Wow, this take is so utterly infuriating. There's so much wrong with this take on so many levels that I wonder if it isn't just trolling.

Let me answer it in what I think is the most generous reading:

Copyright is not meant to be used a bludgeon to inhibit the sharing of ideas, it's meant to incentivize the creation of works while still providing a mechanism to enhance the commons [0].

The limitations of copyright are:

* You cannot copyright ideas, only realizations [1]

* Copyrighted works can be copied without the authors consent if it falls under fair use [2]. In particular, the amount republished is considered in addition to whether it harms the original copyrighted author

* To show copyright infringement, you have to show a "substantial similarity" [3] and have the challenged work in question not be protected under other non-infringing uses [4] such as being an "aggregator" or other such service

In particular, if we're having a conversation about copyright but we don't talk about scraping for search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) or other aggregation services, then I'd ask why Google is allowed to aggregate information but everyone else isn't.

In terms of 'transformative work', I'd point out that many artists copy the style of other artists, sometimes even using code, and while there are many "ethical" dilemmas that artists bring up about this point, this very clearly falls outside of the scope of copyright.

Also, to not talk about the over reach of copyright, the nearly 100+ year copyright terms and the level of automation to demonitize and bully smaller artists using copyrighted work fairly is negligent.

Is this harming artists more than it's helping? If so, why is the argument different now than when it was used in the past for similar issues?

Let's say an artist is mad that their work got used in one of these AI models. How would they prove it? What if it turned out that the model was actually using work from another, older, artist that the angry artist used as an influence and didn't actually use any of the "angry" artists work at all. Should we start suing the angry artist because they made their art "in the style of" the older artist?

I'm all for having these conversations but hot takes like this are simplistic and counter productive.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Limitat...