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> > the copyright system creates a (relatively) shared understanding between creators and consumers that, by default, content cannot be redistributed, remixed, adapted or built upon without creators' consent. This shared understanding made it possible for a lot of content to be openly distributed on the Web.

> That is not remotely a shared understanding, is wrong, and has nothing to do with making it possible for a lot of content to be openly distributed on the web. Content is distributed quite widely without concern for copyright.

I'm not sure if the switch from active voice in the original quote to passive in yours was deliberate or not, but "understanding between creators and consumers" is very different from your "content is distributed".

It is the case, yes, that people widely distribute content on the web with no regard for copyright law. But those people aren't generally creators of that content.

The article is talking about the incentives that the web places on content creators. If the result of AIs harvesting every bit of content on the web and regurgitating it without sending consumers over to the creator's website, then creators will stop putting stuff online.

People cloning and resharing content without regard to copyright has not so far seemed to have systemic negative effects on the web. Search engines seem to be pretty good at pointing users to upstream original sources of copyright content, so plagiarism is commong but apparently not common enough to cause context authors to stop putting it online.

AI risks tipping that balance such that content creators really might stop posting stuff online. Why waste a meaningful chunk of your life creating a thing and putting it on the web if the only thing that will ever see it and know that it came from you is an AI slurping it up?

> It's the "less wealthy" who routinely find ways to distribute content outside of rent-seeking channels.

Again, I think you're presuming a world where content magically exists a priori and the network is simply a mechanism for deploying it. The article is about what happens when the system discourages people from making at all.

Poor people can find ways to pirate just about every book on Earth... except for those books that never ended up getting written because the incentives placed on the author didn't work out.

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The concept of copyright developed after the printing press came into use in Europe[16] in the 15th and 16th centuries.[17] It was associated with a common law and rooted in the civil law system.[18] The printing press made it much cheaper to produce works, but as there was initially no copyright law, anyone could buy or rent a press and print any text. Popular new works were immediately re-set and re-published by competitors, so printers needed a constant stream of new material. Fees paid to authors for new works were high, and significantly supplemented the incomes of many academics.[19] Printing brought profound social changes. The rise in literacy across Europe led to a dramatic increase in the demand for reading matter.[16] Prices of reprints were low, so publications could be bought by poorer people, creating a mass audience.[19] In German language markets before the advent of copyright, technical materials, like popular fiction, were inexpensive and widely available; it has been suggested this contributed to Germany's industrial and economic success.[19] After copyright law became established (in 1710 in England and Scotland, and in the 1840s in German-speaking areas) the low-price mass market vanished, and fewer, more expensive editions were published; distribution of scientific and technical information was greatly reduced.[19][20]