Copyright is Brain Damage | Nina Paley | TEDxMaastricht
Why Hacker News recommends it
Brought up in copyright, public domain and AI-training debates as a provocative argument for abolishing copyright.
What it is
Nina Paley's TEDxMaastricht talk arguing against copyright and for copyleft and free culture. She argues that restricting ideas harms creativity and that culture belongs to everyone.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2017 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends qqn · 2020-04 · on “Why my book can be downloaded for free (2014)”
Yes! Same takeaway, and the main reason I published my thesis online first, turning it into a video tutorial to boot: [LINK] . Specifically I was frustrated at all the sources I had to get behind various kinds of walls, pay- and otherwise: [LINK] Nina Paley (from Rita Sings the Blues ) had a great talk five years ago on how restricting information is a form of cultural cancer that is very relevant here: [this video] .
Recommends CaptainFever · 2023-12 · on “The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement”
Copyright Is Brain Damage by Nina Paley [1] claimed that culture is like a bunch of neurons passing and evolving data to each other, and copyright is like severing the ties between the neurons, like brain damage. It also presented [2] an alternative way of viewing art and science, as products of the common culture, not a product purely from the creator, to be privatised. This sounds really relevant to your comment. Furthermore, if we manage to "untrain" AI on certain pieces of content, then copyright would really become "brain" damage too. Like, the perceptrons and stuff. [1] [this video] [2] No, I'm not an AI, just autistic.
Cites dredmorbius · 2017-06 · on “Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts”
This brings to mind Nina Paley's "Copyright is Brain Damage": [this video] Paley is in the process of creating an epic animated story, using music appropriated with out rights, as a protest piece against copyright. She addresses the question somewhat at her blog: [LINK] If you're looking for a transcript, I'm not aware of one, though Techdirt addresses some of the points raised: [LINK]
Cites gohbgl · 2018-01 · on “What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2018”
I believe that there will be more creative work once copyright is abolished because creativity would be no longer limited. [this video]
Cites dredmorbius · 2018-02 · on “The effect of ad blocking on website traffic and quality”
"Copyright is brain damage." "Copyright has become the single most serious impediment to access to knowledge." "Today we recognize that knowledge is not only a public good but also a global or international public good.We have also come to recognize that knowledge is central to successful development. The international community, through institutions like the World Bank, has a collective responsibility for the creation and dissemination of one global public good—knowledge for development." "What the academic publishing industry calls 'theft' the world calls 'research'." It's far beyond time to recognise that 1) Copyright is not the solution, copyright is the problem, and 2) that creators of
Cites jazzyjackson · 2022-07 · on “Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit”
> Do you enjoy feature films? Video games? Television shows? not really no, I like stand up comedy, music, indie films, art that people make because they feel compelled to make art, not because they've done the math on the best return-on-investment My ideal funding model is kickstarteresque, raise X amount and then publish I consider copyright contradictory to free speech, I can say whatever I want unless it's already been said? what? > the wholesale abolition of copyright would violate the United States Constitution. That's what amendments are for. See also, "copyright is brain damage": [this video]
Cites sgbeal · 2026-04 · on “I ported yt-dlp to WebAssembly to create a 100% client-side media downloader”
It crashes on the first video i tried: [this video] Relevant part: > ERROR: [youtube] [this video] Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See [LINK] for how to manually pass cookies. Also see [LINK] for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies The app provides no way to pass flags, though (and the browser is confirmed to be logged in to youtube).