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

(theaiunderwriter.substack.com)
1503 points participant3 | 12 comments | 03 Apr 25 17:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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mlsu ◴[03 Apr 25 21:55 UTC] No.43575950[source]▶
I was really hoping that the conversation around AI art would at least be partially centered on the perhaps now dated "2008 pirate party" idea that intellectual property, the royalty system, the draconian copyright laws that we have today are deeply silly, rooted in a fiction, and used over and over again, primarily by the rich and powerful, to stifle original ideas and hold back cultural innovation.

Unfortunately, it's just the opposite. It seems most people have fully assimilated the idea that information itself must be entirely subsumed into an oppressive, proprietary, commercial apparatus. That Disney Corp can prevent you from viewing some collection of pixels, because THEY own it, and they know better than you do about the culture and communication that you are and are not allowed to experience.

It's just baffling. If they could, Disney would scan your brain to charge you a nickel every time you thought of Mickey Mouse.

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onlyrealcuzzo ◴[03 Apr 25 22:05 UTC] No.43576039[source]▶
> to stifle original ideas and hold back cultural innovation.

How is copyright stifling innovation?

You could not rip something off more blatantly than Gravity, which had the lawsuit dismissed entirely.

Taurus vs Stairway to Heaven, the list goes on and on and on.

You can often get away with nearly murder ripping off other people's stuff.

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fragmede ◴[03 Apr 25 22:12 UTC] No.43576098[source]▶
Because it's self indulgent wankery. If I, as writer and an artist, have just the most absolutely brilliant thoughts, and write them down into a book or draw the most beautiful artwork, I can earn money off that well into my afterlife with copyright. Meanwhile the carpenter who is no less bright, can only sell the chair he's built once. In order to make money off of it, he must labor to produce a second or even a third chair. Why does one person have to work harder than the other because of the medium they chose?

Meanwhile in China, just because you invented a thing, you don't get to sit back and rest on your laurels. sipping champagne in hot tubs, because your competitor isn't staying put. He's grinding and innovating off your innovation so you'd also better keep innovating.

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1. onlyrealcuzzo ◴[03 Apr 25 22:13 UTC] No.43576110[source]▶
This has nothing to do with stifling innovation.

I am yet to meet a writer who doesn't even attempt to write for fear that whatever they write will be found to be in violation of copyright (unless they are the type of writer that is always finding excuses not to write).

Several people have made successful careers out of fan fiction...

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2. fragmede ◴[03 Apr 25 22:18 UTC] No.43576150[source]▶
JK Rowling never has to work again in her life because she wrote a couple of books that were exceedingly popular. Because she doesn't have to work, she's not been forced to come up with new stuff. How is that not stifling?
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3. jfim ◴[03 Apr 25 22:28 UTC] No.43576240[source]▶
The same analogy could be applied to business though. Some Colonel invented a fried chicken recipe and started a chain of restaurants, now he doesn't need to work anymore.

In my opinion, if someone creates something that has value for a lot of people, they should get rewarded for it.

4. Wowfunhappy ◴[03 Apr 25 22:32 UTC] No.43576264[source]▶
...it's worth noting that J.K. Rowling is still coming up with new stuff. I quite like her ongoing Comoran Strike detective series. They're published under a pen name, but it's Rowling.
5. TheOtherHobbes ◴[03 Apr 25 22:33 UTC] No.43576273[source]▶
She comes up with new stuff all the time. She's had a separate career as a writer of thrillers, and is still working in the PotterVerse.

She's an awful person for other reasons, but that's beside the point here.

Reality is most trad-pub authors have full-time jobs anyway to pay the bills. If you're not one of a handful of publishing superstars, trad-pub pays incredibly badly as a result of corporate consolidation and monopoly dominance.

To be clear - there are far more people living parasitically off investments, producing nothing at all and extracting value from everyone else, than there are talented creators living the high life.

6. rpdillon ◴[03 Apr 25 22:50 UTC] No.43576413[source]▶
Notch (Marcus Persson of Minecraft fame) is probably a more compelling example.
7. onlyrealcuzzo ◴[03 Apr 25 23:09 UTC] No.43576560[source]▶
She made enough money selling books by the 5th book that she'd never need to do anything again and live better than 99% of people on the planet.

What do you want?

She's not allowed to make money selling books?

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8. fragmede ◴[03 Apr 25 23:21 UTC] No.43576647{3}[source]▶
What I want is irrelevant. She's now able to rest on her laurels thanks to copyright. She's earned it. I very much enjoyed the books! Under our current culture and level of technology, that's the dream.

But why shouldn't everyone get to live like that? we have the technology to feed all the people, it's just a distribution and organization problem. "just". Money, and capitalism is how we've organized things and it's worked great for a lot of people but it's also left a lot of people behind.

We keep making adjustments to the system but we don't have to be trapped in the system. we can take a step back and look at things and say, hang on a minute, if the goal in life is to feed and clothe everybody, we've either succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, or utterly failed.

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9. codedokode ◴[04 Apr 25 00:34 UTC] No.43577119[source]▶
You pick one example and ignore thousands of writers who didn't even return costs after publishing a book. Also, as another example, a great Russian 19th century poet and writer Alexander Pushkin left lot of debt after his death. He supported publishing other writers but it turned out to be a commercial failure. Maybe this fact will make you less unhappy about supposedly unclouded lazy writer's career.
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10. codedokode ◴[04 Apr 25 00:35 UTC] No.43577123{4}[source]▶
> But why shouldn't everyone get to live like that?

Because we don't have that much money?

11. fragmede ◴[04 Apr 25 00:42 UTC] No.43577177{3}[source]▶
I'm not ignoring that, I'm saying that a differently organized society would have everybody working 40 weeks a year instead of the ridiculous inequality we face today.
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12. codedokode ◴[05 Apr 25 14:44 UTC] No.43593899{4}[source]▶
I am not working 40 hours a week so although equality seems fair I don't really like your idea.