California AB 412 imposes impossible copyright disclosure rules, crushing innovation & handing power to big tech. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/californias-ab-412-bill-could-crush-startups-and-cement-big-tech-ai-monopoly
@eff Fair...use? OMG, are you really saying scraping the internet is fair use? And that disclosure laws are bad because only big companies can follow the laws? Someone has really drunk the AI koolaid here.
@virtualbri @eff thank you! I’ve been chewing on this toot and it does not taste good…
@mattgriffin @eff Yeah. This is one of the times they're getting it wrong.
"Stifles innovation" should be a red flag generally. But especially in AI, where I'm still waiting for the actual benefits of all these models ripping off copyrights. What is the "innovation" here? And sometimes barriers are barriers. You don't get to complain "only space companies can launch satellites, this is an unfair barrier I should be able to launch from my backyard". There are and should be rules.
@virtualbri @eff I think we should block everyone from stealing to feed their bullshit machines equally.
@eff If this bill makes it harder for companies to steal other peoples' work, then I'm 110% behind it.
"But the startups.." If you startup idea revolves around copyright theft, maybe your startup idea sucks.
@eff ffs... innovation builds in small companies, which try to excel by innovation, not by tweaking the bottom line.
@eff Wow, this is a pretty bootlicker position from the EFF, did you folks just get a whole bunch of openai funding or something?
Is your account compromised? Is there an intruder in the building? Respond "pineapple" and I'll send the authorities.
@Tak @eff This is kind of their standard M.O., is the thing. They went to bat for Cryptocurrency and NFTs back when they were the hot new scam. So now they're defending AI slop.
They're so caught up in the idea that issues of copyright are still stuck in the SOPA/PIPA era when things have changed, independent artists and creators have carved out their niche online over the last decade-and-some, and they don't want AI slop made by startups or large corpos gorging themselves on that work without permission or compensation.
And here we have the EFF going to bat for "startups" which are sure as hell funded by the super-rich and acting like those "startups" and "small developers" are on the same scale as independent artists and creators plying their trade on YouTube, Patreon, and more.
It's embarrassing and sickening from the EFF, but not surprising.