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No One Is in Charge at the US Copyright Office
- wfleming 1y agohttps://archive.ph/MF378 https://archive.ph/MF378
- mouse_ 1y agoThe purpose of copyright has evolved from protecting creators to mass oppression. AI is way better at mass oppression, however, and copyright is a threat to it, so it (copyright) will be dismantled.
- eikenberry 1y agoKilling off copyrights, if it does, would be a big win for AI.
- martin-t 1y agoThe idea of actual AI being used by governments (or just rich people) to spy on everyone, profile them, shape their ideas through targeted manipulation[0] and eliminate undesirable ones through social (destroying reputation), psychological (driving to suicide) or physical (killbots) means is way scarier than being turned into a paperclip. [0]: Not just or fake videos or comments. Do you have someone on the internet you consider a friend but have never met in person? In the future, rich people or governments will be able to plant ideas in people and influence their thinking by generating fake friends.
- robocat 1y ago> is way scarier than being turned into a paperclip 5 paperclips: • Iron in an adult: ~5 grams • Weight of a steel paperclip: ~1 gram
- mslansn 1y ago[flagged]
- chisleu 1y agoNot this way
- latexr 1y agoNo? Copyright reform, sure, copyright abolished, maybe, but an uncertain future which may result in worse laws overall? Not really.
- redwall_hp 1y agoAlso consider that Thomas and Alito dissented in the Google/Oracle ruling, and wrote something inflammatory, to the effect of it being unreasonable that Google was being allowed to infringe upon Oracle's copyrighted code (by implementing a compatible API). And that was before the Supreme Court was stacked with more like-minded people. Not having sensible people steering copyright in a direction toward winding down its scope is being paired with a court that's likely to make it far more draconian, and create some massive problems that will be a problem for software development.
- unsnap_biceps 1y agoThere's a huge difference between "We don't want copyrights" and "We're just going to have no one enforcing laws for a random period of time and it's unknown if there will be historic enforcement activities if/when that changes"
- eikenberry 1y agoReform would be best, abolishment would be better and status quo would be worst. Of course there's always making things even worse... but we're talking about what people want, not what might happen.
- bruce511 1y agoSimplistically yes, because many see copyright as the thing that protects corporate interest from the social hacker. The reality of course is more complicated. Without copyright there's no GPL. Which I guess is fine if you're in the OSS camp more than the FSF camp. MIT and BSD licenses basically (functionally) give up copyright. Copyright is also what allows for hybrids like the BSL which protect "little guys" from large cloud providers like AWS etc. Copyright allows VC startups to at least start out life as Open Source (before pivoting later.) Of course thus is all in the context of software copyright. Other copyrights (music, books etc) are equally nuanced. And there are other forms of IP protections as well (patents, trademarks) which are distinct from the copyright concept. So no, I don't think most people here are against copyright (patents are a different story.)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ronsor 1y agoCopyright is finally being deprecated as it should be. I'm still waiting for an update on the final removal timeline.
- heavyset_go 1y ago> Copyright is finally being deprecated as it should be. If you hide behind corporations and have millions of dollars, sure, but not for us normies it isn't.
- kelnos 1y agoThat's a dangerous assumption to make. Dropping staffing levels at the US copyright office doesn't change the law. The next administration (or even this one, given how fickle Trump can be) may ramp up enforcement again and go after people committing violations during the current period. And it's not like copyright outside the US is a wild west; most national and international copyright regimes in the developed world are based on the US's system (often because the US has strong-armed other countries to comply).
- analog31 1y agoHow does the copyright office enforce the law?
- Brian_K_White 1y agoThey don't have to. youtube and every other company are doing it for them, only without any of that annoying due process or assumption of innocense or burden of proof or right to recourse or any of that stuff a real public legal process should have.
- tw04 1y ago> go after people committing violations At this point it’s a bold assumption they’ll go after people violating anything. It’s become apparent the decade of accusations of “weaponizing government” was a projection and the only people they’ll go after are people they consider enemies, whether they’re breaking any laws or not. That’s the beautiful part of a puppet Supreme Court, you don’t actually need to worry about the laws, you can just make it up as you go.
- kgwxd 1y agoDon't need it anymore. President decides who owns what now, supreme court will confirm it sometime next week.
- Spooky23 1y agoExactly, what happened to the libertarian spirit of HN?
- 9283409232 1y agoYou're going to have to expand on that because I'm out of the loop.
- KerrAvon 1y agoStart by reading up on who won the November 2024 US presidential election and then read https://bsky.app/profile/stevevladeck.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/stevevladeck.bsky.social.
- 9283409232 1y agoI see so nothing concrete happened and this is just speculation.
- kgwxd 1y agoThe fact you expect it to have some sort of backing evidence, and didn't take it as a completely absurd joke, makes my point perfectly. That is not YET the case, but given how things are headed, no one would be surprised if it did actually happen next week.
- anonfordays 1y agoLinking BlueSky posts does the opposite of supporting whatever claims you're making.
- ilioscio 1y ago
- abeppu 1y agoSo, this article describes the sequence of events as the Trump administration attempting to replace the librarian of congress, and Trump's named replacement saying he was replacing the Copyright Register with a Trump DOJ person. I am not a lawyer but I thought it was pretty well established that (a) the library of congress is part of the legislature, not an executive branch office and (b) that the president can remove some people but can't install people in the other branches without confirmation (e.g. when a SCOTUS justice dies or retires, the president can't name a temporary justice). https://www.govtrack.us/posts/503/2025-05-13_president-trump-purports-to-install-new-officials-at-the-library-of-congress https://www.govtrack.us/posts/503/2025-05-13_president-trump...
- neuronexmachina 1y agoIt's kind of confusing since the LOC serves Congress, but the Librarian of Congress is a President-appointed and Senate-confirmed position. They're supposed to serve for 10-year terms (she was appointed in September 2016) though, and my understanding is it's a open question whether the President can legally fire a LOC before their term is up. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/136-1?hl=en-US https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/136-1?hl=en-US
- abeppu 1y agoI think the "senate-confirmed" part is important and relates to three president's inability to just install a replacement independently. He can remove an official nominated by the president, but he can't unilaterally fill the vacancy (even temporarily ) for positions outside of the executive.
- bdw5204 1y agoThe President can, in fact, recess appoint a Supreme Court justice per Article II, Section 2, Clause 3[0]. Since the George W. Bush administration, Congress has used pro forma sessions[1] to prevent recess appointments. Both the House and Senate would have to agree on a time to adjourn Congress per Article I, Section 5, Clause 4. If they disagree but one of them wants to adjourn, the President can adjourn them under Article II, Section 3. But no president has ever done this. President Trump talked about doing it to ram through his appointments both in 2020 and last year during the transition period. But so far it hasn't been deemed necessary because the Senate has, surprisingly to me, confirmed his cabinet in a timely manner and without significant pushback even on the less conventionally conservative choices like the DNI and the HHS Secretary. In all likelihood, the threat of adjourning Congress and of using his billion dollars plus of fundraising for 2026 to primary uncooperative Republican members of Congress has forced them to largely fall in line for now. Recess appointments to the Supreme Court were common in the old days when the Court was less politically contentious. Justice William J. Brennan was recess appointed by Eisenhower and later confirmed by the Senate. A recess appointment who is not confirmed by the Senate would be null and void at the start of the next Congress on January 3rd of the next odd numbered year. I doubt any president would recess appoint a Supreme Court justice today both because it would be likely derail their nomination and also because a recess Justice might get to hear at most 1 term of cases depending on timing. Recess appointing somebody to run the FDA or the Justice Department or even to be a district court judge would be much more useful to a President's agenda. [0]: "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." [1]: These are sessions where they immediately adjourn by unanimous consent after doing the formalities to open the session. C-SPAN broadcasts them live and they only last a few minutes at most.
- magicfractal 1y agoBefore AI, copyright was a way to increase profits for the ruling class, now with AI it’s disadvantageous to keep copyright to the detriment of the petite bourgeoisie (like artists and self-employed software engineers). It’s the rule in capitalism that big capital eats small capital leading to income concentration in fewer and fewer hands.