Of course, talking about “the Left” is a very broad brush. So, as an example, I’ll give Jacobin.com . If you search for “copyright”, you will find that they have published a number of wonky articles critical of copyright pre AI-hype, just as one would expect. In recent years the tone changes. In the context of AI, you find an article just regurgitating lines by capital owners. Reporting on the legal troubles of the Internet Archive, the issue gets a both sides treatment.
In contrast, the Internet Archive - or libraries in general, as well as other organizations devoted to free information - have not pivoted to the right. But these are not left-leaning, as such.
How the rise of AI has affected the financial interests of traditional capitalists is obvious. What’s not obvious is why left-leaning spaces support these interests.
What gives?
(I’m sure many will feel that I completely misunderstand this. If you want to CMV you could explain what the endgame is supposed to be. How will it help the general public to grant more privileges to owners of intellectual property?)
It’s certainly been odd to watch the general perceptions on copyright shift as AI has come around. From what I can tell, it stems from a general David vs Goliath mentality. Years ago when filesharing started to come around, it was seen as the common people against the large corporations. The MPAA would try to tell us that downloading a movie is “stealing” and we all told them to fuck off. Now, culture has changed, a lot more people consider themselves to be creators, or social media lets people feel closer to creators. Now, its the big tech companies up against individual artists. Rather than seeing it in terms of copyright itself, people just see big bad company against little guys.