It’s interesting to see so many supposedly ‘hackers’ take the state of Intellectual “Property” laws that are from a different era (and are “purchased” by old incumbents too by the way) as gospel and object to strategies to deal with them for the long term.
Schmidt is very pragmatic simply predicting something like that is inevitable and probably the right strategy is to build your AI thing and bet/try that something like that would happen.
I've skimmed the comments, but I didn't see any passionate advocacy for copyright laws. If there's rules we all need to comply with, it can be upsetting to see others proudly not do it and get away with it because they're rich.
That has little to do with whether the rules were sound in the first place. It's more about fairness. And I've found "hackers" to be nothing if not fair - in a "chaotic good" way perhaps.
The reality is that small companies also have advantages in not following the law in its strictest sense than big ones in some areas mainly because no one cares about them.
Ignoring that dimension, here's another possibility: it is very possible that the utilization of AI and the licensing structure that Schmidt predicts here will increase the total licensing revenue that copyright holder pockets in aggregate despite their resistance today. It could be a win-win in the end. Wouldn't that be more than fair?
The problem is people at large companies creating these AI models, wanting the freedom to copy artists’ works when using it, but these large companies also want to keep copyright protection intact, for their regular business activities. They want to eat the cake and have it too. And they are arguing for essentially eliminating copyright for their specific purpose and convenience, when copyright has virtually never been loosened for the public’s convenience, even when the exceptions the public asks for are often minor and laudable. If these companies were to argue that copyright should be eliminated because of this new technology, I might not object. But now that they come and ask… no, they pretend to already have, a copyright exception for their specific use, I will happily turn around and use their own copyright maximalist arguments against them.
I agree with your characterization. It's probable that they will have to weaken their existing positions and pivot to the new world of copyright. Nevertheless that is a good argument.
That argument wouldn't start with a dig against Google Books or Google Search which is a net positive for the consumer and the society and I believe the original author in most cases. The publisher is the annoyed party.
Schmidt is very pragmatic simply predicting something like that is inevitable and probably the right strategy is to build your AI thing and bet/try that something like that would happen.
https://youtu.be/eginMQBWII4