Debian dismisses AI-contributions policy

I'm not a fan of copyright, but "never" is just as bad as "for ever".

The US got it approximately right with its "fourteen years". The majority of any value, for any work, is extracted in the first 10 years or so. Beyond that, most works are pretty worthless.

So let's make it a round 15 - all works are automatically protected for 15 years from publication - but if you want to avail yourself of that protection you must put the date on the work. After that, if the work has value you (as a real-person author, or the "heir alive at publication") can renew the copyright on a register for successive 15-year intervals (PLURAL) for a smallish fee.

And for people like Disney, Marvel, etc etc, you can trademark your work to keep control of your valuable universe if you wish.

So this will achieve the US aim of "encouraging works into the Public Domain" and works won't "rot in copyright" because people won't pay to extend it.

Cheers,
Wol

And this is the whole point of Berne. Different countries, different rules (same basic framework). But works have to be protected identically regardless of nationality. Which comes as a result of the American abuse of copyright pre-1984'ish. One only has to look at the AT&T/BSD suit, where AT&T removed copyright notices and effectively placed OTHER PEOPLES' COPYRIGHTED WORK into the Public Domain.

Going back, Disney's Fantasia where they used European works and completely ignored copyright. Go back even further to Gilbert & Sullivans "The Pirates of New York" where they had to go to extreme lengths to prevent other people copyrighting their work and preventing them from performing their own work in the US.

THERE IS NO SPECIAL EXCEPTION FOR AI. Not even in Europe. As a person, you are free to study copyrighted works for your own education. European Law makes it explicit that "educating" an AI is the same as educating a person. Presumably the same rules apply to an AI regurgitating what it's learnt, as to a human. If it's indistinguishable from (or clearly based on) the input, then it's a copyright violation. The problem is, be it human or AI, what do you mean by "clearly based on".

Cheers,
Wol

I'm practically speechless that you would lie so brazenly as to say this in the same thread as espousing approximately the most maximalist possible interpretation of copyright.

Honestly, it's threads like this one that remind me of how ashamed I am that I once considered myself part of the FOSS community. It's just... awful. Everyone here is awful. Every time I read LWN I come away thinking just a little bit less of humanity. Today, you've played your part.