[Night_Thastus]

>the whole point of fair use is to benefit society

I'll stop you right there - I really don't think that applies at all. Does 'society' really benefit when the whole thing is a funnel for enormous amounts of wealth to go to already-gigantic companies like Microsoft?

[CamperBob2]

Yes, if it helps me get my own job done more effectively, efficiently, and economically. That's how our society works. You and I benefit from this, too, not just Microsoft.

If you don't like it, there's a process for changing how it works, but don't expect an easy path to success. Various people will object, and will have to be won over to your way of thinking.

[alfalfasprout]

> If you don't like it, there's a process for changing how it works

Except the converse is true. Copyright law today governs how fair use works and even so, how material can be obtained, licensed, etc. To change it to explicitly allow what you're suggesting would require changing copyright law.

[CamperBob2]

If you think copyright law as we know it will survive what's happening today, then... wow. No chance.

Copyright is not a natural right. We pulled it out of our asses, very recently at that, to meet socioeconomic goals that existed at the time. It can and will go back where it came from, if it turns out that AI is indeed a better way to organize, analyze, and distribute human knowledge.

Even if AI doesn't turn to be anything all that revolutionary, we'll still need to update the law to address both training input and ownership of generated content. Congress and eventually the international community will have to resolve a large number of conflicting legal judgments, unless we want to leave it up to SCOTUS in the US and various unelected judges and bureaucrats elsewhere.

[episode404]

Does the goodness of a shadow library depend on who uses it?