If I don't want people copying it, people shouldn't be copying it. I don't care if it's been 500 years. It's my book.
This is a weird thread. Lots of people for artists losing control of their creations quickly while simultaneously against artist creations being used by others without consent. Just my perspective but why should artists lose control of their own creations at all? The problem in copyright is tech companies doing patent thickets; not artists.
Even artistic creations held by corporations. Waiting for Marvel stuff to hit public domain to publish a bunch of Marvel novels since they can't protect their creations any more? Why is that acceptable? If someone creates something and doesn't want it stolen, I don't give a fuck what the law says, stealing it is theft. The thief should instead be using Marvel stuff as inspiration as they make their own universe; not just waiting an amount of time before stealing someone else's creation without consent. It isn't holding progress back at all to make novel artistic creations instead of steal others. Art = very different from tech.
when I publish a book, to steal it is consenting to be Luigi'd; no matter how long ago it came out.
First of all, copying or modifying somebody else's work without their permission isn't theft. Information cannot be owned in the way a physical object can be, as access to information is nonexclusive, meaning any number of people can use the same piece of information without impeding each other. Contrast that with physical objects, say a car. If I'm using your car, you can't use it, because I'm doing so. If I copy your book, you still have the original. Hence its not theft.
Copyright is a legal privilege governments grant to artists, so that the artists can be paid for their work. (In practice, it mostly protects big publishers and a few wealthy artists. Most artists can't afford to the legal battle necessary to get the state to actually enforce the legal privilege they've been granted).
This is a weird thread. Lots of people for artists losing control of their creations quickly while simultaneously against artist creations being used by others without consent.
You are conflating copyright infringement and plagiarism. Plagiarism is claiming that you created the works of somebody else. This is morally wrong, regardless of whether you have the consent of the original author. By claiming that you created something you didn't, you are lying to your audience. (In fact, even disguising your earlier work as new is considered plagiarism). The plagiarist is not a thief, they're a liar. When you put somebody's work into an LLM, and claim you created the output, you have committed plagiarism. Unless you credit every work used in the training of said LLM.
when I publish a book, to steal it is consenting to be Luigi’d; no matter how long ago it came out.
You do know that Luigi Mangione plead not guilty to the charges? And yet you use his name as a euphemism for murder. You can't own information, copying it is not stealing.
What is really novel in art is very hard to define. Art is based on artists inspiring each other, reacting to each other, borrowing from each other, evolving other artists's ideas, actualizing and restructuring ideas. That's why history of art is so fun and interesting.
Must suck being Shakespear for sure. Not even dreams are original though, they're influenced by what you see in reality and by mental structures common to all people - motives in dreams repeat across nations and ages. You can be authentic, but it's arguablx impossible to be absolutely original. Do your art for yourself and others who appreciate it, but don't gatekeep ideas.
Are you sure you have a right to be making this argument? Lots of corporations and individuals have already argued in favor of longer copyright duration.
And yes. Yes I do. I often independently come to conclusions other logical people may also come to. I wouldn't know whether they have tho because I forge my own path.
I believe if they do anything beyond creating something privately, they should respect the wishes of the creator of the realm.
Main thing I am thinking about is characters. In my own story world I am ok with others making thoughtful stories that don't mess with my characters and some world aspects. I basically dont want to make my own unique character i am attached to just for someone else to take over that character and change who they are without my consent. The worst example I've come across is in My Little Pony I once had an ai pony keep saying how princess luna was tragically dead; which was horrifying to me and I know was not in the bright happy my little pony series. I researched a bit and found it was from a fanfic that had gained prominence and was influencing the ai. My Little Pony is not a tragic nor depressing show and that totally clashed with it. When I share a story I like of characters I like, I don't want a depressed person to, thru fanfic, make history remember that character as like a drug addict or something horrific that I never said and essentially overwrite my own creation how they want and I don't.
So for fanfic I think authors should be open to agreeing with the fics of fans and fics can achieve canonicalness or at least recognition that way, but with a hard line preventing nonaccepted fanfics from actual publicity including inclusion in ai training data. Fanfics should be nowhere they are competing with the creation of the author or misleading fans in to thinking they are cannon. Yes i have no idea how to spell canon and not looking it up lol. Ultimately it should be up to the creator of the realm what they would like fans to do with it and fans should respect that.
just my opinion and perspective. what do you think?
Interesting. I hope you don’t mind me distilling that into a few bullet points.
you don’t like anyone opening your creation up to interpretation.
If Da Vinci felt that the Mona Lisa was a happy painting, would he have a right to stop others from finding her fascinating because her expression is somewhat ambiguous?
If that’s a bit too Minority Report, what about writing about her being sad, like a lot of journalists and critics have?
What about when they earn income by writing about it?
You don’t think derivative works should compete with the original
Fifty Shades of Grey was born on Twilight fan fiction forums. Erika Mitchell/E.L. James originally used the names Edward and Bella before editing and publishing work was done. There’s a lot of reader overlap—should she be allowed to earn money on this work without Stephanie Meyers’s consent?
This also offers a second example of reinterpreting characters. What right does she have to change Edward from a protective to an openly exploitative individual? Is it okay because she changed the names?
A quote:
I am ok with others making thoughtful stories that don't mess with my characters and some world aspects
If you believe you should have rights in perpetuity to this work and protection from ideas that damage your work’s image, what happens when someone purchases those rights from you, like how musical artists sell the rights to their musical catalogs?
Do those rights still last in perpetuity?
May the individual of corporation who purchased those rights interpret and rule out damaging ideas as they see fit? May they rule out things previously seen as acceptable use by the creator?
If you don’t approve of sales of rights, what about inheritance by estate? What about their rights to further interpretation?
Another quote:
I often independently come to conclusions other logical people may also come to. I wouldn't know whether they have tho because I forge my own path.
If you independently dream up a scientist who creates a humanoid being out of various body parts, brings it to life, and is then horrified by its appearance and the responsibilities he has toward it, doesn’t Mary Shelley still have the rights to the idea? Can’t she shoot down your right to publish, or your right to recognition? What would be your method of proving it was an independent idea?
Does it matter? Should you receive praise for an idea you had that someone else has previously had (200+ years ago!)?
Along the same vein, my use of a smiley face last comment was clearly derivative and meant to imitate you in this moment, but I’m much older than you, and I wrote that way far earlier than you ever did, so can you still claim it was an imitation of your writing style?
Are you familiar with the Library of Babel as a story? As a concept? An author was inspired by Borges and made a website in 2015 that generates random combinations of letters and punctuation on command. You can “search” through the library and it will find places where the algorithm generates, at random and without intention, exactly what you wrote. People can bookmark their best finds. You can find the first page of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone here.
Now, if JK Rowling said she no longer wished for her works to be published, may we use this website to generate her works anew?
And in that vein, what rights would she have to withhold the material? I’m sure she does not like me because I’m not a TERF. But I enjoyed reading the books anyway. She has created a cultural keepsake. What right do we have to continue to enjoy her works despite her? For our children to imagine new adventures?
You actually do write fanfiction, and use AI to generate content in the style of the original work
I think the da vinci stuff is a different discussion entirely as it has to do with comments about art and not someone publishing someone else's work for profit without consent while doing whatever they see fit to it. And generally that bullet seems slightly different from what I typed as my topic was theft of an artwork; not interpretation variation of viewers.
I like the 50 shades of grey example and approve of her changing it to be it's own thing rather than either lose the effort put in to the fanfic or try to state it as twilight cannon without consent. Everything stated in that example feels good to me without triggering my immorality sensors.
Sale of rights is nothing I have comments on at this current time.
The babel program is an exotic 'independently coming to something'.
I personally don't write fan fiction at all and it is easy to distinguish my written fiction from things ai's generate (at least with what ai is at this current time).
I believe the key topic you hit is 'independently coming to things' and that that should be encouraged and is moral while using expired copyright law to take someone else's work without their consent is immoral. I do not profess to yet have an ideal system for this in mind; I would focus here though as it has potential to replace the immoral parts of the system with moral parts. So yes independently coming to something actually should receive positive feedback in comparison to purposely copying something the creator does not want copied.