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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4684590" data-attributes="member: 5143">This is one I just need to reply to.  I know the author isn't going to actually read this reply, but I think that the ideas behind it need to be replied to.  So, here it goes:I work in the IT industry.  I am currently contracted to a large, multinational IT company.  I don't even work for them, I work for an employment agency because the company doesn't want to have to pay everyone working for them health benefits, pension and the like.  So, I get none of these.  I keep working there because there is a chance that if I keep working for them, I will be hired on as a real employee and get those benefits.  Even if I don't get hired on, I can use the experience I get here to find another job in the field.So, I don't have a pension.  I have no way to pay for my life after I retire yet.  I'm 30, I still feel there is time to either start contributing to my own retirement fund or to find a job that does provide these benefits.So, you are asking my WHY my job doesn't work like yours?  Because none of them do.  Or, I should correct that, VERY few of them do.  I don't seem to have the same self-centered sense of entitlement you do over the situation, mind you.  I work every day for the wage I receive.  I don't consider whether something I do today is going to make the company millions of dollars.  It might.  Then again, I might not do anything valuable and be a drain on the companies funds.  That's the way most people live their lives.Even if I had profit sharing or such things, I only get paid the extra while I'm with the company.  It doesn't pay me after I leave.I am aware that it is common in your industry to be paid for your work forever.  Let me get this off my chest now.  That's just plain crap.  No one gets paid for their work forever except for you.  I know you are thinking, "But the companies we work for are going to be paid forever for my work, why aren't I?".  And I agree with you, they should not be paid forever for your work either.There is a system here that runs the booking system for a major airline.  The programmers who designed the system do not currently get paid for their work.  It is still in use and it makes the airline millions.  They got paid for their work.  They do, however, get paid to write new software for the company.  As it should be.  Your industry should work the same.Your industry should either pay you for one time work in a big enough number to be worth the full value of the work or they should hire you on long term with all of the benefits that most companies offer.And here's the kicker.  Their rights to profit off of your work should only last 10 years at most.  After that time, it should enter the public domain.  This should encourage both you and them to come up with new ideas to profit off of rather than resting on the old ones.If you want to be the one profiting off your own work, then you need to be the one who leads the project.  Start making deals with the backers to fund you in exchange for 150% or 200% of the money back and the rest goes to you.  Be the one in charge if you want to make the millions off your movie.  If you don't want to be the one who takes care of all of that, hire someone else to be your employee who does.  Otherwise, stop bitching and accept that you'll get a one time fee for your work.  You've had it too good for too long.  I understand that it is hard when someone takes away something in order to make you equal to everyone else.  It'll be hard for a while.  You'll survive.  The rest of us do.And this is where you are wrong.  The entire industry is in need of a large kick in the pants.  Technology changes culture not the other way around.  Right now the movie and music industry are attempting to change culture in a counter direction to the direction technology is pushing.  They will lose.  But they have a lot of money, so the fight will go on for some time.The way technology works now encourages information to be free.  I can easily post a movie to the internet, have it in thousands of people's hands within hours and have it decentralized so that not a single one of us is the "linchpin" to removing it from the internet.  Information is too easy to get and too difficult to remove.We can rail against this change all we want, but it's coming.  The more people who know how to use it, the more prevalent it becomes.  Right now, we deal with it by criminalizing the act and trying to punish each and every person who does it.  The problem is, when that is 90% of the population, how do you justify it?I don't view it as the people trading things on the internet as being selfish and self-centered.  They just know how to use technology and feel that it is only useful when you use it to its logical conclusion.  I actually feel it's the opposite.  People who create art of any kind, be it music, movies, television, paintings, or whatever, should be looking to enrich the lives of the human race rather than becoming millionaires.  That was the original purpose of art.  When did it become about money?I'm not saying the people who make these things don't deserve to eat and have a roof over their head.  Of course they do.  I'm saying that with the change in technology comes a change in the way you think about getting paid for your work.  Musicians might need to make 100% of their money for live shows, television appearances, or other avenues.  People who make movies might need to make 100% of their profit from the "experience" of seeing a movie in a theater or off of toys or games based on their movies.I don't have all the answers.  I don't know exactly how certain things will make profit.  Someone smarter than me is going to have to come up with a completely different model for these sort of things.  But to simply point at those sharing media on the internet and call them selfish and self-centered is being short sighted.  People want to enrich themselves.  They want to read a story, hear a song, or watch a movie as part of their personal growth.  The same reason that the people wrote or filmed these things in the first place.I think both the big companies AND the little guy will end up hurting in the crash to come.  But I think those with more to lose will be hit harder.I think things need to be set back for creators 500 years.  That's about when they were treated like the rest of us.  Well, scratch that, I think they need to be set FORWARD 50 years with real, forward thinking.As I see the future, it will be a period where people make movies to gross 100 million in the box office, 50 million off of toys and other products due to the movie, and simply don't care what happens after that.  People either go see the movie in theaters, buy games or other physical products based around the movie or they simply aren't a factor.  Even if all of those people have seen the movie for free by downloading off the internet.The movies that wouldn't have made enough money in theaters to break even would stop being made.  There will be some sacrifices.  These things will likely end up being direct to internet releases for free that will instead attempt to capitalize off of the semi-popularity of their work with advertising, toys, games, and the like.  It's being done today in small amounts and I see it being done much more in the future.  People will make things for free and use the popularity to make money rather than the product itself.No, but the thing that almost always changes cultures is technology.  It has nearly a 100% effectiveness rate in changing culture when it was adapted.The other thing is necessity.  Native Americans didn't have any concepts of property because there wasn't enough people to fight over it or any necessity to do so.  When you have too many people, you get disputes, you need to come up with ways to resolve them.  Thus, land titles and the like.</blockquote>

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