Copyright reform is necessary for national security • Hacker News Board

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#111

Post by antifa » Sun, Feb 02, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

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.

I think some kind of automatic royalty would be a nice middle ground.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#112

Post by martin-t » Mon, Feb 03, 2025, 12:16 AM UTC

ranger_danger wrote: post #110

martin-t wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, first, this is factually wrong, there are obviously new ideas, often rediscovered independently.

Second, seeing things in black and white is a fallacy. The amount obviously matters and what also matters is the _human_ work on top of the original work. LLMs are fundamentally different, human time (and work) has value, LLM time does not (it costs money to run but that is both different and inconsequential in comparison).

Third, you seem to forget that you can base academic work on that of other people, as long as you give proper credit. Just like are can base your code on that of other people, as long as you follow their code's license.

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#113

Post by musicale » Mon, Feb 03, 2025, 2:52 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #45

8note wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you do suddenly become popular, you can write a second book, and get involved in TV or movie adaptations of it. GRRM isnt included on ASOIAF content because hes the copyright holder, but because his influence makes people want to see the shows

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…

> the Constitution says that it should only be to encourage innovation, and long copyright inhibits innovation.

I concur, but the Supreme Court might not. Plaintiffs in Eldred v. Ashcroft were defeated on "limited times", and I expect that a "promote the progress" argument would have an even harder time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

Re: Copyright reform is necessary for national security

#114

Post by musicale » Mon, Feb 03, 2025, 2:54 AM UTC

antifa wrote: post #111

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think some kind of automatic royalty would be a nice middle ground.

Compulsory licensing seems to have worked OK (though maybe not great) in some areas, such as broadcast retransmission, and recordings of cover versions of songs.