“After all: the purpose of copyright law is, to a very large extent, to preserve the livelihood of intellectual property creators, who would otherwise have limited ability to profit from their own works due to the ease of reproducing it once made. Modern AI systems are threatening this, whether or not they technically violate copyright.”
Yes, this is 100% backwards. The purpose of copyright law is to incetivise the production of art so that consumers of art can benefit from it. It incidentally protects artists livelihoods, but that is absolutely not it’s main purpose.
We only want to protect the livelihood of artists because humans enjoy consuming art- the consumption is the ultimate point. We don’t have laws protecting the livelihood of people who throw porridge at brick walls because we don’t value that activity. We also don’t have laws protecting the livelihood of people who read novels, because while lots of people enjoy doing that, other people don’t value the activity.
If we can get art produced without humans invovled, that is 100% a win for society. In the short term it puts a few people out of work, which is unfortunate, but short-lived. The fact that AI art is vastly more efficiently-produced than human art is a good thing, that we should be embracing.
I think you’re mainly correct, but it’s a bit of both. We have laws and subsidies protecting the livelihoods of farmers. The way democracy works, the winning coalition will cater to its constituents by passing laws which benefit those folks. So plausibly, the winning coalitions which passed/protected intellectual property laws included some support by artists, too. (This is especially plausible if you think about how Disney influences copyright law.)
Given the current reaction to AI art, I think it’s plausible (but very uncertain) that enough people would side with artists here to democratically protect artists now/soon. People enjoy consuming art, but doing so also creates some degree of emotional connection to the artists themselves (a parasocial relationship).
Yes, this is 100% backwards. The purpose of copyright law is to incetivise the production of art so that consumers of art can benefit from it. It incidentally protects artists livelihoods, but that is absolutely not it’s main purpose.
We only want to protect the livelihood of artists because humans enjoy consuming art- the consumption is the ultimate point. We don’t have laws protecting the livelihood of people who throw porridge at brick walls because we don’t value that activity. We also don’t have laws protecting the livelihood of people who read novels, because while lots of people enjoy doing that, other people don’t value the activity.
If we can get art produced without humans invovled, that is 100% a win for society. In the short term it puts a few people out of work, which is unfortunate, but short-lived. The fact that AI art is vastly more efficiently-produced than human art is a good thing, that we should be embracing.
I think you’re mainly correct, but it’s a bit of both. We have laws and subsidies protecting the livelihoods of farmers. The way democracy works, the winning coalition will cater to its constituents by passing laws which benefit those folks. So plausibly, the winning coalitions which passed/protected intellectual property laws included some support by artists, too. (This is especially plausible if you think about how Disney influences copyright law.)
Given the current reaction to AI art, I think it’s plausible (but very uncertain) that enough people would side with artists here to democratically protect artists now/soon. People enjoy consuming art, but doing so also creates some degree of emotional connection to the artists themselves (a parasocial relationship).