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EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

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Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an artist and might be entirely wrong, but my understanding is that for 99% of artists, over 99% of their revenue is from concerts tickets, merch and other physical products, rather than digital/broadcast plays, so changing this to zero wouldn't really affect them, but would act to reduce the power of the labels and other intermediaries over them.

It seems like you really only know about how the affects people who make music and TV. What about illustrators who license their work? Knitters and crocheters who create patterns? There are countless people who sell creative output on a license-basis which would no longer exist in a world without copyright. Already people who make visual art are demotivated by AI, follow literally any visual artist on Instagram and y…

> Knitters and crocheters who create patterns?

Wow, is that a thing? If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear more about these vocations and how they make money.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and oh the poor artists: next to none percentage wise gets much royalties anymore, streaming income is close to zero usually even if popular Your argument is that artists aren’t paid enough, so we should go ahead and take it all the way to zero by law?

I'm not an artist and might be entirely wrong, but my understanding is that for 99% of artists, over 99% of their revenue is from concerts tickets, merch and other physical products, rather than digital/broadcast plays, so changing this to zero wouldn't really affect them, but would act to reduce the power of the labels and other intermediaries over them.

Big studios will love this

They’ll come across some talented little band playing some nice new tune in a tiny club, record it on their phone and give it to one of the existing boy-bands to play.

No need to sign up aspiring artists any more - just take their songs.

Of course it’s the boy band that will sell the merch and the concert tickets.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#63
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get rid of copyright, half of movies will be sequels to other people's work from the previous year.

There would be no movies as we know them today. Studios couldn’t support making multi-hundred million dollar movies that are immediately free to everyone. Basically movies would become YouTube. It could potentially help theater owners, who provide a somewhat unique experience. That doesn’t seem very valued these days, though.

An exclusive theatrical window is one of the big reasons to go to a movie theater: you want to see a movie before it's available on streaming. Removing copyright seems like it would harm theaters pretty significantly.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#64
post #7

Independend of AI I am fully supporting the idea to abolish copyright in general, full stop. Allowing cheap duplication and tweaking is what leads to fast innovation and culture changes. Explicit (costly) patents can remain in place to secure industrial-grade research processes, but the general everyday stuff, incluing music and literature and code and so on is something to strip default rights away to allow faster p…

Im OK with limited forms of copyright. But the problem is that copyright business interests will ALWAYS pervert the original agreed-upon rules to their benefit.

Now something we saw that does work with audio, is statutory licensing. That rule alone allows spotify to be made. And thats also why a spotify-for-video cant be.

Thats why a local Jellyfin with 30TB of videos is better than all US based streaming services combined. Nobody is *legally* able to put a complete video library and pay access fees to relevent rightsholders.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#65
post #7

Independend of AI I am fully supporting the idea to abolish copyright in general, full stop. Allowing cheap duplication and tweaking is what leads to fast innovation and culture changes. Explicit (costly) patents can remain in place to secure industrial-grade research processes, but the general everyday stuff, incluing music and literature and code and so on is something to strip default rights away to allow faster p…

I'm skeptical patents play a significant role at encouraging research. No correlation between stronger patent laws and more innovation has ever been found.

I'm also in favor of very light copyright laws, e.g. I don't think anyone should claim they are Coca Cola.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and oh the poor artists: next to none percentage wise gets much royalties anymore, streaming income is close to zero usually even if popular Your argument is that artists aren’t paid enough, so we should go ahead and take it all the way to zero by law?

I'm not an artist and might be entirely wrong, but my understanding is that for 99% of artists, over 99% of their revenue is from concerts tickets, merch and other physical products, rather than digital/broadcast plays, so changing this to zero wouldn't really affect them, but would act to reduce the power of the labels and other intermediaries over them.

I suspect that for 99% of artists, over 99% of their income is from a day job, often minimum wage

If you're at the point where you're making money from merch and concert tickets you're probably ahead of 99% of artists

I suppose we usually just call them "aspiring artists" then, but still

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#67
post #3

There might need to be some calibration. The reason for copyright is (ostensibly) to compensate for the enormous cost of production. If the cost goes down, the protection should also logically go down.

The purpose of copyright under the US Constitution, a text relevant to the courts the EFF is addressing here, is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts by giving creators temporary exclusive rights to their works" It is not to "compensate for the cost of production", nor is it to ensure that business plans of major music publishers happen to be successful. The EFF is correct to say here that copyright sh…

I don't get how what you said is different from what I said.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#68
post #3

There might need to be some calibration. The reason for copyright is (ostensibly) to compensate for the enormous cost of production. If the cost goes down, the protection should also logically go down.

I don't think the reason for copyright law is compensation, per se. It's ownership : being in a position where the creator is able to decide what to do with it. Compensation being one option, but also restricting use our controlling access.

That's the US constitutional reason. Give a creator a temporary monopoly so as to compensate them for ultimately making the public domain larger.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#69
post #3

There might need to be some calibration. The reason for copyright is (ostensibly) to compensate for the enormous cost of production. If the cost goes down, the protection should also logically go down.

I don't think the reason for copyright law is compensation, per se. It's ownership : being in a position where the creator is able to decide what to do with it. Compensation being one option, but also restricting use our controlling access.

Ownership is the proxy they could figure out. It's not more complicated than that.

Re: EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype

#70
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you really only know about how the affects people who make music and TV. What about illustrators who license their work? Knitters and crocheters who create patterns? There are countless people who sell creative output on a license-basis which would no longer exist in a world without copyright. Already people who make visual art are demotivated by AI, follow literally any visual artist on Instagram and y…

> Knitters and crocheters who create patterns? Wow, is that a thing? If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear more about these vocations and how they make money.

What does making money have to do with creating art?

Do you only care about professional artists or something? Amateur artists deserve legal protection for their artwork too :/

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