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H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

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Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#131

Post by tgv »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #96
tgv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time someone uttered something similar, I didn't get an answer, so I'll ask it to you: what entitles you to free access to any song, movie or book?

This: The basic idea of freedom, that I should be able to generally do things including accessing media without interference from a third party. Someone using a physical property can possibly deprive others of its use. This applies to the physical mediums of songs, movies, or books, but not the songs, movies, or text of the books themselves. Intellectual property isn't real, it's a concept that exists to support copy…

> life of the author + 70 years ...

So you object to its current implementation, not to the principle itself, which is what I was replying to. I agree it's absurd, especially when the rights can be transferred to corporations, which cannot even create.

> No one is entitled to be a songwriter, movie director, or author; society needs people doing other things too.

Isn't that up to the individual to decide?

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#132

Post by RiverCrochet »

tgv wrote: post #84
RobotToaster wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What entitles you to use force to stop me creating a copy of something?

Not me, the state. That is significantly different. The reason is damaging someone's livelihood in the cases I mentioned. Or large scale economic damage in case you're copying money.

The comparison with money is interesting but not equivalent to copyright infringement. The closest valid application of the concept of counterfeit to songs, for example, would involve using them to make media and its packaging look like any original packaging, and also try to sell it as the original. If you're not doing this there's no counterfeiture.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#133

Post by RiverCrochet »

tgv wrote: post #129
OutOfHere wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is a loaded question founded on a false premise that the author of the content has an innate right to its viewership. There is no such innate right. Also, the argument that you made elsewhere about "damages" is nonsense because there is no damage from someone viewing what they were never going to pay for anyway, and there also is no deprivation.

> Your question is a loaded question It is not. Abolishing copyright completely, as the parent seems to desire, implies free access to songs, books, movies. > a false premise that the author of the content has an innate right to its viewership If you pose it this way: can't creators decide who gets access to their creations? Is it not inherently theirs? What's the difference with e.g. a piece of bread? > there is no…

> can't creators decide who gets access to their creations?

If it's on their physical property.

> Is it not inherently theirs?

No. For example, a creator of a song does not own my hard drive.

> What's the difference with e.g. a piece of bread?

Operating system calls used in copying data locally and sending/receiving network data locally/remotely fail on pieces of bread, but don't on a series of bits that when given to an .mp3 player make sound.

> So it's legal to steal stuff that you were never going to buy anyway?

Saying somethng is stealing X is a false premise if the owner is not deprived of X. Saying X is depriving Y of future profits is false unless you know for a fact that X was going buy anything from Y.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#134

Post by armchairhacker »

palmotea wrote: post #126
armchairhacker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Prevent other copyrights" = "keep open source open" Your second point seems to agree: if copyright was abolished, people (even rich) still want art, so studios would still end up paying artists, from patronage or some other system.

> if copyright was abolished, people (even rich) still want art, so studios would still end up paying artists, from patronage or some other system. Yes, it would be exclusively the domain of the rich and powerful. If you're a little guy, they'll just shamelessly take what you make, because abolishing copyright abolishes the legal protections a small-time creator depends on. Let's say you put a ton of effort into maki…

> If you're a little guy, they'll just shamelessly take what you make

Like LLM scrapers?

> Copyright is what means a bunch of randos can't just copy all your work and take all the revenue from it. They can even undercut you

If copyright is abolished, nobody's getting revenue from views. They can resell your work for $0, or can try charging, but word spreads and everyone will seek the free alternative (yours).

Attribution is different, but covered by trademark. Or may be covered by trusted sources like internet archives which prove who was first.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#135

Post by stonogo »

rayiner wrote: post #63
stonogo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's a bad summary of a bad argument. "Rulemaking" is what Congress is supposed to do .

The Constitution doesn't say that Congress can have its employees (which is what the Copyright Office is) make legally binding rules. Congress can make laws, but only through a specific process involving votes in the House and Senate and the signature of the President.

In this instance, this work is explicitly assigned to Congress directly in the Constitution. It does not arbitrarily limit the methods with which Congress carries out this work. There is no reason Congress cannot hire people to carry out this work and empower those employees to do so, which is something Congress commonly does in dozens of other instances, and has from the beginning.

There is also no requirement that the executive branch involve itself in that process. This is just another expansion of executive power; the latest in a decades-old tradition of Congress abdicating its responsibilities.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#136

Post by RiverCrochet »

tgv wrote: post #131
RiverCrochet wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This: The basic idea of freedom, that I should be able to generally do things including accessing media without interference from a third party. Someone using a physical property can possibly deprive others of its use. This applies to the physical mediums of songs, movies, or books, but not the songs, movies, or text of the books themselves. Intellectual property isn't real, it's a concept that exists to support copy…

> life of the author + 70 years ... So you object to its current implementation, not to the principle itself, which is what I was replying to. I agree it's absurd, especially when the rights can be transferred to corporations, which cannot even create. > No one is entitled to be a songwriter, movie director, or author; society needs people doing other things too. Isn't that up to the individual to decide?

> So you object to its current implementation, not to the principle itself

Correct. The greater principle is freedom. Copyright is supposed to be a temporary trade of limitation of freedom in exchange for the progress of art.

> Isn't that up to the individual to decide?

An individual can decide to do or be whatever they want, the entitlement aspect comes into play when we talk about what others are obligated to do in support of that.

Contrived example: As an recording artist, you're probably not going to make money selling CDs because people will copy them. We can say the artist is entitled to do this and make CD burners illegal, and now I lose the ability to back up any type of files using this technology, which reduces my freedom for things not related to copying music CDs. I don't think an artist selling CDs is worth this loss of freedom; I support myself working a 9 to 5 job-doing something other than selling easily copyable CDs, and this is something the artist can do as well.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#137

Post by palmotea »

armchairhacker wrote: post #134
palmotea wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if copyright was abolished, people (even rich) still want art, so studios would still end up paying artists, from patronage or some other system. Yes, it would be exclusively the domain of the rich and powerful. If you're a little guy, they'll just shamelessly take what you make, because abolishing copyright abolishes the legal protections a small-time creator depends on. Let's say you put a ton of effort into maki…

> If you're a little guy, they'll just shamelessly take what you make Like LLM scrapers? > Copyright is what means a bunch of randos can't just copy all your work and take all the revenue from it. They can even undercut you If copyright is abolished, nobody's getting revenue from views. They can resell your work for $0, or can try charging, but word spreads and everyone will seek the free alternative (yours). Attribu…

> If copyright is abolished, nobody's getting revenue from views. They can resell your work for $0, or can try charging, but word spreads and everyone will seek the free alternative (yours).

Exactly. Abolish copyright, and no little guy can do it for a living if he's good at it and people want it. He'll have to spend his time working a day job to pay the bills, and may not even have the energy for creative work afterwards. Creative work becomes the domain of large corporations and nepo babies.

Copyright was created to solve real problems that were once common. Abolishing it is foolish, the reasonable path is some solution that solve both the original problems and whatever new ones you've identified.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#138

Post by armchairhacker »

palmotea wrote: post #137
armchairhacker wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're a little guy, they'll just shamelessly take what you make Like LLM scrapers? > Copyright is what means a bunch of randos can't just copy all your work and take all the revenue from it. They can even undercut you If copyright is abolished, nobody's getting revenue from views. They can resell your work for $0, or can try charging, but word spreads and everyone will seek the free alternative (yours). Attribu…

> If copyright is abolished, nobody's getting revenue from views. They can resell your work for $0, or can try charging, but word spreads and everyone will seek the free alternative (yours). Exactly. Abolish copyright, and no little guy can do it for a living if he's good at it and people want it. He'll have to spend his time working a day job to pay the bills, and may not even have the energy for creative work after…

> Abolish copyright, and no little guy can do it for a living if he's good at it and people want it. He'll have to spend his time working a day job to pay the bills, and may not even have the energy for creative work afterwards. Creative work becomes the domain of large corporations and nepo babies.

For the niche artists (and musicians and writers) I’m aware of, this is already true. Few people pay for niche art, because there are so many decent quality old works (and modern ad-filled slop) for free (and most people would rather not pay for things even for worse quality). Those who still pay are the same who’d donate if the artist offered their work for free, which would get them more attention thus more money overall. And with few people paying, COL is way too high for a niche artist to not get a second job, large donor, family inheritance, or other source of income.

And I’m sure non-niche artists would have no problem getting enough patrons (evidenced by those who do via merch and Twitch donations).

Abolishing copyright entirely would make patronage more common, benefiting these artists: specifically, the ones who already sell barely anything relative to COL, or already make their work free to get enough attention, who comprise most of the artists I know.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#139

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jklowden wrote: post #98

Hey, the economy is great and gas is cheap. All we had to put up with is mean tweets. Whenever anyone complains about Trump, remind them he’s not the cause but the product. Seventy million voted for him, and Republicans in congress let him do illegally what they cannot accomplish legislatively. And all the while they’re busy selling the country for parts, whether through tax policy, or neutering the CAFE standards, o…

He's certainly part of the cause, it seems the reason his handlers were able to use him so effectively is because he was going to jail if republicans and Musk et al. (and Putin?) didn't use him to get the election.

Expecting a convicted felon to live with the consequences of their further crimes, when all they need do is end the republic and steal billions, with the help and financial support of tech bros, ... well.

There's a very simple first patch to a new republic, no convicts in elected offices.

Re: H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office

#140

Post by pbhjpbhj »

iloveoof wrote: post #118
panny wrote: post #47

I usually agree with the EFF on things, but after reading their linked https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/us-copyright-offices-d... I couldn't disagree more. An LLM is a predict the next word algorithm. If the model is overfitting, it's basically copy paste. There have been several documented instances where that happened and full GPL code, including headers and attribution were copy/pasted by the "AI." AI is esse…

I could not agree more with EFF. There’s a difference between training a model and using a model. Training involves copyrighted works but fair use is not just about use of copyrighted works, it’s about whether the use is transformative and substitutes the original market. I struggle to see how is not transformative under these criteria. The use of the model (being able to output copies of GPL software) is a different…

So in your consideration the user of training materials for LLMs don't allow the LLMs to compete with the original authors? That's part of the assessment of transformation - does the resulting work compete with the original.

If I no longer need your book to learn its contents, that's direct competition, making that facet of the work entirely untransformed.

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