HackerTube.dev

Copyright is Brain Damage | Nina Paley | TEDxMaastricht

TEDx Talks · 90.3K views · 2015-10-21 · 18:24

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

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.

On Hacker News

Brought up in copyright, public domain and AI-training debates as a provocative argument for abolishing copyright.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2017–2026

Topics

Law, policing & justiceHacker culture & free softwareFree speech, censorship & civil liberties
Search by tags
nina paleycopyleftpublic domainintellectual propertytedx

What people said

CaptainFever · 2023-12 · Recommendation

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] [VIDEO] [2] No, I'm not an AI, just autistic.

Read the original HN comment ↗
qqn · 2020-04 · Recommendation

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: [VIDEO] .

Read the original HN comment ↗
sgbeal · 2026-04 · Reference

It crashes on the first video i tried: [VIDEO] Relevant part: > ERROR: [youtube] [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).

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by TEDx Talks, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources