There's also an argument that if the business was that reliant on free things to start with, then it shouldn't be a business.

No-one would bat their eyes if the CEO of a real estate company was sobbing that it's the end of the rental market, because the company is no longer allowed to get houses for free.

even the top phds can learn things off the amount of books that openai could easily purchase, assuming they can convince a judge that if the works aren't pirated the "learning" is fair use. however, they're all pirating and then regurgitating the works which wouldn't really be legal even if a human did it.

also, they can't really say how they need fair use and open standards and shit and in the next breathe be begging trump to ban chinese models. the cool thing about allowing china to have global influence is that they will start to respect IP more... or the US can just copy their shit until they do.

imo that would have been the play against tik tok etc. just straight up we will not protect the IP of your company (as in technical IP not logo, etc.) until you do the same. even if it never happens, we could at least have a direct tik tok knock off and it could "compete" for american eyes rather than some blanket ban bullshit.

Copyright has not, was not intended to, and does not currently, pay artists.

You are correct, copyright is ownership, not income. I own the copyright for all my work (but not work for hire) and what I do with it is my discretion.

What is income, is the content I sell for the price acceptable to the buyer. Copyright (as originally conceived) is my protection so someone doesn't take my work and use it to undermine my skillset. One of the reasons why penalties for copyright infringement don't need actual damages and why Facebook (and other AI companies) are starting to sweat bullets and hire lawyers.

That said, as a creative who relied on artistic income and pays other creatives appropriately, modern copyright law is far, far overreaching and in need of major overhaul. Gatekeeping was never the intent of early copyright and can fuck right off; if I paid for it, they don't get to say no.

Copyright has not, was not intended to, and does not currently, pay artists.

Wrong in all points.

Copyright has paid artists (though maybe not enough). Copyright was intended to do that (though maybe not that alone). Copyright does currently pay artists (maybe not in your country, I don't know that).

First off, I'm by far no lawyer, but it was covered in a couple classes.

According to law as I know it, question 1 yes if there is no encryption, and question 2 no.

In reality, if you keep it for personal use, artists don't care. A library however, isn't personal use and they have to jump through more hoops than a circus especially when it comes to digital media.

But you raise a great point! I'd love to see a law library train AI for in-house use and test the system!