>In other words, (for instance) you believe in the right of massive corporations who control the lion's share of consumer distribution channels to, on an ongoing basis, scrape all authored content that is made publicly available in any form (paid or not) and sell it in a heavily discounted form, without the permission of authors and other rights holders and with no compensation to them, while freezing out the "official" published versions from their distribution channels entirely. More generally, you believe that creators should create for free, and that massive moneyed and powerful interests should reap the profits, even while those same creators toil in the mines to support their passions which do evidently have real value, though it is denied to them.
Yes.
(Obviously there is zero point in corporations doing this as costs are near zero and competition for this infinite. Right now almost all art is available for free, it is just illegal.)
>You think this will make the world better? For whom? Or worse, for whom? Or you place the highest importance on having a maximalist viewpoint that simply cannot be argued with, because being unassailably right in an abstract rhetorical framing is most important to you? Or you crave the elegance of such a position, reality and utility notwithstanding? Or you feel the need to rationalize your otherwise unfounded "belief" that piracy and/or training AI on protected IP should be allowed because you like it and are involved with it yourself? Or you think ASI is going to completely transform the world tomorrow, and whether we get Culture-style luxury gay space communism or something far darker, none of this will matter so we should eat, drink, and be merry today? Or some hybrid of that and a belief that we should actively strive toward and enable such a transition, and IP law stands in its way?
I think it will marginally improve the world. I am not training any AIs though.
Could you consider what abolishing IP laws would do to the average YouTuber. Exactly nothing. Their content is available for free, they support themselves without selling their art directly. Loosing rights to their art would have zero impact on them, as their monetization works without it. Sponsoring, direct support, advertisement is enough to make many of them wealthy.
Thank you for affirming your position!
> Obviously there is zero point in corporations doing this as costs are near zero and competition for this infinite. Right now almost all art is available for free, it is just illegal.
This is incredibly naive. You grossly underestimate the grip massive media corporations with essentially unlimited marketing budgets and total control over mainstream distribution channels have over how the vast majority of consumers consume media. And, to whatever extent you think piracy being legal will change that, either way you've completely destroyed individual creators' ability to even partially support themselves with their work, unless...
> Could you consider what abolishing IP laws would do to the average YouTuber. Exactly nothing. Their content is available for free, they support themselves without selling their art directly. Loosing rights to their art would have zero impact on them, as their monetization works without it. Sponsoring, direct support, advertisement is enough to make many of them wealthy.
...Unless you force them all to be social media personalities and marketers first. Unless you think YouTube and its ilk can carry art and culture forward alone (as "content", of course). Unless you want to live in a world where art of original substance is no longer produced, a hall of mirrors in which YouTubers endlessly inter-react and beef and soy face. You may very well think that sounds great, but I think it sounds fucking terrible.
>...Unless you force them all to be social media personalities and marketers first. Unless you think YouTube and its ilk can carry art and culture forward alone (as "content", of course).
How much do you think I am paying an artist hen listening to their songs on Spotify 1000 times? Every album they ever made, dozens of times. The answer will surprise you!
Already every single musician has to be a personality and marketer. There is no other way to make money. You can not finance yourself by the rights to your music, right now.
Only a very select group of artists has any kind of real revenue from the rights over their music. The rest is already using other channels to profit, which are not protected by IP.
As much as you might think cherrypicking examples like Spotify (and characterizing them poorly, besides) supports your point, I don't think it's going to be practical to enumerate every single source of sales, royalties, and other fees paid to artists in aggregate.
So maybe you'd like to state, for the record, that all those sales, royalties, and other fees—in aggregate—are so small as to be meaningless and insignificant to those who receive them? It's staggeringly wrong, but at least then we'll know where we stand.