#copyright more like copywrong

[hypexion]

The problem with trying to use copyright to stop AI art generators is that it’s not going to work. In the slightest, at any level.

For the current tech-demo stuff that’s running around, even if the models that make the things run somehow become illegal to distribute, that’s not going to stop any one. The internet is very good at distributing things. Additionally, it would still be possible to train new models on public domain art, of which there is a lot.

As for the big corporate side, it turns out big media companies have access to large amounts of art that they happen to own. Which, if desired, can be used to train a new model. You can make the most draconian copright laws, and enforce intellectual property to the most draconian degree, and that would still be legal.

Of course I still think we’re heading for some absolutely disastrous decisions in the area, so you may want to stock up on compression and encryption algorithms, as well as tools for converting between file formats. I doubt any problems will be solved, but new ones can certainly be created.

[sideofcalimary]

Doubt

Deadpool: What's got the spider all antsy?

Spiderman: Not your best pickup line

Deadpool rolls hie eyes and leans against the watertower bellow the hero: Answer the question, BugBoy

Spiderman: Since when did I start taking orders from you? 

Spiderman sat crouched on the watertower, lenses ahead, focused, as if waiting for danger to happen

Deadpool: I'm sensing tension here and it's not the sexual kind. What's up?

Spiderman: A lot of things. The sky. Clouds. Stars. Your ego 

Deadpool: Alright if this is about me slicing off that guy's toe, it was an ACCIDENT. He LITERALLY walked onto my katana!

Spiderman sighs: I'm not upset at you, sorry I just- Okay I'm a lil upset at you but I'm mostly anxious 

Deadpool: Gonna put a pin on the upset at me part and ask; what's got your tights in a twist?

Spiderman: ... You think this city really wants me around?

Deadpool: People sell your likeness and you're constantly trending. At this point, you should file for copyright infringement 

Spiderman laughs: And what? Become Disney and be the worst super villain of them all?

Deadpool: Could start calling yourself CopyWrong and threaten lawsuits on shitty bootleg companies

Spiderman: I'll consider it when the hero thing goes down hill

Deadpool: 'when'? 

Spiderman shrugs and finally looks at his partner: I mean, how long do you think I'd keep being spiderman?

Deadpool: I don't know, till your realize humanity is shit and ain't worth it?

Spiderman: Very sinical of you. But I'm being serious. Not everyone thinks very well of me 

Deadpool groans and pushes himself off the watertower: Is this about that Dickstroke guy?

Spiderman: Re-Destro

Deadpool climbs the stop and stands behind the hero: Yeah yeah, the Doofenshmirtz lookin news guy. You don't actually believe any of the shit he says? 

Spiderman: It's hard not to when he reports about me everyday.. He has a point

Deadpool: No the fuck he doesn't

Spiderman stands up: He does! He's right! I interfere with police work, I cause collateral damage I don't pay for, I cause public disruption. I'm- 

Deadpool: Saving people for free because the police can't handle the actual comic book villains popping up. You give people hope

Spiderman: And what if one day I mess up so bad that I don't?

Deadpool: That ain't gonna happen

Spiderman: What if it does?

Deadpool: It won't 

Spiderman gets closer, frustrated as he gets in Deadpool's face: And how can you be so sure?

Deadpool grabs him by the collar of his hoodie and pulls him closer, their faces inches apart. He speaks softly but equality as frustrated 

Deadpool: Cause you're the symbol of hope this shitty city needs. One that makes me believe I can be better. So don't you dare look down on My Symbol Of Hope

Spiderman stared. Silent as those words sank in

It was a minute or so later that Spiderman moves his head to rest on Deadpool's shoulder. His body deflating

Spiderman: Now THAT'S a good pickup line

Deadpool sighs, letting go of his hoodie and moves his hand to cup the back of his neck, holding the hero against himself in a semi hug, his other hand hesitant to touch him more 

Deadpool: Good enough to get a date?

Spiderman: We'll see

[steinburg]

Copyright more like copyWRONG

[archive-of-fan-owned]

Copyright . . . or Copywrong?

Fanfiction, by its very nature, exists as a work that was inspired from or based off of other works. On a small scale, building off of others' ideas encourages collaboration and improvement within a community, but when the original work in question is considered intellectual property or a copyrighted material, that's when the law likes to poke its troublesome fingers into things.

The creators of the original source material from where fanfiction is made from deserve to have their work protected by the law, of course, but since fanfiction exists only for the sole purpose of enjoyment and not out of any monetary gain, this opens an ethical gray area on what is considered copyright infringement, and an even grayer area in terms of legality.

Fanfiction is allowed to exist because most of these writings fall under the jurisdiction of "Fair Use." According to Copyright Alliance, fair use allows someone to use a copyrighted work without the copyright owner’s permission for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. However, there are certain situations where problems can arise between fans and creators. In the book, fan CULTure: Essays on Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century, it discusses a similar scenario on fan films, "One of the major areas of contention the studios have with fan films is the perception of fans as "poachers," whereby they pilfer the ideas, characters, and imagery of media properties that the studios own (Jenkins)… The way studios can allow fan films like Browncoats: Redemption to be made without dealing with issues of copyright infringement is through the exploration of hyperdiegesis, which, according to Hills, is, 'the creation of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever directly seen or encountered within the text, but which nevertheless appears to operate according to the principles of internal logic and extension.' " This passage illustrates a method where fan creators can avoid copyright infringement by simply using the universe of the original work but not any recognizable characters, although it still demonstrates how original creators do not appreciate the output of such fans and instead think of them as competition.

Susan Estes from Kent Law states, "The more transformative the work is, the stronger the case is for fair use. The court can find that the work is not transformative when the new work is an unauthorized derivative, or stands on the shoulders of the original. Obviously this would weigh very heavily against the accused infringer." It shows that while there protections in place for copyrighted material, the protections themselves are incredibly vague. Perhaps this was done on purpose as to not restrict free speech and while it broadens the coverage of fair use in terms of fanfiction specifically, it also means that there can be very different interpretations on what fair use is.

An article from New York University further investigates this issue, "Despite the barriers to fanfiction that the derivative work doctrine raises, fanfiction writers may find relief from liability through the fair use doctrine. Some advocates of fanfiction, like the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), argue that fanfiction falls under fair use, which would ultimately eliminate potential legal trouble for such authors." Here is an actual segment from the DMCA policy page of the Archive of Our Own website, a popular fanfiction hub and a child project of the OTW, "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512)("DMCA"), creates a safe harbor, or a legal exemption, from copyright infringement liability for Internet service providers (ISPs) and other intermediaries. To encourage and maintain free speech on our sites, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) will push back against DMCA takedown requests if we believe that the content in question is actually lawful."

We are allowed to enjoy fanfiction legally because of protections such as fair use and we are allowed to enjoy fanfiction on the internet legally because of the DMCA. I would hate to imagine a world where neither legal safeguard exists. Overall, it seems evident that fanfiction can sometimes come very close to stepping on the toes of intellectual property theft, however, in a world where people just want to celebrate their favorite characters, movie franchises, and books, doesn't fanfiction deserve to exist?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

As EU Politicians Insist That It's All Just 'Bots' And 'Astroturf' Tons Of People Showing Up In Real Life To Protest

One of the more obnoxious elements of the EU politicians brushing off the concerns of the public concerning the EU Copyright Directive, is their repeated, insulting and incorrect, claim that there really isn't a public upswell against Articles 11 and 13 and that it's all just manufactured by Google and "bots" and "astroturfing." We've already pointed out that nearly 5 million people have signed the Change.org petition protesting Article 13 -- making it the largest petition on that site ever. And those are real people signing on.

And those real people are now showing up to protest as well. As highlighted by Drew Wilson at FreezeNet:

The ink has barely dried on the finalizing of Article 11 and Article 13 and now, protests are beginning to emerge in Europe.

All over Twitter there are examples of large protests springing up over the Copyright Directive.

Ich bin da! #Artikel13 #Artikel13Demo pic.twitter.com/KcZPkSI50V

— Jan 🤖🔋 (@Razora_DE) February 16, 2019

I especially like the text of this one which, translated, says "But we are all just bots."

Aber wir sind ja alles nur bots #Artikel13 #Artikel13Demo #NieMehrCDU pic.twitter.com/HdfMmFxw6t

— NairaKyoya (@NairaKyoya) February 16, 2019

Boy those "bots" sure crossed the uncanny valley in a hurry. Here's another one, saying: "We are currently at #Artikel13Demo the one in Cologne or as MEP of the CDU, Sven Schulze would say: "A real fake action."-Yes exactly! You see, we're all just bots!" Look at all those bots:

Wir sind gerade auf der #Artikel13Demo in Köln oder wie Europaabgeordneter der CDU, Sven Schulze sagen würde: "Eine richtige Fake Aktion." - Ja genau! Sieht man ja, wir sind alle nur Bots! 🤖#Artiekl13 🚫 #Uploadfilter #SaveYourInternet pic.twitter.com/ph7K2DwOyH

— unravel_game (@MilanUnravel) February 16, 2019

And some more bots:

Köln. Jetzt. #Artikel13Demo #Artikel13 #Kölngegen13 pic.twitter.com/lUIACCd7C7

— Dustin (@DustinNaujokat) February 16, 2019

I'm sensing a theme:

We ARE HERE ❤️ WE AREN'T BOTS @uploadfilter @Senficon #cologne #Artikel13Demo #Germany #NiewiederCDU pic.twitter.com/Xa0aLsiFeh

— Lorenz Buczek (@LorenzBuczek) February 16, 2019

Damn, that's a lot of bots.

Right now, spontaneous #Artikel13Demo, in #Cologne - just 2 days earlier announced. If already thousands of people demonstrate against #CopyLaw #CensorshipMachines (#Article13) & #LinkTax (#Article) at this occasion, how huge will the #stopACTA2 demos on 23th of March be?#EP2019 pic.twitter.com/qMgOFDbO3J

— CopyWrongs (@CopyWrongs) February 16, 2019

I'm beginning to think that European politicians who mocked critics of Articles 11 and 13 as "bots" may realize that that was a strategic mistake. The "bots" have mobilized -- and they sure look like human beings who will be voting for the EU Parliament in May...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190217/00005941617/as-eu-politicians-insist-that-all-just-bots-astroturf-tons-people-showing-up-real-life-to-protest.shtml

[danielpayne1]

Copyright or Copywrong?

In recent years, Copyright law has been at the forefront of news surrounding the entertainment industry. A constant source of battle between those with works they wish to protect and those who wish to adapt and innovate such ideas to a new audience. However, where do we draw the line? Is it acceptable to reuse lyrics and ideas by created by others, and at what point does this become theft?

History of Copyright Law

Copyright was originally designed for censorship, control and regulation.  When the printing press came into existence, writers could release multiple books to a large number of people. This made it harder for the governments and the Catholic Church across Europe to control the circulation of information.

In 1557 Queen Mary I created an exclusive club that could take ownership of all books published, and would place a royal monopoly over this industry. Through doing so, no politically deviating works could be published. However, by C1700, censorship laws were gradually relaxed, meaning that the power of publishing companies had decreased.

By this point, publishers no longer had such control over what the writers released, and in order to provide a better service in which the writers would still use printing companies in return for the accreditation of their work.  All that was required was that all works be published with the printers copyright. This lead to the first official document for copyright law, known as the 1710 Statute of Anne.

Today’s copyright law

Skip forward three centuries and Copyright Law has become far more intrinsic. There have been multiple restructurings of copyright law, the most recent of which is known as the Design and Patents Act 1988. Today copyright can be seen more to protect the ideas of an individual or collective that produce them.  In such circumstances, Copyright laws protect the originality of a work. However, it is subject to individual interpretation as to whether people are developing or stealing.

In the current video, it is plain to see that within the modern pop industry, there are more and more songs being released that sample motifs from older songs, leading us to question whether such songs should be released, as the original artists are not being credited for their creativity.

The main aspects that define copyright law are the allowance to remix, document, parody, critique or reference a work. However, the disparity between inspiration and copying is extremely hard to determine for some songs, and leads to highly costly court battles. This can be seen in the case the Robin Thick song “Blurred Lines”, which was taken to court for copying the sound and feel of the Marvin Gaye song “Got to give it up”. The court case was decided in favour of Marvin Gaye’s family and set a precedent that song writers can’t be influenced by other writer’s styles.

 As a fan of older music, I find this highly irritating as songs like “Wild Thoughts” by DJ Khaled can be argued to taking responsibility for the creativity of Carlos Santana in his song “Maria Maria”, in which all aspects of the song are the same except the part of the singer.

It is at this point that I question copyright laws, as if songs are produced from the perspective of a remix, this is classified as acceptable. However, if the feel of a song is used for inspiration, this can be argued to be copying and therefore in infringement of copyright law.

On balance, it could be argued that there is a loophole within contemporary copyright law. At some point in time, it became unacceptable to be inspired by different artists, but acceptable to copy. 

[some-mother-series-fan]

Copyright? more like CopyWRONG

[alexiya1-blog]

CopyRIGHT or CopyWRONG??

YOUTUBE ACCEPTED IT!!!! 

Appropriation is needed to allow the crafting world to evolve and generate new work that the audience have not heard or seen before. If we don’t draw from past works, we will run out of concepts and mediums. But where is the line between stealing and being inspired by previous works??  

My final music piece uses various samples of songs from well-known artists to sound effects found on YouTube and drew a lot of inspiration from Girl Talk. My final piece consists of samples from Youtube which I downloaded, cut, manipulated, and paste together not quite to the point of nonrecognition but not too recognisable. This is in accordance with the ‘Fair Use’ act, which states that to minimise the risks of Copyright, manipulation to the sample to make them unrecognisable and to bury the samples within the mix.

 When trying to upload my DANCE MUSIC REMIX to SoundCloud I ran into some problems with Copyright. Especially with a particular song: “SEPTEMBER” by Earth, Wind & Fire. I found this extremely odd considering majority of the remix had at least 10 other songs mixed into it that are actually more or even equally as recognisable as the song September... why did SoundCloud only pick up September??? why not Salt-N-Pepper- push it? or Pseudo Echo-Funky Town?? OR even Nirvana- Lithium??.  Due to SoundCloud taking down my remix I then had to cut and changed the samples mashing them together even more in certain parts to make sure that I did not copy a substantial amount of the original work... enough for SoundCloud to pick up anyway. After my song yet again got taken down, again and again, I gave up with SoundCloud and thought that I would upload my song to Youtube and see if they take my song down. After waiting for a little it became clear that Youtube wasn’t going to take my remix down. Whyy? Why didn’t they take my song down like SoundCloud did? They both have very similar Copyright agreements. 

 In regards to others taking music manipulating and remixing it. I personally wouldn’t mind if my songs were downloaded and used, cut, pasted, and remixed as art should not be restricted. This then allows for more dynamic and developed pieces of art as there are no limitations and people are able to explore unique creative concepts and ideas. However, If somebody was to take my music or artwork then tried to sell it as their own that would definitely become a problem. An artist should always be recognised if their work is being used.

This is a screenshot of SoundCloud telling me that they have taken down my song due to Copyright laws

[harrietadams-imageandnarrative]

COPYRIGHT OR COPYWRONG?

Within contemporary arts, copyright tends to be a contentious issue. The ownership of intellectual property in the digital age tends to agitate a handful of issues, ranging from the agency of one’s property to its profits and commercial uses. To combat these issues, copyright places boundaries (according to the creator/owner of the work) to allow for creators to share their work within their own means. The many tiers of copyright law allow for individuals to choose how they want their work protected, if at all. Within Creative Commons, there are many iterations of copyright protection that range from works in the public domain (available to anyone, anywhere), to all rights reserved.

As both an artist and an audience member in the digital age, working around copyright sometimes slips one’s mind. More often than not, we are used to the internet being a platform to share, transform and discuss. Yet as I begin to branch into more serious artmaking I tend to feel quite protective over my works (much like anyone else). But in investigating ‘remix cultures’ I am now more open to the idea of collaboration and cooperation. In Gaylor’s ‘RiP: A Remix Manifesto’, a certain point of view was shared that truly struck my interest. At the crux, if we are able to cite authors in an essay, using their ideas, works, and experiences to build our own works, why can we not do the same in the arts? I am completely open to sharing my work to be built on, as long as the credit and acknowledgement is there.

[hypexion]

Maybe I'm being uncharitable but a lot of these "oh boy AI is getting sued hooray!" posts feel like they think this process is going to happen:

Legal challenge against AI content generator happens.

The challenge is successful.

The AI content generator is immediately destroyed.

Through some unclear legal mechanism, all generative AI becomes illegal forever.

There are no side effects.

Except you can't legislate a technology out of existence, no matter how hard you try. It didn't work for encryption, it didn't work for peer to peer torrenting, and it's not going to work for AI content generators.

Even if some of them did use illegally sourced training data, that doesn't mean they all did. And in the unlikely event that they did, all that does is kill off the current models. New ones can be trained, and now the concept is proven there's a good chance a lot more people will be trying it. Including making more illegal ones.

Thus this post I already made remains evergreen. And I'm still irrationally worried that file compression might end up being hit it some way. (probably because of all the dubious and wrong explanations of how these AI things actually work.)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Mark Twain's nutty 1906 plan to extend copyright #10yrsago

Alek sez, "The boundless archive of the NYT has spat out for me an article about Mark Twain's cunning plan to beat the early 20th century copyright law, with its short copyright terms. In short, Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright, with one-third more content in the shape of his serialized bibliography. He hoped that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market. There's a gem in the first paragraph - the author suggests that Twain's plan 'makes the present copyright law look like a very sick and discomfited pirate, indeed.' So, who's the pirate here?!" Link (Thanks, Alek!)

Update: Siva Vaidhyanathan sez, "I have an entire chapter in my first book about Twain and his shifting ideas about copyright. At the beginning, he was totally tolerant -- even celebratory -- about use, re-use, and revision. And he loved cheap books, so he was critical of efforts toward a treaty with the British and for term extension.

Only later, when he was old and worried that his daughters could not make a living for themselves, did he get interested in perpetual copyright. His plan was indeed wacky. But it reveals a lot about the status of authorship and the state of American publishing at the turn of the 20th century. (See Copyrights and Copywrongs, Ch. 2)"

https://boingboing.net/2007/09/23/mark-twains-nutty-19.html