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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 1546862" data-attributes="member: 2013">I think part of the problem is that we have more concepts than we have words to describe them. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />For the sake of clarity, let me try to put forth the different concepts I am trying to work with here...1.) A "raw idea" = some abstract concept (e.g., the concept of "boy meets girl")2.) A "transcribed idea" = the language/graphical representation of a "raw idea" (e.g., the phrase "boy meets girl")3.) A "processed idea" = the electronic file, book, painting, or similar "container" that contains the transcribed idea (e.g., the piece of paper upon which the phrase "boy meets girl" resides and the ink used to make the characters) - note that I'm staying away from the term "work" because using that word can confuse the "container" sense of the word "work" with the "effort" sense of the word.Copyright law requires that we have a "processed idea" before it can be copyrighted.  Even if you create and memorize a song or story (turning a "raw idea" into a "transcribed idea" by assigning language/musical representations to it), and sing it/tell it on the streets so everyone knows about it, until you have made a recording, put it to sheet music, written it down, etc. it cannot be copyrighted under law!Thus, it takes TWO steps to go from "raw idea" to "copyrightable material" and each of those steps adds value to the work.  The effort/work undertaken to move from "raw idea" to "transcribed idea" is the first point of "value-addedness" - as others have pointed out, you're not just paying for the three seconds it takes to figure out that your idea is represented by the phrase "boy meets girl" but you're also paying for the education and training required to learn the language.  Obviously, this is an extremely simple example, but we can of course extrapolate to the training and education and experience required to visualize a picture, conceive a novel, etc.  But I think keeping things extremely simple is a good thing for the moment.  The second point of "value-addedness" is the cost of placing this "processed idea" into a container - in the above example, it is the cost of the training and/or experience involved in learning how to write/paint/play music to place the "processed idea" into the container, as well as the cost of the container itself.  To continue our example above, it is a percentage of the cost that you incurred learning how to write legibly, as well as the cost of a sheet of paper and the ink required to write the phrase "boy meets girl" - i.e., getting from point 2 above to point 3.I suppose we could try to separate out the ability to write from the paper written upon, but since writing of necessity requires paper, I think it's good to keep that cost together in the first instance.  More generally, the ability to transfer things to a certain medium is no good without the medium itself and vice versa; the two are intrinsically linked in terms of producing a copyrightable work.Thus, we have two phases involved in moving from "raw idea" to "processed idea" - the first phase is 100% intellectual, while the second phase is, in many ways, 100% physical (as once the words in question are assigned to a work, the process of scribing those words to a medium is trivial and can be done by machines - witness, for instance, the printing press, which does the work involved in getting from Step 2 to Step 3).It should be noted that "copying" of a work is simply moving from Step 2 to Step 3 multiple times (usually using someone else's "processed idea" as the basis for your own "transcribed idea").In times past, the greater expense was involved in carrying out the transition from a "transcribed idea" to a "processed idea" - while lots of people could think thoughts and tell stories and sing songs, the ability to write was rare, and paper and ink were not plentiful and thus expensive.  The advent of the printing press somewhat mitigated the expense of hiring a someone trained in the skill of writing, and of course, the cost of paper and ink has been falling for quite some time now.  A similar journey could be traced for movie cameras and film, audio recording equipment, etc.  Basically, for quite some time, moving from Step 2 to Step 3 required a great deal of expense because finding someone with the right training - or purchasing the right equipment - was not a trivial task.However, starting at about the turn of the 20th century (i.e,. 1900), the ability to write began to be a fundamental part of the curriculum in public schools.  Suddenly, those with the ability to write were not nearly as rare as they once were.  In the 1940's and 1950's, many people began learning to type, which of course increases the rate at which ideas can be "packaged into containers."  Furthermore, it could be argued that since most people gained the ability to write and/or type in the publicly-funded school system, that these skills have in fact already been "paid for" - i.e., I can no longer demand that someone pay "a percentage of the cost I incurred gaining the knowledge and experience of how to write things down" since I incurred no cost (or what cost was incurred was paid for by the public).  And of course, in the past 20 years, we have seen a boom in the availability of personal computers, which means that some editorial skills - such as spell checking - are now much less in demand than they once were, as we have machines doing things for us.  And since computer files are now considered an acceptable "container" for housing copyrightable material, as the cost of computers continues to drop, the cost of the container itself continues to drop.  Computers and their capabilities have wreaked similar havoc on the music industry - no longer is a huge studio with an enormous mixing board required to produce a high-fidelity recording; a quiet studio and a relatively inexpensive computer and mixing board can be used, with the computer handling much of the dirty work.  Films, with their extensive use of digital cameras and computerized effects, are starting to work their way in that direction as well, though the shift has not yet been as pronounced because a film usually requires more components - scenery, costumes, multiple actors, etc. than a book or a music recording.However, the upshot of all of this is that public education and inexpensive computers have lowered the cost of Step 2 to Step 3 *dramatically* - in fact, they've brought it close to zero EXCEPT for the time required to do what is in essence "Data Entry" - i.e., taking the set of words used to convey a raw idea and putting them to paper/word processing file/music file/etc.However, large media conglomerates were born in the era when moving from Step 2 to Step 3 was still expensive... they cannot effectively do Step 1 to Step 2 because that is not something that can be mass-produced.  The media conglomerates are now frustrated that going from Step 2 to Step 3 is much easier and in fact, the barriers to entry are so low that they are really not needed any more.  And while they WERE needed when cost barriers to entry were still high (allowing the cost of moving a work from Step 2 to Step 3 to be shared among many), they are now obsolete.Which brings me full circle to my point.  While for many centuries, the cost of moving from Step 2 to Step 3 was the biggest part of creating a copyrightable work, that is no longer the case.  Now, it is MUCH harder to find someone who can do an eloquent/quality job of using language/music/other media to convey a "raw idea" (i.e., transition from Step 1 to Step 2) than it is to move from Step 2 to Step 3.  Because moving from Step 1 to Step 2 is a purely intellectual and creative process, it CANNOT be automated.  Now, the greater value is in moving from Step 1 to Step 2, because the skills and expense moving from Step 2 to Step 3 are very low.Thus, while in the past, the value of a copyrightable work was made mostly of the "physical work" required to place it into a medium, the advent of computers means that today, the value of a copyrightable work is made mostly of the "intellectual work" required to assign language/other representation to the work; the physical work and physical media involved now contribute little added value once the effort of moving from Step 1 to Step 2 is complete.That was a long, boring discussion, but I needed to see it to clarify my own thoughts. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />There is some little added value in transferring from electronic file to paper - the cost of the paper, ink, and a percentage of the cost of the printer used.  The cost of labor of course, is essentially zero, as the labor involved is simply pressing the "print" button plus a minute or two of binding time (plus a fraction of the cost of binding machinery).  In fact, it could be argued that there is MORE added value in transferring a paper book to an electronic file as I would wager even at minimum wage it "costs" more to scan a book (even with a quick scanner, I would wager it takes at least fifteen seconds per page to properly prepare and scan a page, either by cutting a book into its constituent pages for feeding through a scanner or by laying the book flat on the scanner bed, hitting scan, picking the book up and moving it to pick up the next page, hitting scan, turning the page and repositioning it, hitting scan... etc.).. plus a fractional cost of the computer, electricity, hard drive, and scanner... thus the "labor cost" involved could be argued to make going from paper to electronic MORE valuable than going from electronic to paper!Again, the electronic version of the product has value, but IMO, the majority of the value comes from the fractional expense of education and training plus the labor required in moving from Step 1 to Step 2 (i.e., figuring out what words to use to express the idea) as opposed to the material it's carried on (let's be honest, the fractional percentage of a hard drive required to store an e-file plus bandwidth charges are neglible).Yes, idea is back to just a "cool thought" here (the "raw idea" spoken of above).  An interesting point about Jefferson - though I suppose another analogy might be, "if my neighbor is hosting a party in his back yard, and I get out and groove to the DJ's music in my back yard, should I expect a bill from the DJ for theft of services?"But you did hit on the right point - the idea is that of paying for a service.  Paying for a "raw idea" is foolish - because no service has been rendered!  Paying for the effort required to make that raw idea communicable - now THAT's a service. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Paying for the effort required to write down a copy of the words involved?  Well, that's getting less and less expensive and therefore less and less valuable (especially once the first copy has been input - copying it is nearly zero cost)... it will never quite get down to zero, since there must always be a fractional payment on the effort required to input the "first copy."Yes... which is why I put forth "transcribed ideas" (the electronic aspect of a commercial product) and "raw ideas" (the abstract iota of knowledge) above... as I mentioned, it's hard to have a meaningful discussion when we have more concepts than words to describe them! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />*smiles* an interesting debate.  Suppose you have really good loudspeakers and I hang out in the hall, in a public area outside your classroom, and am enlightened by your lecture about the way E=Mc^2 naturally falls out of Maxwell's Equations.  Am I stealing your services in that case? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Ah, but medical doctors are not a monopoly... because there is more than one medical doctor - if I don't like Dr. A, I can go to Dr. B instead.  Suppose for a moment that one person - and only one person (call him Dr. C)- was authorized to perform, say, Laser Eye Surgery.  Even though there are a lot of doctors around that are competent to perform the surgery, they can't do it because Dr. C has a monopoly.  Dr. C decides to charge $10,000,000 for eye surgery.  If I want the surgery, I have to pay his price, because nobody else offers it.  That's not a good thing.A monopoly truly is one person holding the exclusive ability to do something.  Not a class of people.  One person.  I'm sure you can see what kind of abuse this might lead to.The only difference is a matter of degree... more people use and rely upon gasoline than d20 sourcebooks.  But suppose, for example, (to use an example that might be close to you as a teacher) one person held the rights to, say, all physics textbooks.  You can't even write a physics textbok without infringing upon his copyright monopoly, because it would be a derivative work - after all, the only way you could have gained your PhD in physics is through use of his textbooks (as they are required for all physics courses in college) and thus your work would be a derivative of his.  Now let's assume that he jacks the prices on physics textbooks up to $20,000 each... or worse, that he decides (out of spite) to withhold permission for publication at all.  How do you teach your class?And that's where we break ranks.  The author has a reasonable right to be recompensed for his effort; however, there is a finite amount of IP that can be created... if we allow author after author to claim chunk after chunk, soon we will be left in a situation where we have to pay royalties on everything we say, read, hear, etc.Just a couple of quotes here... emphases mineI highly recommend the Spider Robinson piece, Melancholy Elephants, BTW. I had to excise massive chunks for brevity, but to catch the full impact, it is necessary to read the piece.--The Sigil</blockquote>

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