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kelseyfrog

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Can't you say that about anything, though? And why would having a multi-mellenia history have anything to do with it?

Do people really own land? Or is it just a legal fiction to make things easier?

Is a contract really a thing? Or is it a legal fiction?

Times change. IP is a thing now. It's kinda funny to see somebody on a software developer forum arguing IP doesn't exist.

Money is a social fiction following this argument so I can just stop by your place and take yours.

Money is an analogy.

Money represents a store of value. I work an hour and get money, that represents the value of my work. I then use that value to get a pig, a string, and two oranges, with the value of those items represented by what I paid.

I could have bartered for those items. Money just made that trade easier.

Property is a legal construct. (“Fiction” implies that legal constructs are intended to say something about external reality, such that there could also be contrasting “legal nonfiction”, but all the constructs are equally constructed and equally not dictated by reality but instead by what someone thinks will have desirable effects on reality.)

The question for any category of property is whether it is a socially useful construct or not, not whether it has a basis is nature.

OK but all the software code the AI companies write is also IP so they're probably not going to make the argument that all of their stuff should be fair game too.

Without IP though you lose incentive to invest in new stuff. IP is made up just like saying murder is made up. Both are just concepts but necessary concepts to keep society on track.

That being said, I don't know if I agree that the AI companies are violating IP rights.

Without IP, information becomes controlled by centralized online services with DRM which show ads, meter access, monitor your activity, make specializations, and can take it all away at any time. That's the system we ended up with, after humanity failed to voluntarily respect IP holders rights under the old system that let you buy/own content. Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.

This doesn't make sense. The mechanism by which "information becomes controlled by centralized online services with DRM" is copyright law. Without copyright law, "DRM" wouldn't be a thing. Without some concept of "intellectual property", there is nothing for copyright law to protect.

My point is you don't need the legal concept of intellectual property if you can't access the information. For example, people tried to sell software. But consumers didn't respect software IP and just pirated it. If IP isn't respected and isn't feasible to enforce, then it de facto doesn't exist. So now software developers run the software as a service and only allow you to interact with it through a web browser. Since copyright laws were effectively worthless to protecting developer interests, developers found a solution to commercialization that didn't require copying the software.

Right, I misunderstood. Thanks for the additional clarification.

IP exists in your head. You have knowledge that no one else has and it is your property.

IP law recognizes this ground truth and creates a legal framework that allows IP to be traded in the economy which creates an incentive for people to share their IP.

What do you mean by "in your head"? A book I have printed, a photograph I have printed, a trademark that can be printed, these are tangible artifacts and the original IP.

Well, it's your property until you decide to share it with someone else.

Ownership would be the fiction. Copyright started after things began to be printed and the church/royalty lost their monopoly on writing.

Aviation rules are legal fiction. It has no basis in nature nor reality. If it did, we would have had a multi-millennia history of flying.

This is true, but I don't care. Anything that's bad for AI is good.

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