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The main issue on an economical point of view is that copyright is not the framework we need for social justice and everyone florishing by enjoying pre-existing

The main issue on an economical point of view is that copyright is not the framework we need for social justice and everyone florishing by enjoying pre-existing treasures of human heritage and fairly contributing back. There is no morale and justice ground to leverage on when the system is designed to create wealth bottleneck toward a few recipients. Harry Potter is a great piece of artistic work, and it's nice that her author could make her way out of a precarious position. But not having anyone in such a situation in the first place would be what a great society should strive to produce. Rowling already received more than all she needs to thrive I guess. I'm confident that there are plenty of other talented authors out there that will never have such a broad avenue of attention grabbing, which is okay. But that they are stuck in terrible economical situations is not okay. The copyright loto, or the startup loto are not that much different than the standard loto, they just put so much pression on the player that they get stuck in the narrative that merit for hard efforts is the key component for the gained wealth.

kelseyfrog 1y ago
Capitalism is allergic to second-order cybernetics. First-order systems drive outcomes. "Did it make money?" "Did it increase engagement?" "Did it scale?" These are tight, local feedback loops. They work because they close quickly and map directly to incentives. But they also hide a deeper danger: they optimize without questioning what optimization does to the world that contains it. Second-order cybernetics reason about systems. It doesn’t ask, "Did I succeed?" It asks, "What does it mean to define success this way?" "Is the goal worthy?" That’s where capital breaks. Capitalism is not simply incapable of reflection. In fact, it's structured to ignore it. It has no native interest in what emerges from its aggregated behaviors unless those emergent properties threaten the throughput of capital itself. It isn't designed to ask, "What kind of society results from a thousand locally rational decisions?" It asks, "Is this change going to make more or less money?" It's like driving by watching only the fuel gauge. Not speed, not trajectory, or whether the destination is the right one. Just how efficiently you’re burning gas. The system is blind to everything but its goal. What looks like success in the short term can be, and often is, a long-term act of self-destruction. Take copyright. Every individual rule, term length, exclusivity, royalty, can be justified. Each sounds fair on its own. But collectively, they produce extreme wealth concentration, barriers to creative participation, and a cultural hellscape. Not because anyone intended that, but because the emergent structure rewards enclosure over openness, hoarding over sharing, monopoly over multiplicity. That’s not a bug. That's what systems do when you optimize only at the first-order level. And because capital evaluates systems solely by their extractive capacity, it treats this emergent behavior not as misalignment but as a feature. It canonizes the consequences. A second-order system would account for the result by asking, "Is this the kind of world we want to live in?" It would recognize that wealth generated without regard to distribution warps everything it touches: art, technology, ecology, and relationships. Capitalism, as it currently exists, is not wise. It does not grow in understanding. It does not self-correct toward justice. It self-replicates. Cleverly, efficiently, with brutal resilience. It's emergently misaligned and no one is powerful enough to stop it.
- weregiraffe 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - andybak 1y ago
    And this is not Reddit so please don't.
- frm88 1y ago
  This is a brilliant analysis. Thank you.
- em-bee 1y ago
  and as a consequence the fight of AI vs copyright is one of two capitalists fighting each other. it's not about liberating copyright but about shuffling profits around. regardless of who wins that fight society loses. it conjures up pictures of two dragons fighting each other instead of attacking us, but make no mistake they are only fighting for the right to attack us. whoever wins is coming for us afterwards
  - thomastjeffery 1y ago
    The AI companies want two things: 1. Strong copyright to prevent competition from undercutting their related businesses. 2. Exclusive rights to totally ignore the copyright of everyone that made the content they use to train models. I personally would much prefer we take the opportunity to abolish copyright entirely: for everyone, not just a handful of corporations. If derivative work is so valuable to our society (I believe it is), then I should be free to derive NVIDIA's GPU drivers without permission.
- snickerer 1y ago
  Very clear and precise line of thoughts. Thank you for that post.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  Copyright doesn't "produce a cultural hellscape." That's just nonsense. Capitalism does because it has editorial control over narratives and their marketing and distribution. Those are completely different phenomena. Removing copyright will not suddenly open the floodgates of creativity because anyone can already create anything. But - and this is the key point - most work is me-too derivative anyway. See for example the flood of magic school novels which were clearly loosely derivative of Harry Potter. Same with me-too novels in romantasy. Dystopian fiction. Graphic novels. Painted art. Music. It's all hugely derivative, with most people making work that is clearly and directly derivative of other work. Copyright doesn't stop this, because as a minimum requirement for creative work, it forces it to be different enough. You can't directly copy Harry Potter, but if you create your own magic school story with some similar-ish but different-enough characters and add dragons or something you're fine. In fact under capitalism it is much harder to sell original work than to sell derivative work. Capitalism enforces exactly this kind of me-too creative staleness, because different-enough work based on an original success is less of a risk than completely original work. Copyright is - ironically - one of the few positive factors that makes originality worthwhile. You still have to take the risk, but if the risk succeeds it provides some rewards and protections against direct literal plagiarism and copying that wouldn't exist without it.

kelseyfrog 1y ago

Capitalism is allergic to second-order cybernetics. First-order systems drive outcomes. "Did it make money?" "Did it increase engagement?" "Did it scale?" These are tight, local feedback loops. They work because they close quickly and map directly to incentives. But they also hide a deeper danger: they optimize without questioning what optimization does to the world that contains it. Second-order cybernetics reason about systems. It doesn’t ask, "Did I succeed?" It asks, "What does it mean to define success this way?" "Is the goal worthy?" That’s where capital breaks. Capitalism is not simply incapable of reflection. In fact, it's structured to ignore it. It has no native interest in what emerges from its aggregated behaviors unless those emergent properties threaten the throughput of capital itself. It isn't designed to ask, "What kind of society results from a thousand locally rational decisions?" It asks, "Is this change going to make more or less money?" It's like driving by watching only the fuel gauge. Not speed, not trajectory, or whether the destination is the right one. Just how efficiently you’re burning gas. The system is blind to everything but its goal. What looks like success in the short term can be, and often is, a long-term act of self-destruction. Take copyright. Every individual rule, term length, exclusivity, royalty, can be justified. Each sounds fair on its own. But collectively, they produce extreme wealth concentration, barriers to creative participation, and a cultural hellscape. Not because anyone intended that, but because the emergent structure rewards enclosure over openness, hoarding over sharing, monopoly over multiplicity. That’s not a bug. That's what systems do when you optimize only at the first-order level. And because capital evaluates systems solely by their extractive capacity, it treats this emergent behavior not as misalignment but as a feature. It canonizes the consequences. A second-order system would account for the result by asking, "Is this the kind of world we want to live in?" It would recognize that wealth generated without regard to distribution warps everything it touches: art, technology, ecology, and relationships. Capitalism, as it currently exists, is not wise. It does not grow in understanding. It does not self-correct toward justice. It self-replicates. Cleverly, efficiently, with brutal resilience. It's emergently misaligned and no one is powerful enough to stop it.

weregiraffe 1y ago
[flagged]
- andybak 1y ago
  And this is not Reddit so please don't.
frm88 1y ago
This is a brilliant analysis. Thank you.
em-bee 1y ago
and as a consequence the fight of AI vs copyright is one of two capitalists fighting each other. it's not about liberating copyright but about shuffling profits around. regardless of who wins that fight society loses. it conjures up pictures of two dragons fighting each other instead of attacking us, but make no mistake they are only fighting for the right to attack us. whoever wins is coming for us afterwards
- thomastjeffery 1y ago
  The AI companies want two things: 1. Strong copyright to prevent competition from undercutting their related businesses. 2. Exclusive rights to totally ignore the copyright of everyone that made the content they use to train models. I personally would much prefer we take the opportunity to abolish copyright entirely: for everyone, not just a handful of corporations. If derivative work is so valuable to our society (I believe it is), then I should be free to derive NVIDIA's GPU drivers without permission.
snickerer 1y ago
Very clear and precise line of thoughts. Thank you for that post.
TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
Copyright doesn't "produce a cultural hellscape." That's just nonsense. Capitalism does because it has editorial control over narratives and their marketing and distribution. Those are completely different phenomena. Removing copyright will not suddenly open the floodgates of creativity because anyone can already create anything. But - and this is the key point - most work is me-too derivative anyway. See for example the flood of magic school novels which were clearly loosely derivative of Harry Potter. Same with me-too novels in romantasy. Dystopian fiction. Graphic novels. Painted art. Music. It's all hugely derivative, with most people making work that is clearly and directly derivative of other work. Copyright doesn't stop this, because as a minimum requirement for creative work, it forces it to be different enough. You can't directly copy Harry Potter, but if you create your own magic school story with some similar-ish but different-enough characters and add dragons or something you're fine. In fact under capitalism it is much harder to sell original work than to sell derivative work. Capitalism enforces exactly this kind of me-too creative staleness, because different-enough work based on an original success is less of a risk than completely original work. Copyright is - ironically - one of the few positive factors that makes originality worthwhile. You still have to take the risk, but if the risk succeeds it provides some rewards and protections against direct literal plagiarism and copying that wouldn't exist without it.