It’s Content Independence Day: Cloudflare, along with a majority of the world's leading publishers and AI companies, is changing the default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators for content.
2010-ish: copying is not theft, stealing a thing leaves one less left, copying it makes one thing more, that’s what copying’s for… 🎵🎶🎵🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
2025:
I’m myself not overly enthusiastic about AI, not at all. I think LLMs are mostly bullshit generators with very little practical use. But from a public policy point of view, the stance that training AI should require consent of or payment to the copyright holders is IMHO wrong; if we accept it, what is next? Humans summarizing and paraphrasing sources (e.g. for a wiki article) should require consent/payment? Humans learning from sources should require consent/payment? I think wanting a free and open society means taking the side of AI operators, not copyright holders, in this matter.
I don’t know what solution could be more adequate in such a complex problem. But why is it necessary to compare humans with AI? Humans and AI don’t necessarily have to have the same rights, rather the opposite.
I also don’t trust cloudflare on this. I’d bet they will take a percentage or charge for the feature. I don’t believe for a second that they actually give a shit.
2010-ish: copying is not theft, stealing a thing leaves one less left, copying it makes one thing more, that’s what copying’s for… 🎵🎶🎵🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
2025:
I’m myself not overly enthusiastic about AI, not at all. I think LLMs are mostly bullshit generators with very little practical use. But from a public policy point of view, the stance that training AI should require consent of or payment to the copyright holders is IMHO wrong; if we accept it, what is next? Humans summarizing and paraphrasing sources (e.g. for a wiki article) should require consent/payment? Humans learning from sources should require consent/payment? I think wanting a free and open society means taking the side of AI operators, not copyright holders, in this matter.
I don’t know what solution could be more adequate in such a complex problem. But why is it necessary to compare humans with AI? Humans and AI don’t necessarily have to have the same rights, rather the opposite.
I also don’t trust cloudflare on this. I’d bet they will take a percentage or charge for the feature. I don’t believe for a second that they actually give a shit.