Wait, I'm still trying to figure out the difference between your imaginary world and the world we live in now?
The Disney or otherwise copyrighted versions allow for unique spins on these old characters to be re-copyrighted. This Thor from Disney/Marvel is distinguished from Thor from God of War.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/54400/why-did-earl...
Huh, did not know that. As an Icelandic person I knew about Þór the Norse god much earlier than Thor the marvel character. I never really pictured his hair color, nor knew he had a specific hair color in the mythology. I actually always pictured him with a beard though. What mostly mattered though was his characteristics. His ill temper and drinking habits, and the fact that he was not a nice person, nor a hero, but rather a guy who starts shit that gets everyone else in trouble, he also wins every fight except one (he looses one against Elli [the personification of old age]). The little I’ve seen of him in the Marvel movies, he keeps almost none of these characteristics.
EDIT: My favorite story of him is the depiction of the fall of Ásgarður, where Loki and some Jötun are about to use the gods vanity against them and con them out of stuff they cannot actually pay for a wall around Ásgarður. Þór, being the way he is, cannot be around a Jötun without fighting and killing him. So rather than paying up (which the gods cannot do) Þór is sent to see this Jötun, knowing very well that he will be murdered. This betrayal is marked as the beginning of the end in Völuspá (verse 26).
If anyone in the world could make a Star Wars movie, the average Star Wars movie would be much worse, but the best 10 Star Wars movies might be better that what we currently have.
Saying the lack of creativity in the industry in because we can't copy things freely is completely moronic.
Copyright can't legally stop you from making a movie about wizards fighting each other with laser swords in space.
There are plenty of examples of copyright hurting people for creating something that wasn't exactly the same as something else which was copyrighted. Copyright is a threat to all creative works. The bigger the investment required for a creative work, the bigger the risk. For this reason, we see it a lot more often in music where the investment needed is lower than films. People have been successfully sued because they wrote a totally new song that was in the same genre as someone else's song https://abovethelaw.com/2018/03/blurred-lines-can-you-copy-a...
> intellectual property [...] used over and over again, primarily by the rich and powerful, to stifle original ideas and hold back cultural innovation.
There's nothing about IP which prevents you from creating your own. There are, in fact, a near infinite number of things you can create. More things than there exist stars in our galaxy.
The problem with ideas is that they have to be good. They have to be refined. They have to hit the cultural zeitgeist, solve a particular problem, or just be useful. That's the hard part that takes the investment of time and money.
In the old world before Gen AI, this was the hard thing that kept companies in power. That world is going away fast, and now creation will be (relatively) easy. More taste makers will be slinging content and we'll wind up in a land of abundance. We won't need Disney to give us their opinion on Star Wars - we can make our own.
The new problem is distributing that content.
> The idea of open sourcing everything and nullifying patents would benefit corporations like Disney and OpenAI vastly more than it would benefit the people. The first thing that would happen is that BigCorp would eat up every interesting or useful piece of art, technology, and culture that has ever been created and monetize the life out of it.
Unless the masses can create and share on equal footing, you're 100% right.
If it turns out, however, that we don't need Google, OpenAI, or big tech to make our own sci-fi epics, share them with a ton of people, and interact with friends and audiences, then the corporations won't be able to profit off of it.
If social networks were replaced with common carriers and protocols.
If Gen AI could run at the edge without proprietary models or expensive compute.
If the data of YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram didn't require hyperscaler infra to store, search, and serve.
Unfortunately, there are too many technical reasons why the giants will win. And network effects will favor the few versus many. Unless those parameters change, we'll be stuck with big tech distribution.
Even if the laws around IP change, the hard tech challenges keep the gatekeepers in power. The power accrues to those who can dominate creation (if creation is unilateral), or even more so, to the distributors of that content.
No they don't, look at music popular in social networks.
> and now creation will be (relatively) easy. More taste makers will be slinging content and we'll wind up in a land of abundance.
Even before the generative AI, I think we live in the era where there are more creators than ever in history: everybody today can publish their music or art without any large investments (except for instruments: they are expensive as always). I would prefer we have cheaper pianos, samples and microphones instead of worthless music-copying models.
There are lots of ML models that produce instrumentals and vocals that are incredibly useful for practicing musicians.
The popular and well-known Suno and Udio are pop culture toys. They also find use with content creators who don't have time to learn how to make music. (Not everyone can learn and master everything. We have to let some of our creative desires slip or we'd never be able to accomplish anything.)
Disney would say that you can’t. And in the current copyright regime, it’s not unlikely that they’d convince the court that they’re right.
Disney won't have any control. I can already generate images and videos locally on my hardware.
Maybe they'll try to stop distribution? There will be quite a lot of people making these, though.
The same is happening already with AI creations. Doing it yourself is work and takes some technical skill, so most people use hosted AI services. Guess who makes all the money?
You will be able to create and share your own spin on Star Wars. You won’t see anything for that except maybe cred or some upvotes. The company that hosts it and provides the gateway and controls the algorithms that show it to people will get everything.
I do not agree with your conjecture that big corps would win by default. Ask why would people need protection from having their work stolen when the only ones welding weaponized copyright are the corporations. People need the freedom to wield culture without restriction, not protection from someone having the same idea as them and manifesting it.
Primarily because recipe creation is not one of the biggest cost centers for restaurants?
In other words, the challenge is not to understand “what exactly is being owned,” and instead, to understand “what exactly being owned is.”
Thank you, this is beautifully put and very astute. Does a recipe, a culmination of a lifetime of experience, technique, trials, errors, and luck constitute a form of someone/thing's person-hood such that it can be Intellectual Property.
Have you taken reasonable steps to keep it secret? It could be a trade secret and if course if you steal the recipe for KFC’s herbs and spices, you will be liable for civil damages for your misappropriation of their trade secret.
And if you describe a recipe in flowery prose, reminiscing about the aromas in grandmas kitchen, of course that prose is copyrightable.
Should you invent a special kind of chicken fry mix and give us a fanciful name, the recipes identifier if origin - its trademark -could be protectable.
But the fact that your chicken fry mix is made of corn starch and bread crumbs is a fact, like a phone book. Under most circumstances, not protectable.
ianyl tinla
They barely work. Recipes are trade secrets, and the cooks who use them are either paid very well, given NDAs or given only part of the most guarded recipes
What is different about the production of Micky Mouse cartoons? Why is it normal for industries to compete in manufacturing of physical product, but as soon as you can apply copyright, now you exclusively have rights to control anything that produces a similar result?
Musicians I suppose can tour, which is grueling but it’s something. Authors, programmers, actors, game studios, anything that’s not performed live would immediately become non-viable as a career or a business.
Large corporations would make money of course, by offering all you can eat streaming feeds of everything for a monthly fee. The creators get nothing.
I've purchased books that were in the public domain and without copyright. I've paid for albums I could already legally listen to for free. I've paid for games and movies that were free to play and watch. I'm far from the only person who has or would.
The people who pirate the most are also the spend the most money on the things they pirate. They are hardcore fans. They want official merch and special boxed sets. People love to give the creators of the things they love their money and often feel conflicted about having to give their cash to a far less worthy corporation. There are people who love music but refuse to support the RIAA by buying albums.
There are proven ways to make profit like 'pay what you want' or even "fund in advance" crowdsourced models. If copyright went away or, more ideally, were limited to a much shorter period of time (say 8-10 years) artists would continue to find fans and make money.
Part of what muddies the water here too is that copyright lasts too long. Companies like Disney lobbied for this successfully. It should have a time horizon of maybe 25 years, 50 at most.
So make copyright like patents. That’s what a lot of the copyleft movement has been arguing for forever. Make a copyright holder demonstrate their idea is unique, manifests into a tangible output, and if so protect the creator for a limited time. Everyone is free to use the work in their own provided they pay royalties at a reasonable rate for the duration of the patent.
But the status quo now with basically perpetual copyright controlled by large media conglomerates 100% stifles culture and is a net negative on society. It’s not the right to copy that needs defending, it’s the first right of a briefly protected enterprise, a reward to the creator, that needs to be protected. Copyright is like trying to cure a cough by sewing someone’s mouth shut.
2. You greatly underestimate the creativity of a capitalistic market. For example, on the web, it's generally difficult and frowned upon to copyright designs. Some patent trolls do it, but most don't. If you make an innovative design for your website, you're bound to be copied. And yet many programmers and tech companies still have viable business models. They simply don't base their entire business model around doing easily-copyable things.
But if you want to make money and do it from riding the brand name association of Harry Potter or Mario, they can.
A couple of years ago, I would have agreed that this would be a big and complicated issue. But do we all really think this is a problem in 2025? By now we actually have proof that it isn't impossible.
First of all, there is already, today, a plethora of FOSS projects where the developers get regular salaries without relying on royalties. Good experienced people work, make a career, yet the end product is free. We have hard proof that it won't "become a non-viable [...] career". The field might shrink, or at least change, but it won't die entirely. There is still value to be gained, so someone somewhere will pay to have it created.
Furthermore, now a days there are also websites such as Patreon, Kickstarter, and the like that have clearly demonstrated that the same can also be applied to creative endeavors such as art, music, or writing. You just pay people as they work, monthly salaries, rather than afterwards based on royalties. Yes, it comes with other issues, and for many years it was hard to say if those would be crippling. But by now we can actually see, with real world examples, that it's a feasible way to fund creative projects, and the people working on them, even if the digital products were released for free after completion. It turns out that millions of people are willing to pay for these things, to speed up the development presumably, even though they would have gotten the same product for free later, it's no longer a hypothetical.
I also think that the future will show us even more ways to finance creative intellectual work without making things into 'intellectual property' that you have to guard fiercely with copyright as if it was in short supply.
Yes, it would probably become very hard to earn really big money, millions or billions, in the industry if everyone was working for salaries rather than royalties. The distribution would presumably be less top heavy, and more similar to other industries where "going viral" isn't really a thing. But is that such a bad thing? And it's not even a guarantee that this would change, after an artist goes viral their next project would presumably have a lot more fans and investors willing to ensure they continue working, since they loved the first album/film/etc so much.
What's in Coca Cola?
What are the 11 herbs and spices in Kentucky Fried Chicken?
How do I make the sauce in a Big Mac?
Today? All the time? I just went into a new local joint today, talked to the owner about adding some vegetarian meals, and we hashed out some ideas in terms of both ingredients and preparation.
As a pescetarian and cook myself, I frequently ask establishments detailed questions about ingredients and preparation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Snow_White_tale
I see a mention of Ovid ... copyright has probably expired.
I could just be wrong about Snow White's original copyright. As indicated by my use of "I imagine", no I didn't search the origins of it. I'm not seeing a big "double down" moment where I asserted that Snow White is definitely owned by Disney--that would be the cinch. In fact nothing about my reply contradicted the GGP adding that maybe Snow White isn't the best example. Why are you so bothered? Anyway, Snow White doesn't have a recent progenitor then it kinda proves the point that the world works perfectly well in the absence of copyright, and that the ability to freely remix culture is a fundamental human right. TIL that Snow White was originally a German fairytale and I'm relieved that Disney hasn't asserted copyright over it.
But less obtusely: you don't copyright a book--which is why knowledge, language, literature should not be closed source. We'd have to find a different model to support authors than trying to prevent people from copying books. Patreon style models where you subscribe and get behind the scenes access to the creative process, additional content, early access, etc. seem to work well as do sponsorship models like YT where the more viewers you draw the more you get paid, rather than a fixed fee per individual to watch a video. And, simply pay-what-you-want based models where everyone understands they can contribute in a way that matches the value to them and their means also work. One of the strongest arguments for piracy is that the pirate would never have paid $700 for Photoshop in the first place so the value "lost" isn't real and never would have been realized by the author(s). (Note this argument doesn't work for petty theft of physical property because the thief deprives the owner of tangible property.)
Private - this includes funding by selling item(s), licensing work, and private equity
State
Charity - this includes volunteers, patrons, donations, sponsorships.
Charity relies on people willing to donate for the betterment of others.
State funding fails because of the political nature of the person holding the purse strings.
Licensing, copyright, physical sales are the only thing that artists have to sell.
You "patreon" style falls somewhere between closed source - you can only access if you buy your way behind the curtain, and charity, where creators have to rely on people donating so that their works can be seen by others (for free)
Why wouldn't big corps win by default? They have the brand name, own the resources to make more polished version of any IP, and have better distribution channels than anyone else.
Can you tell me how this scenario won't play out?
1. Big corporation has people looking for new and trending IP.
2. Instead of buying the rights to it, they get their army of people to produce more polished versions of it.
3. Because they have branding and a better distribution channel, the money goes 100% to them.
> Ask why would people need protection from having their work stolen when the only ones welding weaponized copyright are the corporations.
People working in the field sell their copyright like Gravity Falls' Alex Hirsch: https://x.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1906915851720077617
But if you'd asked this question in 2015 or earlier, everyone would have said Disney -> pro-patent, average people & indie devs -> anti-patent. Microsoft was famously pro-patent, as were a number of nuisance companies that earned the label "patent troll."
Honestly, this idea of "patents to protect the people" would've come across as a corporate lawyer trick pre-2015.
Look at YouTube. Look at SoundCloud. Look at all the fan fiction sites out there, internet mangas and manwhas and webtoons, all the podcasts, all the influencers on X and Instagram and TikTok and even OnlyFans, etc etc. Look at all the uniquely tiny distribution channels that small companies and even individuals are able to build in connection with their fans and customers.
There is endless demand for the endless variety of creativity and content that's created by normal people who aren't Disney, and endless ways to get it into people's hands. It is literally impossible for any one company to hoover all of it up and somehow keep it from the people.
In fact, the ONLY thing that makes it possible for them to come close to doing that is copyright.
And the only reason we have such a huge variety of creativity online is because people either (a) blatantly violate copyright law, or (b) work around gaps in copyright law that allow them to be creative without being sued.
The idea that we need copyrights to protect us from big companies is exactly wrong. It's the opposite. Big companies need copyright to protect their profits from the endless creativity and remixing of the people.
Disney would be among the largest beneficiaries if the right to train AI models on content was viewed as an exclusive right of the copyright holder; they absolutely do not benefit from AI training being considered fair use.
No, support open source AI and this will not happen.
These legal protections are needed by the people. To the Pirate Party's credit, undoing corporate personhood would be a good first step, so that we can focus on enforcing protections for the works of humans. Still, attributing those works to CEOs instead of corporations wouldn't result in much change.