Piracy

[Majoru Oakheart]

Michelangelo was paid by the Pope to paint the Sistine Chapel. Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa because a wealthy family commissioned a painting to decorate their home. Most of the great cathedrals and monasteries of Europe were paid for by monarchs who supported various religious groups in exchange for those religious groups supporting the monarch in turn.

Sure, but you didn't see Michelangelo coming to the Pope a year later saying, "Ok, 5000 people have been to the Sistine Chapel since I painted it. At 5 coins a piece, that's 25,000 coins you owe me. I'll be back next year to collect the royalties for the next year."

And there are free pictures of the Sistine Chapel all over the internet. I don't have to pay to see it anymore unless I go in person. And as someone else said, that's a cheap money grab to charge for that.

I can see copies of the Mona Lisa all over the internet for free as well. It belongs to everyone now. The actual painting is still worth lots of money, but I don't need to own it to share in its value.

Of course, that's what I've been suggesting all along. Give the initial creator of the work a short period of time to profit off his work. Maybe 5 years, maybe 10 years. Only they are allowed to sell copies of their work. Then, afterwords, release it to the public domain. Make 1st Edition D&D something we can all copy, change and publish to the internet for free and do what we want with it instead of a property that sits in the WOTC "vault" waiting for an opportunity to be exploited.

I think the problem will take care of itself. Right now, there is basically unlimited pirating of every product that comes out. It's only limited slightly by its illegal status. Make it legal, tell people that they can sell a product, but they should expect copies to be made as soon as it gets out in the market. Give the consumers the choice of whether they feel a particular item has value or not. If it has value, people will pay for it. Especially if they want it right away and can't wait for copies to become available. But make sure it is illegal for anyone to SELL copies of the item. No one else should be making money off of it. Plus, no one should be creating derivative works, using the trademarked terms and so on.

Then, if people aren't tech savvy enough to download something, want a physical copy of something, or just feel its worth the money, they will pay. After a couple of years, once everyone who has felt the item is worthwhile has paid, the copyright goes away and everyone can do what they want with it. Anyone who wants to can sell the item in question for as much as they want to charge for it.

The "artist" gets paid, the ownership is transferred and it becomes part of human culture. If the "artist" wants to continue making money, they need to make some new piece of art, come up with new ideas, or whatever.

 

[JohnRTroy]

One point that is missed by you MO is the fact that in the past, the products were limited by location. You had to be in England to see a play, you had to go to Rome or art gallery's to see the art.

The Copyright and Royalty concepts came shortly after the printing press. The printing press allowed people to mass produce books. After that came the concepts of copyright. If you have a mass audience reading or consuming your work, you have an expectation to be paid more. Just because the ability to copy gets cheaper or even easy doesn't mean the compensation factors will go down.

Print, Radio, TV, and the Internet have given more avenues to get your work distributed by the masses. The rise of technology has given more controls on content, NOT less. I see that as fair. If your books are read by more people, you should get compensated more.

I fully expect that there will be ways to get compensated for on-line distribution, even if that means the Internet is less like the wild west and more controlled.

Technology is followed by laws regulating it--those are inevitable. Those thinking that this will be a sudden revolution that will bankrupt the media industries. It may be somewhat disruptive, but I also doubt it will be the utopian dream that a lot of fans are hoping for.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Emphasis mine.

I'm perfectly aware it takes time and effort to come up with "art". It takes me time and effort to fix one of our Unix boxes that died. Not everyone could do that. It takes training, time, effort, and ideas to fix it. But I don't receive a payment every time someone logs into that Unix box for the rest of time because I fixed it. I just applied my knowledge and time in order to do something. Which I got paid for...once.

The former, in each case, I might pay money for; the latter, I would not.

And that's kind of my point. Basically, you are saying that the difference between any idea anyone comes up with and art is that you might pay for it. It just means they are GOOD ideas. But basically the same. I admit, I prefer good ideas over bad ideas. Still, why does one idea net me nothing and another idea nets you $250,000 initially and $20,000 dollars a year for the rest of your life and all of your children's lives. I think good ideas should be rewarded. But how much and for how long?

Wrong. Check out the first part of your post that I quoted above. It is (among other things) ideas plus training plus effort plus time. Objectively so. Look up 'art' and related words, for instance. The very language you have been misusing disagrees with you.

Yeah, I agree that it is all of those things. It is ideas applied using your training and effort to make a final item of some sort. I do that every day, so does everyone who works in a non-creative job. I don't see why creativity deserves to be rewarded in a completely different way that claims that everyone who uses your work ever needs to pay you.

That's my key sticking point in this discussion. Everyone is pointing at piracy and saying "You are stealing all this work that is rightfully someone else's. They deserve to be paid for each and every person who uses their work". I'm asking "What makes their work so valuable that they need to be paid for each and every person who uses it? Why does their work get paid differently than, say, the guy who mows the lawn at a baseball field. Why doesn't he get paid for each person who walks on it or everyone who looks at it? If not him, maybe the guy who planted the grass, or the guy who planned the stadium?"

I'm saying, there IS no difference. There shouldn't be a difference in the way things are paid. I think the concept that you can own an idea after you've told someone else it is rather absurd. Once you let the idea out, it isn't yours anymore.

 

[xechnao]

Did the Pople demand money for people entering the Sistine Chapel and looking at Michelangelos artwork?

It was not just about money. Politic power was a major consideration. These two things are connected somehow. Art is a means of impression and it was used as a political tool.

 

[xechnao]

So, it seems making money with art is still a little more ... "modern"?

I have no idea how museums used to work and how they work now. (Did they exist 500 years ago?)

Palace Uffizi, Florence. Made for Cosimo De Medici.

 

[Echohawk]

Of course, that's what I've been suggesting all along. Give the initial creator of the work a short period of time to profit off his work. Maybe 5 years, maybe 10 years. Only they are allowed to sell copies of their work. Then, afterwords, release it to the public domain.

May I ask if you currently download copies of works that are more recent than 5 (or 10) years?

 

[xechnao]

One point that is missed by you MO is the fact that in the past, the products were limited by location. You had to be in England to see a play, you had to go to Rome or art gallery's to see the art.

The Copyright and Royalty concepts came shortly after the printing press. The printing press allowed people to mass produce books. After that came the concepts of copyright. If you have a mass audience reading or consuming your work, you have an expectation to be paid more. Just because the ability to copy gets cheaper or even easy doesn't mean the compensation factors will go down.

I am in favor that Africa can produce its own drugs to cure AIDS. Not only for themselves but for myself too. I would feel safer to know that there is one less potential threat in the world. Similar feelings for agriculture and poverty and generally control of production and finance: who can produce what. I feel safer if other people can produce their food and prosper without resorting to the will of their loaners. It is not just a matter of copyright the problem. It goes much deeper than this.

 

[Mercutio01]

I just think if you are making art and thinking of it as a product with a value that must be paid or else...you are missing the point of art. Especially if you think that you own it somehow.

The creator of the art most definitely does own that art.

And I know many artists NEED to think of their work as their property to be sold and bartered for stuff because otherwise they'd starve. Then again, I'm in favor of having useful skills that aren't just art.

And now we get to the crux of or your position. "Art is great, but get a real job.

Consider your ignorant self-important ridiculous diatribes--ignored. You, personally as a human, are not worth the effort to engage in any kind of dialogue. If you are of the opinion I think that I am better than you--good, because I do. You're wasting pixels on my screen.

 

[Filcher]

That's my key sticking point in this discussion. Everyone is pointing at piracy and saying "You are stealing all this work that is rightfully someone else's. They deserve to be paid for each and every person who uses their work". I'm asking "What makes their work so valuable that they need to be paid for each and every person who uses it? Why does their work get paid differently than, say, the guy who mows the lawn at a baseball field. Why doesn't he get paid for each person who walks on it or everyone who looks at it? If not him, maybe the guy who planted the grass, or the guy who planned the stadium?"

I'm saying, there IS no difference. There shouldn't be a difference in the way things are paid. I think the concept that you can own an idea after you've told someone else it is rather absurd. Once you let the idea out, it isn't yours anymore.

I create a painting. I enter into a partnership with someone (a publisher) to make money with it.

If anyone else wants to use my idea to make money, they can, as long as we make an agreement first.

If someone is going to profit from publishing my work, I deserve a cut.

 

[Piratecat]

We seem to be dipping into politics and personal attacks. No more, please.