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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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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.
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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
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