AI overall is the ultimate piracy crime.

I wonder what a token cost would be if AI companies were to pay royalties to every author who made their business even possible.

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KingMob 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sadly, they're just following in the footsteps of every large media/publishing/music conglomerate that already screwed over the vast majority of artists/musicians/writers. For every Taylor Swift striking it rich, there's 999,999 who can't even pay their bills with what their copyright gets them.

I don't always agree with Doctorow, but he's written a lot of good stuff on how stronger copyright won't help broke artists. Even just today, it turns out: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/18/enron-corpus/#sign-here

	▲	sedan_baklazhan 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is not just about artists. It is about every kind of intellectual work: scientific research, essay, fiction, painting, software, etc - the list goes on..

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logicchains 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Then let's make humans pay royalties to every author from whom they ever learned something, even if it was offered freely to them, only fair?

	▲	sedan_baklazhan 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. If I take somebody's work, transform it somewhat and sell it, I should pay royalties (unless the author explicitly allowed me to do so). That is exactly the case.