Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Copyright reform is necessary for national security

annas-archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 114 posts

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#101

Post by Kim_Bruning »

jprete wrote: post #96
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were legal to download movies and music, Netflix and Spotify would absolutely not exist. I question this statement. First two hits: * https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/welter_brennan_s_201212_ma.pd... Adding a movie to Netflix reduces piracy directly * https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v209y2023icp334-347.htm... Removing movies from Netflix increases piracy. There's plenty more where that came from. Netflix a…

I was talking about a world where piracy is legal, which this one is not.

Netflix might accidentally be the worst possible example you could pick for 'wouldn't exist if piracy were legal.'

Netflix built their entire streaming business model during a time when piracy was so widespread it was almost as good as legal. They succeeded precisely by proving that people would pay for good service even when free options were readily available. They're a textbook example of a business that thrives by being better than free!

Despite huge investments in enforcement, movie piracy never waned. The reason it declined? Netflix. Why is it now seeing a bit of a resurgence? Also Netflix, actually, or rather the fact that people have splintered the streaming landscape.

Here's some articles from Forbes at the time. [1] [2] [3] and an interview with the Netflix CEO [4]

People following the Netflix/piracy story at the time saw it like this: Netflix doesn't necessarily need to care if piracy is legal or not, because it removes most of the incentive to pirate. People tried a lot of things against piracy, until Netflix came along and that was the thing that actually worked. Piracy goes down where Netflix is available. I've also provided enough sources to explain why: Piracy is a service problem [3]. Netflix provides the missing service, so people don't feel like they need to pirate anymore.

In a world where piracy was fully legal, Netflix would still exist, and still drive down piracy. This is Netflix's entire reason for success!

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthickey/2013/05/07/netflix-w...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/24/whatever-...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-...

[4] https://www.stuff.tv/news/netflixs-ted-sarandos-talks-arrest... (under the heading "what are you doing to combat piracy?" )

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#102

Post by Kim_Bruning »

thatcat wrote: post #81
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy isn’t a legal problem—it’s a service problem [1]. Netflix, Spotify, and Valve (Steam) didn’t succeed because of copyright enforcement. They won because they made paying for content easier, faster, and better than piracy. Piracy isn’t hard, but these services solved the friction: instant access, high quality, fair pricing, and features that free alternatives couldn’t match. That’s why they still thrive today. […

Alternative take: those services have a smaller selection, use annoying algorithms to promote IP they own, and are generally worse that piracy, but people don't like being hassled by their ISP and initially they cost a similar amount to a VPN.

Good old enshittification[1], because all good things must come to an end, sadly. I expect piracy figures are/will be going back up because of it.

Do you think these diverse streaming services would admit to what they're doing, or will they try to double down on enforcement again?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#103

Post by jprete »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #101
jprete wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about a world where piracy is legal, which this one is not.

Netflix might accidentally be the worst possible example you could pick for 'wouldn't exist if piracy were legal.' Netflix built their entire streaming business model during a time when piracy was so widespread it was almost as good as legal. They succeeded precisely by proving that people would pay for good service even when free options were readily available. They're a textbook example of a business that thrives b…

I think you're arguing in good faith, so my response is that I think the legal-piracy world would make it very easy to download things, on par with going to YouTube, something anyone could and would do. I don't think Netflix would be the same in that world. They might well have been the premiere free movie distributors!

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#104

Post by martin-t »

chromanoid wrote: post #100
martin-t wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Patenting algorithms is like patenting thoughts. OK, I agree there, I should have written "function" or "module" something similar. Something that takes nontrivial amounts of work and although it is based on some general principles which should not be patentable/copyrightable, their particular implementation is novel/unique enough that it would take nontrivial amounts of work to replicate the functionality without…

> But using an algorithm (even a very complex one) to take a bit of everyone's work and redistribute is for free without crediting or compensating them does not benefit authors. I am not sure about that. As long as they also can benefit from it, it just accelerates creation of new things. > I hate analogies but if I write banking software and send 0.000000001% of every transaction to my account, none of the individua…

Both your arguments here seem to boil down to preferring collective good over individual good even at the expense of individuals and even against the individuals' wishes. That's a totalitarian approach and I cannot and will not support it.

Totalitarian systems of ruling have always devolved into suffering on a massive scale and although we're seeing a dictatorship prosper, probably for the first time in history, in China, it's just on add case that goes against the trend. It does not disprove the trend, dictatorships have always devolved into abuse of power, China is already promising massive suffering externally by threatening to invade Taiwan (which is a continuation of the legitimate Chinese government which was illegally overthrown by communist rebels in mainland China). And I have no doubt, China will devolve into internal suffering once its current dictator dies and a new one takes his place.

The west is only throwing away its values (such as individual freedom) because it is afraid of China getting a short-term lead.

To reply point by point:

> they also can benefit from it

One person puts in work and everyone benefits equally, sounds good on the surface because it only uses positive words, yet when you look at the meaning, I could equally use it to justify taking your entire salary away from you and redistributing it to every person on the planet equally. Would you be OK with that, jst because you get your equal share?

You might be tempted to answer yes if everyone suffered the same treatment. Now consider if you were OK with it if only 1% of the population worked and was forced to feed the rest.

> I don't think this "tax" would be a problem

I describe theft and you call it a tax...

> Human beings can only survive in a collective after all.

That absolutely does not mean that you should be forced to become a part of a collective against your will or that you have no say who is in the collective with you.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#105

Post by Ekaros »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63
wisty wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that 14 years is a little short, especially for books which can get adaptations that pay more than the book. OTOH preventing adaptations stifles things. Imagine if Tolkein had managed to lock down his orcs and elves like Disney locked down the mouse. I think 20 or 30 years is fairer. But IIRC it's not about fair, the Constitution says that it should only be to encourage innovation, and long copyright…

> 14 years is a little short, especially for books which can get adaptations that pay more than the book If you want to make an official adapatation, hire the author. If not, it's not official. This takes care of itself for authors who cultivate their fan base.

You could also keep trademarks. So content might not be protected, but you couldn't release remixes under trademarked names.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#106

Post by Kim_Bruning »

jprete wrote: post #103
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix might accidentally be the worst possible example you could pick for 'wouldn't exist if piracy were legal.' Netflix built their entire streaming business model during a time when piracy was so widespread it was almost as good as legal. They succeeded precisely by proving that people would pay for good service even when free options were readily available. They're a textbook example of a business that thrives b…

I think you're arguing in good faith, so my response is that I think the legal-piracy world would make it very easy to download things, on par with going to YouTube, something anyone could and would do. I don't think Netflix would be the same in that world. They might well have been the premiere free movie distributors!

We have an internet. It was and is already very easy to download things, legally or not [1] . That's why speculating about legalization making piracy easier misses the point - it's already as easy as it can get.

Netflix just made it that much easier to find what you want[2] and just watch it. People were and are willing to pay for that.

[1] for movies and other large files you can use a torrent tracking site: type what you want, click the result with most seeds, download, play.

[2] Not necessarily as easy as it used to be a few years ago. So piracy is going back up.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#107

Post by martin-t »

chromanoid wrote: post #99
martin-t wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "free code"? Most code is either proprietary (though sometimes public), under a permissive license or under a copyleft license. The only free code is code which is in the public domain. You could make separate versions of an LLM depending on the license of its output. If it has t produce public domain code, it can only be trained on the public domain. If if has to produce permissive code (without attribution)…

> Umm, I think theft on a civilization-level scale is sufficient. As long as everybody can also benefit from it, I see it as some kind of collective knowledge sharing. As you stated in the paragraphs before unless the wealth distribution changes, LLMs may lead to an escalating imbalance, unless the models are shared for free as soon as a critical mass of authors is involved, regardless of who owns the assets.

It's about proportions.

1) The current system is that the rich get richer faster than the poor.

2) You're proposing a system where everybody gets richer at the same rate at the best of times (but probably devolves into case 1 IMO)

3) I am proposing a system where people get richer at the rate of how much work they put in. If a rich person does not produce value, he doesn't get richer at all. If a poor person produces value he gets richer according to how many people benefit from it. If a poor person puts in 1000 units of work and a rich person puts in 10 units of work to distribute the work to more people (for example through marketing), they get richer at comparative rates 1000:10.

My system is obviously harder to implement (despite all the revolutions in history, societies have always devolved to case 1, or sometimes case 2 that devolved into 1 later). It might be impossible to implement perfectly but it does not mean we should stop trying to make things at least less unfair.

---

We're in agreement that forcing companies who take (steal) work from everyone to release their models for free is better than letting them profit without bounds.

However, I am taking it way further. If AI research leads to fundamental changes in society, we should take it as an opportunity to reevaluate the societal systems we have now and make them more fair.

For example, I don't care who owns assets. I care about who puts in work. It's a more fundamental unit of value. Work produces assets after all.

---

And BTW making models free does not in any way help restore users' rights provided by AGPL. And I have yet to come across anybody making a workable proposal how to protect these rights in an age where AGPL code is remixed through statistics into all software without making it also AGPL. In fact, I have yet to find anybody who acknowledges it's a problem.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#108

Post by autobodie »

absolutelastone wrote: post #42
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #15

This wouldn't be the first time IP laws hurt Western innovation and security. When WW1 started - despite the airplane being invented in Dayton, Ohio - the US had fallen so far behind they had to use French aircraft. Why? The Wright brothers' patent wars had effectively frozen US aviation development. Today it's not just one industry - Western IP laws are slowing progress across multiple tech frontiers. While companie…

I think our IP laws are optimized to maximize benefits for the legal system.

They're optimized to maximize profit for capital owners. Another word for this is capitalism.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#109

Post by autobodie »

foobarbecue wrote: post #49
EvanAnderson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The option for a single renewal for 14 more years doesn't strike me as onerous. It makes a concession for the "audience hasn't made you rich in the first 14 years" and is still light years ahead of the current de facto infinite duration. It won't ever change, though. No chance ever. Other than to be actually made infinite. The nature of "intellectual property" and money being speech in US politics locks that in.

Well, at some point our government will collapse entirely, and then all the laws can change. I'm starting to think that might not be far off.

I'm afraid that is just wishful and overly-optimistic thinking.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#110

Post by ranger_danger »

martin-t wrote: post #93
ranger_danger wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I think the answer is always "it depends" and usually boils down to a judge's opinion on just how obvious of a copy it is.

There are 2 separate metrics - obviousness (=provability) and reality. Courts operate on provability (and for good reasons). However, reality is I have used someone else's work and pretended it's my own. Now, ironically, there are cases where the act of masking it can be more time consuming than writing it from scratch. That is still plagiarism, although it might not be provable.

I don't think it's possible to get away from that, we are both "plagiarizing" something else in a way just by writing these responses, because there are no new ideas, everything is a copy of something else, the only question is by how much, and can you tell. Obviously this goes down a philosophical rabbit hole... but I think the "reality" you describe is just as subjective as obviousness.
Post reply on HN