this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
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I'm going to come out and say it: IP theft isn't a thing. IP is not something that can be stolen. It can have its license violated or it can be copied against the wishes of its owner. What it absolutely cannot be is "stolen".
A car can be stolen. A phone can be stolen. A book or a CD or a DVD can be stolen. The concepts or ideas or literal content of what amounts to Intellectual Property cannot be stolen. It can only be copied.
If anything has been stolen it's the commons that is the public domain. It was taken away for about four generations. Long enough that no one remembers the IP that's only just now becoming public domain. It's a loss far greater than anything related to AI.
I'll also say this: Even if an AI were trained on nothing but public domain works (like most image generating AI a la ImageNET) people would still be spouting bullshit like, "it's stealing IP!"
What bullshit is this? Copying without authorisation is a form of IP theft.
"IP theft" is a rhetorical term invented by the MPAA/RIAA in the 90s. It's not a real crime. It's just propaganda.
There's no law on the books that even remotely resembles "IP theft". Here's what we've got:
Not a single one of these laws deals with "theft". The entire concept of theft is orthogonal to intellectual property.
Until the MPAA/RIAA started their marketing campaigns in the 90s, "IP theft" as a concept didn't exist. It wasn't a thing. It still isn't a thing. It's propaganda/marketing BS.