Post by robertgoodwin00 in Are AI Assets Controversial on Itch io?

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Yes, we need not only new laws, but probably new terminology. Artists sometimes refer to their works being used in machine learning as "stealing" and "theft", which of course isn't accurate, yet there is a sense that something is being infringed upon that goes against the spirit of intellectual property that they are grasping to convey, which we perhaps need new words for.

You make plenty of valid points (I certainly agree that copyright claims can be abused), but it seems like you were avoiding mine. I asked us to consider what the reason copyright exists in the first place might be. Just now I tried googling "why do we need copyright" and this is literally the first link that came up (if you read other explanations they are similar):

https://iadt.libguides.com/copyright

Why is copyright important?

"The importance of copyright is an essential component of the modern educational experience. Copyright is important as it helps to protect the value of an author/academic/researchers work, by giving the originator of the work the ability to protect it from unlicensed or uncredited usage. This leads to the prevention of their work being copied to the degree where they cannot sell it effectively or receive credit for it. In this way, copyright fosters intellectual creativity as it provides an incentive for a creator to work freely, allowing them to gain recognition for their work as well as protecting their livelihood."

There it is. It IS about incentives. If we didn't care about preserving incentives then why would we even have copyright or ip? We wouldn't.

I still think that in the future, a clear standard for opting in or out of having a work consumed by training models is probably going to be the best way to address the interests of all. Sure, it's not going to stop the models from getting better and better. Slow them down for a short spell maybe, but it is important that we do this the right way.

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redonihunter1 year ago

what the reason copyright exists in the first place might be.

I told you the reason. People wanted monopoly to print books. It is literally the right to copy. It is not called the right of being the creator and having complete control over the creation or the ideas represented in the creation.

Consider the fairy tales back then. No one even had a concept that it was not ok to retell a story they heard. Quite to the contrary. So what type of copyright did the Brothers Grimm aquire when writing them up and making a book out of it?

Or do you think any scribe asked permission when copying a book? That was not a concept, till the monopolies in book printing. And giving monopolies for certain items was common practice back in the day,

The history and hence the reason why this exists is neatly described in the wiki article about the thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

What you cited about the importance of copyright is an opinion piece. And it is badly worded.

The importance of copyright is an essential component of the modern educational experience.

So, the copyright is not the component, but the importance of copyright is the component. And it is only a part of the expericence, whatever is meant by experience.

Copyright is important as it helps to protect the value of an author/academic/researchers work, by giving the originator of the work the ability to protect it from unlicensed or uncredited usage. This leads to the prevention of their work being copied to the degree where they cannot sell it effectively or receive credit for it.

Why does it protect the value? It resctricts copies. That can also devalue your work, because no one might bother experiencing it. This type of value protection is probably meant like the shortening of a market, but the type of works we are talking about are not a item that can be short in supply, like sculptures. Also why qualify the prevention with, to sell it effectifly. And it works only by deterring, because practiacally, it prevents nothing, only gives means to legally retaliate.

(1) In this way, (2) copyright fosters intellectual creativity (3) as it provides an incentive for a creator to work freely, (4) allowing them to gain recognition for their work as well as protecting their livelihood."

Oh boy. What a convoluted conclusion/claim.

1 refers to the sentences before, wich I do not quite understand the flow of logic.

2 No, it does not. The creative mind does not need the knowledge that it's work is protected to be creative in the first place. You are not faced with the decision: should I be creative today or not, after all, my work would be protected by copyright. Might give it a try...

3 What incentive would that be? Freely as in unburdened, I assume. Because freely as in free lunch is what copyright tries prevent from happening. Is this like a safe space argument? Lack thereof never prevented true artists in the past, so which artists need that kind of incentive? It might hamper certain methods of publishing, but claiming an incentive to be creative is a bold claim. So if you are concerened with bootlegs you might not release your work in a certain country. That kind of thing.

4 Ahahahaaa. Sorry. But gaining recognition is not what copyright helps you with. It does the opposite. Unless you have big publisher pouring big money into advertising, no one will recognize you, just because your work is protected. And for small time self publishers, the quality of their work and the free advertising of the unauthorized distribution of parts or even the full work is what gives them recognition.

As for protection the livelihood, that is more a publisher thing. If art or writing is your livelihood and you have no employer (like a professional publisher), how would that work? You write texts and want to sell them? To whom? Well, maybe that opinion piece is a bit specific to the university context it was written for. If you are a researcher and someone publishes your work under their name, they might get the research funding.

Do not get me wrong. A thing like copyright is needed. Falsly attributing the creator is problematic. But I do not think, being the creator of something should give complete control , like companies are trying to do with those software patents (because they could not copyright the idea behind the code). And concepts like fair use or the control over the purchased copy in my own home are examples where copyright should end.

But I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that copyright is an incentive to be creative.

I concede that existence or lack of copyright is an incentive to chose certain methods of publishing. Just like those artists wanting to opt out of having their art used for ai training. It is a bit arrogant I think, to believe your art is important and good enough to set the standards of what an ai would think of concepts. On the other hand, if your art is that good, it is a bit sad, that you do not wish your art to be part of what future generations (of ai) will think how those concepts would look like. Imagine the inventor of an art style forbidding art students to imitate his style.

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robertgoodwin001 year ago

You have not supplied a reason for why we should have copyright. To say "Copyright exists because it gives the right to copy" or "Copyright exists to monopolize copying things." is begging the question. It doesn't tell us why recognizing such a concept is desirable. Best you said is, "A thing like copyright is needed. Falsely attributing the creator is problematic" which is a good start and only that.

And this is really about intellectual property, which copyright is one type of. "Copyright is valuable because it restricts copies" is not a particularly useful observation in the age where authored works can be digital. The history of book printing can only guide us so far. Why should intellectual property be protected?

Yes, any answer to that question WILL be an opinion. There is no avoiding that. It is fine to shoot down others' opinions but can you give your own?

Why should society care if false attribution is going on? That's just the author being arrogant enough to think their work is important enough to be setting standards, right? Why should society care if someone is upset that their ip is being used against their consent? Until you can answer that, you are still avoiding the question.

Or should we abolish intellectual property? Would it be a better world if everywhere was like China?

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redonihunter1 year ago

You have not supplied a reason for why we should have copyright. To say "Copyright exists because it gives the right to copy" or "Copyright exists to monopolize copying things." is begging the question.

I did not say this to my best understanding of English. You asked why there is copyright, I told you why. Because book press companies cried for monopoly to their rulers. That is why. It came into exstence and no one abolished it.

Then I disected the article you linked.

And then I said, I agree in principle that something like a copyright should exist. If you wanna know why I think this, it is because we are a society and have concepts like ownership and rules around it. I also mentioned examples where this copyright thing has gone too far and is misused.

So the question would be, if whatever rule of ownership of an idea or orginal work should cover the right to refuse to have this thing be used to influence other things. The thing in question being an algorithm learning from it. Because an outright copy would already be covered by existing copyright.

I could argue that including this right of refusal would represent an extension of copyright to also be a patent of the idea behind the original work. So no one else could learn enough of the idea of the work to make a similar work or a work based on similar principles.

So my current opinion is, that no permission would be needed, as it could not be given. Legally speaking. Just as a person would not need a permission to learn from that other work and get inspiration. But that person would also get strife for creating plagiarisms. So basically, I put more weight on the usage and less weight on the creation of those AI tools.

I am also of the opinion that it is shortsighted to put emphasis on the creation of the tools. Especially big companies would have no problems to aquire training material by other means and do AI anyways, but it now would not include the collective influence of all those people that opted out.

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