The deeper I’ve gone into this topic of copyrightability of AI-assisted works, the more I’m convinced that copyright is merely another face of colonialism – this time applied to the products of the imagination. It’s yet another attempt by humans to chop things up into little boxes, collect rent, and prevent others from accessing these resources without going through the approved gatekeepers.

Which is not to say that I don’t include copyright notices in my AI Lore books; I absolutely do, though I realize the legal theory around doing so is anything but settled.

And that’s also not to say that I think creators don’t deserve to be compensated for their talents and efforts; they absolutely do.

I just thing the present system is inherently flawed, and experientially feels wrong for me as a creator.

My experience of creativity is that the more you access it, and share it, the more powerful your connection to it all becomes: the more you drink, the fuller your cup.

To squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, to clench down, and wrap your fists around your creations and say MINE MINE MINE is really the surest way as an artist to lose them, to lose the connection to the spark that brought you there and electrified the whole thing.

What’s the answer from an intellectual property perspective? Honestly, I really don’t know.

But I know what’s not the right answer for me personally as an artist: having to go beg permission from some outside authority, having to go ask them to validate my artistic hunches and outputs, having them tell me I’m wrong, or that’s not art, or that can’t be copyrighted because “Simon didn’t say.”

I call bullshit on all that. I don’t accept the spiritual authority of bureaucrats or any other would-be temporal power over my work; the only voice I have to obey is that creative impulse that is my birthright, as a being through whom life is flowing. All the rest, all the affairs and concerns of men (and especially men in suits lording it over others) can all burn for all I care, so long as I hold fast to that core & follow my light.

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