Comment on The AI-focused COPIED Act would make removing digital watermarks illegal

• rekorse@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That would lead to most art being produced by people who are wealthy enough to afford to produce it for free, wouldn’t it?

  What incentive would a working person have to work on becoming an artist? Its not like artists are decided at birth or something.

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  • 96VXb9ktTjFnRi@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Most people who make art don’t make any money from it. Some make a little bit of money. A small number of people can afford a living just by making art, and just a fraction of that actually get most of the money that’s being earned by artists, and then of course there is a lot of money that’s being paid for art that never reaches the artist. The business as it is is not working very well for anyone except for some big media companies. The complete lack of commercial success hasn’t stopped a lot of artists, it won’t stop them in the future. Thank god, because it wouldn’t be the first time that after decades of no commercial success whatsoever such an outsider is discovered by the masses. Sure, lack of commercial success has stopped others, but that’s happening now just as it will happen without copyright laws. If donating to artists out of free will would be the norm, and people knew that that’s the main source of income for certain types of artists, then I’m sure a lot of people would do so. And aside from private donations there could be governments and all sorts of institutions financing art. And if someone still can’t make a living, then still none of that could legitimize copyright in my view. We should strive for a world where everyone that wants to follow up on their creative impulses has time and opportunity to do so, irrespective of their commercial success. But there should also be unrestricted access to knowledge, ideas, art, etc. Brilliant research, photography or music shouldn’t be reserved for those who can afford access. The public domain should be the norm so that our shared project of human creativity can reach maximum potential. Copyright seems to me to be a rather bizarre level of control over the freedom of others. It’s making something public for others to see, but then telling these people you’re not allowed to be inspired by it, you can’t take a free copy to show others, you can’t take the idea and do with it as you please. It’s severely limiting us culturally, it’s harming human creativity. And at the same time it’s hypocritical. Artistic ideas are often completely based of the ideas of others, everyone can see that the output is the result of a collective effort. The Beatles didn’t invent pop music, they just made some songs, precisely copying all that came before them, and then added a tiny bit of their own. And that’s not a criticism, that’s how human creativity functions. That’s what people should strive for. To limit copying, is to limit humanity in it’s core. Again, human creativity is very clearly a collective effort. But despite this fact, when someone gets successful suddenly it’s a personal achievement and they are allowed to ask for a lot of money for it. Well my answer is, yes they are allowed to ask, and I am very willing to pay, but they shouldn’t be allowed to go beyond asking, they shouldn’t be allowed to restrict access of something that has been published.

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    • rekorse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      What if there was some sort of model that would pay an artist outright for their contributions now and into the future. Like crowdsourcing art from your favorite artists.

      It might cost a lot if a lot of people want something from them of course, if demand is high. They might even work out a limited payment scheme where you pay for limited access to the art for less.

      Sound a lot like we have now?

      And right now, I have to disagree, most artists create with the hope they can make big money, which wouldnt exist without artists who make big money. All artists should be making more money, and even the wealthy artists now have people above them making more money than them who have nothing to do with art.

      We dont need to throw out all of our ideas, we just need to keep increasing visibility into industries and advocating for the artist (or the entry level worker, or the 9-5ers, or any other of those who produce everything a company profits off of but are unfairly compensated for it).

      For you to argue AI will help artists is absurd. They’ve been stolen from, and now the result of that theft is driving them out of work. It only is good for artists if by artists you mean yourself, and anyone else who only cares about the self. Same people who tend to use societal arguments only when it benefits them somehow, which is ironic isnt it?

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