In the US, copyright is implicit. All work is instantly protected by copyright the moment it is created. Registering with copyright office is optional/voluntary. I think the judge’s comments that you are referring to was probably referring to the works where copyright protections were waived by the artists for works placed into public domain (which, on Deviant Art, covers a vast amount).

Bit of a long story…

Some forms of intellectual property require registration. For example patents. Patents are supposed to encourage technological development by allowing inventors to monetize their work. There’s a lot of justified criticism of that system but, on the whole, it seems to have worked.

Originally, US copyrights worked in exactly the same way, for the same purpose. The requirement to register for copyright was dropped in 1978. However, registration still plays a role in US law for some legal purposes.

So what happened to copyright?

Europe developed a different copyright tradition, in the 19th century, while it was stilled largely ruled by oppressive autocracies. The monarchs of the 19th century were not the overpaid figureheads that still exist in some countries.

Copyrights today last (usually) until 70 years after the author’s death, while patents which underpin tech progress last (usually) only 20 years in total. You can see that this is very different. That copyright revolves around the death of a person shows how it is a personal privilege, as were normal in aristocracies. The purpose is to enable people to extract money without any consideration for the interests of society as a whole. It’s about rent-seeking.

Nowadays, US content production (Hollywood, etc.) dwarfs that of Europe. The better copyright laws of the US may have something to do with that. Although the US has gradually shifted over to the rent-seeking European model, there are still some advantages left.

As the content producers in the US grew, the US gradually switched over to the rent-seeking model. I think this is largely because the content producers also gained more lobbying powers.

intellectual property is a fiction. it’s a term used to snow people. there is no such thing, nor should there be.

Copyright is a form of intellectual property? So are trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.

The artists with power want to keep that power and make sure they are still above the other 99.999% of artists who are forced to give it up and do it as a hobby because it doesn’t pay the bills.

They are the true gatekeepers. This is what an incredibly oversaturated industry does to the ones lucky enough to make it.

Unfortunately, they are willing to sacrifice everybody else’s future in this tech to do so. Short-sighted assholes.

I propose the following solution: Everyone is free to use any publicly available data to train AI. Any data generated by AI is automatically in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted.

They will also very likely make less people pursue drawing, (graphic) design and painting as a skill.

they will likely destroy the livelyhood of thousands of people and probably give more power to big corporations.

i doubt it.

in the long run it is not good for humanity. it leads to sameness and boredom. there’s less incentive to make something new when an ai trained on existing work can make a thing that you know already works for most people.

downvote this post if you like gpu rendered squirting anime tits

I’d like to see you create high quality art using either a mouse or graphics tablet. It takes a lot of time and practice to draw something as simple as a decent looking circle without using the circle tool or a brush stablizer.