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?)
I believe “the Left” doesn’t really have that much of a problem with copyright, it’s just that the current implementation is absurd regarding length and because of the way stuff like the DMCA and the general society is structured, it is very much rules for thee but not for me with the companies. Copyright (in its current form) mainly protects the revenue of companies while imposing large restrictions on the consumer and by an extent derivative works. However with AI, not only are the models trained and content to which large corporations have control over but also stuff like blogs, copy left code, indie books etc, so this would be one of the cases where copyright could (and should IMO) protect the authors, but realistically this will be a fight entirely between the big players, be it copyright holders or AI companies, that have the funds to fight the legal battles. I think that this has shown a lot of people that, at least in a capitalist society, there should be some form of copyright, but definitely in a reformed way that actually protects creators instead of corporations and doesn’t last indefinitely. Copyright is also very much a problem for left leaning ideology under capitalism ideally there would be no copyright but creators would still get paid, which isn’t really compatible with capitalism.