Most instances don’t have a specific copyright in their ToS, which is basically how copyright is handled on corporate social media (Meta/X/Reddit owns license rights to whatever you post on their platform when you click “Agree”). I’ve noticed some people including Copyright notices in posts (mostly to prevent AI use). Is this necessary, or is the creator the automatic copyright owner? Does adding the copyright/license information do anything?

Please note if you have legal credentials in your reply. (I’m in the USA, but I’d be interested to hear about other jurisdictions if there are differences)

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    I don’t think it really does or can do anything.

    I think it makes people feel good, like they’re fighting against AI or something.

    In my opinion, it just clutters up comments.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s crazy to me that anyone thinks it does anything. How can someone who cares enough about AI not know the controversies about OpenAI’s training data?

      The people and organizations building LLMs do not give a fuck if you add that garbage to your comment or not.

      • XEAL@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Also, good luck to those people if they have to prove an AI was trained with their comment

      • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Does that mean creative commons doesn’t really mean anything? I have my website cc by sa, thinking or changing it to cc by sa no cc but I feel like companies would still take my stuff from my website.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Not sure but at the very least it’s way less annoying to see it on a website than it is under every comment

        • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          You (in certain cases your employer) own the copyright to your creations. It’s your intellectual property. By adding a license, you give others permission to use your property. That’s just good old capitalism.

          Your property rights aren’t without limit, though. What exactly those are depends on jurisdiction, but you probably can’t stop others from archiving your site for their own purposes.

  • Platypus@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    does adding the copyright/license information do anything?

    Not a lawyer, but I’d be sore amazed if “your honor, he copy/pasted my Lemmy comment” flies in court, regardless of your copyright status. The same goes for those AI use notices–they’re a nice feel-good statement, but the scrapers won’t care, and good luck (a) proving they scraped your comment, (b) proving they made money on it, and © getting a single red dime for your troubles.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      You’re better off just pasting this guy into every comment to poison the well.

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  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The creator is the automatic copyright owner, or in some cases their employer. Copyright is automatic through international treaties like the Berne convention. The Berne convention is from the 19th century and was created by the authoritarian european empires of the time. The US joined only in 1989. I think your question shows that the idea has not fully taken hold of the public consciousness. Automatic copyright is now the global norm. (I always wonder how much its better copyright laws helped the US copyright industry to become globally dominant.)

    Very short and/or simple texts are not copyrighted. IE they are public domain.

    Adding a license statement gives others the right to use these posts accordingly. It only serves to give away rights but is not necessary to retain them. The real tricky question is the status of the other posts. I’d guess most jurisdictions have something like the concept of an implied license. Given how fanatical some lemmy users are on intellectual property, not having it in writing is really asking for trouble, though.

    What such a license means for AI training is hard to say at this point. The right-wing tradition of EU copyright law gives owners much power. They can use a machine-readable opt-out. Whether such a notice qualifies is questionable. However, there is no standard for such a machine-readable opt-out, so who knows?

    US copyright has a more left-wing tradition and is constitutionally limited to certain purposes. It’s unlikely that such a notice has any effect.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 months ago

    In the vast majority of countries, everything written down is automatically copyrighted by default and if you want to release it into the public domain or under a free license you have to make it explicit.

    • neidu2@feddit.nl
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      7 months ago

      I’m writing this response mainly for the purpose of bringing it to the public domain. Feel free to screenshot, copy, and distribute however you see fit.

  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    This Stack Exchange answer has some potentially relevant info. One notable excerpt:

    The short answer is ‘it depends’. […]

    It depends on:

    • whether the code is eligible for copyright,
    • what license the content of the particular forum is under, and
    • what additional license (if any) the individual contributor has put it under.
  • Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    Well first thing is that the license is a copyleft license so it is still allowed to be used, distributed, etc. the only real difference between this license and public domain (as far as I know) is me saying that I don’t want it being used for commercial purposes that’s it.

    Also for me its more just a way for me to say fuck you to everything having to be commercialized so even if it doesn’t hold legal water I don’t care.

    Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      There’s a bit more to it than just that

      BY - attribution is required

      NC - as you said, cannot be used for commercial purposes

      SA - Share Alike -anything using it must be shared under a similar license.