[HN Gopher] Who Owns Einstein?
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       Who Owns Einstein?
        
       Author : klelatti
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2022-05-18 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | I saw a note on Salesforce's Web training site to the effect of
       | "ALBERT EINSTEIN used under license from the Hebrew University of
       | Jerusalem." And there on the main page was a little Alegria
       | Albert, dancing with the Alegria people and Salesforce's
       | nonbinary spaceperson mascot, advertising the company's
       | Einstein(tm) AI service.
       | 
       | All of this strikes me as tacky and twee. Were the real Albert
       | alive today, he would not want something as stupid as a
       | statistical classifier running on a computer to wear his name as
       | a badge of "intelligence". What is the difference between a
       | cheesy marketing campaign like this, and the tacky associations
       | the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's legal team purports to
       | avoid?
       | 
       | Answer: Salesforce has money, and the licensing fees would make a
       | nice little addition to the university's endowment.
        
       | mindcrime wrote:
       | "Posthumous publicity rights" has to be one of the dumbest ideas
       | I've ever heard of in my life. Copyright lasting 70 years after
       | the death of the artist/creator is bad enough, but this is
       | ridiculous.
        
         | qiskit wrote:
         | At this point, we would be better off without any copyrights
         | laws. It's no longer about protecting the interests of artists,
         | creators, etc. It's about protecting the interests of
         | corporations and the useless privileged elites to the detriment
         | of society as a whole.
        
           | mindcrime wrote:
           | I have to admit, I'm torn on whether or not we should have
           | copyright / patent / etc. laws or not (and what their exact
           | nature should be if so).
           | 
           | But I do feel pretty strongly that IF we have those things,
           | the time spans should be severely limited. I don't think I
           | personally, for example, would support copyright for _any_
           | duration beyond the life of the author  / creator.
        
             | mikebenfield wrote:
             | I disagree. If copyright exists, its term shouldn't be tied
             | to anyone's life at all.
             | 
             | Let's say I produce a copyrighted work, and immediately
             | sell the rights to that work to you. Why should the value
             | of your purchase depend on how long I live? Should the work
             | produced by a 20 year old be more valuable than the work
             | produced by a 70 year old because the 20 year old is less
             | likely to drop dead and end their work's copyright?
        
               | mindcrime wrote:
               | Maybe we should disallow selling / transfer of copyright
               | rights then? Dunno, just spitballing ideas here.
        
               | car_analogy wrote:
               | Why not a flat duration? Why tie it to life of author in
               | the first place - what's the benefit?
        
         | gjvnq wrote:
         | It makes sense to give some limited copyright to whoever spent
         | the effort to go through the old papers and organize them into
         | a publishable thing.
        
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