On Copyright, Creativity, and Compensation; Reason, February 12, 2024

 DAVID POST, Reason; On Copyright, Creativity, and Compensation

"Some of you may have seen the article by David Segal in the Sunday NY Times several weeks ago [available here] about a rather sordid copyright fracas in which I have been embroiled over the past few months...

What to make of all this? I am not oblivious to the irony of being confronted with this problem after having spent 30 years or so, as a lawyer and law professor, reflecting on and writing about the many mysteries of copyright policy and copyright law in the Internet Age.

Here are a few things that strike me as interesting (and possibly important) in this episode."

If artificial intelligence uses your work, it should pay you; The Washington Post, July 26, 2023

 Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Washington Post; If artificial intelligence uses your work, it should pay you

"Renowned technologists and economists, including Jaron Lanier and E. Glen Weyl, have long argued that Big Tech should not be allowed to monetize people’s data without compensating them. This concept of “data dignity” was largely responding to the surveillance advertising business models of companies such as Google and Facebook, but Lanier and Weyl also pointed out, quite presciently, that the principle would only grow more vital as AI rose to prominence...

When I do a movie, and I sign my contract with a movie studio, I agree that the studio will own the copyright to the movie. Which feels fair and non-threatening. The studio paid to make the movie, so it should get to monetize the movie however it wants. But if I had known that by signing this contract and allowing the studio to be the movie’s sole copyright holder, I would then be allowing the studio to use that intellectual property as training data for an AI that would put me out of a job forever, I would never have signed that contract."

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission; Morning Edition, NPR, July 17, 2023

 Chloe Veltman, Morning Edition NPR; Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

"Thousands of writers including Nora Roberts, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Michael Chabon and Margaret Atwood have signed a letter asking artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI and Meta to stop using their work without permission or compensation."

Hugh Jackman on His Closeted Con Artist in ‘Bad Education’ and Turning Down ‘Cats’; Daily Beast, April 16, 2020

Marlow Stern, Daily Beast; Hugh Jackman on His Closeted Con Artist in ‘Bad Education’ and Turning Down ‘Cats’

"The film makes you think about how educators are compensated, and in these pandemic-stricken times, people have been paying more mind to what is considered an “essential” worker and how society compensates them. 

I’ve thought about this a lot. You look at actors like me who, in certain movies, get paid ridiculous amounts of money, and the ethos is, Oh, this is due to market forces and what the market drives, and if you’re not worthy you don’t get it, but it’s astonishing what is happening, where people at the top are getting paid exorbitant amounts while people at the bottom’s wages are stagnating. And here we are in a situation where we’re truly valuing what is actually “essential.” We’re really valuing nurses, teachers, doctors, firemen and women, garbage collectors—all these people who are out there working we’re valuing, and they’re people who I think we’ve neglected for many years. This is something we’re all going to have to look at. The idea of, Well, the market dictates that and it’s not a moral issue is going to get questioned."

When Scientists Develop Products From Personal Medical Data, Who Gets To Profit?; NPR, May 31, 2018

Richard Harris, NPR; When Scientists Develop Products From Personal Medical Data, Who Gets To Profit?

"If you go to the hospital for medical treatment and scientists there decide to use your medical information to create a commercial product, are you owed anything as part of the bargain?

That's one of the questions that is emerging as researchers and product developers eagerly delve into digital data such as CT scans and electronic medical records, making artificial-intelligence products that are helping doctors to manage information and even to help them diagnose disease.

This issue cropped up in 2016, when Google DeepMind decided to test an app that measures kidney health by gathering 1.6 million records from patients at the Royal Free Hospital in London. The British authorities found this broke patient privacy laws in the United Kingdom. (Update on June 1 at 9:30 a.m. ET: DeepMind says it was able to deploy its app despite the violation.)

But the rules are different in the United States."

Companies are making money from our personal data – but at what cost?; Guardian, 8/31/16

Jathan Sadowski, Guardian; Companies are making money from our personal data – but at what cost? :

"Data appropriation is a form of exploitation because companies use data to create value without providing people with comparable compensation...

In short, rampant practices of data appropriation allow corporations and governments to build their wealth and power, without the headache of obtaining consent and providing compensation for the resource they desire.

Data appropriation is surely an ethical issue. But by framing it as theft, we can lay the groundwork for policies that also make it a legal issue. We need new models of data ownership and protection that reflect the role information has in society.

In the Gilded Age 2.0, a laissez-faire attitude toward data has encouraged a new class of robber barons to arise. Rather than allow them to unscrupulously take, trade and hoard our data, we must reclaim their ill-gotten gains and reign in the data imperative."