Comment by jMyles
5 hours ago
Indeed it needs to happen, and even here on HN, it can be difficult for some to admit and acknowledge.
It'd be great for this to be the first major relinquishment of nation-state power to happen without violence, without backroom deals, without wedge politics and flag waving.
Just... let it go.
It's beyond obvious that copyright is not going to exist in 1000 years. Every creature on earth - especially the internet - survives by copying information. It's the most basic life force in the universe.
Copyright is serving exactly nobody today. It's time. Are there elder stateswo/men in the room who can see the writing on the wall and act with grace?
> Copyright is serving exactly nobody today
Except for nearly everyone who writes anything (including software) or other artistic pursuits to make a living. This includes a majority of people here on HN.
yeah I wouldn't be able to put food on the table if my employer didn't have exclusive license to the glue we use to stick together all that open source code we rely on. Which we now generate exclusively using AI, products of which are of unclear copyright status.
Modern IP law inhibits productivity more than it helps, imo. LLMs have fundamentally changed our line of work, and they have done so by completely ignoring the existing legal framework for IP. We should not defend the current implementation just because some people might suffer reduced earning potential.
Copyright was not designed to maximize productivity. It was designed to maximize creativity and inventiveness (or, as stated in the US Constitution, the progress of science and the useful arts).
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I’ve written software all my life, copyright has never been relevant to my earnings at all, trade secrets have been to some extent. Frankly copyright was meant to enable more sharing and benefiting the public domain, instead it’s become a cancer…
For every rule there is an exception.
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People made a living juste fine before copyright stop spreading myths
>> Copyright is serving exactly nobody today.
Are you sure about that?
So just to be clear;
You're advocating for the end of software licensing? Ie the removal of GPL or Open Source licenses? A landscape where any source code (or binary) can be snapped up by say Amazon or Microsoft and run via a paid subscription?
You're advocating for a business model which removes your access to local code and only allows access via a terminal or browser?
Because removal of copyright doesn't mean corporations go away. Rather it incentivizes business models that protect their products in other ways.
In the 80's and 90's, pre-internet, binary programs were distributed on media. An arms race of copiers and copy protection ensued. The copiers won, and since copyright enforcement has always been weak, business changed to favoring remote access (with subscription) over running locally via purchase.
At the same time Open Source and Free Software have thrived. Copyright protects that software being used outside the terms of the license. Indeed there's even outrage when it's used within the terms of the license (by AWS etc.)
Of course OSS still thrives under a copyrightless environment. (Free Software less so). But equally it means AI can simply be trained on it (probably no great loss since it's likely most of OSS will be AI generated anyway.)
Business however will adapt. And the easiest way to prevent coping now is simply remote execution. With a suitable Terms Of Use declaration.
Outside of software it would destroy music, movies, books etc. Basically it becomes a race to the bottom in terms of production costs (think user-generated You-Tube as the high-water mark.) But I assume you meant in the context of software.
Yes, I agree, that in much less than 1000 years copyright is dead. Because by then so much is in the public domain it doesn't matter anyway. Also because by then the last human programmer is long dead. AI will write anything you want, only you won't even ask because computer interfaces and abilities will be long past where we are now. You would have no need to create software any more than you need to build a plane or car today.
And those industries have taken less than 150 years to invent, explode, consolidate and commoditize. Indeed most of the complexity disappears when we go EV.
In 1000 years copyright is gone. But today it serves a lot of people.
> It'd be great for this to be the first major relinquishment of nation-state power
Intellectual property serves corporate interests and the idea of "nations" you are forced to have in your head are the exclusive servants the interests of capital. Ironically, tragically, that's what's holding us back from dismantling it in the first place, even a critic of it can't articulate it properly.
Sorry that will be undecipherable for HN. Let me try again: The defense you get in this pigstall is the individual that copyright is protecting. You just hate the small businesses and individual artists. Instead of the trillion dollar industry holding the copyrights and the practice of exploiting copyright on works by authors who died decades ago. The commodification of copyright of something produced by the lowest bidder, crappiest AI and cheapest third world labor you can get your literal bloody hands on. Or even a vaccine against the literal plague or cure for cancer protected by intellectual property.
To make something immaterial with no cost to reproduce, a commodity, to trade and invest and speculate in is the part to argue if you want to dismantle it, identify the rotten bits of the system even peasants can smell. If you are a billionaire or even trillionaire then just argue like everybody on HN always does, because it's identical.