When politicians start mocking copyright as “woke Marxist lunacy,” you know we’ve officially entered the upside-down.

In a recent speech, U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed copyright protections as outdated obstacles to building stronger artificial intelligence systems. He argued that tech companies should have free rein to scrape books, articles, photos, and films without compensating creators.

Concert photography used to pay the rent. Today, it barely pays for parking.

Once, a single shot from the pit could land on a magazine cover, might be reused for tour previews, or live on in a band’s press kit. Those images were assets—invaluable to the photographer, the publication and the artist. They provided not just a paycheck, but a record of culture.