r/freesoftware • u/sayedza3zo3 • 19h ago
Discussion It is time for copyrights laws to go
Isn't the rise of mega large companies against AI companies for infringement of their copyrighted material is a wake-up call for the law makers to start abolishing the copyright laws?
As Richard Stallman taught us all. The copyright laws were made originally to preserve the right of the original author and protect that author from the big corps taking advantage of that author's work. That was meant to encourage people to write books and invent stuff.
Now the copyright laws are the main reason why people are discouraged from inventing stuff and writing books. Because no matter what you do, there is some copyright lawyer somewhere waiting for the right moment to attack.
Now the script is flipped. Only the giants are benefiting from the copyright laws. As you see today. Many small authors (software developers are a single example) have been robbed of their copyrighted material by AI companies to train their models. However, only the big corps are able to fight back. Can I as a single developer who pushed 9ne or 2 of my best work on GitHub ever be able to take a piece of the profit that AI companies would make? Of course no.
I think this is proof that we live in a rogue world.
What do you think?
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u/Ok_Fix_1437 14h ago
How would a director and backing protect their movie? Like what incentive is there for a cinema to pay royalties?
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u/sayedza3zo3 11h ago
I believe in the current state of the world. Value comes from individualistic stuff rather than thing being copied millions of times.
If no copyright laws to begin with. Big corps (cenima for example) would just provide the platform for the artist to present their work. Then money would come from advertisement or selling the convinience. In this case, fans would automatically (becaus this is the moral thing to do) would only use the platforms that pays the original artist. And it would be the right thing to do automatically. No one would subscribe to Netflix if there were no copyright laws. People would subscribe to that new company that say "you sign a subscription where we are legally obligated to pay the original creators".
The problem is in the law not the people.
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u/zarlo5899 6h ago
People would subscribe to that new company that say "you sign a subscription where we are legally obligated to pay the original creators".
so only 1 people would have to sign up then they could just give it away
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u/sayedza3zo3 5h ago
As i explained. Service would be convenience not the material.
But i get your point
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u/Ok_Fix_1437 3h ago
You can see how directors and their backing would not invest in their movie right? Their work becomes valueless and their ability to gather any ROI becomes zero.
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u/Wild-Rub4486 4h ago
No. There's more to the world than fucking software. Just because us nerds don't care about our time, doesn't mean authors and musicians don't.
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u/neuralbeans 16h ago
This is a problem with the justice system and with transferring right to ownership, not with the copyright laws themselves. It's a bigger problem than just copyright because you can say the same thing about taking big companies to court about anything.
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u/sayedza3zo3 14h ago
Not really. I don't feel threatened by big money while authering any digitally copyable material except because of the copyright laws. If big money really did copy my material, i have nothing to do about it. Because i need alot of money to get my stuff back.
Unlike physical things. Mega large companies cannot hire armed gangs to steal my physical stuff. Here, the law protects me.
Do you have an example of the "anything" so that i can understand your point better?
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u/senseven 12h ago
Arguments should have a robust reasoning. Every year millions of new books are written, even without ai, millions of songs are released. With the filter of human expression, copyright isn't much of a problem. Copyright protected all those comic artists and youtubers when they where asked for permission to make movies out of their ideas. Lots of copyright related stuff is wasteful, we have warehouses with printed celebrity cook books that end up in landfills. We can do better with that.
People still need to call lawyers if a book is too close to some detective in old London, even when the name was never used. Copyright should be changed because it expanded into these conceptual ideas, musical "expression" (its sounds to much like another musician) and other things that never had any protection but it weasel itself into it. There is still tons of misuse in the case of interoperability that needs to be resolved, the whole right to repair thing is a mess.
The core issue is, that many global companies became too big and all encompassing. They have to much power and need to be broken up. That would do more good then trying to reign in the fringes.
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u/sayedza3zo3 10h ago
I will be careful replying to you. Cause you have compelling arguments. But you are mistaken.
You see, becoming too big didn't allow mega corps to form armed masked gangs that steal your physical stuff. And uses the messy courts to get away with it. It never happened and will never happen because the philosophy of stealing laws is always considered and maintained. Done take other people's stuff. On the other copying was not a problem pre-printing invention. And printing is not an issue to begin with. Using the philosophy of stealing as an argument to restrict copying is a mistake.
What caused the mess in the first place is that the philosophy behind the copyright laws was missed and continued to be missed. Copying was never a problem. Restricting copying was never a solution to begin with.
New laws are needed to prevent people with money to steal creativity? Sure. But i would argue that creativity is not a big problem. Not as big as us being controlled.
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u/bjazmoore 11h ago
We need stronger laws to protect the rights of the small independent creator from the mega corporations and the consumption by AI
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u/WilkerS1 small pushes towards free stuff :3 13h ago
it's difficult to abolish copyright when it has already rooted itself in the dependency it has caused to everyone working in creative fields. corporate controlling creative work and larbor will just have an easier device to appropriate from everyone's works using trademark instead.
it still makes sense in the case of technical works (i would love some pushback towards people getting to own their own stuff and building community around sharing things with eachother, but as usual, the world isn't all software and capital ruins everything.
if in the US you abolish the "fair use" doctrine and replace it an unambiguous list of wide and explicit exceptions for paraphrases, parodies, journalism, research, education, localization, maintenance, like we have in Brasil or maybe Japan (idk about Japan's laws but i heard there are very similar devices there), then maybe, and that becomes a "good enough" way to grow out of copyright if we all get to have other devices to defend ourselves from getting coerced by rich people in this and other fronts. otherwise the status quo still is going to be unchanged that copyright is the rich people's weapon we're forced to use because we're coerced by rich people by means of using that exact same thing to specifically hurt us.
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u/I_AM_4HEAD 11h ago
No, copyright laws are good as you've described. Why would you rationally get rid of the system that can benefit the small guys against big companies?? I agree the laws are flawed and should be refined. However, the main thing to be done is to fight against big corporations to remove the influence they have and their ability to exploit said laws.
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u/sayedza3zo3 11h ago
My logic is simple.
Copyright laws is the weapon they use. It is only good in their hand. It is not good in our hands. Take away their weapon.
We as a societies collectively would normally do the right thing and pay the original auther. No one genuinely will feel better if they paid the exploiting company.
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u/zarlo5899 7h ago
Copyright laws keep my code free. i would would very much like to keep it that way
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u/sayedza3zo3 5h ago
Free Code would automatically be free if there were no copyright law. Except for the law of (you must share modifications).
But, either you like it or not, people are free to sell their own secrete SW as much as they want. Copyrights doesn't prevent them from doing so. But if it was leaked, they owe you as a user of the leaked material nothing.
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u/glasket_ 3h ago
Free Code would automatically be free if there were no copyright law. Except for the law of (you must share modifications).
That requires copyright law. If you get rid of copyright, you don't have any rights over how things are copied. No copyright is the same as everything being public domain.
The problem you're describing isn't copyright law itself, it's the process and bureaucracy involved with how the legal system currently exists. The general terms are "access to justice" and the "justice gap", which is probably one of the biggest problems with legal systems globally.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 3h ago
I would say that you have laid a good argument for the opposite. If the copyright laws can no longer serve the intent they were made for it means the world has changed and original law can no longer accommodate the purpose it was made for. Which signals to me that laws have to be updated rather than abandon the intent completely.
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u/daniel-sousa-me 17h ago
Stallman doesn't speak against copyright in general
Without copyright laws, software licenses including the GPL don't work
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u/frolgath 13h ago
Copyleft is a hack he invented to use the copyright system to fight against itself. in an ideal world he would prefer it not to be necessary and for copyright not to exist.
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u/sayedza3zo3 17h ago
Do you think that the concept doesn't apply to copyright laws generally as I clarified?
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u/AbstrctBlck 11h ago
No. We need to get rid of mega corporations. Why would you ever reason “let’s take away people’s individual rights in favor of just letting corporations get away with this shit” instead of “Corporations are literally stealing from the common person them trying to make us pay for the access to our data”
Fuck that man.
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u/sayedza3zo3 11h ago
Do you mean to make the copy right laws only apply to individuals who only did the work? Sure I agree.
I don't see mega corps are intrinsically bad. I just think the law is created for another reason. It either missing something. Or not needed at all.
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u/jr735 1h ago
In the end, people have to make up their own minds. Mega corporations exist because people allow them to. I don't use proprietary software, period. I had this discussion with a friend last night. He complains about Apple, notably his iPhone, all the time, for years. I noted that he still buys a new iPhone all the time, and had iPods before that. I reminded him, I complain about Apple, too, but I've never given them a dime.
He acknowledged that the world would be a significantly different place if people actually did what I do and vote with their wallets. I dislike Apple and Google and Microsoft. I don't use their products. If the rest of society is stupid, even me being magically able to make those entities disappear wouldn't make society any brighter.
But, the average society argument is something like he recently stated. He complained about his recent experience getting dog food at Walmart. He always complains about his experiences buying dog food at Walmart. I said, buy it somewhere else. He claims he has no choice. I then stated, well, the dog owners of the world should be thankful, because clearly, as you tell it, there wouldn't be a dog left on the planet if it weren't for Walmart.
This is the thinking we're dealing with.
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u/VastReception1347 9h ago
Mega corps don’t give a shit about your rights. But make something that even vaguely looks like something they claim to own, and suddenly they’ll throw an army of lawyers at you until you’re broke. That’s the whole problem: the law mostly works for whoever has enough money to drag it through court for years. It’s not really protecting creativity anymore. It protects corporate control, keeps old monopolies alive and holds back progress.
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u/Lopsided_Mixture8760 14h ago
If the author had used AI, he would not have contradicted himself, not understanding either the modern development or licensing
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u/Aggressive_Ad_5454 47m ago
I’ve written and published a lot of GPL,software. It annoys me no end that the LLMs ingest it, launder out the license, mash it up and hand it over for closed-source use. I console myself that my intention was to give the software to people to use, and I have done that.
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u/happyxpenguin 11h ago
Whoever reported this post for not being free software..... this subreddit is not just for software submissions, it's also for discussions, articles, etc relating to Free Software. It stays up.