It takes work to create/identify/classify information, both in the economic and physics sense. That work should be allowed the same protections we do other forms of work.

Your example is one where nearly no work was done, thus it doesn't deserve much value. "Let a = the set of all songs" doesn't help me find new songs I like. A songwriter does that work. Another artist that takes and uses and resells that work (without consent), is stealing that work.

To me it's funny that nearly all the problem with the current team of AI generation would be solved if the model generators simply licensed the content they train on. "But that would cost too much" Ok, just use public domain work, "But that wouldn't be as good" Oh so you are saying the work has value, but you are unwilling to pay for it, and instead your scheme is to just take it. That seems like a good definition of stealing - not paying for something that has value.

> Your example is one where nearly no work was done, thus it doesn't deserve much value

You are aware that there is very expensive art out there where the artist did not much work. Like painting a canvas in one colour or throwing an item in the corner of a museum.

According to you, that would not deserve much value but it does have a lot value in reality.

In fact "value" is what somebody else gives to the piece of art.

A prompted AI artwork made by me may have more value to me than all the art in the Louvre.

The discussion here continues to turn around copies when it's not a copy those algorithms generate.

> Another artist that takes and uses and resells that work (without consent), is stealing that work.

Another artist accidentally uses a melody from another song (because it's a finite set) and are sued for all their income is a horrible system. The winners aren't the people producing value, it's the people who got there first and are now profiting off other people's work.

If I grew up under a rock, somehow became a self taught musician, and ended up authoring a song that had recognizable components from Happy Birthday, then even still the author of Happy Birthday, having established that melody so successfully in the public zeitgeist, reasonably should benefit.

This is so common the recording industry itself has established rules for sampling and licensing and covers and what not. Are there some folks out there abusing the system, for sure. But overall its goal is to maximize the value produced by the recording industry, which very much includes the people who 'got their first' who built foundations for future artists. To me, this all seems basically reasonable.

Copyright is supposed to promote the creation of new works. You just described a system where a song written well over 100 years ago is preferred over over a new artist creating a new work.