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An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

theaiunderwriter.substack.com

681–690 of 927 posts

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#681

Not sure if anyone is interested in this story, but I remember at the height of the PokemonGo craze I noticed there were no shirts for the different factions in the game, cant rememebr what they were called but something like Teamread or something. I setup an online shop to just to sell a red shirt with the word on it. The next day my whole shop was taken offline for potential copyright infringement. What I found sur…

Somehow someone had notified Nintendo

Is this correct? I would guess Nintendo has some automation/subscription to a service that handles this. I doubt it was some third party snitching.

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that asset generates revenue for 120 years, then it’s slightly more valuable than an asset that generates revenue for 119 years, and considerably more valuable than an asset that generates revenue for 20 years. Not so, because of net present value. The return from investing in normal stocks is ~10%/year, which is to say ~670% over 20 years, because of compounding interest. Another way of saying this is that $1 i…

Your analysis misses the incredibly important caveat that revenue rises with inflation – or sometimes even faster. 50 years ago, a movie ticket was 0.50 cents in revenue. Today, it’s $25. That’s a 50x increase… a dollar in 50 years might be worth $0.02 today, but a movie ticket in 50 years is worth about a movie ticket today.

And surprise movies are a rip off and people have stopped going.

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#683
post #498
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I can hire an artist and ask him to draw me a picture of Indiana Jones, Sure, assuming the artist has the proper license and franchise rights to make and distribute copies. You can go buy a picture of Indy today that may not be printed by Walt Disney Studios but by some other outfit or artists. Or, you mean if the artist doesn't have a license to produce and distribute Indiana Jones images? Well they'll be in t…

> Or, you mean if the artist doesn't have a license to produce and distribute Indiana Jones images? Well they'll be in trouble legally. They are making "copies" of things they don't own and profiting from it. Ok, my sister can draw, and she gifts me an image of my favorite Marvel hero she painted to hang on my wall. Should that be illegal?

The question is not whether it should but whether it is.

The likeness of the character is owned by Marvel. Does it mean there aren’t vendors selling unlicensed versions? No. I am sure there are. But just because not everyone is being sued doesn’t mean it’s suddenly legal.

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of no other type of theft that results in more of something existing in the world. Stealing deprives someone of something; copying data (from training an AI all the way to pedestrian "YoU wOuLdN'T DoWnLoAd a cAr" early-aughts file-sharing) decreases scarcity, it doesn't increase it.

>> Stealing deprives someone of something Yes. In this case, it is the artist's sole right to reproduce said images, based on their creative output. >> decreases scarcity, it doesn't increase it What does scarcity have to do with stealing? You can steal bread and reduce food scarcity, but that is still theft.

Your analogy between copyright infringement and bread theft is interesting, given how "stealing bread" has traditionally been used as a shorthand for systemic inequality.

Copyright is why Disney can ruin someone for doing something with Goofy they don't like. Yes, it protects smaller, less profitable artists too, but make no mistake: it's a tool of mass control and cultural capture.

Perhaps it's time to seriously ask whether copyright is actually doing its job of "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts." "...but generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrasment than advantage to society" [Jefferson].

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#685
post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analysis misses the incredibly important caveat that revenue rises with inflation – or sometimes even faster. 50 years ago, a movie ticket was 0.50 cents in revenue. Today, it’s $25. That’s a 50x increase… a dollar in 50 years might be worth $0.02 today, but a movie ticket in 50 years is worth about a movie ticket today.

And surprise movies are a rip off and people have stopped going.

Plenty of crowds at my local theaters.

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#686
post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's assuming the revenue generated would be the same every year forever, when in practice it declines over time. For the crown jewel IP that the studios are most interested in protecting, the opposite of this assumption is true. Star Wars, for example, is making more money than ever. Streaming revenues will probably invalidate that assumption for an even wider pool of back catalog properties.

If Star Wars were in the public domain now it would be making even more money. Money that would go into the general economy and not just into a single studio.

Also copyright duration when Star Wars was created was a maximum of 56 years, and obviously George Lucas felt that was sufficient incentive to create it!

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#687

It is not only copyright that is problematic. It generates Franco when asked about the best Spanish leader in the 20th century. https://chatgpt.com/share/67efebf4-3b14-8011-8c11-8f806c7ff6...

To be fair, Franco is the only Spanish leader most people (or at least most non-Spaniards) can even name

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#688

I don't condone or endorse breaking any laws. That said, trademark laws like life of the author + 95 years are absolutely absurd. The ONLY reason to have any law prohibiting unlicensed copying of intangible property is to incentivize the creation of intangible property. The reasoning being that if you don't allow people to exclude 3rd party copying, then the primary party will assumedly not receive compensation for t…

New rule: you get to keep your belongings for 20 years and that's it. Then they are taken away. Every dollar you made twenty or more years ago, every asset you acquired, gone. That oughtta be enough to incentivize people to work and build their wealth. Anything more than that is unnecessary.

So every year I go to a swap meet and try to exchange my “expiring” belongings for something similar to reset the clock? Or, they get taken away by force? By someone who has meticulous records of all my stuff?

What problem are you trying to solve?

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#689
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of human creation is like this. All language. Process. Even the US anthem was “stolen”

Since you make no argument to justify your unfounded claim, I’ll simply respond by informing you that these (obviously) are not remotely similar. To claim they are indicates some kind of deep disrespect for your fellow human beings. You could not tell the difference between taking a screen shot of the Mona Lisa and spending a lifetime to perfect the art of painting and then putting years of effort into painting it.

People have also spent lifetimes perfecting the art of painting, putting years of effort in, and then used those talents to... Make sellable copies of the Mona Lisa. Ironically, since copyright has a time limit, that's not even illegal (so long as they do not claim they're original works of da Vinci). Nor is photographing it and selling the photograph. I'm not sure what argument you're making given the observations you've made (other than, perhaps, "There is a big gap between the mechanics of copyright and what it's supposed to accomplish," which I'd agree with).

Re: An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

#690
post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engagement ring is a good example object, but I feel it serves the opposite argument better. If engagement rings were as ubiquitous and easy to generate as Ghibli images have become, they would lose their value very quickly -- not even just in the monetary sense, but the sentimental value across the market would crash for this particular trinket. It wouldn't be about picking the right one anymore, it would be fin…

>If I could print 30 rings a day, my partner wouldn't want any of them as a show of my undying love. Something more special and rare and thoughtful would have to take its place. And now I think this serves the opposite argument better. Downloading some random ring from the internet would not show your undying love. Designing a custom ring just for your partner, even if it is made from plastic, and even if you use AI…

This is only true where it is distinguishable that the end result is made with care and love rather than indiscriminate copying. Which is why attribution is essential. No one realistically could tell a ring was hand crafted or mass produced if there wasn't some tell. Some people may say the "tell" is a kind of intuitive nebulous concept of the "soul" of the animation.. but I feel we are quickly approaching the point where this is no longer obvious.

As an aside, my partner detests the things I 3d print unless they have a very specific purpose, even when they are random semi artistic pieces I'm tinkering with (and I typically agree, they are junk). She loves the first thing i ever printed her though, a triceratops model, despite being randomly downloaded.

Anything made with intent from one individual to another will have some level of sentimental value, but I don't feel like making a ghibli image with AI specifically tailored to a friends tastes would have quite as much value as leveraging your own talent to do it yourself.

On the flip side, I do believe that "doing it yourself" has less value than it used to. It's a very sad reality and in my opinion a strong argument against blind "progress". We gain the ability to mass produce art but lose the ability to perceive it as art?

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