@nixCraft
Also, what a weird display name.

@nixCraft I worked at Napster for a minute.

Today we would have become a billion dollar company and likely paid artists far more than thieves like Spotify, Apple and Youtube.

We were entirely a company of music lovers who cared about artists and were trying hard to figure out a way to move away from piracy towards a sustainable business model.

@nixCraft That's the way the laws are designed.

@nixCraft https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=E9XKVighdz8

@nixCraft
Even worse, they don't just want to resell the works, they want to sample and remix them. Musicians live in fear of getting sued for sampling, YouTube silences sections of videos that use samples or quotes from movies, etc... Even when it's legal, fair use.
Unfortunately we have no laws against the sampling that "AI" is doing, even though it's much worse. It allows the creation of "new" works "in the style of" the sampled artists, with no royalties due to anyone.

@nixCraft Remember it's not piracy when corporations do it.

@nixCraft Indeed, Midjourney is an artist the same way Napster was a record collection.

@nixCraft

“You own the world, so never mind.”
(Leonard Cohen, “Nevermind”)

@nixCraft when laws are written by criminals, those who commit a crime will be the protected ones.

@nixCraft Follows Kant's imperative in the very German form: what if everybody would do it?

As long as it requires to be a Billionaire, it is sure not everybody is going to do it.

@nixCraft no shit, sherlock.

the law always and ever served only the rich

@nixCraft … pretty sure the Napster guy became one of the most prominent mega-billionaires in Silicon Valley, right? (That would be Sean Parker…) so, there’s also a story here of the “little guy” becoming one of thr “big guys”

@nixCraft

If you’ve ever wondered what a shithole country looks like…

Look out your fucking windows!

@nixCraft
If it's impossible to build AI tools like ChatGPT without stealing intellectual property, then they shouldn't build them. No one asked for this shit anyway.

@nixCraft Impossible? The plant-based burger company???

@nixCraft

You're right. I would like to see us punish everyone less (or not at all) for free and open use of all IP in existence in perpetuity. There you go, we now can feed every family and make the world a better place. The incentive to create still comes from the excitement of seeing your dreams come true, and not from owning a yacht. Wonderous inventions are created and used together to create even more. I see only good things here, more please!

@nixCraft

If the model was open then I'd say to rip off whatever you wanted

@nixCraft Everytime I read that post I have to think about Aaron Schwartz.. Which also reminds me to rewatch 'The internets own boy' again sometime soon.

@nixCraft

The capitulation to problems is all to frequent in such declarations

Biden cancelled a trillion dollars in corporate tax gifts, then added an EXTRA trillion in taxes, but JUST to bloated corps who hadnt paid taxes since boomers wore shorts

Counting to ten lasts ten seconds, to a hundred is a minute and a 1/2.

Counting to one trillion is longer than human history

2 trillion dollars in just, fair, extra, taxation isnt the end, its a proof of concept

There are steps we can take.

@nixCraft Meanwhile...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/movie-industry-demands-us-law-requiring-isps-to-block-piracy-websites/

The rich want free stuff while making the working class pay, and they're not even trying to hide it.

@nixCraft Anything goes in the name of corporate greed .The law doesn't apply .

@nixCraft yes isn't it weird that the opensource champion napster generation of copypasta code monkey legends are now complaining about machines stealing their work.

@nixCraft @stux It’s too bad Aaron Swartz wasn’t working on an LLM 😞

@nixCraft Hollywood and the music industry are likely the strongest unions in play against this creeping threat.

There's a reason all the recent AI crap is based on images and text from non-union sources.

@nixCraft While I agree with the sentiment, after around 30 minutes of research I see no evidence that teenagers were sued "for millions." Metallica went after Napster, not the teenagers. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the state of the world without needing to resort to exaggerations in order to stoke outrage. But, such is life on social media.

@nixCraft Yup. If the OpenAI folks say it's "impossible" to create AI tools without plagiarism, I guess their work is done and it's time for them to go figure out how to solve the microplastics crisis

@nixCraft Pro Tip: if you fet caught pirating. Just say you were training an AI model.

@nixCraft "Impossible to create..."

So don't fucking do it, then, you absolute wads.

@nixCraft @theresmiling "Impossible to create tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material” - I have a brilliant idea: just don't create crap like ChatGPT in the first place maybe?

That headline alone shows the ugly truth of ChatGPT and friends: without references to use in their only half usable answers they were just fancy versions of A.L.I.C.E running on overpriced server farms.

@nixCraft on the other hand, st. anger was worth every penny to be honest

@nixCraft usually when I read situations like this I quip the old "Law in its majestic equality denies poor and rich alike from sleeping under bridges" but we l've gone so far even that logic has broken down.

@nixCraft It's okay if I steal and sell you personal property, whatever its form, because I wouldn't have a business model without it.

@nixCraft i don't disagree with the overall point, but this comparison seems kind of simplistic. litigation against OpenAI, StabilityAI, etc. is ongoing, and some (most?) of the file sharing lawsuits similarly took years.

@nixCraft

@nixCraft i thought the same thing the other day. when they want to steal our work, that's totally legal, when we want to fair use their shit, we're criminals.

@nixCraft

"There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

-Frank Wilhoit

@nixCraft Did OpenAI just admit that most companies building AI tools are criminal enterprises?