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What Changes If IP Laws Aren't Enforced?
408 sats \ 17 comments \ @kr 6h AskSN
Intellectual property laws are in a strange place right now.
Large companies in the west largely fight for IP laws, and generally respect (at least on the surface) the idea of intellectual property rights.
But the internet has made it much harder to control intellectual property, and at the personal level, anyone can find workarounds for accessing all sorts of books, movies, and music without paying for them. Of course, AI blurs the lines around IP laws even more, and makes them even tougher to enforce.
Outside of North America, IP laws aren't uniformly enforced, and often have lower standards for compliance than in North America.
So the overall trend seems to be less respect for IP laws globally, and I've heard a handful of credible people calling for the outright elimination of IP laws.
So let's assume we're heading into a world without IP laws... what are the follow-on effects? What changes might we see in the world if anyone can use, modify, or distribute any piece of content?
Bonus points for non-obvious possible outcomes!
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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism 5h
The effect will be that intellectual property of anything digitized (ideas, knowledge, skills) becomes a commodity. Just like "generating a ton of text that to the untrained eye sounds reasonable" has become a commodity recently.
This could lead to a couple of things:
  1. Reputation and authenticity to become increasingly important for a small section of society.
    • This means more DRM, more digital signatures, more walled gardens, for those of us who need authenticity.
  2. The masses will not care, just like they don't care now, watching TikTok all day.
    • These will be milked with subscription upon subscription and services that pop up and rug overnight.
  3. Prices for authentic content will go up steeply, because there will be much less demand.
    • This could bring in a new era of internet piracy for those that want a copy of authentic stuff without the annoying AI flaws.
PS: when I was in Europe last month, they were talking there about extending IP laws, specifically to include one's physical attributes, making deep fakes an infringement on copyright. So I'm not so sure that outside North America, IP laws aren't as important as inside it.
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142 sats \ 2 replies \ @kr OP 5h
Interesting ideas, I wonder if that means we see more or fewer re-mix movies. Lately, Hollywood seems to have found a cheat code where they make lots of sequel and three-quel movies instead of coming up with entirely new stories to tell.
I wonder if we'll form markets for "authentic" content like we form markets for authentic collectibles.
Appreciate the European perspective too, I was more thinking about Asia.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 5h
It's a great question. I think we'd see far more versions of very popular stories, like there would be hundreds of Marvel and Star Wars movies by now, but fewer remakes of more minor properties.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 5h
we see more or fewer re-mix movies
Will depend on the individual desire? Say you don't care and just want cheap entertainment on your phone while Copilot is answering your emails for you: you may see more and it doesn't matter. Just don't want to be bored. Someone else, however, will be too busy answering their emails so they don't have time for slop and they watch much less movies, but authentic only, and they pay for that.
I wonder if we'll form markets for "authentic" content like we form markets for authentic collectibles.
I think that we could say that Spotify and Netflix are markets for authentic content, just it's not transactional. The question will be how they're going to react: subscription price 10x and walled garden (which in turn may incentivize some more piracy), or less curation, more slop.
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullama 5h
A world without IP laws would be interesting because there's a balance of:
  • More innovation as they can "stand in the shoulders of giants"
  • Less "giants" because there's no financial incentive to create the IP in the first place.
So, in some cases, people will still create IP and share it, like Tesla did, to basically push everyone up.
But it's a tough balance. I see it similar to the Open Source (Free Software) movement.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr OP 5h
Hmm, perhaps in a world without IP laws, status becomes more important than the financial returns of creating a walled garden.
For example, if anyone can copy or remix anything without consequences, you could imagine artists using that as a metric of success. If everyone copies you, you might not make as much money directly from your work, but you’ll have more of a status legacy.
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10 sats \ 10 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 6h
Increased secrecy about new good ideas.
The problem that patents are supposed to fix.
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0 sats \ 9 replies \ @kr OP 6h
How does one secretly distribute movies, books, or music?
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 6h
The need to keep things secret will fund more privacy measures.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @kr OP 6h
If you were in charge of making sure a new movie earned enough money to cover it's production budget in a post-IP world, what privacy measures would you be considering using?
Are there measures that aren't quite useful enough today, but might be in the future if more money was spent on them?
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @chaoticalHeavy 6h
First thing that comes to mind for movies would be single use only.
No rewinding, pausing or copying, self destructs after one viewing.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr OP 6h
Interesting, I guess you could disable the screen recording feature on any laptops that are playing it kind of like how Kindle's web viewer doesn't let you copy/paste text.
Doesn't stop someone from using a separate device to record the movie like how people used to bring camcorders into movie theaters, but it's a start.
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20 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 6h
You encrypt it.
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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @kr OP 6h
What does a user flow look like? Can you walk me through it?
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 6h
Download app, play music. Download app, play movie. Download app, read ebook.
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr OP 6h
Why doesn't encryption prevent the distribution of "illegal" copies of books, movies, and music today?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 6h
Well you asked how to secretly distribute it. If you want a secret kept, you don't distribute it.
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