Thread

1. jacquesm · 1789726316 · focus · HN ↗

   It's the robbery of all of our culture to sell it back to us at a mark-up. Crimes this large are crimes against humanity. So many people whose life's work got appropriated without consideration, compensation or consent it is baffling.

   It is said that at the heart of every great fortune there is a great crime, so it should be no surprise that the most valuable companies on the planet will most likely result from this crime. And given that justice can be bought by those with the most money you can forget about anything coming of this.

   1. brookst · 1789733709 · focus · HN ↗

      Musicians and writers build new works on top off millennia of literary and musical history, then copyright their works and sell it back to us. Is this so bad? If Taylor Swift, consciously or subconsciously, gets an harmonic idea from a 1970's song and a fragment of a melody from some 1990's song... is that theft?

      I'm ambivalent about AI and, like all gold rushes, many of the players are terrible, dishonest, egomaniacal jerks.

      But I am deeply skeptical of the idea that aggregation of knowledge and culture is itself wrong. That's literally how culture has worked since the dawn of time, and our modern era obsession with credit and perpetual copyright is unhealthy. \

      It's only in the past 100 years or so that this idea of "if you create it, it's yours alone and nobody can build on it without paying you" became current, and it was largely driven by the megacorps that AI haters used to hate (remember the despite for RIAA? I do). It's bizarre to think that someone's life work is entirely their property, as if they grew up in a box and did not build on hundreds of generations of other peoples' lives work.

      I don't object to disliking these companies; I object to the idea that you, me, anyone remixing culture is committing a crime. What the hell happened to the hacker ethos?

      1. hshdjdjdif · 1789734144 · focus · HN ↗

         when you do your job you take ideas from others before from university from calculus etc

         therefore you have to work for me for free

         1. brookst · 1789735050 · focus · HN ↗

            Oh I'm sorry, who's forcing you to work without pay?

            1. hshdjdjdif · 1789737620 · focus · HN ↗

               I write books for a living, when you buy them off Amazon I get 7 USD. when someone else gets them off libgen I get 0 USD.

               However if I put a gun to their head and demand to live in their house or give me food for free they get mad.

               Its lovely how everyone deserves to get paid except writers / musicians cause we are only fucking hippies when it comes to that.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.