funny how thats copyright infringement but AI scraping isnt
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
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Actually there are several legal arguments about this currently ongoing. There is a lot of discussion and several lawsuits in progress.
There isn't really a final decision yet, but I think I agree with Cory Doctorow's opinion that the solution is to make the output of generative AI tools uncopywritable/public domain. This protects artists broadly, as any company that wants to produce a copywrited final work (e.g. film, television, music, books, etc) will need to hire an artist to do it.
i think that should be a given but it does not solve peoples work being taken and mutilated by an algorithm.
certainly takes incentive out of it for someone that wants to use it for a production, but im sure there are ways they would get around it.
You're right that it's not a complete solution. Offhand, it seems like this won't help graphic designers that make advertising graphics if the advertiser doesn't really care about copyright protection - or basically anything that is expected to have a short lifespan (who cares if an ad campaign that runs for a week is copyrighted?).
Are those jobs worth fighting over? There are probably a lot more graphic artists making a living producing bilboards and web ads &etc than there are making a living selling their own art, but are those jobs something that society at large should make an effort to protect?
I do think that manipulating incentives is the most effective strategy. A high-budget film without copyright is not profitable, and therefore anything that leads to gaps in copyright protection is unlikely to be adopted by the film industry. This removes all of the potential burden of government regulation, oversight, auditing, labor union rules, legal battles, etc... it just obviates all that because it kills the profitability of using generative AI to replace people.
I think I agree with Cory Doctorow's opinion
I'd say that's always a good position. I don't think I've ever seen him come out on the wrong side of a topic.
I have argued with him. He can tend to throw up flippant back-hands, but his prepared arguments are good.
I'd rather have it that way around than the contrary.
The Archive strongly supports AI training being Fair Use. It has even advised the UK government to relax copyright laws to permit training. https://blog.archive.org/2025/02/26/internet-archive-submits-comments-in-uks-open-consultation-on-ai-and-copyright/
Some of the precedents won by AI companies offer great support for the Archive, but remember that they also had to pay up on occasion.
it can be fair use as long as it is open. OpenAi used to be a non-profit after all. As it stands now they can go fuck themselves as far as im concerned.
Why do you want it to work that way?
Cuz AI in the hands of a few is harmful (see elon musks grok he likes to tamper with) and I find it reprehensible to train AI on material that u steal and then paywall the result
It just seems odd to me, you know? AI in the hands of the few is harmful, but if they pay license fees, that can be allowed. Copyright infringement is theft, but it is acceptable if the result is shared freely. I don't really see how that works.
The result isn't shared freely because the owners get to dictate what information AI is allowed to give and under what context.
I agree. Generally, I think AI is a net negative in any context or scenario, because of the way the tech is built. The badness of AI is inherent, a priori of any copyright discussion. It's a garbage creator that lowers the overall quality of any mass-data applications, be it aggregation like search engines or Wikipedia, or entertainment media, like photo search results, videos or books.
Keep the donations coming. IA is worth a million times more to humanity than all of these publishers combined.
I'm just glad they didn't go into a protracted and expensive legal battle with this one, which isn't exactly a good use of donated funds.
IA is worth more than AI.
No details of the settlement have so far been released
Is there a way to distribute the hosting of the Internet Archive, similar to how Anna's Archive functions?