Piracy

[Chaos Disciple]

Not even remotely. Despite what lots of people like to think, people who create art "purely for love" aren't inherently better at it than anyone else. In fact, the opposite is arguably true at least in the long run, since they don't have the same financial incentive to improve.

I think its the artistic talent inherent to that indavidual, which makes their art valuable, and that is not related to their level of desire, be it for love, or money.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I think its the artistic talent inherent to that indavidual, which makes their art valuable, and that is not related to their level of desire, be it for love, or money.

True, but nobody is so good that they cannot improve (especially when they're first getting started). And it is the feedback from others--not just friends, but outsiders like editors, other writers, and even an audience--that leads, in part, to that improvement.

And much of that feedback comes because of, and is given weight by, financial incentives. Not all of it, of course, but a fair amount. There's little incentive for an author or artist to pay attention to criticism from strangers without them. (This is true of nearly all areas, not just art, but it's art we're talking about here.)

Innate talent is good, but it's not enough. And as I said before, innate talent isn't necessarily tied to the willingness to work for free. If artists don't get paid for their work, even those who would be willing to work for free may not be able to. If artists don't get paid for their work, eventually art will all but disappear from the culture. It won't happen immediately or quickly, but the number of people who are both able and willing to work without compensation simply aren't sufficient to sustain a vibrant artistic or literary culture. And frankly, they shouldn't be expected to.

 

[Cadfan]

I'm pretty sure that doing my job full time has helped me get better at it.

No doubt writing books is completely different.

 

[Chaos Disciple]

If artists don't get paid for their work, eventually art will all but disappear from the culture.

Well, I guess now you can see the benifit of creating art for love instead of money.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I guess now you can see the benifit of creating art for love instead of money.

Oh, I see. It's our responsibility to work our asses off for society's sake, even if the people of that society aren't willing to pay for work that they're enjoying?

I assume you also believe that doctors should treat people for free, and that actors should entertain for free, and that lawyers should defend people for free? That cops should serve for free, and firemen put out fires for free? There's a word for where that's leading; that word is "socialism." Nothing at all wrong with you being a socialist, if that happens to be your view of society, IMO, but come out and say so, so I understand your starting point, instead of arguing it piece by piece.

 

[Sammael]

This is getting dangerously political for ENW...

 

[xechnao]

Mainly because every time it's occurred in the past few hundred years it's been a bad thing.

Socialist realism, Nazi propaganda films, the Stationer's Company.

Heck, let's actually look at the Stationer's Company, as that was what lead to the creation of copyright in the first place. It used to be in England that if your wrote a book you had two choices. You could make manuscripts (this was before the printing press) on your own and give them away, or you could sell the book to the Stationers Company and go write something else while they copied it and sold the copies and kept all the money. When the printing press came along, nothing changed, except that the Company made more money because printing was cheaper the copying, and printing was far faster.

This, combined with a few short stints as the Crown's censor, led to the Statute of Anne which granted the sole right to copy a work to the author for a period of 14 years. Copyright came into existence to allow authors to get paid for their work, rather then having to sell it to a government monopoly for a one time fee and then starve while they became rich off it.

When I was talking about a public model this is not what I have in mind. There have been errors throughout history regarding every economic endeavor. And this, certainly does not mean that the current model is a better one. Each time it depends on conditions so the most important factor in the long run is being able to adapt with minimum consequences. It is obvious that the USSR did not focus on its economy but rather -after the tremendous initial boom- on the (cold) war. And USSR is not the only one to blame for this.
The stationer's company is absurd by our standards -by the conditions of our days. This is definitely not what I had in mind. I tried to expand a bit in some post back here. The main idea is to hire artists like you hire teachers or professors. And definitely give them an institutional function.
This is already happening today on a very small and limited way. Expand on this.
The only "problem" I see with this is that policy makers might be afraid of the political change involved in this. Even if you dare change just a part of the economy this way, if it succeeds, then it may start to seem obvious to people that other things in the economy must change too. But who really knows with the current turn on things, eh? Banks for example are nationalized all over the world. Countability control practices may change in a way that push for further change in politics -a push towards a system that is more open for the public and less close to the tricks of tycoons. I am not saying I am optimism but I do not lose hope -the important thing is what you choose to put your hope in.

 

[xechnao]

So either artists get paid for their work--regardless of whether it takes "physical form" or "just data"--or every art-based industry, from writing to music to art, eventually fades from society as anything more than a rare curiosity. In the long-term, there's not really a middle ground.

I think it is obvious that art needs a means of investment -and in our standards investment means finance -this is nothing strange. Artists do need to get paid for their work and each artist that has produced art so far has been paid in some way -and art is not an individual process only-it is rather a historic one: we expand (by evolving or revolving) the legacy we inherit from the previous generations.
Even folk musics must have had a means of investment for their creation to take place-perhaps not one in the way you are thinking about it but nothing really gets produced without some sort of investment.

 

[xechnao]

Oh, I see. It's our responsibility to work our asses off for society's sake, even if the people of that society aren't willing to pay for work that they're enjoying?

I assume you also believe that doctors should treat people for free, and that actors should entertain for free, and that lawyers should defend people for free? That cops should serve for free, and firemen put out fires for free? There's a word for where that's leading; that word is "socialism." Nothing at all wrong with you being a socialist, if that happens to be your view of society, IMO, but come out and say so, so I understand your starting point, instead of arguing it piece by piece.

But in a functional socialist economy people do try to get their payment -they do try to get their point across. It is not like they work for nothing.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I assume you also believe that doctors should treat people for free, and that actors should entertain for free, and that lawyers should defend people for free? That cops should serve for free, and firemen put out fires for free? There's a word for where that's leading; that word is "socialism." Nothing at all wrong with you being a socialist, if that happens to be your view of society, IMO, but come out and say so, so I understand your starting point, instead of arguing it piece by piece.

This is a huge crux of the argument. People argue about artists shouldn't get paid, but they wouldn't suggest it for other elements of society. There may be some benefits to certain elements of society being socialized but there are drawbacks. If the business model changes for artistic works, there will be drawbacks and repercussions.

Regarding the whole concept of royalties, I've explained it before by posting Grant's essay. Before you condemn the whole concept of "royalties", paying for ideas, etc, think about these few concepts.

Success in arts and entertainment is different than other jobs. You can't expect to pay a novelist or a singer a flat rate for the work, because it's a crapshoot. The more people who read/listen to it, the more they should get paid. It's a merit system. If you paid a person a flat one time fee, either the company funding it couldn't afford to pay a decent rate (because there are too many failures and not enough successes.), or the creator would feel ripped off as the publishing companies would make all the money and not give some back.

You have to also understand how entertainment media works. For every 1 success there are 100 failures. I think people focus on the really big guys, the corporations, the millionare artists, and don't realize that there are a lot of little guys.

As far as the "art for art's sake" argument, that's a great way to get ripped off. Smart artists, like smart contract workers, try to get guaranteed payments. J. Michael Strazynski had worked on a book called Rising Stars for Top Cow, then got into a dispute and the book was in limbo for over a year. When a fan said "shouldn't finishing the story be the top priority", and I believe JMS said something akin to "that's a great way to get ripped off". Mark Evanier has a great three-part column about these occurrences: In short, people exploit that idea.

Regarding the argument "you can't stop piracy, you shouldn't even try", that's woefully inaccurate. It's like saying
why bother with protecting money, you can't stop counterfeiting". If the governments of the world had that attitude you couldn't have a money system.

The Internet may seem like a wild west, but then again, you used to be able to drive a car without a license. Traffic Laws came for safety's sake. It's really strange that people who love technology think that they'll always have 100% privacy on the Internet, that you can't stop piracy. However, the same technologies can also be used to detect things like viruses, spyware, and businesses can track your Internet activities at work, and YouTube has filters now to prevent unauthorized copyright works to be uploaded. I suspect things people come to expect will change, such as sales tax being applied to all e-commerce retailers in the US, for instead. If they don't add more security to prevent piracy, they might to prevent cracking and so-called "real" theft--the theft of money, which is becoming a big problem.

Do I think in some cases, technological innovations cause disruptions, yes. I don't think that can be stopped. I also think in some cases companies made short-sighted decisions that hurt them and will cause changes--newspapers shouldn't have given away their news for free, smart guys like the Wall Street Journal were able to charge and stay profitable.

But I think people need to educate themselves. Don't just listen to the technology proponents--a lot of them have their own agendas. (A company like Google benefits financially by turning content into a commodity, and I see some of it as akin to trying to roll back many elements of workers rights.) Study basic economics, study history and historical models. Don't just listen to pundits that have the point of view you like, read what the other side has to say. You'll gain insights. I always read all the political opinion columns in the newspaper, not just the ones that agree with my politics. So, listen to the contrarians and read their point of views. Instead of just reading Lessig and Anderson, read Andrew Keen and Christian L. Castle. They make a lot of good points.


Another problem is something I think is a cultural problem. People are way damn too spoiled nowadays. I read this forum and see people arguing about "getting the PHB first", etc--it's like a wait of a few days or a week is intolerable. People need to learn patience, and not have "instant gratification". The excuse that you should be able to download a copy of software or a book because you already paid for it and have to wait 2 days for shipping is just that, or that you have the entitlement to preview the entire thing first before paying. "Doing without" can help build character. Unless we are very rich, we all have to make some sacrifices. I see the people who download software/media without paying as the same as those illegally tapping cable or satellite. It's not a valid view in my mind. Pay for the product, or go without the product.