Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, now X, recently tweeted, “delete all IP law.” Let’s examine the motivations and background of this tweet and how it relates to arguments around art and AI.
IP Law
Briefly, IP laws give people and businesses control over creations of the mind used in commerce. Through copyright, trademarks and patents, among other things, they enable creators and rights holders to be compensated for their work if stolen or licensed out.
Of course, IP law is not perfect. Often, big companies wield IP law like a sledgehammer to extract as much money as possible. Think of Disney using all its resources to guard its IP despite working from many public domain sources. The contributions of many workers to an IP can often be overlooked and attributed to the business they work for. To say nothing of how the horrendous enforcement of IP law can sometimes serve as a tool to enforce hegemony. See the guarding of medical IP during the pandemic. Additionally, considering most ideas are built on the ideas of others, sometimes IP law can feel restrictive to creators. You could understand someone agreeing with this in a vacuum and all things being equal.
But that is not the situation we are in. Plus, while these laws may be abused and reform is certainly needed, they are useful to ensure smaller creators’ work is protected and that they are compensated for it.
Money vs Art
So why did Dorsey tweet this? In a later tweet, responding to the dangers of AI, he clarified, “Creativity is what currently separates us, and the current system is limiting that, and putting the payments disbursement into the hands of gatekeepers who aren’t paying out fairly.” This indicates that his main goal for deleting the current system relating to IP laws would be to remove data gathering barriers to allow for more possibilities with AI projects and monetisation. Charitably, you could say he hopes for an equal playing field between people creating IP. However, as someone worth over $3 billion with his own AI venture, it reads like he is saying AI companies shouldn’t be limited by IP restrictions. Including paying to use IP that AI tools use to make their owners’ profits. But how does this relate to art?
Recently, we have seen many stories about AI concerns in the art world. One key concern of the SAG-AFTRA/WGA 2023 strikes was the encroachment of AI on industry jobs. Debates have raged around AI being used in Oscar-nominated films, and everyone saw the AI images imitating Studio Ghibli’s aesthetic. Undoubtedly, to Hayao Miyazaki’s annoyance. But while you can argue about how AI can benefit smaller budget productions, enhance already existing production elements and produce shitposts online these tools will largely be used by big companies to streamline the making of art over anything artisticly valuable. As Jack Dorsey proves, it will be done to maximise profits for those with resources at the expense of creatives.
Art-ificial
In the era of Elon Musk, we shouldn’t be surprised when billionaires use social media to try and advance a selfish and harmful agenda. Though their proximity to power is cause for concern. Ultimately, this is just the latest example of how businesses continue to try to devalue art. Seeing it as a money-making venture and little more.
With AI tools becoming more widespread, artists will have to continue to fight for their work to be respected. Some small-scale recommendations include manually removing your work from AI data scraping and being more cautious about posting work online. Larger-scale actions such as workplace and industry union organising to influence company procedures, cultural attitudes and regulations around AI will also be needed moving forward. The future for AI in the arts is uncertain, but art and artists deserve to be seen as more than data to generate material for the profits of billionaires.
