"He was paid quite well to write new items. His music was in the public domain after the first performance and was performed by many cut-rate houses without his consent."
sorry this is incorrect. while he certainly did commision work, he also published work as well and recieved royalties on their sale.
from the grove dictionary of music:
He wanted a post at the Imperial court in Vienna, but was content to do freelance work in a city that apparently offered golden opportunities. He made his living over the ensuing years by teaching, by publishing his music, by playing at patrons' houses or in public, by composing to commission (particularly operas); in 1787 he obtained a minor court post as Kammermusicus, which gave him a reasonable salary and required nothing beyond the writing of dance music for court balls. He always earned, by musicians' standards, a good income, and had a carriage and servants; through lavish spending and poor management he suffered times of financial difficulty and had to borrow
so as you can see, he was compensated in numerous ways for his work. which is quite reasonable, considering how talented he was.
"I think you will find that Mozart did not have any copyright protection!
well that's not quite right either:
"After all, the first copyright law in England dates from 1710 (and gave much less protection than modern copyright law), yet publishing had flourished for hundreds of years in England despite censorship and wide-spread illiteracy. n11 The point is a little misleading, however. In the old days, the costs of making copies were a higher fraction of total cost than they are today, so the problem of appropriability was less acute. Also, there were alternative institutions for internalizing the benefits of expression. n12 And before freedom of expression became generally applauded, publishing was often believed to impose negative externalities--so there was less, sometimes no, desire to encourage it. Finally, while it may be difficult to determine whether, on balance, copyright is a good thing, it is easy to note particular distortions that a copyright law corrects. Without copyright protection, authors, publishers, and copiers would have inefficient incentives with regard to the timing of various decisions. Publishers, to lengthen their head start, would have a disincentive to engage in prepublication advertising and even to announce publication dates in advance, and copiers would have an incentive to install excessively speedy production lines. There would be increased incentives to create faddish, ephemeral, and otherwise transitory works because the gains from being first in the market for such works would be likely to exceed the losses from absence of copyright protection. There would be a shift toward the production of works that are difficult to copy; authors would be more likely to circulate their works privately rather than widely, to lessen the risk of copying; and contractual restrictions on copying would multiply
There is a persistant pattern of people here who cannot see the forest through the trees.
You are all missing a very basic point.
The point of economics is so you, the human individual, can work and receive credit for your your work if others find it useful, and use that credit to trade for the works of others you find useful yourself.
How much your work is valued is determined somewhat subjectively (and neccessarily so) by how useful other human individuals find it, or perceive it to be (demand), and how difficult it is to create or obtain it (supply).
Since every individual has different needs, there will always be differnt opinions about what constitutes useful. Some people will find video games useful to relieve boredom, others will find diamond rings useful to bolster self esteem.
Since we live in a market based world, we must obtain credit to obtain basic neccessary to life items such as food, clothing, clean water and shelter. Everybody agrees these items are useful or they will die.
Intellectual property (patent and copyright) law is the only means of providing credit to the creators of new useful items so that they can obtain these neccessary to life items.
The creators of these new and useful items must receive some credit for their efforts or they will not be able to continue to produce them.
If Thomas Edison labours hundreds of hours, using thousand of materials, and works his brain (our most difficult to use tool) to create something as fundamentally useful as the light bulb, isn't it appropiate that we give him credit for his labours, so he can feed himself and his family? And isn't it appropiate that the ammount of credit he gets is connected to how useful the invention is?
If Amadeus Mozart works his brain and labours for a year to create a musical piece of incredible beauty that brings tears to the eyes of many who hear it, shouldn't he reap some reward from all the people who will make money distributing and playing his music? How will he get by and continue to produce if he doesn't?
How difficult it is to create or produce something isn't neccesarily tied to how useful others find it. I think that is what is driving you all crazy. But there is no general need for items that have been laboured over, there is only a need for items to be useful, and that is what our society is trying to reward with copyright law. The creation and production of useful items.
If I invent a new kind of water that tastes exactly like mud, that wouldn't be very useful, and I wouldn't expect to be rewarded for my efforts, even if I spent years perfecting the recipe. But if i invent a new drink made out of mud that cures cancer, I think it would be appropiate for me to become quite wealthy, even if it only took me fifteen minutes to make.
If the creators cannot be rewarded, they will still create, but less frequently, and more sporadically, with less ambition and effort, since their resources (time and money) will be tapped trying to obtain credit for their basic life needs.
The laws are imperfect and always will be, since laws are static and human interaction is dynamic. Perhaps someday somebody will invent a system of laws powered by fuzzy logic, that can dynamically and instantly adjust to changing market conditons as neccesary with an eye towards fairness and a level playing field, but for now we have to deal with the relative inefficienices of democracy which is the best working system we have so far to deal with these complexities.
Slashdot Mirror
"He was paid quite well to write new items. His music was in the public domain after the first performance and was performed by many cut-rate houses without his consent."
sorry this is incorrect. while he certainly did commision work, he also published work as well and recieved royalties on their sale.
from the grove dictionary of music:
He wanted a post at the Imperial court in Vienna, but was content to do freelance work in a city that apparently offered golden opportunities. He made his living over the ensuing years by teaching, by publishing his music, by playing at patrons' houses or in public, by composing to commission (particularly operas); in 1787 he obtained a minor court post as Kammermusicus, which gave him a reasonable salary and required nothing beyond the writing of dance music for court balls. He always earned, by musicians' standards, a good income, and had a carriage and servants; through lavish spending and poor management he suffered times of financial difficulty and had to borrow
so as you can see, he was compensated in numerous ways for his work. which is quite reasonable, considering how talented he was.
"I think you will find that Mozart did not have any copyright protection!
well that's not quite right either:
"After all, the first copyright law in England dates from 1710 (and gave much less protection than modern copyright law), yet publishing had flourished for hundreds of years in England despite censorship and wide-spread illiteracy. n11 The point is a little misleading, however. In the old days, the costs of making copies were a higher fraction of total cost than they are today, so the problem of appropriability was less acute. Also, there were alternative institutions for internalizing the benefits of expression. n12 And before freedom of expression became generally applauded, publishing was often believed to impose negative externalities--so there was less, sometimes no, desire to encourage it. Finally, while it may be difficult to determine whether, on balance, copyright is a good thing, it is easy to note particular distortions that a copyright law corrects. Without copyright protection, authors, publishers, and copiers would have inefficient incentives with regard to the timing of various decisions. Publishers, to lengthen their head start, would have a disincentive to engage in prepublication advertising and even to announce publication dates in advance, and copiers would have an incentive to install excessively speedy production lines. There would be increased incentives to create faddish, ephemeral, and otherwise transitory works because the gains from being first in the market for such works would be likely to exceed the losses from absence of copyright protection. There would be a shift toward the production of works that are difficult to copy; authors would be more likely to circulate their works privately rather than widely, to lessen the risk of copying; and contractual restrictions on copying would multiply
There is a persistant pattern of people here who cannot see the forest through the trees.
You are all missing a very basic point.
The point of economics is so you, the human individual, can work and receive credit for your your work if others find it useful, and use that credit to trade for the works of others you find useful yourself.
How much your work is valued is determined somewhat subjectively (and neccessarily so) by how useful other human individuals find it, or perceive it to be (demand), and how difficult it is to create or obtain it (supply).
Since every individual has different needs, there will always be differnt opinions about what constitutes useful. Some people will find video games useful to relieve boredom, others will find diamond rings useful to bolster self esteem.
Since we live in a market based world, we must obtain credit to obtain basic neccessary to life items such as food, clothing, clean water and shelter. Everybody agrees these items are useful or they will die.
Intellectual property (patent and copyright) law is the only means of providing credit to the creators of new useful items so that they can obtain these neccessary to life items.
The creators of these new and useful items must receive some credit for their efforts or they will not be able to continue to produce them.
If Thomas Edison labours hundreds of hours, using thousand of materials, and works his brain (our most difficult to use tool) to create something as fundamentally useful as the light bulb, isn't it appropiate that we give him credit for his labours, so he can feed himself and his family? And isn't it appropiate that the ammount of credit he gets is connected to how useful the invention is?
If Amadeus Mozart works his brain and labours for a year to create a musical piece of incredible beauty that brings tears to the eyes of many who hear it, shouldn't he reap some reward from all the people who will make money distributing and playing his music? How will he get by and continue to produce if he doesn't?
How difficult it is to create or produce something isn't neccesarily tied to how useful others find it. I think that is what is driving you all crazy. But there is no general need for items that have been laboured over, there is only a need for items to be useful, and that is what our society is trying to reward with copyright law. The creation and production of useful items.
If I invent a new kind of water that tastes exactly like mud, that wouldn't be very useful, and I wouldn't expect to be rewarded for my efforts, even if I spent years perfecting the recipe. But if i invent a new drink made out of mud that cures cancer, I think it would be appropiate for me to become quite wealthy, even if it only took me fifteen minutes to make.
If the creators cannot be rewarded, they will still create, but less frequently, and more sporadically, with less ambition and effort, since their resources (time and money) will be tapped trying to obtain credit for their basic life needs.
The laws are imperfect and always will be, since laws are static and human interaction is dynamic. Perhaps someday somebody will invent a system of laws powered by fuzzy logic, that can dynamically and instantly adjust to changing market conditons as neccesary with an eye towards fairness and a level playing field, but for now we have to deal with the relative inefficienices of democracy which is the best working system we have so far to deal with these complexities.