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The idea of open sourcing everything and nullifying patents would benefit corporations like Disney and OpenAI vastly more than it would benefit the people. The first thing that would happen is that BigCorp would eat up every interesting or useful piece of art, technology, and culture that has ever been created and monetize the life out of it.

These legal protections are needed by the people. To the Pirate Party's credit, undoing corporate personhood would be a good first step, so that we can focus on enforcing protections for the works of humans. Still, attributing those works to CEOs instead of corporations wouldn't result in much change.

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pixl97 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

>The first thing that would happen is that BigCorp would eat up every interesting or useful piece of art, technology, and culture that has ever been created and monetize the life out of it.

Wait, I'm still trying to figure out the difference between your imaginary world and the world we live in now?

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Lerc 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think the main difference is if everything were freely available they may attempt to monetize the life out of it, but they will fail if they can't actually provide something people actually want. There's no more "You want a thing so you're going to buy our thing because we are the exclusive providers of it. That means we don't even have to make it very good"

If anyone in the world could make a Star Wars movie, the average Star Wars movie would be much worse, but the best 10 Star Wars movies might be better that what we currently have.

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drob518 4 days ago | parent [-]

I’m sure the best independent Star Wars movie would be infinitely better than what Disney has been shoveling out for the last couple decades.

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loki-ai 4 days ago | parent [-]

Such a talented team would be able to make a great movie on the same theme.

Saying the lack of creativity in the industry in because we can't copy things freely is completely moronic.

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autoexec 3 days ago | parent [-]

It's a major hindrance. For example, if I came up with an amazing creative idea for a star wars movie I couldn't do a damn thing with it unless Disney told me I could. Disney isn't likely to accept an unsolicited pitch from a total nobody who just happened to have a great idea either. I don't see how you could doubt that there are a lot of great works of art that won't ever exist because of the fact that copyright prevents them from ever getting off the ground.

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apersona 3 days ago | parent [-]

You can't do a damn thing with it not because of copyright, but because you don't have the resources to make the movie in the first place.

	▲	autoexec 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Copyright can stop me from making a star wars movie about wizards fighting each other with laser swords in space. Even if I don't make a star wars movie, if I make a movie that makes disney feel threatened because it's close enough to being a star wars movie I could still end up losing in courts. There are plenty of examples of copyright hurting people for creating something that wasn't exactly the same as something else which was copyrighted. Copyright is a threat to all creative works. The bigger the investment required for a creative work, the bigger the risk. For this reason, we see it a lot more often in music where the investment needed is lower than films. People have been successfully sued because they wrote a totally new song that was in the same genre as someone else's song https://abovethelaw.com/2018/03/blurred-lines-can-you-copy-a...

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dragontamer 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Thor would have red hair in the imaginary world, rather than being a Blonde man which was made to be a somewhat distinguished comic book character.

The Disney or otherwise copyrighted versions allow for unique spins on these old characters to be re-copyrighted. This Thor from Disney/Marvel is distinguished from Thor from God of War.

	▲	runarberg 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> “Before starting the series, we stuffed ourselves to the gills with Norse mythology, as well as almost every other type of mythology – we love it all! But you’ve got to remember that these are legendary tales – myths – and no two versions are ever exactly the same. We changed a lot of things – for example, in most of the myths Thor has red hair, Odin has one eye, etc. But we preferred doing our own version.” https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/54400/why-did-earl... Huh, did not know that. As an Icelandic person I knew about Þór the Norse god much earlier than Thor the marvel character. I never really pictured his hair color, nor knew he had a specific hair color in the mythology. I actually always pictured him with a beard though. What mostly mattered though was his characteristics. His ill temper and drinking habits, and the fact that he was not a nice person, nor a hero, but rather a guy who starts shit that gets everyone else in trouble, he also wins every fight except one (he looses one against Elli [the personification of old age]). The little I’ve seen of him in the Marvel movies, he keeps almost none of these characteristics. EDIT: My favorite story of him is the depiction of the fall of Ásgarður, where Loki and some Jötun are about to use the gods vanity against them and con them out of stuff they cannot actually pay for a wall around Ásgarður. Þór, being the way he is, cannot be around a Jötun without fighting and killing him. So rather than paying up (which the gods cannot do) Þór is sent to see this Jötun, knowing very well that he will be murdered. This betrayal is marked as the beginning of the end in Völuspá (verse 26).

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dcow 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How do restaurants work, then? You can’t copyright a recipe. Instructions can’t generally be copyrighted, otherwise someone would own the fastest route from A to B and charge every person who used it. The whole idea of intellectual property gets really weird when you try to pinpoint what exactly is being owned.

I do not agree with your conjecture that big corps would win by default. Ask why would people need protection from having their work stolen when the only ones welding weaponized copyright are the corporations. People need the freedom to wield culture without restriction, not protection from someone having the same idea as them and manifesting it.

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singleshot_ 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

It’s more reasonable to say that the idea of intellectual property is challenging for nonlawyers because of the difficulty in understanding ownership not as one thing, but as a bundle of various elements of control, exclusion, obligation, or entitlement, even some of which spring into existence out of nowhere.

In other words, the challenge is not to understand “what exactly is being owned,” and instead, to understand “what exactly being owned is.”

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Avicebron 4 days ago | parent [-]

> what exactly being owned is.

Thank you, this is beautifully put and very astute. Does a recipe, a culmination of a lifetime of experience, technique, trials, errors, and luck constitute a form of someone/thing's person-hood such that it can be Intellectual Property.

	▲	singleshot_ 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It depends. First I think we could make a distinction between not-intellectual-property and intellectual-property-with-no-protection but that doesn’t seem to be what you’re getting at. Have you taken reasonable steps to keep it secret? It could be a trade secret and if course if you steal the recipe for KFC’s herbs and spices, you will be liable for civil damages for your misappropriation of their trade secret. And if you describe a recipe in flowery prose, reminiscing about the aromas in grandmas kitchen, of course that prose is copyrightable. Should you invent a special kind of chicken fry mix and give us a fanciful name, the recipes identifier if origin - its trademark -could be protectable. But the fact that your chicken fry mix is made of corn starch and bread crumbs is a fact, like a phone book. Under most circumstances, not protectable. ianyl tinla

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api 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A restaurant is a small manufacturing facility that produces a physical product. It’s not the same at all.

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dcow 4 days ago | parent [-]

An artist is a small manufacturing facility that produces a physical (canvas, print, mp3, etc) product, no?

What is different about the production of Micky Mouse cartoons? Why is it normal for industries to compete in manufacturing of physical product, but as soon as you can apply copyright, now you exclusively have rights to control anything that produces a similar result?

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api 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Let’s say I write a book or record an album and there is no copyright. How do I get paid?

Musicians I suppose can tour, which is grueling but it’s something. Authors, programmers, actors, game studios, anything that’s not performed live would immediately become non-viable as a career or a business.

Large corporations would make money of course, by offering all you can eat streaming feeds of everything for a monthly fee. The creators get nothing.

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autoexec 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

>. Let’s say I write a book or record an album and there is no copyright. How do I get paid?

I've purchased books that were in the public domain and without copyright. I've paid for albums I could already legally listen to for free. I've paid for games and movies that were free to play and watch. I'm far from the only person who has or would.

The people who pirate the most are also the ones who spend the most money on the things they pirate. They are hardcore fans. They want official merch and special boxed sets. People want to give the creators of the things they love their money and often feel conflicted about having to give their cash to a far less worthy corporation in the process. There are people who love music but refuse to support the RIAA by buying albums.

There are proven ways to make profit in other ways like "pay what you want" or even "fund in advance" crowdsourced models. If copyright went away or, more ideally, were limited to a much shorter period of time (say 8-10 years) artists would continue to find fans and make money.

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api 3 days ago | parent [-]

You’re talking about individual piracy. I’m talking about huge scale corporate piracy, which is already happening (laundered through AI algorithms and other ways) and would happen a lot more if copyright vanished.

Part of what muddies the water here too is that copyright lasts too long. Companies like Disney lobbied for this successfully. It should have a time horizon of maybe 25 years, 50 at most.

	▲	dcow 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Well technically it wouldn’t be piracy once copyright banished. It’d be remixing, appropriation, derivative, etc., all legal. So make copyright like patents. That’s what a lot of the copyleft movement has been arguing for forever. Make a copyright holder demonstrate their idea is unique, manifests into a tangible output, and if so protect the creator for a limited time. Everyone is free to use the work in their own provided they pay royalties at a reasonable rate for the duration of the patent. But the status quo now with basically perpetual copyright controlled by large media conglomerates 100% stifles culture and is a net negative on society. It’s not the right to copy that needs defending, it’s the first right of a briefly protected enterprise, a reward to the creator, that needs to be protected. Copyright is like trying to cure a cough by sewing someone’s mouth shut.

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csallen 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

1. There are an infinite number of careers that do not currently exist, because their business models do not make sense. I do not think it's a great idea to keep laws on the books, that limit the creativity and rights of hundreds of millions of people, just to keep a few professions afloat.

2. You greatly underestimate the creativity of a capitalistic market. For example, on the web, it's generally difficult and frowned upon to copyright designs. Some patent trolls do it, but most don't. If you make an innovative design for your website, you're bound to be copied. And yet many programmers and tech companies still have viable business models. They simply don't base their entire business model around doing easily-copyable things.

	▲	apersona 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		How does copyright limit creativity? If you want to write a new story about a boy wizard going to school, no one can legally stop you. If you want to make a new Mario-inspired platformer, no one can legally stop you. But if you want to make money and do it from riding the brand name association of Harry Potter or Mario, they can.

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RHSeeger 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It looks like you're being purposefully ridiculous. There is an obvious difference between the two; cost of reproduction. For something with a cost of reproduction near zero (book, music, art, etc), IP restrictions matter. For something like a restaurant, factory, etc; the cost of reproduction is high.

	▲	dcow 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's not obvious at all! You are citing the only difference that typically comes up. A quesadilla is beyond trivial to reproduce and most people have the ingredients readily available. 3D printers make it trivial to reproduce things that would have been obviously hard to reproduce a few years ago. A book is hard to reproduce if it's not in digital form. Is MIDI a song or a set of instructions? Source code is easy to copy but hard to reproduce. Source code is just a recipe telling a compiler what to do. And we've already established that recipes aren't copyrightable because it was "so obvious" at the time copyright was established that you shouldn't be able to copyright the creative process.

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ipsento606 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> How do restaurants work, then?

Primarily because recipe creation is not one of the biggest cost centers for restaurants?

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awesome_dude 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Closed source - when was the last time your restaurant told you what was in, and how to make, your favourite dish?

What's in Coca Cola?

What are the 11 herbs and spices in Kentucky Fried Chicken?

How do I make the sauce in a Big Mac?

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dcow 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, and notably the source recipe can’t be copyrighted. Trade secrets and recipes are not copyrightable. That’s the point. We have entire vastly profitable industries built around protection of trade secrets, with no copyright in play. Competing to make make the best cola flavored beverage or the best burrito is a thing. Competing to make the best rendition of Snow White, is not. What’s the rub? They don’t seem that different at all.

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card_zero 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Snow White is not the best example, there are non-Disney versions, like the one with Sigourney Weaver and the one with Chris Hemsworth.

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badmintonbaseba 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's a good example of what happens when a copyright is expired.

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dcow 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I imagine they're licensed--the original creator or their estate had to be looped in to make them happen, and probably financially benefitted.

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card_zero 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The original creator of the German fairy tale?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Snow_White_tale

I see a mention of Ovid ... copyright has probably expired.

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slg 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't explain the exact link, but your repeated and vocal pro-AI stance in this thread feels connected to the way when you got called out for a simple and inconsequential mistake that any of us could make, you immediately doubled down on it all while the truth was a single Google search away.

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dcow 4 days ago | parent [-]

We're talking about copyright in this subthread, in the context of AI. I'm not sure how a copyleft slant implies pro-ai, but whatever. There are a lot of reasons to be dubious about AI. But "AI is going to destroy human creativity and ingenuity" is not one that concerns me. And "society would be better without AI" is not an axiom I hold, so yeah I'll respond to that type of supposition when it's thrown into an otherwise interesting discussion.

I could just be wrong about Snow White's original copyright. As indicated by my use of "I imagine", no I didn't search the origins of it. I'm not seeing a big "double down" moment where I asserted that Snow White is definitely owned by Disney--that would be the cinch. In fact nothing about my reply contradicted the GGP adding that maybe Snow White isn't the best example. Why are you so bothered? Anyway, Snow White doesn't have a recent progenitor then it kinda proves the point that the world works perfectly well in the absence of copyright, and that the ability to freely remix culture is a fundamental human right. TIL that Snow White was originally a German fairytale and I'm relieved that Disney hasn't asserted copyright over it.

	▲	autoexec 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Like many of the disney movies that came from fairy tales the basic story of Snow White isn't copyrighted, but some elements you'd expect in a Snow White story were added by Disney and are protected. The biggest one is the names and personalities given to the seven dwarfs (happy, grumpy, doc, etc). If you made your own snow white movie and included those characters or had them singing "Heigh-Ho" you could expect to get sued into bankruptcy by disney lawyers.

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awesome_dude 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How does someone close source a book?

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dcow 4 days ago | parent [-]

If the book is the compiled work, then the source of a book is the author's creative process. And certainly that isn't open to all simply by purchasing the book.

But less obtusely: you don't copyright a book--which is why knowledge, language, literature should not be closed source. We'd have to find a different model to support authors than trying to prevent people from copying books. Patreon style models where you subscribe and get behind the scenes access to the creative process, additional content, early access, etc. seem to work well as do sponsorship models like YT where the more viewers you draw the more you get paid, rather than a fixed fee per individual to watch a video. And, simply pay-what-you-want based models where everyone understands they can contribute in a way that matches the value to them and their means also work. One of the strongest arguments for piracy is that the pirate would never have paid $700 for Photoshop in the first place so the value "lost" isn't real and never would have been realized by the author(s). (Note this argument doesn't work for petty theft of physical property because the thief deprives the owner of tangible property.)

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awesome_dude 3 days ago | parent [-]

There are precisely three models for funding

Private - this includes funding by selling item(s), licensing work, and private equity

State

Charity - this includes volunteers, patrons, donations, sponsorships.

Charity relies on people willing to donate for the betterment of others.

State funding fails because of the political nature of the person holding the purse strings.

Licensing, copyright, physical sales are the only thing that artists have to sell.

You "patreon" style falls somewhere between closed source - you can only access if you buy your way behind the curtain, and charity, where creators have to rely on people donating so that their works can be seen by others (for free)

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dcow 3 days ago | parent [-]

I am supportive of private and charity funding. I think we can do it without a focus restricting copying. I think this because there is precedent with any industry that relies on trade secrets. Once I can copy a Coke with a food printer we'll be having some really weird internal consistency issues with copyright.

	▲	awesome_dude 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not seeing a convincing argument from you other than "Once I bought a book that was public domain"

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soulofmischief 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> when was the last time your restaurant told you what was in, and how to make, your favourite dish

Today? All the time? I just went into a new local joint today, talked to the owner about adding some vegetarian meals, and we hashed out some ideas in terms of both ingredients and preparation.

As a pescetarian and cook myself, I frequently ask establishments detailed questions about ingredients and preparation

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apersona 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I do not agree with your conjecture that big corps would win by default.

Why wouldn't big corps win by default? They have the brand name, own the resources to make more polished version of any IP, and have better distribution channels than anyone else.

Can you tell me how this scenario won't play out?

1. Big corporation has people looking for new and trending IP.

2. Instead of buying the rights to it, they get their army of people to produce more polished versions of it.

3. Because they have branding and a better distribution channel, the money goes 100% to them.

> Ask why would people need protection from having their work stolen when the only ones welding weaponized copyright are the corporations.

People working in the field sell their copyright like Gravity Falls' Alex Hirsch: https://x.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1906915851720077617

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hammock 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> How do restaurants work, then? You can’t copyright a recipe.

They barely work. Recipes are trade secrets, and the cooks who use them are either paid very well, given NDAs or given only part of the most guarded recipes

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dragonwriter 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The idea of open sourcing everything and nullifying patents would benefit corporations like Disney and OpenAI vastly more than it would benefit the people.

Disney would be among the largest beneficiaries if the right to train AI models on content was viewed as an exclusive right of the copyright holder; they absolutely do not benefit from AI training being considered fair use.

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julianeon 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe now, post-AI.

But if you'd asked this question in 2015 or earlier, everyone would have said Disney -> pro-patent, average people & indie devs -> anti-patent. Microsoft was famously pro-patent, as were a number of nuisance companies that earned the label "patent troll."

Honestly, this idea of "patents to protect the people" would've come across as a corporate lawyer trick pre-2015.

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csallen 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is the exact opposite of the truth.

Look at YouTube. Look at SoundCloud. Look at all the fan fiction sites out there, internet mangas and manwhas and webtoons, all the podcasts, all the influencers on X and Instagram and TikTok and even OnlyFans, etc etc. Look at all the uniquely tiny distribution channels that small companies and even individuals are able to build in connection with their fans and customers.

There is endless demand for the endless variety of creativity and content that's created by normal people who aren't Disney, and endless ways to get it into people's hands. It is literally impossible for any one company to hoover all of it up and somehow keep it from the people.

In fact, the ONLY thing that makes it possible for them to come close to doing that is copyright.

And the only reason we have such a huge variety of creativity online is because people either (a) blatantly violate copyright law, or (b) work around gaps in copyright law that allow them to be creative without being sued.

The idea that we need copyrights to protect us from big companies is exactly wrong. It's the opposite. Big companies need copyright to protect their profits from the endless creativity and remixing of the people.

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satvikpendem 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The idea of open sourcing everything and nullifying patents would benefit corporations like Disney and OpenAI vastly more than it would benefit the people

No, support open source AI and this will not happen.

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echelon 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The original claim is false,

> intellectual property [...] used over and over again, primarily by the rich and powerful, to stifle original ideas and hold back cultural innovation.

There's nothing about IP which prevents you from creating your own. There are, in fact, a near infinite number of things you can create. More things than there exist stars in our galaxy.

The problem with ideas is that they have to be good. They have to be refined. They have to hit the cultural zeitgeist, solve a particular problem, or just be useful. That's the hard part that takes the investment of time and money.

In the old world before Gen AI, this was the hard thing that kept companies in power. That world is going away fast, and now creation will be (relatively) easy. More taste makers will be slinging content and we'll wind up in a land of abundance. We won't need Disney to give us their opinion on Star Wars - we can make our own.

The new problem is distributing that content.

> The idea of open sourcing everything and nullifying patents would benefit corporations like Disney and OpenAI vastly more than it would benefit the people. The first thing that would happen is that BigCorp would eat up every interesting or useful piece of art, technology, and culture that has ever been created and monetize the life out of it.

Unless the masses can create and share on equal footing, you're 100% right.

If it turns out, however, that we don't need Google, OpenAI, or big tech to make our own sci-fi epics, share them with a ton of people, and interact with friends and audiences, then the corporations won't be able to profit off of it.

If social networks were replaced with common carriers and protocols.

If Gen AI could run at the edge without proprietary models or expensive compute.

If the data of YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram didn't require hyperscaler infra to store, search, and serve.

Unfortunately, there are too many technical reasons why the giants will win. And network effects will favor the few versus many. Unless those parameters change, we'll be stuck with big tech distribution.

Even if the laws around IP change, the hard tech challenges keep the gatekeepers in power. The power accrues to those who can dominate creation (if creation is unilateral), or even more so, to the distributors of that content.

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api 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is the same argument we made in the 90s about what the web was going to do. What ended up happening was the growth of aggregators and silos like Facebook that baited everyone with ease of use into putting everything into their walled garden and then monetized it. The creators, namely the posters of the content, got nothing.

The same is happening already with AI creations. Doing it yourself is work and takes some technical skill, so most people use hosted AI services. Guess who makes all the money?

You will be able to create and share your own spin on Star Wars. You won’t see anything for that except maybe cred or some upvotes. The company that hosts it and provides the gateway and controls the algorithms that show it to people will get everything.

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EgregiousCube 4 days ago | parent [-]

To be fair, people who post on Facebook get exactly what they were promised. Users of free products generally don't expect a rev share.

	▲	autoexec 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think that by now it's pretty clear that facebook isn't free and that the price of using facebook is actually pretty high, it's just abstracted away so that most people don't realize the cost and/or don't attribute that cost to facebook when they should.

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dcow 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We won't need Disney to give us their opinion on Star Wars - we can make our own.

Disney would say that you can’t. And in the current copyright regime, it’s not unlikely that they’d convince the court that they’re right.

	▲	echelon 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Disney would say that you can’t. Disney won't have any control. I can already generate images and videos locally on my hardware. Maybe they'll try to stop distribution? There will be quite a lot of people making these, though.

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codedokode 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> The problem with ideas is that they have to be good.

No they don't, look at music popular in social networks.

> and now creation will be (relatively) easy. More taste makers will be slinging content and we'll wind up in a land of abundance.

Even before the generative AI, I think we live in the era where there are more creators than ever in history: everybody today can publish their music or art without any large investments (except for instruments: they are expensive as always). I would prefer we have cheaper pianos, samples and microphones instead of worthless music-copying models.

	▲	nradov 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Pianos are already cheap. You can get used pianos for very little money if you shop around. No one has space to keep a piano in their house anymore, and they don't want to deal with keeping them tuned.
	▲	echelon 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I would prefer we have cheaper pianos, samples and microphones instead of worthless music-copying models. There are lots of ML models that produce instrumentals and vocals that are incredibly useful for practicing musicians. The popular and well-known Suno and Udio are pop culture toys. They also find use with content creators who don't have time to learn how to make music. (Not everyone can learn and master everything. We have to let some of our creative desires slip or we'd never be able to accomplish anything.)