The author further warns that this approach would limit innovation and competition, while providing an even bigger benefit to the biggest incumbents. They argue that the end result of such litigation would be a few pennies for creators, while locking in the dominance of big tech companies. The author concludes that this is not a beneficial outcome, but a horrible one, and that copyright is not the right tool to address concerns about how AI works.
Key takeaways:
- Using copyright as a tool to get AI companies to pay for the material they train on could be a huge mistake and potentially destroy important and useful tools.
- Copyright law, by its nature as a monopoly right, has always served the interests of gatekeepers over artists, with the most aggressive enforcers being the middlemen like record labels, TV and movie studios, book publishers, etc.
- AI training will never fit neatly into a licensing regime, and the likely outcome is that a few large entities will act as central repositories for the copyrights, collecting large amounts of money while actual artists receive a tiny bit.
- The end result of this kind of litigation would be the further locking-in of the biggest companies, limiting innovation and competition, and providing an even bigger benefit to the biggest incumbents.