Since this is news.yc, I get to be a little pedantic to begin with. In this case all the little mistakes start to add up quickly. - 'We own what we make the mo

Since this is news.yc, I get to be a little pedantic to begin with. In this case all the little mistakes start to add up quickly. - 'We own what we make the moment we make it.' ... you hold a copyright. - 'Publishing text or images on the web does not make it fair game to train AI on'. ... postulate without further grounding elsewhere in the text. - ' The “public” in “public web” means free to access; it does not mean it's free to use.' . Actually it is, barring restrictions on copying and trademarks etc as per (implementations of) the Berne convention. - 'Someone who publishes my work as their own (theft)'. No, this is a) a copyright violation or b) plagiarism. - 'or republishes my work (like quoting or linking back)' This depends, but linking is not (re)publication of your work. Quoting counts as fair use copying. - 'doesn’t have the right to make the choice for me to let my content be used for training AI'. A link is not your content, you have no rights to it period. If someone makes a fair use quote of your content, then they may do so under fair use as a quote. I don't really see "quoting" as reposting, since that implies a substantial amount of copying. If it is not substantial, an AI would be permitted to use the quote in a similar manner. However, since an AI training system does not typically retain a copy of your quote, copyright probably doesn't apply at all (exceptions excepted). - "Whether reposting my content elsewhere is in good faith or not". Previous examples were not of reposting (probably) but if they count as reposting, then you have standing to sue the person doing so either way. AI training is a red herring here. - "To add insult to injury, that person may not have the knowledge—or even the power—to do so if they’re posting content they don’t own on a site they also don’t own, like social media.". Let's make a difference between ownership and holding copyrights. If you post things, you must hold the copyright, or have permission from the copyright holder. If you do not hold the copyright holder, posting content to a site you do not own is not permitted by law, and very likely a violation of the TOS of the site where you posted. - "I can play whac-a-mole with those bots on servers I control—which I don’t like doing, for the record—but I have none of that control anywhere else." ... sure, but you seem to be pulling together disparate concepts and several misunderstandings of law here to begin with. Your conclusion(s) do not follow from the premises, given real world laws, treaties, and customs.