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- cross-posted to:
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During yesterday’s “Winning the AI Race” summit, President Trump weighed in on the debate surrounding AI and copyright, noting that it is “not doable” for AI companies to pay for all copyrighted content used in model training. This stance, shared amidst ongoing AI copyright lawsuits, aims to keep the U.S. competitive in the global AI landscape, especially against countries like China.
In theory it is also supposed to be able to protect small-time creators who come up with a good idea from being copied and run out of the market by megacorporations.
To use video games as an example (trademark violation aside), imagine if EA made their own Celeste 2, or whatever close equivalent they could while avoiding Celeste branding, with no involvement or permission from Maddy Thorson. They copy all of Celeste’s source code and put their legion of underpaid developers to make the shiniest, biggest budget version of Celeste imaginable, erase all of the trans allegory because they’re worried about how it might impact sales, and flood the airwaves to make it seem like it’s better than the original Celeste in every conceivable way.
Unfortunately, you’re wrong in that interpretation. When copyright was devised mega corporations weren’t exactly a thing. Copyright like patents has always been about trying to balance the benefits to society against the needs of the individual.
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Copyright has never been about balancing any kind of benefit to society.
It was invented in the 1700s and you directly benefit from the many many things it has enabled for you over the past 300 years so… No?..
You carry with you an extraordinarily propagandized view of what copyright is.
I carry with me a studied and rooted view of what copyright is. If you want to argue for what it should be that’s fine, but you gain no ground by mudding the swap and doing your opponents work for you. It may get you up votes on an internet forum, but it won’t solicit the social change I and presumably you wish to see.
I mean you claim that then you get the basic details wrong. Copyrights origins are historically rooted in the protection of the corporate control over the means of distribution. Not in the protection of artists whatsoever. Copyright is not, and has not ever been, about protecting artists or creators. Its origin and use has always been about controlling the means of production and distribution. This goes all the way back to the Guild of Stationers in England.
I’m not muddling any ground when I say that copyright isn’t about and never has been about protecting artists.
That’s an extremely one sided view of history.
In fact, I’ll clarify further. Specifically the statute of Anne. Here, in case you’re unfamiliar, is the act which laid the bedrock for copyright. It’s not the licensing requirements from the the late 1600s that you’re likely confusing it with which while somewhat monitarily motivated were primarily driven by political motivations, specifically to stop the reprint of phamplets critical of the state.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne