Wrote a new long piece about the creators economy in the age of AI, copyrights, and the redefinition of "fair use". Remember eMule? 👀 

cc @matthew 👋

design @splits | /wireframe /latenightcrew /event-pass /feud

Wrote a new long piece about the creators economy in the age of AI, copyrights, and the redefinition of "fair use". Remember eMule? 👀 

cc @matthew 👋 

https://paragraph.com/@alixkun.eth/openai-is-emule

/monad ecosystem growth | ex telco.in & everwave.xyz founder | /music moderator | writing on web3 & culture https://paragraph.xyz/@alixkun.eth

It's a (obviously) provocative analogy for the similar effect that it had, not for its nature 🙂 .

The scale does matter, because it changes paradigms. Technological breakthroughs are all about drastic scale improvements in terms of access & distribution. The story of copyrights is full (if not only made) of modifications and add-on due to technological breakthroughs. So yes, it's actually all about scale.

If this is an interesting topic for you (which it seems to be!) I highly suggest you read this extract about the several modifications of copyright laws around music & Radio stations:
https://copyrightandtechnology.com/2021/06/10/book-excerpt-the-saga-of-royalties-for-radio-play-of-recorded-music/

I think it's extremely relevant for what's happening here with OpenAI. Some things that don't belong in copyright law at time "t" can be included at time "t+1" if a new technology brings enough changes that make it necessary for the law to change.

It's the wrong analogy. Consumption of copyrighted content was already illegal, just not enforced. As you earlier pointed out, a style of art cannot be copyrighted. The scale doesn't matter, because it is not illegal in the first place.

The better analogy would be moving from MS Paint to Photoshop. Or going from mixing a dozen analog audio tracks to using Logic. Tools like ChatGPT are means of creation, not consumption. And the logical outcome of the rationale you provide is to tax creation, which would be a horrible idea.