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The enforcement of copyright law is really simple. (aus.social)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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The enforcement of copyright law is really simple.

If you were a kid who used Napster in the early 2000s to download the latest album by The Offspring or Destiny's Child, because you couldn't afford the CD, then you need to go to court! And potentially face criminal sanctions or punitive damages to the RIAA for each song you download, because you're an evil pirate! You wouldn't steal a car! Creators must be paid!

If you created educational videos on YouTube in the 2010s, and featured a video or audio clip, then even if it's fair use, and even if it's used to make a legitimate point, you're getting demonetised. That's assuming your videos don't disappear or get shadow banned or your account isn't shut entirely. Oh, and good luck finding your way through YouTube's convoluted DMCA process! All creators are equal in deserving pay, but some are more equal than others!

And if you're a corporation with a market capitalisation of US$1.5 trillion (Google/Alphabet) or US$2.3 billion (Microsoft), then you can freely use everyone's intellectual property to train your generative AI bots. Suddenly creators don't deserve to be paid a cent.

Apparently, an individual downloading a single file is like stealing a car. But a trillion-dollar corporation stealing every car is just good business.

@music@fedibb.ml @technology #technology #tech #economics #copyright #ArtificialIntelligence #capitalism #IntellectualProperty @music@lemmy.ml #law #legal #economics

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[–] emoryr@techpolicy.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml Except (correct me if I'm wrong here) this sounds like a call for expanding copyright -- but it's *still* not "stealing a car." It never was stealing a car, and making the copyright maximalist argument feels as wrong now as then. Training a neural net isn't stealing (yet), corps like MSFT /Alphabet will be able to weather any changes to IP law, but imo this rhetoric is going to hurt the legions of small artists discovering and working with this new medium.

[–] ajsadauskas@aus.social 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

@emoryr @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml It's more of a cynical tongue-in-cheek take. For the record, I totally agree that breaching copyright is not the same as stealing a car.

"Creators must be paid" is a recurring argument for maintaining copyrights as a system.

But how much it matters seems to vary widely, depending on whether it's a 16-year-old kid using Napster, or a multi-trillion-dollar multinational that benefits from creators not being paid for their work.

[–] emoryr@techpolicy.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

@ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml Oh for sure. I just worry that the nearly-universal backlash against generative AI from academia/lefty/artists/policy wonky people (my people!) grounded in well-intended anti-corporate/consumer protection sentiment is carrying water for the same old copyright maximalist corporations. IMO, down that way is costly litigation, dragging artists in to prove their own workflows, a further erosion of fair use and the final death blow of de minimis...