Independent of ones philosophical stance on the broader topic: I find it highly concerning that AI companies, at least right now, seem to be largely exempt from all those rules which apply to everyone else, often enforced rigorously.
oh hey, let's have a thought experiment in this world with no IP rules
suppose I write a webnovel that I publish for free on the net, and I solicit donations. Kinda like what's happening today anyway.
Now suppose I'm not good at marketing, but this other guy is. He takes my webnovel, changes some names, and publishes it online under his name. He is good at social media and marketing, and so makes a killing from donations. I don't see a dime. People accuse me of plagiarism. I have no legal recourse.
Is this fair?
There are also unfair situations that can happen, equally as often, if IP does exist, and likewise, in those situations, those with more money, influence, or charisma will win out.
Also, the idea that that situation is unfair relies entirely on the idea that we own our ideas and have a right to secure (future, hypothetical) profit from them. So you're essentially begging the question.
You're also relying on a premise that, when drawn out, seems fundamentally absurd to me: that you should own not just the money you earn, but the rights to any money you might earn in the future, had someone not done something that caused unrelated others to never have paid you. If you extend that logic, any kind of competition is wrong!
let's have another though experiment:
there are two programmers. first is very talented technically, but weak at negotiations, so he earns median pay. second is average technically, but very good at negotiations, and he earns much better.
is it fair?
life is not fair.
Surely one easily see that the second programmer didn't take the first programmer talent (or his knowledge) and claimed it as their own...
I draw from this that no-one should be subject to those rules, and we should try to use the AI companies as a wedge to widen that crack. Instead, most people people who claim that their objection is really only consistency, not love for IP spend their time trying to tighten the definitions of fair use, widen the definitions of derivative works, and in general make IP even stronger, which will effect far more than just the AI companies they're going after. This doesn't look to me like the behavior of people who truly only want consistency, but don't like IP.
And before you say that they're doing it because it's always better to resist massive, evil corporations than to side with them, even if it might seem expedient to do so, the people who are most strongly fighting against AI companies in favor of IP, in the name of "consistency" are themselves siding with Disney, one of the most evil companies — from the perspective of the health of the arts and our culture — that's working right now. So they're already fine with siding with corporations; they just happened to pick the side that's pro-IP.