What is the Legal copyright on a Lemmy Post? - eviltoast

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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    6 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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      6 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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        6 months ago

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

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          6 months ago

          The biggest time would be it would start to include that link at the end of every comment.

      • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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        6 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.

        • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          Depends on what your goal is. Strictly speaking cc by sa is more permissive than putting no copyright notice at all, since copyright is automatic, and the cc licenses grant various permissions not contained in standard copyright. It’s just a fancy legalistic way of saying “please credit me if you use this, continue to share in a similar fashion, but not for any commercial purpose”.

          So if you want people to share your work, cc by sa makes sense.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          6 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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          6 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.

    • Blackbeard@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Agreed. It’s like walking around a party with a post-it note stuck to your forehead that says “Don’t ask me about watermelons.”

      All anyone is going to do all night is ask you about watermelons. Every single time.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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      6 months ago

      Yeah, it’s unclear whether copyright is even relevant when it comes to training AI. It feels a lot like people who feel very strongly about intellectual property but have clearly confused trademarks, patents, copyright, and maybe even regular old property law - they’ve got an idea of what they think is “right” and “wrong” but it’s not closely attached to any actual legal theory.

    • (⬤ᴥ⬤)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      those anti ai training links remind me of the “i don’t consent to facebook using my data” posts my grandma makes

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That’s exactly what it is. It’s born from a fundamental misunderstanding of how copyright law works. It’s basically just a Facebook chain letter.