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Why Movies Are Not Exactly Like Music
Ars digs into the proposition that movies will go the way of the music business, and finds some reasons not to be totally gloomy about Hollywood's immediate future. For one thing, the movie biz managed to introduce a next-generation format to follow the DVD, a trick that eluded the music crowd (anyone remember DVD-Audio? SACD?). Blu-ray isn't making up the gap as DVD sales fall, but it is slowing the revenue decline. Perhaps the most important difference from the music business is that movies aren't amenable to "disaggregation" — unlike CDs, which people stopped buying once they could get the individual songs they really wanted. Ars concludes: "The movie business is facing many of the same challenges that are bedeviling music, but it's not about to go quietly into that good night — and it may not have to."
One of the reasons your 'art' gets 'ripped off' so much is that the people doing so will never be in the position of doing a job once, then getting royalties forever and they don't see why they owe you anything for doing the duplication themselves.
FYI, only big name artists get royalties. The rest of us count on album sales, merch and concert tickets to pay our bills. And I'm mainly a songwriter which means that I get 9.1 cents (by federal law) when you purchase that song I wrote. That's assuming I didn't co-write it, in which case I get 50% of that. I won't see royalties unless it gets played hundreds of thousands of times on radio stations; which only happens if you get lucky enough to get a cut on a major artist who loves your song enough to make it a single. So your comment about royalties only proves that you know absolutely nothing about the music business.
Are you contractually obliged to bitch about downloaders?
Go make pattern parts for GM vehicles, you won't get put away for grand theft auto, but you won't get paid per mile used either.
I know you'd love to believe that, but no. I'm an independent songwriter who saved up his money and self-produced my own CD that one of my adoring fans put up for download. I then spent the next year listening to people at my shows tell me how much they loved my CD even though I had only sold 5 fucking copies. Now I have a day job, I don't play out, and I can't afford to put out another CD. Not that I would seeing as people aren't going to pay for it.
So thank you so much for freeing music from the big record companies for me. Yeah, you're really opening things up for independent artists.
You clueless fucking prick.
"Do you play an instrument? I bet you don't pay a fee to the instrument maker for every note you play. I bet part of that fee doesn't get paid backwards to the supplier of the materials the instrument is made from. A singer? How much do you pay the production line guy who made your microphone every time you sing into it?"
Bad analogy. Only one person can use an instrument at a time because it is a physical object.
"Sculptors? You know the plastic mouldings that nearly everything is made from? Someone has to sculpt the moulds. Do they get a percentage? No, and they have to work to very tight tolerances not 'that looks finished now'."
Actually, mould designs are patentable. The company I work for has many patents on our designs.
"One of the reasons your 'art' gets 'ripped off' so much is that the people doing so will never be in the position of doing a job once, then getting royalties forever and they don't see why they owe you anything for doing the duplication themselves."
Currency can be copied using a printer. It's just ink and paper that we give a value (do you think the ink and paper that makes up $100 is really worth $100?). If I can just make a copy at home, why should I get any other way?
Digital items are very much like currency.
I also find your arguments funny. Back in 2000, it was the big bad companies people were against (you were only trying to help te artists..right?). Now, artists are telling you that you are hurting their sales and you spit in their face.
I even remember people complaining that music was too expensive. Now, you can get music at 99 cents per song and it STILL isn't cheap enough for you. This is why businesses shouldn't negociate with terrorists (and anyone for that matter. When you negociate with someone that is holding you hostage, and give them what they want, they will just ask for more).
Thanks for assuring me that I was right all along: people that justify piracy are just thieves.