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"Nick Clegg: Artists’ demands over copyright are unworkable The former Meta executive claims that a law requiring tech companies to ask permission to train AI on copyrighted work would ‘kill’ the industry" - The Times

2025-05-24 12:18:26

cstross@wandering.shop

If your corporation's business model relies on lawbreaking, your corporation has no legal legitimacy.

We don't let narcotic cartels and trafficking rings list themselves on the stock exchange: why should OpenAI or Facebook be any different?

2025-05-24 12:21:14

Alexander Goeres 𒀯

jabgoe2089@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

it is outright astonishing to see this and comparing it to the frenzy about copyrights and downloads of pieces of art by normal people ...

2025-05-24 12:26:44

MattChippytea

Wifiwits@infosec.exchange

@cstross requiring permission to use rather than stealing makes the “industry” unworkable eh… shame

2025-05-24 12:26:45

Dingo

electric_gumball@mastodon.social

@cstross
"Would kill the industry"
Would kill the industry?
Unlike every single creative industry that is having its very lifeblood drained by these ghouls.
Burn it all to the ground.

2025-05-24 12:29:44

Nudeln Al Dente 🐘

NudelnAlDente@mstdn.social

@cstross "The former Meta executive"?

It's nice to see that his status as corporate quisling has already overshone his leadership of a major political party & deputy premiership.

2025-05-24 12:48:02

Fazal Majid

fazalmajid@social.vivaldi.net

@cstross
Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
- John Harrington

I guess we are going to find out if the same applies to lawlessness.

As for your second assertion, I give you Purdue Pharma (or any of the cryptocurrency scams, but I repeat myself)

2025-05-24 12:50:02

Dan Cross

cross@discuss.systems

@cstross "you tech bros talk crime, but you scared of jail." (with apologies to Gang Starr.)

2025-05-24 12:53:16

Seiðr

Illuminatus@mstdn.social

@cstross The 1920's in Spain, mainly in Barcelona, were convulse, and characterised by huge strikes and company owners-hirwd gangsters shooting anarchist labour unions members, of the CNT, and the CNT members replying in kind. Techbros are asking for *it*.

2025-05-24 13:10:50

RadioPhobicSherkPop

radiophobicsherkpop@ravenation.club

@cstross

My local Jeweller refuses to hand me bags of diamonds.

These woke monsters are killing my diamond selling industry!

2025-05-24 13:11:45

erinaceus

erinaceus@chaos.social

@cstross This argument is a pattern I've seen repeatedly in the past years. “We can't make profit without collecting huge amounts of personal data about everyone who visits our website!” or “You cannot expect us to secure our software [that handles medical data] before we go live! That inhibits innovation! We'd go broke”.

If your business model does not work without infringing someone's rights, it's not a business model. It's criminal activity.

1/2

2025-05-24 13:21:01

Craig Stewart

pmb00cs@mastodon.online

@cstross it seems to me that there is a very simple choice. Kill AI by enforcing existing copyright laws, or take the long way around by letting AI trash copyright laws thereby killing all the creative industries AI needs to steal content from, thereby slowly starving the AI industries of the content they need to improve.

One choice at least leaves us with something valuable. The other will just take longer.

2025-05-24 13:30:05

j5v

j5v@mastodon.social

@cstross (I must show restraint. Oops! I failed...)

I'll hit it with a simple stick: Let's not allow 'industry' to do bad things.

If we can imagine a better world without those industries, then let's have that world.

Let's not preserve the bad ones for purposes of continuity. Or more directly, let's demolish the empires created using systems of exploitation, and create better.

2025-05-24 13:39:45

Dodo

Dodo_sipping@cupoftea.social

@cstross If you don't allow me to steal my business is broke? Then be it so.

2025-05-24 13:46:26

indyradio

indyradio@kafeneio.social

@cstross One of the Facebook engineers - not the one I know - said:
"It does seem a little odd to be running torrents from pirate library sites to a #Facebook corporate laptop".
Al Capone was in the liquor business for awhile, but that too was "unworkable". 🤣

2025-05-24 13:54:02

Endy

egoldblatt@gardenstate.social

@cstross If the only thing making you profitable is copywrong, then it's time you reconsider your value in the world.

2025-05-24 13:59:20

Mohamed family🇵🇸🍉

eshagbb@mstdn.party

@cstross please help my child Mohamed 🙏🙏😭🙏

2025-05-24 14:01:13

John Cook

jmc@mastodon.scot

@cstross I'm quite sure the AI companies would squeal like stuck pigs if others were just to take their work without permission/ payment.

2025-05-24 14:10:24

God Emperor of Mastodon

mms@mastodon.bsd.cafe

@cstross but then Chinese will win!

I think they should remove labor laws since they are it.

And democracy.

2025-05-24 14:15:50

indyradio

indyradio@kafeneio.social

@cstross Are you old enough to remember "Steal This Book"?
It's clear that existing law is being violated. Because these are wholesale violations, we're now supposed to write new laws?
I do not think so!
Opposition to an unnecessary new law is an interesting form of deceit, but fails. I need the URL of that article.

2025-05-24 14:22:25

crouton

crouton@aus.social

@cstross hey Nick, the monetary sacrifice that "AI" CEOs need to make in order to kill the the industry, is a sacrifice we're willing to make.

2025-05-24 14:24:30

Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷

larsmb@mastodon.online

@cstross But ... tobacco and alcohol businesses are absolutely on the stock exchange.

It's all about power.

2025-05-24 14:39:41

MelHamnavoe

MelvilleSpence@phpc.social

@cstross do I really need to say how far Nick Clegg can feck off? JADES-GS-z14-0 which is circa 34Billion light-years away isn’t far enough.

2025-05-24 14:41:28

Graeme 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

pa27@mastodon.social

@cstross Clegg used to seem like a decent guy. Until he went to facecrap - you need a total absence of morality to work there. Now he's an overpaid parrot.

2025-05-24 14:42:24

Graeme 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

pa27@mastodon.social

@cstross Oh - and the so-called AI so-called industry should be killed, in it's current form...

2025-05-24 15:15:25

Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊

theogrin@chaosfem.tw

@cstross

When did we - by which I mean people in general - accept that the proliferation of bullshit engines is any type of 'industry'? The end result is never going to be anything other than a shrug at all the wasted time, money, water and other resources which could've been used to solve problems, but instead went to increasing the number of jets per-capita amongst the already morbidly wealthy. That's not an industry, it doesn't produce anything in the end. That's a shell game.

2025-05-24 15:20:18

Luka Rubinjoni

rubinjoni@mastodon.social

@cstross Pfizer and Palantir: are we a joke to you?

2025-05-24 15:26:22

NiceMicro

nicemicro@fosstodon.org

@cstross copyright doesn't give you total control over your creative work.

under US and Canadian law, there are "fair use" exceptions, and "being transformative" is one of those, meaning, no consent of the original author is required. And as far as I know, most copyright lawyers expect "training an AI" as transformative.

So, artists are actually demanding a change to the law in free use, while the drug cartels are breaking law that already exists.

#freeUse #generativeAi

2025-05-24 15:33:35

Christof Damian 💙💛

cdamian@rls.social

@cstross
I'm looking forward to The Pirate Bay's IPO.

2025-05-24 15:35:15

Michael T. Richter

qqmrichter@mastodon.world

@cstross Then kill the industry, Mr. Clegg.

Your choice, really, is if you want it to be killed metaphorically or if you want a public uprising to make it literal.

2025-05-24 15:43:53

Kierkmas, merry-ish

Kierkegaanks@beige.party

@cstross maybe we can imprison private citizens as stand-ins for corporate copyright infringements?

2025-05-24 15:47:04

SufferForMe 🆘

sufferforme@mstdn.party

@cstross

My new company is going to go out of business if the law forces me to get permission to go into people's homes without permission and take their property.

2025-05-24 15:48:06

Toni Aittoniemi

gimulnautti@mastodon.green

@cstross Conservatism.

According to #wilhoitslaw, conservatism consists only of a single principle:

There should be an in-group which the law protects but does not bind, alongside an out-group which the law binds but does not protect.

There is no modernity, no enlightenment, no rule of law. It’s the old divine right of kings, unchanged by centuries.

2025-05-24 16:01:48

Piousunyn

Piousunyn@universeodon.com

@cstross Seems to me. Legal legitimacy has no legs to stand on with 34 felon rapist Trump Running the government wanting to be just like Putin U.S. on.

2025-05-24 16:06:38

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen

toriver@mas.to

@cstross «We agree with Nick Clegg!»
- old Napster and The Pirate Bay, probably

2025-05-24 16:35:16

Neo Ehproque

ehproque@neopaquita.es

Same picture, highlighting the fact that Nick clegg is a former meta executive

@cstross why indeed

2025-05-24 16:39:46

xs4me2

xs4me2@mastodon.social

@cstross

You simply cannot be stealing other people’s ideas and creations and make money out of it with no idea on their consent or compensation…

It is just ridiculous…

Without any idea on that, there is no industry, it is just theft.

2025-05-24 16:45:06

DressToKILT

dresstokilt@mastodon.social

@cstross "this will kill our AI industry!"

OK good that's what we're trying to do.

2025-05-24 17:07:14

Jyrgen N

jyrgenn@mas.to

@cstross The corporate death penalty should be applied more often. If a corporation exists on a premise that includes breaking the law by necessity, that should be enough. Uber comes to mind, too. [Update: typo fix]

2025-05-24 17:09:00

Ra@mstdn.social

@cstross solutions.... https://www.joanwestenberg.com/from-penny-press-to-protocols-the-structural-shift-ai-forces-on-the-internet/

2025-05-24 17:33:14

Hugh W

hugh@mastodonapp.uk

@cstross Alteratively Meta could simply give away all their products' code and give free access to their servers so people could make their own products by using Meta's hard work, for no reward of course. Surely that would fair.

2025-05-24 18:20:45

Soldier of FORTRAN :ReBoot:

mainframed767@infosec.exchange

@cstross now we see which lobby has more influence: music, film, publishers, games, together, or the nascent AI industry

2025-05-24 18:27:34

Nicky🦨✌️

skoombidoombis@masto.ai

@cstross oh no! The industry that really doesn’t improve the majority’s quality of life in any significant way while it destroys local eco systems and habitats steali g resources such as land and water? That industry?

2025-05-24 19:06:04

Scott Nicholson Kurland

skurland@mas.to

@cstross Fair use?

2025-05-24 19:23:57

Phil Wolff

evanwolf@mastodon.social

@cstross so many industries have immoral practices. from lawful negative externalities to small crimes they get away with occasionally. it's interesting when they shift to piratical and scale up from crimes of convenience to wholesale piracy, violence, corruption, and other buccaneering.

2025-05-24 19:28:56

huntingdon

huntingdon@mstdn.social

@cstross

Nick Clegg has long acknowledged his membership in the world's oldest profession. His work as a politician was just his apprenticeship for it.

2025-05-24 19:31:32

badmancrooks

badmancrooks@mastodon.social

@cstross
Let it die then.

2025-05-24 20:05:00

KanaMauna

KanaMauna@sauropods.win

@cstross

Well, looks like we can guess who’s on OpenAI’s payroll.

2025-05-24 20:17:14

roblosricos

roblosricos@social.vivaldi.net

@cstross

KILL IT!
KILL IT!
KILL IT ALL TO HELL!
RESURRECT IT AND KILL IT AGAIN, JUST TO MAKE SURE ITS DEAD!

2025-05-24 20:34:13

saxnot ➡️ 39C3 ☎️[7296/SAXN]

saxnot@chaos.social

@cstross laws kill the crime industry?

2025-05-24 21:05:57

nw8 🏴‍☠️✝️🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🧟‍♂️

nw8man@fosstodon.org

@cstross nick clegg? Hmm is he not the traitor of the lib dems who sold out university students back in the day and the country stood together and promised his party would never see government?

Cant see anyone listening to him now, not anyone uni age or older anyways. Lol

2025-05-24 21:14:57

François @Jura

FrancoisPrague@mastodon.social

@cstross

I prefer to have AI industry killed rather than the music one. Any day, any time. In 500 years we'll still veneer Bach, Mozart, Debussy... But who'll remember Zuckerberg?

2025-05-24 22:03:39

Jeremy Kahn

trochee@dair-community.social

@cstross

> We don't let narcotic cartels and trafficking rings list themselves on the stock exchange

The Sackler family has entered the chat

2025-05-24 22:16:10

decapitae

decapitae@mastodon.social

@cstross Then the "industry" should die.

2025-05-24 22:20:56

🌼 Dagnabbit, Pascaline! 🌼

pascaline@mastodon.nl

@cstross

Maybe one day human artist will be highly acclaimed and searched for.

And maybe one day there will be Ai mages; the ones who are so good at Ai-commandeering that they can achieve tasks that are almost impossible for others.

2025-05-25 00:09:49

Wulfy—Speaker to the machines

n_dimension@infosec.exchange

@cstross

The entire crapitalism system is founded on lawbreaking;

From the stock market "market maker" corporations trading non-existent shares.
Through corporation routinely committing violations and accepting fines as cost of doing business
To CEOs knowingly murdering workers and public.

If you think AI companies are the first to behave illegally, you have not been paying attention.

#capitalism is a cabal of thieves stealing from us all.

2025-05-25 00:14:42

TopKnot

TopKnot@mas.to

@cstross

I'm going to continue using the Meta, Instagram, and Facebook logos for my company branding. Without them, my business would die.

2025-05-25 00:39:50

狐ヴィクシー

KitsuneVixi@mastodon.social

@cstross The similarities don't end there. Drug mules are often threatened against their consent, trafficked people didn't consent and plagiarized artists didn't consent.

2025-05-25 00:58:20

Phracker

Phracker2Art@mstdn.social

@cstross
It's also worth noting that what's at stake here is not the ability to train AI, but the ability to do so without permission. These people seem to be admitting that the idea of violating others and their work is central to their business model and they can't do without it.

2025-05-25 02:58:44

Author-ized L.J.

ljwrites@writeout.ink

@cstross He really thinks "this will kill the ✌️ AI ✌️ industry" is a dire threat as opposed to a siren song.

2025-05-25 11:14:12

arjankroonen

arjankroonen@mastodon.social

@cstross Up next: “Burglars Union lobbies to declare licks unlawful”

2025-05-25 20:09:34

Edwinek

edwinek@universeodon.com

@cstross
Yay! Kill the industry!

2025-05-28 10:10:15

Jan R. Boehnke

jrboehnke@mastodon.social

@cstross
"I don't know what to say. If you can't afford to run your business while paying for the raw materials from which you make your product, YOU DON'T HAVE A BUSINESS. What you have on your hands is either an imperial project or a crime. Possibly both."

@AliceFraser on The Bugle, 05.03.2025 (back then referring to a Sam Altman quote)

https://shows.acast.com/thebugle/episodes/ukrainian-comedian-faces-crazed-hecklers
(roughly 36min in)