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Comment by OsrsNeedsf2P | Hacker News Reader

As a long-time sailor, this case may have no impact on regular folks, but I maintain a fool's hope a Meta victory will significantly weaken the copyright system.

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It's already pretty weak, in terms of it's stated goals, to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Perhaps reform is a better direction to go.

The only way I see copyright weakening is that you and anyone without enough money[1] loses its protection, while Disney keeps it.

[1]: All your favorite authors, journalists, anything indie.

As a long-time writer, this case will have impact on me, but I maintain a fool's hope a Meta loss will significantly weaken IP-laundering megacorps.

As a long-time writer, this case will have little impact on me, but I maintain a hope it’ll expand the limits of fair use and let us make more shared worlds than we’re allowed to.

Fair use was designed for teachers photocopying pages of Walden for their pupils to read over the weekend. Not industrial-scale laundering of IP to benefit shareholders.

So if the latter is fine, then publishing fanfiction should be a small ask, right?

fanfiction can already be published. You just aren't allowed to sell it.

Unless it's funny enough to qualify as parody.

im sorry, is this article about meta training its ai on fanfiction or something or are you just trying to shoehorn in your pet issue

> Fair use was designed for teachers photocopying pages of Walden for their pupils to read over the weekend.

Walden was first published in 1854. At the time, the maximum length of copyright in the US was 28 years (14 at first + 14 on renewal).

Notions of "fair use" in the US can be traced back to the mid-1800s, too. There were court rulings, but fair use was not codified into law until 1976. Non-profit educational use was explicitly called out in 1976 also.

Photocopiers were first patented in 1937.

I'm certain you understood my point.

I just want writers to receive a bigger share of the cake, so publisher megacorps aren't the ones grabbing the lion's share. Writers could make a better living, and copyright could be reformed so corpos can't gate popular culture for more than two generations.

Writers decide if they want to use a publisher and which publishers to use. With the internet, I don't think any good author needs to rely on a traditional publisher.

Not really. I don't just walk up to Random House and get my book on the B&N endcap. Also please define good author.

Anybody can self publish on Apple Books, and probably on Amazon as well. Who cares about Random House, or B&N endcap (whatever that is). A "good author" in this case is somebody who can independently make sure his book is readable, and doesn't have to rely on a publisher to fix spelling, get pages in order, and such.

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