I don’t understand why people are so indifferent about this topic. I think it’s one of the most atrocious modern crimes that the rich and powerful are perpetrating right under our noses. It really...
I don’t understand why people are so indifferent about this topic. I think it’s one of the most atrocious modern crimes that the rich and powerful are perpetrating right under our noses. It really riles me up.
I think that copyright, patent, and trademark laws have gone far beyond their original intent, and rather than encouraging innovation, have actually only served to stifle it, and have allowed large corporations to engage in anti-consumer practices, completely unchecked. What’s worse, is that these same corporations have successfully lobbied ignorant politicians into tightening their grip around their “intellectual property”. This documentary, along with many other videos from the same creator, gives lots of great examples.
I think that the concept of “intellectual property” is as dumb as it sounds. You can’t “own” ideas anymore than you can own a virus. They’re everywhere. They’re freely transmitted without us even realizing it. So often, when inspiration for a creation or an invention strikes us, we’re not even aware of the thousands or hundreds of sources we drank from, sometimes long ago, which all melded together to bring about the “original” idea that came to our minds. This documentary is really good at explaining that process.
I believe that the current “tech fatigue” that we are experiencing, is the final warning that our society is being given, before the entire system collapses. We are one humanity. There is no logical reason why we should withhold knowledge from each other. The public domain ought to be steadily enriched so that we can continue to improve upon it. I will die on this hill a thousand lifetimes over. And if you are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, then I invite you to watch this favorite documentary series of mine, entitled Everything is a Remix, by Kirby Ferguson.
I read the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s and have heard a lot of arguments against existing copyright law from people like Peter Sunde (the former...
I read the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s and have heard a lot of arguments against existing copyright law from people like Peter Sunde (the former spokesperson for The Pirate Bay) and Brewster Kahle (the founder of the Internet Archive). I have always been sympathetic to these kinds of arguments.
There doesn't seem to much energy behind the idea of copyright reform among liberal/progressive/left-leaning/leftist people in North America. (I'm not as familiar with the thinking of people with different political orientations or from different regions of the world.) One of the main reasons people give for their anger against large language models (LLMs) is that they train on copyrighted material without the authors' permission and without compensating the authors. Some are so impassioned about this that they even are willing to entertain measures that would end up restricting some humans' access to copyrighted works if it meant spiting the machines.
People make similar arguments about diffusion models like Midjourney and DALL-E that train on images.
I don't know if anyone who younger liberal/progressive/left-leaning/leftist North Americans listen to has come up with a compelling way to talk about copyright in a way that balances or integrates the anti-copyright arguments that have been made since at least Free Culture with people's desire to respect the rights of artists and to ensure they are compensated fairly. Laurence Lessig has been advocating for reasonable reforms for a long time, but it seems like most people don't know who he is.
Talking about simultaneous discovery. I have always been fond of the book Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, which explains creativity and invention in much the same way, and that was...
Talking about simultaneous discovery. I have always been fond of the book Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, which explains creativity and invention in much the same way, and that was published in 2011. The original parts of this video were published from 2010 to 2012, according to the closing credits. If you want to read more on the topics discussed in parts one to three, I can recommend it.
That title, and this video series, has been my mantra any time someone is complaining about the lack of originality in media 'these days'. I picture the astronaut - gun - astronaut meme.
That title, and this video series, has been my mantra any time someone is complaining about the lack of originality in media 'these days'.
I love this video/series -- I used to show it to my comp students when we talked about genre and remix. We didn't get too bogged down in part 4, but the first 3 parts are really illustrative of...
I love this video/series -- I used to show it to my comp students when we talked about genre and remix. We didn't get too bogged down in part 4, but the first 3 parts are really illustrative of how nothing is made in a vacuum, and how masters of craft are true students of genre. They understand the disparate parts and how they fit together, and--most importantly--how the parts can be broken down, shuffled around and inverted in order to create something new and exciting.
I don’t understand why people are so indifferent about this topic. I think it’s one of the most atrocious modern crimes that the rich and powerful are perpetrating right under our noses. It really riles me up.
I think that copyright, patent, and trademark laws have gone far beyond their original intent, and rather than encouraging innovation, have actually only served to stifle it, and have allowed large corporations to engage in anti-consumer practices, completely unchecked. What’s worse, is that these same corporations have successfully lobbied ignorant politicians into tightening their grip around their “intellectual property”. This documentary, along with many other videos from the same creator, gives lots of great examples.
I think that the concept of “intellectual property” is as dumb as it sounds. You can’t “own” ideas anymore than you can own a virus. They’re everywhere. They’re freely transmitted without us even realizing it. So often, when inspiration for a creation or an invention strikes us, we’re not even aware of the thousands or hundreds of sources we drank from, sometimes long ago, which all melded together to bring about the “original” idea that came to our minds. This documentary is really good at explaining that process.
I believe that the current “tech fatigue” that we are experiencing, is the final warning that our society is being given, before the entire system collapses. We are one humanity. There is no logical reason why we should withhold knowledge from each other. The public domain ought to be steadily enriched so that we can continue to improve upon it. I will die on this hill a thousand lifetimes over. And if you are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, then I invite you to watch this favorite documentary series of mine, entitled Everything is a Remix, by Kirby Ferguson.
I read the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s and have heard a lot of arguments against existing copyright law from people like Peter Sunde (the former spokesperson for The Pirate Bay) and Brewster Kahle (the founder of the Internet Archive). I have always been sympathetic to these kinds of arguments.
There doesn't seem to much energy behind the idea of copyright reform among liberal/progressive/left-leaning/leftist people in North America. (I'm not as familiar with the thinking of people with different political orientations or from different regions of the world.) One of the main reasons people give for their anger against large language models (LLMs) is that they train on copyrighted material without the authors' permission and without compensating the authors. Some are so impassioned about this that they even are willing to entertain measures that would end up restricting some humans' access to copyrighted works if it meant spiting the machines.
People make similar arguments about diffusion models like Midjourney and DALL-E that train on images.
I don't know if anyone who younger liberal/progressive/left-leaning/leftist North Americans listen to has come up with a compelling way to talk about copyright in a way that balances or integrates the anti-copyright arguments that have been made since at least Free Culture with people's desire to respect the rights of artists and to ensure they are compensated fairly. Laurence Lessig has been advocating for reasonable reforms for a long time, but it seems like most people don't know who he is.
Interesting. I just discovered that I actually had added Lessig’s book to my wishlist a long time ago. Thanks for telling me about it.
Talking about simultaneous discovery. I have always been fond of the book Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, which explains creativity and invention in much the same way, and that was published in 2011. The original parts of this video were published from 2010 to 2012, according to the closing credits. If you want to read more on the topics discussed in parts one to three, I can recommend it.
That title, and this video series, has been my mantra any time someone is complaining about the lack of originality in media 'these days'.
I picture the astronaut - gun - astronaut meme.
I love this video/series -- I used to show it to my comp students when we talked about genre and remix. We didn't get too bogged down in part 4, but the first 3 parts are really illustrative of how nothing is made in a vacuum, and how masters of craft are true students of genre. They understand the disparate parts and how they fit together, and--most importantly--how the parts can be broken down, shuffled around and inverted in order to create something new and exciting.