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?)
Copyright is regularly abused by large corporations in the pursuit of more money. Previously it was primarily used as a cudgel against individuals (against piracy, parody, and fair use). But now that their own rules are inconvenient to them they ignore its existence in pursuit of further profits.
Copyright to protect large companies? Fuck that.
Copyright to protect individuals from having their work appropriated? Yes please.
Copyright is already abused against individuals. Corporations already have these powers. What people want is the ability for these powers currently only available to the corporations to be available to the public. I’ve not seen anyone arguing for corporations to be granted more.
Trying to support individuals enforcing copyright against corps isn’t going to change the fact that corporations alrwady have these rights, it’s just trying to get corps to play by the same rules they apply to us.
Plus, any of the critically needed changes to copyright law would be fucking useless as long as we allow corporations to ignore what already exists for the sake of convenience.
Completely discarding concepts and arguments based only on the fact that they are associated with “the enemy” is dumb as hell. Likewise, “owners of intellectual property” != “only companies”. “Owners of intellectual property” covers anyone who takes photos, writes text, makes art, or makes original “content”.