9 ms·

We should be removing IP law entirely, not strengthening it to cover entire classes of problem even when implemented entirely differently. Same for anyone tryi

We should be removing IP law entirely, not strengthening it to cover entire classes of problem even when implemented entirely differently. Same for anyone trying to claim "colorful monster creatures" as innately Pokemon IP. Just because someone climbed a mountain first doesn't mean they own it forever. Nobody should be honouring any of these claims. Nor should we be treating AI models themselves as respected IP. They're built on everyone else's data. Throw away this whole class of law, it's irrelevant in this new world.

teaearlgraycold 7mo ago
> own it forever Well we could try fixing the forever part. Copyright is out of control. I’d like to see a world with much less power given to IP. Sometimes I even say I want it eradicated entirely. But realistically we should start by cutting things back. Maybe give software an especially short copyright period.
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  Reset it back to 20 years and make that a hard limit for both patents and copyright. No renewals. Zero exceptions. Let the market sort the rest out. There's always going to be downsides and edgecases when granting any party a monopoly over anything. At least if it's limited to 2 decades any unintended consequences, philosophical objections, and etc are hopefully kept within reason.
  - Qwertious 7mo ago
    That would be insane for aerospace software, where you might spend most of that time getting the code certified (required to break the $0 revenue threshold), let alone paying back your costs and then making an actual profit. Meanwhile, there are cases where copyright of more than 2 years is overkill. I don't know what, but it seems like we need some sort of mechanism for variable-length IP duration is needed.
    - fc417fc802 7mo ago
      Is copyright meaningful for aerospace software? I'm largely unfamiliar with that domain but I have trouble imagining that (for example) Boeing cares much about people redistributing or hacking on the control software for a 777. How would that impact their bottom line? I could understand for medical devices maybe but even then it seems like the software is a tiny part of the overall cost of a given design. A competitor could already do a clean room reimplementation in that case. But I guess it wouldn't be all that bad if there were a carefully crafted extension for government certified software that was explicitly tied to the length of the certification process.
      - pixl97 7mo ago
        The only problem with this certified software exception is I foresee they'll write the law as "expiration timer starts when software has finished certification" then some lobby group will get the regulatory departments to adopt a new process of partial certification where said software is usable in devices but the 'finished certification' never gets reached so the copyright gets dragged out forever.
      - PowerElectronix 7mo ago
        Nope, it falls more under trade secrets than copyright. If you do something that requires stealing the code (publishing it, selling it, etc) the company can legally fuck you up. Now, once it's in tbe wind, it becomes almost impossible to pursue from a practical point of view, as any implementer can claim trade secrets to avoid showing you the code.
        account42 7mo ago
        I think the point is more that many kinds of software (presumably including aerospace software) doesn't really need any kinds of protections from redistribution because it is effectively only useful for a specific design and much of the effort in creating it is not the algorithms that a competitor could steal without copyright or alternative protection but certifying that the software fits the rest of the system, which any competitor making use of the software would have to do again. Also remember that the original point of copyright and patent protections is to encourage people to create the protected works in the first place but Boeing isn't just going to stop making aerospace software without copyright because their hardware will be useless without it. So if anything, any software that is needed for hardware made by the same company to function doesn't really have any right to be copyrightable at all.
marcus_holmes 7mo ago
Good news! LLM output cannot be copyrighted. Everything that an LLM produces is automatically, irrevocably, in the public domain.
- grensley 7mo ago
  Same as it ever was: Either trade secrets or license files that are treated as suggestions.
- lurk2 7mo ago
  What if you used the LLM to generate works that were already copyrighted?
  - dataflow 7mo ago
    IMO the bigger question is how would you even tell if a work was generated by an LLM? There's a ton of code being written out there; the folks who generated it are going to claim they authored it for copyright purposes, and those who want to use it are going to claim it was LLM-generated. So what happens?
    - terminalshort 7mo ago
      That code isn't going to be open source. And if you use someone else's closed source code you are violating laws that have nothing to do with copyright.
      - marcus_holmes 7mo ago
        Can you expand on that, please? Which other laws are infringed if you use someone else's closed source code?
        LtWorf 7mo ago
        You used an illegal leak to train your llm
LtWorf 7mo ago
The problem here is that large companies can do whatever they want and regular people cannot. Don't worry, they won't be allowing you the same rights as these companies.
jongjong 7mo ago
But some people designed their entire lives around the assumption of IP protections. If we remove IP laws, we should remove all private property laws!
tosapple 7mo ago
[dead]
giancarlostoro 7mo ago
I would be okay with just keeping it but limiting it severely. If you release music and you can't sell enough albums in 20 years, that's not societies problem. A lot of artists release albums every 1 - 3 years anyway, so they're always selling some records, or were before streaming became the way to "own" music. Most make their money off of concerts anyway. For movies and shows, charge and increasing fee to renew the copyright. Eventually studios will give up certain movies. The older the movie the more you pay.
- dec0dedab0de 7mo ago
  We could also just have some of the rights go away after X amount of years. Maybe after so much time it's still not legal to copy the original work, but it is legal to make a cover song, or a derivative work using the same character. At another point maybe it's no longer to illegal to copy for free, but it is still illegal to sell without permission. I personally think we should have shorter limits for non-creator owners of copyright, and for creators it should be like 20 years or death whichever comes last. I also think compulsory licensing should exist for everything.

teaearlgraycold 7mo ago

> own it forever Well we could try fixing the forever part. Copyright is out of control. I’d like to see a world with much less power given to IP. Sometimes I even say I want it eradicated entirely. But realistically we should start by cutting things back. Maybe give software an especially short copyright period.

fc417fc802 7mo ago
Reset it back to 20 years and make that a hard limit for both patents and copyright. No renewals. Zero exceptions. Let the market sort the rest out. There's always going to be downsides and edgecases when granting any party a monopoly over anything. At least if it's limited to 2 decades any unintended consequences, philosophical objections, and etc are hopefully kept within reason.
- Qwertious 7mo ago
  That would be insane for aerospace software, where you might spend most of that time getting the code certified (required to break the $0 revenue threshold), let alone paying back your costs and then making an actual profit. Meanwhile, there are cases where copyright of more than 2 years is overkill. I don't know what, but it seems like we need some sort of mechanism for variable-length IP duration is needed.
  - fc417fc802 7mo ago
    Is copyright meaningful for aerospace software? I'm largely unfamiliar with that domain but I have trouble imagining that (for example) Boeing cares much about people redistributing or hacking on the control software for a 777. How would that impact their bottom line? I could understand for medical devices maybe but even then it seems like the software is a tiny part of the overall cost of a given design. A competitor could already do a clean room reimplementation in that case. But I guess it wouldn't be all that bad if there were a carefully crafted extension for government certified software that was explicitly tied to the length of the certification process.
    - pixl97 7mo ago
      The only problem with this certified software exception is I foresee they'll write the law as "expiration timer starts when software has finished certification" then some lobby group will get the regulatory departments to adopt a new process of partial certification where said software is usable in devices but the 'finished certification' never gets reached so the copyright gets dragged out forever.
    - PowerElectronix 7mo ago
      Nope, it falls more under trade secrets than copyright. If you do something that requires stealing the code (publishing it, selling it, etc) the company can legally fuck you up. Now, once it's in tbe wind, it becomes almost impossible to pursue from a practical point of view, as any implementer can claim trade secrets to avoid showing you the code.
      - account42 7mo ago
        I think the point is more that many kinds of software (presumably including aerospace software) doesn't really need any kinds of protections from redistribution because it is effectively only useful for a specific design and much of the effort in creating it is not the algorithms that a competitor could steal without copyright or alternative protection but certifying that the software fits the rest of the system, which any competitor making use of the software would have to do again. Also remember that the original point of copyright and patent protections is to encourage people to create the protected works in the first place but Boeing isn't just going to stop making aerospace software without copyright because their hardware will be useless without it. So if anything, any software that is needed for hardware made by the same company to function doesn't really have any right to be copyrightable at all.

marcus_holmes 7mo ago

Good news! LLM output cannot be copyrighted. Everything that an LLM produces is automatically, irrevocably, in the public domain.

grensley 7mo ago
Same as it ever was: Either trade secrets or license files that are treated as suggestions.
lurk2 7mo ago
What if you used the LLM to generate works that were already copyrighted?
- dataflow 7mo ago
  IMO the bigger question is how would you even tell if a work was generated by an LLM? There's a ton of code being written out there; the folks who generated it are going to claim they authored it for copyright purposes, and those who want to use it are going to claim it was LLM-generated. So what happens?
  - terminalshort 7mo ago
    That code isn't going to be open source. And if you use someone else's closed source code you are violating laws that have nothing to do with copyright.
    - marcus_holmes 7mo ago
      Can you expand on that, please? Which other laws are infringed if you use someone else's closed source code?
      - LtWorf 7mo ago
        You used an illegal leak to train your llm

LtWorf 7mo ago

The problem here is that large companies can do whatever they want and regular people cannot. Don't worry, they won't be allowing you the same rights as these companies.

jongjong 7mo ago

But some people designed their entire lives around the assumption of IP protections. If we remove IP laws, we should remove all private property laws!

tosapple 7mo ago

[dead]

giancarlostoro 7mo ago

I would be okay with just keeping it but limiting it severely. If you release music and you can't sell enough albums in 20 years, that's not societies problem. A lot of artists release albums every 1 - 3 years anyway, so they're always selling some records, or were before streaming became the way to "own" music. Most make their money off of concerts anyway. For movies and shows, charge and increasing fee to renew the copyright. Eventually studios will give up certain movies. The older the movie the more you pay.

dec0dedab0de 7mo ago
We could also just have some of the rights go away after X amount of years. Maybe after so much time it's still not legal to copy the original work, but it is legal to make a cover song, or a derivative work using the same character. At another point maybe it's no longer to illegal to copy for free, but it is still illegal to sell without permission. I personally think we should have shorter limits for non-creator owners of copyright, and for creators it should be like 20 years or death whichever comes last. I also think compulsory licensing should exist for everything.