Speaking as a creative who also has gotten paid for creative work, I'm a bit flustered at how brazenly people just wax poetic about the need for copyright law, especially when the creator or artist them selves are never really considered in the first place.
It's not like yee olde piracy, which can even be ethical (like videogames being unpublished and almost erased from history), but a new form whereby small companies get to join large publishers in screwing over the standalone creator - except this time it isn't by way of predatory contracts, but by sidestepping the creator and farming data from the creator to recreate the same style and form, which could've taken years - even decades to develop.
There's also this idea that "all work is derivative anyways, nothing is original", but that sidesteps the points of having worked to form a style over nigh decades and making a living off it when someone can just come along and undo all that with a press of a button.
If you're libertarian and anarchist, be honest about that. Seems like there are a ton of tech bros who are libertarian and subversive about it to feel smort (the GPL is important btw). But at the end of the day the hidden agenda is clear: someone wants to benifit from somebody else's work without paying them and find the mental and emotional justification to do so. This is bad, because they then justify taking food out of somebody's mouth, which is par for the course in the current economic system.
It's just more proof in the pudding that the capitalist system doesn't work and will always screw the labourer in some way. It's quite possible that only the most famous of artists will be making money directly off their work in the future, similarly to musicians.
As an aside, Jay-Z and Taylor Swift complaining about not getting enough money from Spotify is tone-deaf, because they know they get the bulk of that money anyways, even the money of some account that only plays the same small bands all the time, because of the payout model of Spotify. So the big ones will always, always be more "legitimate" than small artists and in that case they've probably already paid writers and such, but maybe not.. looking at you, Jay-Z.
If the copyright cases get overwritten by the letigous lot known as corporate lawyers and they manage to finger holes into legislation that benifits both IP farmers and corporate interests, by way of models that train AI to be "far enough" away from the source material, we might see a lot of people loose their livelihoods.
Make it make sense, Beehaw =(
Nah it flat out is always ethical. Nintendo and steam is proof that everyone benefits from piracy. Yes, even the companies.
"But they're stealing my intelectu-" 1) Nobody's stealing shit, it's still there and 2) If your business model involves depriving people who want your product of your product, that's very much a you problem. Don't screw everyone else over to chase dollars that were never there.
"But then the people who made it aren't getting pa-" Newsflash, the Hollywood strike is proof that you aren't fucking paying them anyway.
"You're just defending your shitty behavior because you download stuff for free" Literally never pirated a thing in my life, and probably never will. If I want something I buy it. If I can't buy it, I lose interest and move on to something else.
People's want for a product is irrelevant. Just because you want a game doesn't make it ethical to download it illegally. You can say your only doing it Because Nintendo doesn't provide a way for you to play it but they might have plans go re-release the game and after pirating the game you may no longer buy that release.
I pirate games and media and I think its unethical. I just don't want to be ethical to cunty corporations like Nintendo.
You’re not being ethical to the artists and devs that work at Nintendo though. You’re pissed at the leadership but it’s never them who gets sacked when the shit hits the fan.
I know and I accept that.
Gigachad.
Not all laws are ethical, so I'll skip that part.
What makes "pirating" content ethical, are basically two cases:
I can't see a case for pirating to be ethical in the case where you create the story/paint the picture/write the song/build the machine, and then Disney/Time Warner/Sony/Amazon pirates it and sells it for profit while you get nothing.
If they genuinely did that it would open up the floodgates and capitalism would collapse in less than a month.
All of that is true, but I mentioned all that - especially the predatory contracts. Now the general public seems to be missing the gist of copyright as well, probably since the likes of Disney has gamed copyright law.
But why should all that affect independent artists, who barely make enough as it is? With generative AI basing it's learning models, not on classical works or anything in the public domain, but directly off modern artist works, who spent maybe a decade or two of honing skills, finding stylistic angles and breathing new life into old formats, only for someone to swallow it all up, make a few tweaks, with a small payment given to some data centres? =\
How does that make sense?
AI art is genuine theft because you're taking works and not crediting the original and then claiming it as your own.
Unfortunately, that is true - and also what everyone ignores because AI got them pumped for a bright future of working less, not knowing that people who spent the passed decade or so honing their craft can just throw all that in the trash.
It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Everyone has to use AI now =\ wether you like it or not... or come up with a format that just messes with AI and let's humans understand it due to some flaw in our senses that the AI can't make out... though that seems very unlikely.
Maybe a new anti-AI codec of some sort that prevents AI from interpreting audio, images or video... but that would be a stopgap solution, as it would almost certainly be circumvented.. unless the codec comes with a new strict license that promises to sue the ever loving crap out of tech companies who facilitate travel, distribution and recreation of works in said codecs.
I get that, it is a valid and widely held belief, so I think you have a good chance that something will be done about it. But we need actionable proposals to be able to do anything about it.