Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
Kind of a ramble: So, I’ve been out in the wild recently. I use discord and have noticed that in most of the servers I’m in, either they have an explicit no-genAI policy or quarantined sections where genAI content is allowed. On one podcast’s server, I posted a complaint about some genAI content that was posted to the podcast’s socials, and the embed was removed because it showed the genAI content- 10/10, love to see it. On another server, I figured out that the channel was created specifically because they had a sealion problem but didn’t want to ban their sealion (it appeared to be just one).
An interesting (read: stupid) thing about this sealion was that they are a self-styled leftist that was pro-AI. I won’t try to replicate any of their nonsense here, because A) it was nonsense stemming from a refusal to believe any anti-AI data and a lack of understanding of how LLMs work, and B) I don’t want to look like I’m posting about some kind of argument I had elsewhere here in order to score internet points, as I’m self aware/anxious enough to know that I sound exactly like that right now.
They posted this recent article written by Peter Coffin. There isn’t much about this guy on the internet. All I can gather is that they are some kind of breadtuber or in the breadtube orbit. It’s funny (read: farcical) to see a person posing as leftist say they are “pro-AI” but “anti-AI industry”. Either they don’t understand how the technology works (i.e. ignorant) or are accelerationist, wanting both the destruction of the environment and art (i.e. wilfully stupid)
Anyway, this exploration has shown me that some leftists don’t support copyright protections. I understand that from a couple different perspectives: 1. The main beneficiaries of copyright protections are large media corporations, and 2. it can be interpreted as trying to capitalistically extract fictional value, much like a landlord charging rent. I’m not trying to debunk this (I don’t think I’m representing this well enough). My thought is that I don’t give a shit about corporations losing money, what I care about is the work of individual artists being under/de-valued. Copyrights are an imperfect method that artists use to try seek justice, so it’s a grey area for me. Coffin in the article linked paints the situation as black and white: anyone who tries to stop someone “stealing” is actually rent seeking, whether or not they are a megacorp or a starving artist. (edit) I think this comes from Coffin's "extremely pro-AI" agenda, i.e., being anti-AI is enough to be reductively lumped together under some conspiratorial pro-capitalist agenda.
End of ramble, sorry that there wasn’t much of a point or structure here. Would love to hear any thoughts that come out from reading this.
E: note that this vid is posted as a common criticism of Coffin.
E2:
re: video above:
I really didn't know about this before writing that edit. I did some more reading. Coffin is something of a pick-me internet guy, his entire personality crystallised by that video. He's moved from internet trend to internet trend, one of note being gamergate, formerly anti, now pro (yes, as of 2024). He also did rap parodies? Anyway this isn't about him.Previously, on Awful:
Quoting Anarchism Triumphant, an extended sneer against copyright:
Or more politely, previously, on Lobsters:
Were we anti-copyright leftists really so invisible before, or have you been assuming that No True Leftist would be anti-copyright?
If you look at data in the way that best obscures what it actually means, of course it can't be told apart from other data. Binary is simply a way to encode information that most often has an analogue equivalent. You can of course question the copyright of all works, but looking at them in a hex editor is almost a distraction.
This is getting pretty close to technolibertarianism. Corbin, I like your posts but i can't get behind this
TL; DR: please forgive my ignorance on this topic:
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a “good” leftist in the sense that I don’t do a ton of reading, and didn’t think too hard about copyright at this level. I did try do some reading because the anti-copyright takes as I encountered them in this context initially seemed iffy, but through research I found that my initial ideas weren’t well informed.
The most common form of anti-copyright sentiment I’ve encountered comes from mostly the piracy community. I don’t really participate in the community part of that, so I haven’t spent a lot of time reading any of their theory or philosophy, which has been to my detriment here. That being said, the stuff that I have seen has been mostly from a place of entitlement, so I felt safe in not exploring the literature.
Also, basically all of my recent reading of leftist material has had no focus on copyright. It’s all been economic, geopolitical stuff. That isn’t to say copyright issues aren’t important, it just hasn’t been in focus.
Anyway, this all started on my end because, in a discord server unrelated to this instance, I had expressed consternation over individual artists getting fucked over by AI companies, and celebrating whenever they clawed back whatever amount of justice they could. This was immediately in bad faith equated with full throated support for Disney’s ruthless copyright lawyer army. I didn’t really understand why that was happening, so I did some reading, and thought it was worth sharing about here.
So to specifically answer this:
More the former than the latter, but only due to my blind ignorance. The latter was not my assumption. I had encountered someone claiming to be a leftist but was not, for reasons unrelated to being anti-copyright.
@corbin
"[Copyright i]s not for you who love to make art and prize it for its cultural impact and expressive power, but for folks who want to trade art for money."
Fatuous romantic bollocks.
Thanks! You're getting better with your insults; that's a big step up from your trite classics like "sweet summer child". As long as you're here and not reading, let's not read from my third link:
Maybe you're a little busy with your Biblical work-or-starve mindset, but I encourage you to think about why we even have copyright if it must be flaunted in order to become a skilled artist. It's worth knowing that musicians don't expect to make a living from our craft; we expect to work a day job too.
well there you have it
bitter winter adult it is
the concept that copyright is about art or artistic value and not money, is about as attached to reality as the ai technorapture
this barely has to even be argued, in spirit or in practice. even the concept of "ownership" as ascribed to creators is basically just a right to sell the work or sublicense said "ownership"
@ebu
"the concept that copyright is about art or artistic value and not money"
I didn't say it was.
"Real artists do it for love, not money" is as stupid as saying "Real artists shoot heroin and have untreated mental illness."
Real artists have bills to pay and families to feed.
you definitely did in fact say that the idea that "copyright is about trading art for money" is bollocks. that is in fact a thing you said, straightforwardly
compare and contrast with "real artists do it for love, not money", which is a thing nobody in this entire thread said
and wouldn't you know it, a complete devolution into full-tilt """debate""" shadowboxing is my cue to turn off notifications. best of luck in the ring, i hear the spectre of communism has a nasty left hook
I'm a leftist who doesn't support intellectual property. My solutions to intellectual property are 1) communism, or at least 2) basic income, in that order of preference.
Until one of the solutions to the problem of intellectual property is implemented, individuals should be allowed full sovereignity over their intellectual creations as they see fit. Personally all my intellectual creation is either public domain, or published under open, explicitly anti-capitalist licenses. But that's because I have a day job and a safe economic situation. If an artist decides people should pay to use their stuff, people should pay to use their stuff. The consent of the creator is non-negotiable.
Capitalists are the enemy and I don't give a flying fuck about capitalist intellectual property. My rule, grosso modo, is: if I pay to access this piece of art, does the money go to the creators, or does it go to some corporation's shareholders? If the first, I pay, gladly. If the second, I sail the high seas. Sometimes when it's hybrid (usually of the form "the artist gets peanuts and the capital owners get the lion's share") I will dig up the artist's patreon or ko-fi or whatever, donate the price of the thing there, and pirate it, under the assumption that the patreon/ko-fi/bandcamp/etc. cut is smaller than the typical entertainment industry's.
Peter Coffin is a fuck and his contrarian-ass pro-AI stuff deserves sneering to the full extent of sneerdom
Is it a single person or a worker co-op? Their copyright is sacred.
Is it a corporation? Lol, lmao, and also yarrr
Glorious banner material
I’m stealing this take :p
I will deliberately avoid declaring the take to be in the public domain, just so that you can enjoy the street cred of your life of crime 🏴☠️
One of my favourite musicians, Patricia Taxxon is quite vocal on being against intellectual property, but also that AI people should just be able to scrape everything and put it in their machine. It makes me sad.
i think her takes make a little more sense if you think of the infinite noise machine as the art object itself rather than any particular output of it. i obviously can't read her mind but if you think of a music-generating model as an interactive music toy rather than "a replacement for a musician", then her position makes way more sense. why wouldn't you want more people doing Poet Laureate Infinity? i think for her the crime isn't scraping, but scraping in service of overmarketed smoothed-over slop generators instead of actually interesting art
Yeah I mean I am in favour that food should not be paywalled from the hungry and everyone who wants food should be able to just go to the food and eat it (i.e. I am in favour of a system that allocates resources according to need). I am not in favour that wealthy capital owners who already hold all the power in the world should be allowed to vacuum all the food into a hell blender that produces processed food product to try and impress investors into another round of funding for their food sucking machine. These are not the same thing.
There is actually, but it is mostly on youtube. Anyway he aligned himself to Caleb Maupin. A colorblind communist who thinks brown is red. (I dont think he is actually colorblind, but he likes Dugin).
if only, maupin spoke on a conference in teheran next to dugin and publishes his books. the layer of red paint on brown couldn't be possibly thinner. see also: jackson hinkle, maga-communism. i wish everyone involved nice tuberculosis infection in damp ukrainian prison
It was amazing that maupin went 'people accuse me of being a duginist and it was crazy, never read any of his work when people said that. Minutes later I have read his work now however, and quite agree with him'. (Badly paraphrased however).
Also lol at crp.
Ah yes I am always finding out ways in which I can be more online
Yeah, im just saying it exists. Not saying people make similar bad life choices to me that make you realize this stuff exists. (If you do want to however thought slimes 'hmm borger king' video about maupin is quite something).
coffin's a grifter with a narcissistic streak. they surfaced around gamergate and then quickly shat the metaphorical floor.
My exposure to the guy began and ended at seeing him tut-tutting HBomberguy for nuking James Somerton's career - glad to know my five-second assessment of him was dead on
Reading the post and later seeing that Steve Harvey clip was like reading Pinker and then seeing his pics with Epstein. Except Coffin (or just his own foot) is his own Epstein.
not looking to start instance war or anything btw
iirc one of db0 admins is of this opinion which boils down to, in their case, that they're pro-ai but only if self-hosted (ie "yes, i'm pro-ai, just not pro-the kind of ai that is actually used in 99.9% ai output"). they join it with pro-piracy and anarchist positions and it's part of the reason why ai content is allowed on that instance. iirc it's not even consensus among their other admins
Like being pro-corporatism but only with regard to the breadcrumbs that fall off the oligarchs' tables.
We should start calling so-called open source models trickle-down AI.
When I steal the trickle-down lying machine, it's called a "piss take."
Oh, hey, that's the "Plagiarism is AWESOME, And Here's Why" guy, who tut-tutted HBomberguy for erasing plagiarist shithead James Somerton from existence and went to bat for JK Rowling okay yeah dump this guy's shit in the fucking bin
I was pretty strongly anti-copyright back when I was younger, but after seeing the plague of art theft and grave robbing the NFT fad brought (documented heavily by @NFTTheft on Twitter), and especially after the AI bubble triggered an onslaught of art theft, cultural vandalism and open hostility to artists, I have come around to strongly supporting it.
I may have some serious complaints about the current state of copyright (basically everyone has), but its clear that copyright is absolutely necessary to protect artists (rich and poor) from those who exploit the labour of others.
Yeah. At the very least copyrights give some level of protection to the individual that you don’t often see elsewhere. Like, the government can take your land, but they can’t steal your memes.
Self-identifying as "progressive" and being anti-copyright and thus pro-AI is something I've seen before online.
I've never charged money for my creative output, but my "moral right" as an author/creator is very important to me.
The “thus pro-AI” is just so, so, stupid. Like, any anti-capitalist argument you make against copyright just immediately implodes when you do the qui bono.