I was asked on dinosaur social media why I am critical of IP laws and why I don't want to legislate against AI art.

I support intellectual property in the free market sense where arbitration is primarily achieved via reputation. Steal someone's art and your reputation suffers.

However, I see massive dangers in having the government regulate art and software.

1. Let's say that I publish an artwork somewhere that I created. My artwork is mine but it is not registered in a database anywhere.

2. Someone else right-click and save my artwork and then proceed to register it as their own artwork at a central art authorization platform.

I can't prevent anyone else from registering my artwork as theirs, and unless I know they are registering my artwork as theirs, I can't file a complaint.

So now, my artwork belong to someone else, unless I can file a successful complaint.

Let's continue this further:

In order to protect my artwork then, I need to send every artwork I make to a central authorization platform, before anyone else sends it there.

The central authorization platform would be necessary in order to detect and prevent unlawful use of someone's art.

However..

This forces me as an artist into a system where I have to trust this central authorization platform to be in charge of basically all my artworks, from cradle to grave.

Let's consider this for some moments.

What can possibly go wrong here.

What if this centralized system of authorization gets corrupted?

What if my access to this system requires me to log in with a digital ID?

What if my access is terminated for political reasons?

This is just scratching the surface.

A centralized system of art copyright authorization comes with a host of *deep* problems that are far from obvious or unproblematic. Anyone underestimating these problems have not given them much thought.

First of all, why should I as an artist be forced to register my artwork in a central database? And yes, I would be forced, since if I don't, someone else can register my artwork as theirs.

When that database is tied to digital ID, I'm stuck in a system that I have to trust, even if I most likely can't trust that system and have every reason to expect it to be corrupted.

3. Identification of unauthorized use of art.

When a central authorization database is set up, it is toothless without a system to detect breaches of intellectual property laws.

So, how will unauthorized use of art be detected?

This requires monitoring (surveillance). All regulations require monitoring to be efficient. There is no point of a regulation if it can't be enforced.

Therefore, all regulations will be increasingly enforced via monitoring, as the technology for monitoring improves.

Next; regulations on code (software):

4. Regulations on code/software will require very deep intrusions into the workflow of programmers.

It basically requires the government to monitor all software and to authorize software based on a central authorization platform.

The government will then allow or disallow code.

A logical next step is to require all software to be centrally authorized, on the pretext of protecting IP rights. If you have nothing to hide, why would you object?

At this point, government controls all software via the central authorization platform.

What can go wrong here?

5. As an artist I have deep interests in protecting my art from theft or unauthorized use.

However, we live in a society where I clearly can't trust the government or judiciary system to be in charge of my art, just as I can't trust the government to be in charge of money.

So, knowing that I cannot trust the government to not print money and debase the currency via inflation, how can I possibly trust the government with full power over the art I create from cradle to grave?

This is why I oppose IP laws pushing us toward a 1984 dystopia, while I at the same time believe in intellectual property - secured via reputation - not government force.