Pretty soon the world is going to come to realize art/creation is just blending, incrementing and repurposing prior art.
No book, painting, codebase, sonnet, design is theft-less.
The art is the space reduction, otherwise we’d just bruteforce away.
No book, painting, codebase, sonnet, design is theft-less.
The art is the space reduction, otherwise we’d just bruteforce away.
The Magnificent Seven for instance was a reworking of Seven Samurai, but stands on its own as an original creation. Going into a cinema and filming a picture to later put on a torrent site is not artistic reworking.
The hard discussion is about what is acceptable, we all know prior art exists.
What if we just say "both"? Libraries were a thing for millenia and writers still wrote books. There are costs to IP laws and the benefits aren't obvious.
As a consumer, it's quite obvious to me too how it benefits only the writer/creator at the detriment of everyone else.
So either those pieces are IP-protected, and their author can make money with it, or we have to set up a basic income for everyone, and art becomes free.
1. Creators get a sustainable reward for their work. They wouldn't do it otherwise. I certainly don't do it for fun.
2. Consumers get to access that work as they wish.
(Of course, this being HN, I'd expect any ideas to apply to developers as well as to writers and artists i.e. if writers have to give up copyright, so do developers, startups, and so on.)
How about 14 year max copyright terms? Make copyright unsellable and uninheritable, so you don't get massive copyright hoarding entities that can distort legislation for their own benefit?
That's just two suggestions off the top of my head. I do get tired by false dichotomies.
I am not familiar with how it works in other countries, but I have heard something about there being such a fee.
(It's not quite true to say libraries have existed for "millenia" though, with regard to this issue. Mass produced printing hasn't in fact existed for millenia, libraries 1000 years ago had hand-copied manuscripts, probably mostly scrolls. The effect on "the market"? For whatever reason authors were writing then it was not to make money by selling reproductions of their writings, that wasn't a thing. Which means, yeah, btw, people still wrote things and made up stories even when they couldn't make money by charging people for copies to read...)
And it's a symbolic amount for vast majority of authors (country-wide it's around 5-5000 USD per year per author and the distribution is heavily skewed towards 5 USD).
So yeah :) I think authors were fine without these 5 bucks a year.
EDIT cause it might not be obvious. It's not per library. It's per country.
This seems to be missing a word, could you clarify?
Also: since you mentioned theft: this actually comes down to the discussion whether you can own thought and/or digital artifacts which can be replicated without taking anything away from the "owner".
Given the absolute choice I'd rather pick complete freedom than restriction. I suspect that anyone's opinion on this follows what they value higher: creation or exploitation.
If that happens, the big copyright/IP conglomerates will immediately jump on that and make sure that laws are adjusted and they get their cut of every single word and line anyone puts near their smartphones ;)
That applies to everything, its even a basic law of physics, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Any layperson already knows what a remix is anyway so not sure what you think will change
This intrinsic motivation is more normally "farmed" by investors who capitalize and capture the IP value for themselves. This actually has a detrimental effect on innovation.
Doing away with or watering down intellectual property protections will just take big meaty chunks out of the stock market and partly equalize wealth distribution.
It'll probably spur innovation too - historically it usually has, but preserving the existing social order takes precedence over that which is why a lot is invested in persisting the myth that it aids rather than hinders innovation.
Citation needed. Speaking personally, I spend most of my creative energy on a project which is open source and permissively licensed to the point where I’m fine with anyone stealing it. I expect to earn negative money from it at the limit.
Why do I do it? I dunno it’s fun. Can’t that be enough?
Would you describe a parody, or a critique/review, as equally without original merit?
And I'm sure I couldn't disagree with you more. Or are 'influence' and 'theft' the same now?
They have been the same for most of history. People could openly copy titles, plots, parts, phrases, etc from prior work. Same for mechanical designs. The only thing preventing them was obscurity (e.g. the inventor trying to make it hidden) not any law or ethical idea that it's bad (there wasn't any). That's how things from math to gears to tunes got better (or changed over time, in the case of art, as better/worse is subjective there).
E.g. globally and historically folk music has been basically taking whatever you want from tunes and songs where everybody does the same with no "permission" asked or needed to be given.
Like 4 verses but want to add a fifth or change some part? Go ahead. Want to play it exactly like you've heard it? Go ahead again.
The idea of "theft" in that regard came in the last 2 or so centuries, and was enforced with artificial legal barriers and new "ethical" concepts that are neither "natural", not present for the vast majority of history (including golden ages of art production).
Your example of folk music is an odd one, for exactly that reason - it largely repurposes existing art. For example, Wagner wrote extensively about why we shouldn't respect folk music for this reason. I mostly disagree with him, but his comparison at least illuminates that this isn't so black and white. And that's really just scratching the surface of a complex topic.
I sense that if someone came along 2400 years ago with the exact play that Sophocles had just produced and claimed they had just composed it themselves, immediately after a public performance, someone would claim that theft had occurred. Do you disagree?
Yes. They would say it was "plagiarism", which is different than theft.
And there was no law against either case.
You'd be surprised. Especially if people don't care/are told/whether it's "created by AI or not".
Whether in "high art" or lowly pop, "generative music" (and fine art) has long been a thing. And people do attach to it (e.g. to Brian Eno's generative works made by rule based systems he programs).
Art doesn't touch people because it has cost.
In fact, for ages certain types of art had no cost - poetry, public festivals, and so on. And many still don't (e.g. free punk/underground/indie/etc public performances), Soundcloud music, and so on.
Most movies and series seen on TV are also ~0 (and for kids, everything is ~0, as their parents foot the bill), but they're still touched by them.
>The only real question is how will human artists (provided they exist in your preferred dystopia) will prove that they have created something themselves.
Note the loaded words "your preffered dystopia" (who says whether I prefer it or not? I merely describe what's the case. You have some ethical/political point to make).
As for the answer to the question, they wont have to. People respond to the quality of the work, not who made it (and whether they used AI or chance - another popular method - or not).
In fact tons of genius artists have described themselves not as the creators but as "mere conduits", and say the music/words/etc come from "elsewhere" (implying god, some muse, some spirit, etc). Especially when they fell the most "inspired" (the word itself means "visited by the spirit").
>People respond to the quality of the work, not who made it
This is so painfully incorrect and naive (and contra anything we know about the value of everything which creation has been automated before) that I think it's meaningless to continue this conversation.
As if that proves anything? Sale price is irrelevant. There are paintings sold for millions that 99.9% of the people could not give less fucks for, and "amateur painter" stuff that touch most people who see them.
It's also not like a $2 million in production costs Michael Jackson song with $50M sales is "better" artistically (as opposed to commercially) than a song composed and played by some random guy on an acoustic for ~0.
>This is so painfully incorrect and naive (and contra anything we know about the value of everything which creation has been automated before) that I think it's meaningless to continue this conversation.
It was meaningless to begin with, as you don't discuss, you present your "ultimate truth" ("contra anything we know", lol).
In fact there are tons of works where the creator is anonymous (from folk music and art to early house, techno and rave music, a scene with cherished anonymity), and people respond to it just fine...
This is true for other forms of property as well, like land ownership.
I don't think it will any time soon though.