I can understand why. They buy into AI vendors’ premise — that copyright is the only way to fight back.
But that’s not going to work. Because 1) they win either way, but more importantly: 2) if you zoom out, this is kinda the big tech playbook in general, right?
“Okay, define what constitutes a ‘taxi service’, so that I can compete against them while avoiding the regulations that apply to them.”
“Define ‘employment’, so I can use people’s labor without respecting their labor rights.”
“Define ‘purchase’, so I can charge money for access to something but take it away whenever I feel like it.”
So when we say “Hey, you’re being a jerk by using people’s own work to compete against them and disconnect them from their audience”, they say “Okay, define that in objective, quantifiable terms, and we’ll stop doing anything that fits that exact definition… but we’ll still continue doing basically that, obviously.”
I can understand why. They buy into AI vendors’ premise — that copyright is the only way to fight back.
But that’s not going to work. Because 1) they win either way, but more importantly: 2) if you zoom out, this is kinda the big tech playbook in general, right?
“Okay, define what constitutes a ‘taxi service’, so that I can compete against them while avoiding the regulations that apply to them.”
“Define ‘employment’, so I can use people’s labor without respecting their labor rights.”
“Define ‘purchase’, so I can charge money for access to something but take it away whenever I feel like it.”
So when we say “Hey, you’re being a jerk by using people’s own work to compete against them and disconnect them from their audience”, they say “Okay, define that in objective, quantifiable terms, and we’ll stop doing anything that fits that exact definition… but we’ll still continue doing basically that, obviously.”