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0 pointslolinder1y ago0 comments

Yes. And the problem here isn't that companies get away with doing things like this, the problem is that individuals don't. Attempting to lock information behind a nightmarish legal system is the problem.

I'm pretty much at the point now where I don't buy the "copyright incentivizes creation" argument any more. Copyright, like advertising, incentivizes creation by enormous corporations, but also like advertising it incentivizes creations that overwhelmingly have little value.

Creative individuals don't need copyright to be incentivized to create—they need a safety net that gives them the freedom to spend time on the creativity that naturally wants to bubble out. If the goal is to encourage creativity, copyright is a lousy and enormously expensive substitute for Universal Basic Income.

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post-it1y ago

Also, in Canada, it's basically impossible to protect your IP as an individual due to the astronomical cost and lack of options to recover that cost. So copyright will never incentivize my creations, or those of any small creator.

derektank1y ago

Sure creative people will always create but the scope of that creativity will be limited if we do away with intellectual property. Steve Spielberg would probably always have created movies, but he wouldn't have been able to make Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan,or Indiana Jones without capital from the studio system, and the studio system wouldn't have provided him with that capital of they couldn't extract economic rents from the copyright for those films.

BriggyDwiggs421y ago

I think a limited, short copyright can do good that the current many-year copyright does not. Imagine a 1 year copyright in the context of film. Companies would prioritize box office sales no doubt, but that’s how it used to be and it was generally positive. It’s really the extremity of modern copyright that I think causes these issues.

ok_dad1y ago

Do we need to always have big-budget films and productions? Perhaps we should live smaller, and enjoy local art and low-budget films. Do I really care that Jurassic Park was made? I could read the book and it's more detailed and imaginative anyways, and any lessons to be learned are definitely better when read than when watching a blockbuster CGI film with more effects than message.

wk_end1y ago

"Let's create a world where all TV and movies have the production values of Public Access" is a poor pitch. Even if you don't mind that, you have to understand that, politically, it's a non-starter.

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zelphirkalt1y ago

They could have started a crowdfunded project and might still have made a great movie. If people truly like the created movie, why noch fund another one? Only no one would be paid millions for acting most likely, and that would be fine.

startupsfail1y ago

Nothing stops you from downloading Ann’s archive and training a model on it, right? The likelihood that you, as an individual, get sued over is is virtually zero.

This is what Meta tried to do, quietly download and use the data, to do research and advance their LLMs, without trying to establish any legal precedents or pick up fights.

immibis1y ago

In Germany people are sued for illegal movie downloading all the time. It's hard to imagine the companies behind that operation aren't aware that you can also download books.

ipaddr1y ago

People are also sued over books

teaearlgraycold1y ago

Individuals do get away with it all of the time.

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