I just read this article and my brain is currently doing that thing where it tries to crawl out through my nose.
I posted about it on FB but I thought eh, you love a bit of my rant-y type posts, but let me re-write it cause why not?
“Nick Clegg: Artists’ demands over copyright are unworkable”
“The former Meta executive claims that a law requiring tech companies to ask for permission to train AI on copyrighted work would ‘kill’ the industry.”
Do I have this right? (With all sarcasm intended)
Some college kid torrents The Mandalorian? PRISON!!!11!
Tech billionaire builds entire empire on wholesale intellectual property theft? “Too complicated to prosecute, uwu”
That’s the take?
Now usually I’d love to speak to someone who makes some stupid statement like that.
Like “I’m gonna need you to walk me through this real slow like because right now my neurons are staging a mass die off event” kind of thing.
You’re telling me. You’re actually telling me, that we should crack down on individuals but when Richie Rich McMoneybags does it at scale, suddenly the law becomes “unworkable”?
Like some kind of legal Schrödinger’s Cat where crimes both exist and don’t exist depending on your net worth?
And this “industry” they’re worried about protecting?
Which one?
The one where:
Regular people get cease and desist letters that read like death threats?
While billionaires get think pieces about how prosecuting them might be “too hard”
Where theft is only theft when poor people do it?
Where “innovation” is just rich people speak for “I took your shit and made money”
That industry?
Because from where I’m sitting (currently in a puddle of my own confusion), it sounds like you’re defending the Theft Industry. The Grand Fucking Larceny Industry. The “Rules for Thee But Not for Me” Industry.
Sir Nick Clegg can get fuxed.
But honestly. Someone explain this to me like I’m five. Or drunk. Or a drunk five year old. Because right the logic is making about as much sense as a meat bicycle in a vegan parade.
Stephen Walker
P.S. If Nick’s next thinkpiece contains the phrase “it’s complicated,” I’m gonna need you to know that my laptop might spontaneously combust from the sheer concentrated bullshit radiation.