Piracy

[Mercutio01]

That's the problem. That's the view of today. In times past, people used to create art in order to enlighten, entertain, educate, inspire and so on. They didn't do it because it was a "product" that needed to be marketed. That's a more modern concept.

That's glossing over facts. They most certainly did it for some of those reasons, but they ALSO got paid.

I just don't see any way for technology to evolve the way it has been without IP and Copyright Laws both being MAJORLY overhauled. For our society to advance, we need to be able to share these things. Right now, there are too many companies who own the exclusive rights to technology that, if combined, could likely make our lives way better. But because each of them owns the rights to their own parts of the puzzle, they won't be combined for the next 50 or 100 years. It sets our society back.

Sharing works both ways. I share my work, you share your money. Simple, direct. Has worked since man started the barter systems back in the African continent.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Only if the owners choose to sell it for a dime a film. Which in some cases they might. In may cases, especially for newer, popular works they won't because people will pay more for it.

At the moment that is true. I think there might be a time where it stops being true. When people realize that the value something has had in the past doesn't need to be the value it has in the future.

Old != worthless or valueless. As for pricing, just like everything else you pay what the seller is willing to sell it for. Why should this change just because you thing it's worthless? If it's too much for you, don't buy it.

Often old DOES equal worthless or valueless in the case of information. If someone tried to sell me a book telling me that the world was flat. I would not pay for it. I know the world is round. Old information is not very useful.

Likewise, a book explaining that you can use a turbine to generate electricity is not very useful either. There are too many people in the world who know that already and will tell you for free. Once information is available for free or is widely known, you can't sell it.

The same thing often goes for media. If everyone read the same book in high school, there is going to be very little market for it. If nearly everyone has already watched that summer blockbuster movie 2 or 3 times, there's very little demand to see it again. Sure, there's SOME demand. But at what point does a piece of art just become part of our culture and not one person's property?

Uh huh. Copyright or patents and rights to the plans in question will still be worth money, even with nano-fabrication. There's been a number of works examining this.

This is part of what concerns me. It might be possible using this technique to essentially make free food, free shelter, free clothes, free medicine for everyone in the world. But due to Copyright and Patents, the rights to actually manufacture these things will be in the hands of some corporations whose primary goal is to make as much profit as possible. This means that, although we have the technology to essentially never need to work except if we wanted to with no cost to anyone, while keeping the entire world alive and fed and with a decent lifestyle....we won't see that day because of Copyright and Patents. To create food, we'll need to pay a licensing fee to the company who owns the "blueprints" for the food. And a licensing fee to use the nano-robots and so on.

You need to get over your hate of corporations. They, as a theoretical entity, are amoral, not immoral. They are certainly not evil. People running them can be immoral. Usually they're just stupid and short sighted though.

That's not entirely true. Publicly traded companies have a goal: Increase shareholder value. And, for the most part, the only way to do this is to continually make more profit than the year before hand.

The problem is, that you eventually reach a practical limit on how much money you can make. But shareholders don't like to hear that they won't be getting any more money, so they push you until you make changes that aren't good for for anyone except the shareholders. They will increase profits, likely at the expense of employees, the public, the planet, or whatever. But their goal is to worry about increasing profit, not any of those other things.

And that isn't very moral. It doesn't matter who is running the corporations, they eventually have to reach that limit. It might just take a LONG time to get there.

So, the materials used in manufacturing storage devices aren't limited? Energy isn't limited?

Materials are always going to be limited. But once you have a device, any digital media you put on there is going to be free. But there's a LOT of material. It won't run out any time soon. Especially if we develop the ability to manipulate materials into other materials.

As for energy. It's pretty close to unlimited. The sun provides us energy as long as it shines, water gives us hydro energy, wind gives us energy. As long as we are capable of living on this planet we will have energy. Whether it is enough energy for our needs...who knows. We will find more efficient ways to harness these energies in the future. When we can manipulate matter at a molecular level, we may be able to create new, more efficient fuels out of common materials.

 

[Aus_Snow]

But it IS just information. It's a thought that occurred to someone and they decided to write down, compose, draw, paint, or whatever. But it's just an idea.

Well then, go market/sell/publish/display the next 'idea' you have, as a work of art. See how far you get, and how long you can survive on the money made.

It IS NOT 'just information'. It also IS NOT 'just an idea'. Shooting off the phrase, or indeed paraphrasing it every so often, don't make it so.

I have no idea whether you use that kind of perspective to justify greed and selfishness, but it's certainly not that uncommon for folks to do so. And yeah, that's where I've most often encountered that view: 'justified' greed and selfishness, hiding behind dated techno-newspeak. But like I said, that could of course most definitely not apply to you personally, and I'm completely willing to believe that, just to make that as clear as can be. It's just a particularly unfortunate fallacy, thanks to its most common context.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That's glossing over facts. They most certainly did it for some of those reasons, but they ALSO got paid.

Not everyone got paid. Some did. But there was certainly no large scale effort to charge people each and every time they viewed the art. Most art was paid for and then was owned by the person who paid for it.

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. It's good to have an idea, but it's worth nothing if it isn't given to the world. I'm, obviously, not an artist. 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.

Sharing works both ways. I share my work, you share your money. Simple, direct. Has worked since man started the barter systems back in the African continent.

I'm more than willing to share like for like. I'll give you my art, you give me yours. We'll call it free trade. I don't think your art is worth money. That gives me practical things like food, clothes, and dice. The art is just something that keeps me from being bored. There's lots of ways to keep me from being bored. Like reading internet message boards. It's a lot more free.

Heck, I've been giving you my opinions and views of the future for a while now. In my estimation, that's worth at least a picture of clocks melting. *grin*

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well then, go market/sell/publish/display the next 'idea' you have, as a work of art. See how far you get, and how long you can survive on the money made.

Art is HIGHLY subjective. I've seen people make all sorts of money off of crap that was certainly NOT art. But someone in the world thought it was. I'm fairly positive that anyone with enough time and effort could do exactly as you say. Find one thing they actually know about and write a book, a blog, a movie, a podcast or whatever and make money off of it. It isn't easy, but it has a lot less to do with the content than it does the marketing. I know that my skills don't really lie in an artistic field. I make money off of understanding and using technology. Other people make money off of marketing their ideas. No problem with that.

It IS NOT 'just information'. It also IS NOT 'just an idea'. Shooting off the phrase, or indeed paraphrasing it every so often, don't make it so.

What's the difference? What makes a particular drawing "art" and not a picture someone drew? What makes a book something worth buying rather than a bunch of ideas thrown on a page? What makes a movie worth putting worldwide in theaters for money rather than posting to the internet for free? What makes a blog written by a celebrity worth advertising on and therefore worth money when this post on a message board is worth nothing?

It is all just information or an idea. It is objectively so. Just some things are valued more than other things. And the people who own those ideas that are valued by people are being greedy and holding on to them or releasing them in small quantities for money.

You seriously don't see any problem with saying "I got this great idea, this will improve people's lives dramatically. Now, if I can just find a way to charge people 100 dollars every time they use it, I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams. And if anyone attempts to use it without my permission, I'll get a team of lawyers to sue them for everything they own. After all, how dare they improve their lives without my permission? It was my idea. From now on, no one else is allowed to have that idea but me. Greedy, self-centered bastards!"?

And that is the current state of IP, Copyright, and Patent laws in the world. And it's getting worse by the day.

And I should be clear here. I have no problem with people coming up with an idea, getting a bunch of money for it and then giving it to the world. I encourage it. I want the laws to encourage it. I just want the laws to encourage it the same way it encourages me to do well at my job. I don't make any mistakes, I go a bit above and beyond and I might get a raise or a small bonus as long as I work here. But then, tomorrow, I come up with new ideas, do new things and get paid for those.

I want people to write a book, put it in stores, have people run out and buy it, and then have the natural tendency to pirate to distribute it to everyone who didn't think it was worthwhile to pay for. I know it can work. I've heard of projects where it worked. It's just that the profit margins are a LOT lower. And that's what worries people. When they write a book, they might only make 40,000 dollars and have to live off of that for a year while writing another book instead of making enough money to survive for 5 or 6 years off the initial profits from a book and 2 or 3 more off the residuals.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'm fairly positive that anyone with enough time and effort could do exactly as you say.

Emphasis mine.

I make money off of understanding and using technology. Other people make money off of marketing their ideas. No problem with that.

This at least is heartening. Thanks for making clear where you stand on this. Even though the terminology is, of course, incorrect. Or, alternatively, only partially correct, therefore potentially misleading.

What makes a particular drawing "art" and not a picture someone drew? What makes a book something worth buying rather than a bunch of ideas thrown on a page? What makes a movie worth putting worldwide in theaters for money rather than posting to the internet for free?

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

It is all just information or an idea. It is objectively so.

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.

 

[SKyOdin]

That's the problem. That's the view of today. In times past, people used to create art in order to enlighten, entertain, educate, inspire and so on. They didn't do it because it was a "product" that needed to be marketed. That's a more modern concept.

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.

In short, the entire history of art in the pre-modern world is the history of the wealthy and powerful patrons commissioning artists to create great works so that the patrons could flaunt their wealth and power to the rest of the world. The idea of "art for art's sake" is a modern one, and I still think that it rings empty even in the modern world.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Michelangelo was paid by the Pope to paint the Sistine Chapel.

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

 

[Sammael]

He didn't then, but he does now.

In fact, my colleague visited Vatican last year and she said that a lot of icons are coin-operated - to see the icon, you have to insert money. Talk about crass commercialization...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

He didn't then, but he does now.

In fact, my colleague visited Vatican last year and she said that a lot of icons are coin-operated - to see the icon, you have to insert money. Talk about crass commercialization...

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?)