Agreed.

I didn’t listen to the podcast so I wouldn’t know, but honestly, she was lucky. She’s popular and her publishers had an interest in the case (they’d lose out on profits if she lost). And she initially did lose. It was only because of the publicity of the case that it was overruled (although money did help as well).

Unfortunately, this could’ve happened to any smaller artist, and it routinely happens with patent trolls I pointed to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lawsuit I can point to, but given the volume, one surely exists.

Also, it’s not as if I approve of the current state of copyright in the US (or EU for that matter).

Originally copyright was meant to protect rights of the author, but in time it was bastardised into the concept we have today where artist sign off their rights to publishers.

So my proposal is - if corporations like copyright, let them have it. I won’t watch Disney movies outside of Disney+ ors the system we’ve got and have to live with, why not let the corporatios feel it as well?

Why would Google, which makes loads of money from those demonetizations on one side of the law now be allowed to use copyrighted works of others for profit, while Internet users in the US get a fine or their service cut for alleged copright infringement while those in Germany get a stern letter with a big fake fine?

Big Tech shouldn’t get to profit both from the false copyright infringement claims as well as getting to use the actual copyrighted content to generate a profit.

This whole AI copyright situation is just a symptom of an ailing global copyright policy that needs to be fixed, and slapping an AI-free-for-all band-aid on top isn’t a fix.

My train of thought is this: If we don’t let a simple AI exceotion into the books, either training AI on copyrighted content stays illegal, or the entire system gets a reimagining.

If it stays the same, this will not mean much. Piracy sites and torrenting exists despite the current state of copyright law. I don’t see why AI could’t exist in this way. This has the huge plus of keeping AI outside the hands of Big Tech. Hopefully this also means it’s harder for harmful uses of AI to be legal.

Alternatively, we get a better copyright system for everyone, assuming it isn’t made to only benefit the corporations.