts. It attempts to do this by giving creators limited exclusive rights.

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
How does locking away most of the knowledge, research and learning materials in the private vaults of a few publishing houses for their personal profit promote the progress of science I wonder? Even scientists are tired of the predatory and rent seeking behaviour of the publishers they have fallen prey to and are looking for any way out. This is not promoting progress this is the opposite of it
- encomiast 3y ago
  I think it grossly mischaracterizes what copyright protects to describe is as "most of the knowledge, research and learning materials". Still I agree, that the extensions of copyright length and the behavior/incentives of publishers works against the original intent of copyright. Having said that, publishers only have control of copyright because authors give it to them. Copyright rests with the creator — the system where people are compelled to sign this over to publishers is a different (but of course related) problem. Scientists who are tired of the predatory behavior of publishers have other choices today. It's not clear what alternative you are proposing.
- nomel 3y ago
  > vaults of a few publishing houses for their personal profit Because they made it, it wouldn't exist without them, and others value it. If this data wasn't objectively valuable, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

letmevoteplease 3y ago

If companies are required to purchase licenses for everything they train on, it will guarantee that only huge corporations with deep pockets can produce powerful models. Microsoft will be slightly inconvenienced, Stability AI will be destroyed. Some artists might get a payday, but most of the money will go to companies with large copyright libraries like Getty. The general quality of all models will decrease. I don't see any other possible outcome.

teddyh 3y ago
Almost a year ago, I made¹ the following prediction: It looks like to me that many companies want to use the new generative tools, and many others want it not to impact their stake in the copyright system. I’m pretty sure they will both come to a compromise which will leave most users without any benefits, either from reduced copyrights or from availability of generative tools. It’s what would make both powerful parties satisfied (if not happy), and will impact the status quo the least. Say, for instance, that they instituted a mostly mandatory licensing scheme, so that an individual artist had no choice but to allow use of their art as input when creating generative tools. People using art in this way have to pay a rather high licensing fee, but it is not paid to the artist, but to some sort of central copyright office. Huge copyright holders can also pay an exorbitantly high fee (to the same recipient) to opt out of licensing. Win-win-win; Existing copyright holders keep their existing copyrights, only large-ish actors can create new generative tools, new political positions and institutions are created with lots of money flowing in. Of course, artists then get screwed by being co-opted by generative tools which they can never afford to create themselves, and the general public get robbed both of the opportunity of using and creating new generative tools, and of any less restrictive copyright law. 1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35191112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35191112>
- et1337 3y ago
  I hope you’re wrong, but I think you’re right.
- kolinko 3y ago
  For music there are already similar mechanisms in place in many countries - in Poland it's ZAiKS, in US it's ASCAP. They collect fees from organisations playing copyrighted music publicly. (I agree that it would be terrible if they began enforcing other copyrighted content and for training purposes, because it would lead to centralisation)

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago

How does it protect a small artist against a large corporation profiting off their work? I don’t even have the means to start litigation, let alone see it through. It only protects those who are already moneyed and/or famous enough to negatively impact a large corporation’s reputation - and even in those cases it’s mostly for the benefit of the lawyers and bureaucrats who make a living off it.

encomiast 3y ago
If you register your work, which requires some effort, but is not prohibitively expensive or difficult, you can sue for statutory damages, which are substantial enough (up to $150k for willful infringement) that lawyers will work on contingency. There are many individual artists how have been successful here. The law actually has some real teeth that individuals can use to protect their work.
- nomel 3y ago
  It would be nice if there was a preventative concept, where the role of the creator being a predator, seeking and suing, would be mostly reversed, so that others would instead ask for permission, and maybe get the rights to copies through a fair exchange of money, like a license. We could call this "copy rights".

Kuinox 3y ago

> but as soon as AI is involved so many people start to advocate for throwing it away No, it's been years I've heard it. Don't try to portray some people opinion as they are some AI zealot. It's brought up on discussions about torrent, Disney, streaming platforms, music, etc...

andybak 3y ago
Yes. I've been aware of the intellectual property debate at least back to the great crackdown on sampling around when Paul's Boutique was released. And following it in depth from around the time Lawrence Lessig made arguments to the Supreme Court. A large chunk of the tech community was following that case and most on HN seemed to be highly sceptical of the current status quo.

realusername 3y ago

> The artist or author might end up being the loser, and the multi billion corporation harvesting their work might make an unearned profit off it. Exactly like before AI you mean then? Except instead of OpenAI it was Disney, Universal and other large corporations on that same seat. >to me personally it's crazy how many people think that we would be better off without any kind of copyright protection. Why should I care that the old billionaire copyright corps are dying exactly? What would I benefit defending them for me as what they did was privatizing culture as far as I remember for their personal benefit and even had a large negative influence on tech. The copyright system being so unequal and skewed towards multi billion companies dug its own grave by itself.