Live data from Hacker News

Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

theguardian.com

31–35 of 35 posts

Re: Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

#31
post #12
post #10

Its stupid to try and assign copyright to things that aren't legal persons. At the end of the day, copyright holders have to make decisions about how to exercise their rights, which makes no sense for a tree. Instead people should just assign the copyright to some sort of trust or non-profit dedicated to the forest.

it's not just what to do with their rights, but the creative effort to create a work that deserves copyright. Trees don't make choices and engage in that type of creativity, nor does the forest floor or canopy.

> Trees don't make choices and engage in that type of creativity, nor does the forest floor or canopy.

From a philosophical point of view, I'd argue that trees and life have much more of the ability to make choices and even express creativity than inanimate objects like a rock or even a computer.

IIRC in some courts recently, it was decided that the output of LLMs cannot be copyrighted.

It will be interesting to see how this legal case goes.

Re: Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

#33
post #11

Wonder if this is an attempt to create the groundwork for a legal precedent supporting "environmental personhood": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_personhood

This reminds me of Cyrus the Great being so angry at a river that drowned one of his horse that he spent a summer having his army carve it up into 360 channels.

Or, in more modern examples - EU Commissioner Von der Leyen lobbying to exterminate wolves in Europe after a wolf killed her family's pony [0][1][2]

[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-takes-on-the-big-bad-...

[1] - https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-campaigning-ha...

[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/a-wolf-k...

Re: Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

#34
post #26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its stupid to try and assign copyright to things that aren't legal persons. Good thing they got that covered, then. As per the article: > In a historic ruling, the legal personhood of the Los Cedros biological reserve was recognised by Ecuador’s constitutional court in 2021, when it determined to cancel mining permits in the reserve. > Instead people should just assign the copyright to some sort of trust or non-pro…

> On the other hand, if the entity owns itself, you can’t legally harm it without consent, which can’t be given. By the same token, the forest can't exactly start a lawsuit either (unless someone acts on its behalf, in which case we are back at the same person). Just because they declared it a legal person, doesn't mean it actually is, in terms of how that phrase is normally used. At the very least a legal person nor…

Corporations (which are legal persons) also cannot autonomously do any of those things.

They only act through the stewardship of natural persons who serve in their interest.

You could do the same for a forest by electing some trustees or whatever.

Re: Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

#35
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UNAVAILABLE This video is not available.

Looks like it's blocked in Fiji https://views4you.com/tools/youtube-restrictions-checker/?ur...

Bugger!

Thanks, that's a handy website.

Post reply on HN