In a world where 95 years of copyright is the minimum, and works like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone likely won’t enter the public domain until approximately 2120AD, I fail to see a moral argument be made for any book published pre-2011.
As it stands, we are caught between allowing AI companies unfettered access to copyrighted material or allowing the corpus of human creativity to be squandered by rights holders. It is an unfortunate position to be in, but I would far prefer a copyright minimalist world than what we currently suffer through, even if that means AI companies are vacuuming up the intellectual works of humanity.
However, it’s also uninteresting from the alternative perspective: if I made a famous novel series. In which case, I still believe what I currently believe, except now I am very rich, so thank you. I could—and would—submit the works into the public domain 20 years after their release and then live comfortably for the rest of my life.
Let me inform you of something: from 1997 to 2007, the HP series sold approximately 350 million copies. Between 2007 to 2018 it sold approximately 150 million additional copies. That rate will continue to go down, and Rowling would still profit off of the books because of what they’re already doing: expensive limited edition official releases, which makes superfans and other collectors go crazy and have high profit margins. Even if Rowling gave up the copyright in 2017 for the first book, she has the other books which would be in their own 20yr copyright term, and the trademarks which would be uniquely hers and desirable by consumers.
I would be very well off and nothing would really change, except now people can sell their own sequels/rewrites and make money too. Isn’t more artists having a chance to make a living a good thing? Or only specific artists? If someone rewrote the series but if Malfoy was a girl and in love with Harry (à la the recent Malfoid memes) shouldn’t they be rewarded for their work if the market deems it high quality?
If we wish for this behavior to end, we should see naming and shaming as a good thing, a step in the right direction. Real, commensurate consequences need to happen for these people as well.
But it's apparently controversial to not just fine the company and then let the company investigate themselves.
And in the cases where you can't figure it out you then summon people you suspect know to testify and use that information to figure out the perpetrator.
Like if you think somebody placed insider trades in the stock market you don't fine the NYSE $1 Billion and let them figure out who to fine.
A florida judge ruled them unconstitutional, tbd if/when this goes to SCOTUS and what happens there...