It would obviously be better if everything were done in the open. But you can't simply say "corporations will corrupt AI with copyright regime X" and compare it to a hypothetical universe "copyright regime Y will result in corporations acting with altruism." Regardless, corporations are going to be rent-seeking parasites trying to maximize their profits at all costs.

The world you're arguing for isn't one where small-time artists are adequately compensated for their work. It's one where Disney and Elsevier collect a bunch of rents and hold back development of tools that would radically improve human well-being. Even in the best case, your copyright suggestion will privilege the giant corporations who have the capability to navigate copyright rules against a bunch of other giant corporations, at the expense of smaller researchers and hobbyists.

I'd be more than happy to sign into something saying "a small artist has a right to prevent training on their work without permission for a decade after it's released." But that is not in the cards, unfortunately.

> Even in the best case, your copyright suggestion will privilege the giant corporations who have the capability to navigate copyright rules against a bunch of other giant corporations, at the expense of smaller researchers and hobbyists.

Copyright doesn't really privilege giant corporations. In a world without it, they can just use their market power and immense resources (e.g., SaaS) to protect their interests.

Copyright is one of the few tools the little guy can use to protect their interests against giant corporations. Abolish it, and one of the first things that will happen is the RIAA will stop paying artists anything and become the biggest "pirate" in the world.

It's mind boggling how some people have that so backwards. I'm guessing it stems from only thinking about copyright in the context of "RIAA sues..." articles and complaints about Elsevier, without thinking about it from any other angles.

It's cognitive dissonance to such an arrogant and ignorant degree it's turning out to be the best sunlight we've ever needed on the situation. No one is arguing a balanced or logical alternative. Every argument ignores the entire landscape of issues and reduces it to 'what's yours is mine but what's mine is not yours'..... They're arguing to keep the toys in their playground. Even if it's not their toy. It's 'in the world' so we're free to take it.

Ok! I appreciate this insight. At this point I'll be 'scraping' everything from tech and fight this in court with their own words.