2y ago

Copyright and why it's broken. - Tom Scott

So recently there has been a lot of debate on AI-generated art and its copyright. I've read a lot of comments recently that made me think of this video and I want to highly encourage everyone to watch it, maybe even watch it again if you already viewed it. Watch it specifically with the question "If an AI did it, would it change anything?"

Right now, AI-generated works aren't copyrightable. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/ai-generator-art-text-us-copyright-policy-1234661683/ This means you can not copyright the works produced by AI.

I work in games so this is more seemingly relevant to me than maybe it is to you. https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/03/valve-responds-to-claims-it-has-banned-ai-generated-games-from-steam/ Steam has outright said, earlier this month, that it will not publish games on its platform without understanding if the training data has been of images that aren't public domain.

So right now, common AI is producing works that are potentially copyright-infringing works and are unable to be copyrighted themselves.

So with this information, should copyright exist, and if not, how do you encourage artists and scientists to produce works if they no longer can make a living off of it?

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Artists and scientists can make a living of their work without copyright. CC BY SA and creative commons in general doesnt prevent you from selling your work and people can support art/science without it being behind paywalls. We need to move to a culture where we don’t try to enforce everything with the threat of jail/punishments and move to a culture where we support things we love because we want the creators to be able to continue creating without worry
- Artists and scientists can make a living of their work without copyright. CC BY SA and creative commons in general doesnt prevent you from selling your work and people can support art/science without it being behind paywalls.
  Honestly, show me a large-scale work that was CC BY SA that made money. A book, movie, or game that was funded only by those donating. They are extremely rare. Especially as I know a few people who have released GPL, freeware, and CC BY SA games and have made far less than what they spent on the project. It doesn't prevent you from trying to ask for what are essentially donations but I can tell you with certainty you get far less money asking for donations than you do selling.
  We need to move to a culture where we don’t try to enforce everything with the threat of jail/punishments and move to a culture where we support things we love because we want the creators to be able to continue creating without worry
  I absolutely agree, just don't take away artists' ability to live first. Move towards that culture first, then get rid of the tools that currently make artists money. Copyright, right now, is almost the sole mechanic in society that allows people to make money off their art on a real scale.
  
  Yeah, but honestly that doesn’t work too well either, does it.
  In my opinion, in the majority of cases copyright only helps those who are already famous and the companies that own the copyright*.
  I don’t know much about books (but from what I have read, authors here also get scraps), but the film industry is all over the media right now, so I think everybody is aware that even actors of really successful shows get literal pennies for their work: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-signalled-the-rot-inside-the-streaming-economy
  I do know a lot about (parts of) the music industry to confidently say: it’s the same.
  Sure, you have some people who are doing well, extremely well as a matter of fact, but the vast majority of artists have a really hard time getting by. And I’m not talking about the local band playing in the pub with nobody listening, I’m talking about people who tour around the world and play in front of thousands of people.
  And unless it’s some really major case of infringement (like taking a song and publish it as your own) they’re neither helped nor do they care much about copyright.
  Who does care is, e.g., the German GEMA, a company who watches public performances of copyrighted work, so if you’re playing a song from another band, or playing copyrighted music in a mall, you have to tell them. Allegedly they’re there to ensure fair compensation of artists, in reality they only pay themselves most dearly.
  ) This is a bit complicated for me to write about, because under German law you have a creator’s right, which you cannot ever sell or lose, and a copyright, which allows temporary or permanent reproduction of your work. „Stealing“ a song, as mentioned above, wouldn’t be a copyright infringement, but a creator’s right infringement.
  
  Absolutely, which goes to show we probably need tougher copyright laws. Copyright laws that aren't transferrable like creators' rights. Right now people are trying to weaken copyright law altogether. I had someone in another conversation say that copyright laws should be thrown away entirely so we should just essentially treat them like they aren't there.
  That said copyright laws also help those who can't afford lawyers. I've seen indie game developers threaten the copyright of a studio to get paid. Saying that the copyright was transferred on payment, which was in the contract. The threat alone got them paid because the larger studio knew that if pressed, this would be an open-and-shut case.
  
  Copyright helps people who can’t afford lawyers? What? If they can’t afford the lawyers then they’re essentially bluffing and hoping the company doesnt want to risk a lawsuit. If the company decided to call the bluff then the person who can’t afford the lawyers not better pray the lawsuit covers their lawyer fees or they will be in a ton of debt.
  Copyright protects corporations and people who are rich enough to afford lawsuits.
  We dont need more copyright, we need more tools to find the original source of art (reverse image search type tools) and tools/culture that make it easier for artists to get paid and supported by fans
  
  You don't need a lawyer to take someone to court. Also, a lot of states have small claims courts which don't allow lawyers. I do agree that it's not currently proportional but if you watched the video, the UK is starting a way to solve this with smaller court systems that can be used to fight false copyright DMCAs and take on smaller cases. The US has small claims court which honestly should probably be simply capped a lot higher than it is.
  
  No, we absolutely do not need tougher laws, we already have ridiculously tough laws.
  The problem is that people can not and probably will never agree on what is actually copyrighteable. And if you look into the respective laws you’ll always find rubber words, like „elements of originality“, in Germany it’s „threshold of creation“.
  I pointed out two cases in some other comment here, but here are two more:
  European newspaper publishers (lead, of course, by the Germans) established a EU law that it’s infringing their copyright if you take a snippet of a news article, even if you directly link to the newspaper in question. They were salty about google doing that, so they made it a law. Then google said, „well fuck off“ and threw them out. I don’t know what the current status is, I think the publishers realized they fucked up and now everybody acts like nothing happened or something.
  Or: there’s a legal dispute going on between the German hip-hop producer Moses Pelham and the band Kraftwerk, about a 2 second (!) Kraftwerk sample Pelham used in 1997 (!). This thing ended up IIRC five times in front of Germany’s highest civil court, once in front of Germany’s constitutional court (freedom of art, you know), and a few years ago it was handed to the EU court, which handed it back and the last thing I heard is that they need to bring it to the EU court again because they still have questions… And all of this revolves mainly around the question „when is it okay to sample someone else’s work?“. For 25 years courts are trying to find a definition, and every decision is full of ridiculous money quotes.
  Edit: I guess it has long passed the point of being a legal dispute, it’s become more like an extremely elaborate discussion of platonic idealism or something.
  So, no, I disagree, we need less laws. And we can do that. Take science: yeah, we have creator’s right, but it’s treated as a moral failure to outright plagiarise someone without attribution, and you will lose your „scientist“ badge. Other than that reusing other people’s work is not just okay but a fundamental principle of science, you know, „standing on the shoulders of giants“, like that.
  We could treat art the same, yet somehow we don’t.
  
  The science industry is filled with patents and the inability to commercially reproduce works. The fundamental difference is how art is paid for as a product and science is licensed under patents to companies. Would you rather have a system where you could draw with pink but you need to pay the pink patent license holder?
  Also, I am saying stronger copyright laws for the humans creating the works. I'd argue extremely strong copyrights would be those which do not allow a corporation to actively hold copyright but instead licenses to redistribute from individuals.
  
  Ah, patents, finally someone opens the next pandora’s box… 😅
  Well, that’s a bit what someone else tried to argue with the idea vs implementation of an idea argument.
  But it’s different here, you cannot have a patent on „science“. You cannot patent the theory of relativity or Newton‘s laws of motion.
  What you can patent is a product or a process or a technology which uses science, so you can have a patent on some gps technology which uses Einstein‘s work. Nobody gave old Albert a dime for using his theory though (okay he was also already dead).
  But how would you like to transfer that to music? Do you want to patent the performance but the composition (the science) can be „quoted“ by anyone? Not sure where you’re going with this.
  And btw you are already paying someone to be able to use the colour pink. You cannot patent the colour itself, but you can patent the product and the process. Producing reliable colours is an industry, they’re not for free.
  Edit: we also have many, many areas in science where creating a patent based on the results is not the motivation nor expected because in many areas it’s not even a possibility.
  
  The core of my argument is that art is a product, and science is funded through the ability to market it. Ideas aren't patentable but science is not just "ideas". Science doesn't mean anything unless you apply it. Applied Science is implementations that are patentable. It's why concepts like game mechanics are patentable.
  Art fundamentally makes money differently than science does. This is why things like scientists freely offer papers describing studies and research while making money off of implementations of that research. In digital art, colors are free. The issue is then the monitors and display of that color change depending on implementation. That implementation isn't free. Color systems in digital art are the like the research side of science where the implementation of it is a copyrighted artwork. The applied art created a product just like the science side. They both work the same.
  
  Yeah, that’s just plain wrong. Science isn’t just engineering, you know. Again, outside of the actual „applied sciences“ (engineering, pharmaceuticals, etc) rarely anyone produces something that can be marketed, and even if so, it’s by chance. Einstein did not develop his theory of relativity to „market it“. Many areas are only producing results to further our understanding of the world, and we as a society pay them to do so.
  
  we as a society pay them to do so.
  Yeah, how much did Einstein make when writing the paper on special relativity?
  
  I thought science is funded by the ability to market it, what is it now, make up your mind 🤪
  Einstein had a job at a Federal Department. Which is unusual, as a matter of fact (so be free take someone else if you like as an example), because – I don’t know if you have heard about this – usually science happens at something called a university. Which is payed by something called taxes.
  And now please go and waste someone else‘s time, clown
  
  Thanks for pointing out the difference in Germany with respect to copyright and author ownership/rights! That's really interesting, and the foundation could be used to extend rights for artists vs the power corporations have over their works - e.g. no license exclusivity as that seems to go against the spirit of the law.
  
  How does copyright currently help small artists? They sue someone for violating their copyright? You dont need to copyright your game to sell it on steam, itch, etc.
  
  You absolutely need copyrights to sell your game on Steam or itch. The copyright doesn't need to be actively registered but that's because you have implicit copyright to the things you create. That said you still need copyright and it's why Valve is no longer selling games with AI-generated content. Because they can't prove the content they are selling belongs to the people they are selling it on the behalf of.
  Copyright helps small artists by protecting them. You can easily take someone to small claims. Lawyers work pro bono if they are confident in the case. Copyright helps by enforcing that what small artists make is truly theirs. I was working on a small indie game called Squad in 2016 in which someone stole our game assets. A simple notice from our retainer lawyer did the trick.
  
  Because they can’t prove the content they are selling belongs to the people they are selling it on the behalf of.
  Sorry, this better not be the reason. Book publishers sell books that are in the public domain all the time. You can publish public domain works on Steam too.
  AI generated content is in the public domain.
  I’m pretty sure Steam doesn’t want to publish it because they don’t know the provenance of the training material and don’t want to support people using unlicensed works in their training material for their AI model.
  That’s not about copyright directly, it’s about choosing what sort of projects to support and publish.
  
  Yes, the public domain belongs to everyone.
  I’m pretty sure Steam doesn’t want to publish it because they don’t know the provenance of the training material and don’t want to support people using unlicensed works in their training material for their AI model.
  That's correct. They can't confirm the training data didn't commit copyright infringement.
  Something in the public domain means everyone essentially has the right to copy it in any form. Thus you still need the copyrights to distribute on Steam, even if that copyright is public domain.
  That’s not about copyright directly, it’s about choosing what sort of projects to support and publish.
  I don't get what you mean by that because it's entirely about the copyrights of the content and if the owner is allowed to distribute them.
  
  If something is in the public domain, there is no copyright. That’s what public domain means. Now, someone could try to place something into the public domain incorrectly that still has someone else’s copyright claim on it, but LLMs don’t do that (usually): a work created via an LLM is in the public domain. Nobody reserves any rights.
  Because there are no rights reserved, there’s no copyright issues.
  BUT that doesn’t mean that infringement hasn’t already been committed by the person who created the training set IF you stand by the argument that a training set has no right to include a work unless it’s in the public domain or permission has been granted by any rights holders.
  That last bit I covered earlier; it is a philosophical stance people take, but it’s not the only one, and as of now it has no legal backing. Others claim fair use, which pre-empts any copyright claims. And remember, this is about creating the training set and NOT about generative works, which are in the public domain.
  
  Others claim fair use, which pre-empts any copyright claims.
  Yeah, in the end, that's going to come down to what is transformative work and if transformative work can be done solely by a tool.
  this is about creating the training set and NOT about generative works, which are in the public domain.
  They are only in the public domain if they are transformative works. Otherwise, they are derived works and subject to the original copyright and thus copyright infringing works.
  If something is in the public domain, there is no copyright. That’s what public domain means.
  Sure, everyone has the right to copy it. There are no copyrights given out to one person. At this point, that's just semantics.
  Now, someone could try to place something into the public domain incorrectly that still has someone else’s copyright claim on it, but LLMs don’t do that (usually): a work created via an LLM is in the public domain. Nobody reserves any rights.
  That's the argument though. LLMs potentially are attempting to put works into the public domain by copying them, creating works based on them, then because it's not made by a human, placing them in the public domain. If the works an LLM is seen as derived from the training set and the training set is copyrighted content then an LLM is creating copyright infringing works and attempting to place them into the public domain.
- Well... maybe.
  Artists are able to work off of commissions, assuming that there is a demand for their art. (Getting that demand is the tricky part.) If people don't want their work on its own, then they have to work at a corporation - maybe making concept art, or drawing animation cels, or whatever. None of that art is owned by them; it's typically in the contract the artist signs when they become employed. Anything they make belongs to the corporation.
  I used to work for Disney - in their theme parks, not as an artist - and even my employment contract said that any idea I had while Disney was my employer was property of Disney. Literally, if I had an idea on the job, I could not monetize it. If I thought of an idea for a video game or novel or movie, Disney owned that idea just because they were my employer.
  Now. Could they enforce that? No way. But they could try, and as Tom points out then it doesn't matter if I'm in the write or not - Disney has expensive lawyers, I do not.
  Scientists need grant money to do science. You have to convince a panel of experts that you have a good idea, and that your idea is worth throwing grant money at. Then you use that grant money to pay yourself and your assistants while you perform an experiment. This grant money can be from a university... or it could be from a corporation doing research and development for new concepts or ideas. If you make a discovery, the corporation might be able to patent that, since you were on their payroll at the time.
  Making things Creative Commons doesn't magically make money appear. When you get paid by someone wanting to publish your work, they are specifically buying out your copyright on that work - they can do whatever they wish with it after. (Famously, this is why the first Harry Potter book is called "Sorcerer's Stone" in the US, because the publisher owned the copyright and changed the name.)
  Creative Commons, therefore, is completely at odds with traditional publishing, since you can't sell your copyright to them. You can still self-publish, of course... but that's a whole can of worms. Not to mention that it's incredibly easy these days to have AI churn out 80k words of BS and sell it on Amazon for $1.99. You don't need many sales to break even.
  
  But the problem with Disney owning your work is because of copyright. Disney makes you sign a contract that says they own the copyright of whatever you do and they have the lawyers to sue you. Copyright is used by these corporations to sue people into submission I dont see how copyright protects small artists

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