> the self-described 'left' is not going to convince me that corporate IP & knowledge restriction is actually a good thing

It just goes to show how fluid people's beliefs can be when they have identified a "bad guy". Everything they do is wrong, even when it aligns with their ethos.

> not going to convince me that corporate IP & knowledge restriction is actually a good thing and elsevier are the good guys.

multiple parties can be opposed to each other's goals with all of them still being "bad guys".

Weird to turn this into a left/right "thing" based on flimsy assumptions after an election that demonstrated opposition to AI cuts across the political spectrum despite what e/acc types in a bubble on X might believe.

Whenever people get their undies in a bundle about this argument I'm amazed at how oblivious of power differentials they are.

There is a difference between a story in which a robin hood liberated knowledge and freely, without any caveats or exchange, delivers it to the masses (think Aaron Swartz) and a story in which a power hungry empire systematically scoops up all the world's resources and decides to permit the masses access so long as they exchange (at a premium) other resources the empire needs to continually solidify its position.

If you don't see how these are different I don't know what to tell you. People making IP theft arguments are more disgruntled about the massive power imbalance between, say, a massive corporation, and a small time creator who can barely even earn a subsistence off their work in the first place, and the former taking from the latter in impunity.

The left rightly sees it as unfair because it is a power imbalance that leads to asymmetrical power of exchange. The companies get the power to continue to extract data from you, all you get is the privilege to then pay them for it.

The so called progressives have actually been the ones opposed to progress throughout history. If they had their way we would all be frozen in time, entitled to our 1960s education & career