you are crazy if you think I'm not going to call the police if I see something about the user being a terrorist or other kind of a criminal. [...] If I work on your PC, I am obligated to keep secret your legitimate business secrets. As a matter of fact, you can and should sue me if I make public that kind of information. But reveal to me that you are a threat to yourself or others and I promise you a call to the authorities.
You're making a big leap from "[some] other kind of a criminal" to "a threat to yourself or others". A person with pirated content on his computer is not a threat to anyone. Even a person with child porn on his computer is not a threat to anyone, unless he's the one who made it.
Also, in 2006, it was barely acceptable that it didn't put out high def. Now, in 2009, with a large percentage of people owning high def widescreen TVs, it's inconceivable that a modern console will top out at 480p.
Two-thirds of households are still using SD. Lack of HD is not yet a dealbreaker. Maybe it isn't "acceptable" to you, but you're not the target audience: how many people buying the cheapest console do you really expect to have spent $1000 on a TV?
When a living room sized HDTV costs $300, then HD support will be a necessity.
I think that these examples are more telling of the weaknesses of the model than anything else. First let's take the example of Presidential candidates [...] the overwhelming majority of candidates only just manage to draw in enough individual contributions to make one single Hollywood film. If McCain struggles to make it to $200m is it realistic to expect to raise $185 for a film?
Perhaps not. But how many films really need $185 million budgets? My goal is not to come up with an alternate way to fund exactly the same pieces of content we see today, but to come up with an alternate way to fund content that (1) works in a world where private copying is cheap and unpreventable and (2) doesn't depend on restricting everyone's freedoms or technology for its survival.
Sellaband has, in fact, produced 21 albums using the traditional model, just with a different way of finding investors.
I doubt very many of those "investors" actually see it as such: putting $10 into an album for a band that few people have heard of isn't going to be very lucrative. But without data on their motivations, it's hard to argue much about this either way. In any case, Sellaband's model isn't very different from what I've proposed; only a few tweaks would be necessary.
For one thing, these professionals all have to provide a good service because they rely on repeat business; if a film maker manages to get $50m in donations to make a film, they don't need any repeat business. Given a 10% profit margin they're already millionaires, and can make the most dreadful film in history. How many such films does it take to totally shatter peoples' confidence in the system?
Couldn't you say the same about the current system? Is it really any different when the funding comes from a few very wealthy investors instead of thousands of individuals? If you can swindle the public, then surely you can swindle a few investors.
["For every Dark Knight, there are a handful of Battlefield Earths that cost just as much to make but never recoup their costs."]
I don't see how this is a good thing. Are you saying that every film has a right to be profitable, regardless of whether people actually want to see it?
I'm saying the films people don't want to see probably shouldn't have been made in the first place: copyright encourages speculative overproduction. If filmmakers focus on projects that audiences are actually willing to pay for, that's a good thing for both filmmakers and audiences.
Distribution and P2P may cease to be a problem, but getting enough funding to make a film at all will be. It doesn't make a lot of difference what your solution to the distribution problem is once you've got nothing to distribute.
This is a false dichotomy: the works that would become more difficult to fund are a small fraction of all works. You wouldn't have "nothing to distribute"; you'd have fewer of some works and more of others.
I would certainly agree that freedom of speech is important, but I don't really see the relevance it has to copyright.
I'm puzzled by this. I don't see how one can consider copyright as anything but a restriction on speech.
I believe I start out with the right to say whatever sequence of words I feel like, to share any information I know with anyone else who cares to listen. Copyright law diminishes that by making it illegal to share certain information without a third party's permission: part of your right to speak is taken away from you and put into someone else's hands. Copyright holders veto speech just like government censors; they just have different reasons for doing so.
I'm not arguing that freedom of speech is absolute, only that every limitation must be carefully weighed and the benefit must exceed the cost. I don't believe it does, and for decades the costs have been ignored entirely by t
Sorry to make it two replies, but your last paragraph can largely apply to zero copyright too (except for more access to past works and fewer court cases).
Er... I think you left something out. How exactly would abolishing copyright result in lost freedoms, foregone innovations, or limits on technology?
The only one of those I can imagine an argument for is foregone innovations, if you think copyright holders produce new things thanks to copyright that wouldn't have been created otherwise -- and that those outweigh the innovations that people are currently unable to pursue because of copyright. But I don't think it's fair to assume people motivated by copyright are any more innovative than people who are paid directly for their work, or people who work for their own reasons without being paid for it.
Your problems seem to have more to do with abusive expansion of copyright law, which I think anyone here has problems with.
No, my objection is to copyright itself. I believe it's fundamentally wrong to tell anyone "you can't say these words, they belong to someone else".
Information doesn't work like physical property; it shouldn't be subject to that sort of ownership at all. And we shouldn't encourage artists to gamble their livelihoods on the fading chance that they can prevent other people from making unauthorized copies.
No copyright leads to a freeloader-filled market. To solve this, you want media to rely on people commissioning the work ahead of time. In other words, the rich will control the media.
No, not at all.
Yes, there is now a middle class, but I don't get the impression that you'll have many songs/movies/etc. commissioned mostly with $20 contributions.
Why not? That's the central point here, you can't just wave your hands and make it go away.
If you don't think it's possible to fund works with $20 contributions -- even though people pay that much for music/movies today, even though political campaigns regularly raise millions $20 at a time, and even though Sellaband has actually funded many albums $10 at a time -- then you're going to have to say why. The evidence is against you; you need more than just an assertion.
Commissioned work can still be done today, so if you are so convinced it will work better than copyright, shouldn't copyright fade out on its own?
No, because it's not necessarily "better" for the artists themselves (yet), even though it is better for everyone else. It gives artists a guarantee that the work they do will be profitable, but it also requires more from them - planning ahead to find their audience, instead of making something first and worrying about the audience later.
If artists had to pay the entire cost of enforcing copyright, they'd switch in an instant. But they don't. Copyright is subsidized by the rest of us, through our tax dollars (for courts and law enforcement) and the loss of our freedoms.
So, we can either take away the subsidy by abolishing copyright and give them a head start on switching, or we can wait for P2P to become so widespread that no one sells any copies anymore and let them switch out of necessity. But abolishing copyright restores everyone else's freedoms immediately; waiting withholds those freedoms until artists feel like giving them back.
I also wanted to point out you could use better analogies - if a friend gets his hair cut, he can't just give me the haircut too, I have to go to the barber and pay for my own copy of his services.
You're confusing the labor with the artistic work that gets created from it.
If your friend gets his hair cut, you can enjoy his haircut for free (by looking at it and thinking about what a cool guy he is to have such great hair), but if you want your own haircut, you'll have to pay the barber yourself.
Likewise, if your friend pays for a song to be produced, you can enjoy that song for free (by listening to it), but if you want a different song, you'll have to pay the musician yourself.
There is also the point that you don't keep your haircut forever and have to go back to get another - sounds like a DRM scheme to me.
You don't enjoy a song forever, either. Otherwise we'd all still be listening to disco.
Exactly, which you then compare to a non-service product to make your point. Total econ fail.
Incorrect - drugs are debatable (there are services involved in the drug trade, but the drugs themselves are goods), but prostitution and assassination are undeniably services.
Nice try, though. You'll make a fine troll someday.
What you are suggesting is mostly pie-in-the-sky. While I have seen it work in one niche area (the "reign" rpg), I believe it will simply not fly for big ticket items.
Well, you're entitled to believe whatever you like, but real-world evidence suggests you're wrong. Political fundraising sites raise millions of dollars from individual contributions, and Sellaband has successfully raised over $1 million for album production from small contributions (and that's only counting the albums that have reached their goal and been produced).
Few people will pay first, and you will stifle the rate of artistic advancement as compared to now.
Unlikely. Artistic labor is valuable, and people are clearly already willing to pay for it. Tweaking the arrangement won't change that. And although it might be harder to fund hundred-million-dollar blockbusters, that will be balanced out by the availability of new derivative works that never could've seen the light of day under a copyright regime.
and an educated child. A child that will grow up to have better opportunities and be able to provide better for themselves.
Well, that's the theory, but in practice, much of what kids are required to do in school bears no relation to future opportunities or providing for themselves.
So the difference is: one produces a benefit for the slaver, at the expense of the child, where the other produces no benefit for the educator, and a benefit for the child.
It isn't a benefit just because you call it a benefit, or just because you intend for it to be beneficial.
For example, virtually no one benefits from filling out a vocabulary worksheet to translate the imaginary bunny language of Watership Down into English, or from knowing which tribe settled the Willamette Valley, but those are exactly the sorts of work that many students' grades depend on. Frankly, they'd be better off picking cotton or building pyramids than wasting their time on busy work like that.
That's a pseudo-argument. You don't pay up front for any of those.
You enter into a contract, which is close enough.
When you drop off your car and say "hey, fix my clutch" and the guy says "that'll be $200" and you say "OK, I'll be back tonight", you're agreeing to pay $200 for the work he's doing. If you refuse to pay after he does the work, you will have broken the contract; he knows who you are and he'll take you to court for theft of services.
Likewise, if someone agrees to pay $10 toward the production of your novel, and then refuses to hand over the money once it's finished, you can sue him for theft of services.
If you actually need the money up front, you can take out a loan, secured with all that money that's been promised to you in legally binding contracts -- just like any other business might take out a loan secured with their accounts receivable.
No one would pay you up front to write a novel. Would you spend a year writing one, just to show that you're capable?
I might write something smaller than a novel, sure. If they want to see a whole novel, they can pay for one.
If a record costs $50000 to produce and I'm happy to invest $10 (why pay more?), I'll need 4999 other people to pay as well. My influence is negligible, and the best possible result is a return of my investment. I risk not getting something which I did not pay for by not paying, you say? Oh wow.
In other words: "I don't care if this record ever gets produced." You're not a fan. That's fine, you don't have to be. They're not counting on the support of people who don't care about their music.
They're counting on the support of actual fans: you know, the people who do care whether or not the record gets made. If the band doesn't have any fans, then it isn't profitable for them to make a record, and they should find another way to earn a living.
Yes, and why even applaud a musician/actor/performer when I already paid to see them play? Have you ever been to a concert? A play?
WTF are you on? You go from "why pay, if others already have paid enough to make the artist produce" to "why applaud"?
If you want to give the artist some extra money above his asking price to show your appreciation, then go ahead. No one's stopping you from doing that. But no one's forcing you to do it either, just like no one forces you to applaud after a concert or tip your bartender.
You want stuff for free, and you dream up a silly "model" that will give you stuff for free.
I "want stuff for free", and that's why I spend so much time defending a model for paying for content?
OK, I get it. No one could be as thick as you're pretending to be. I've been trolled. Congratulations!
And you've thought about this for several years, right?
Yup. Clearly longer than you have, considering the obvious lack of thought put into your objections.
There's little incentive for paying in your model, and even less for taking a risk on unknown talent. Why pay, if the artist isn't capable of producing?
Why hire an electrician, barber, accountant, etc. if they're "unknown talent"?
If services in the real world actually worked the way you seem to think, no one would ever be able to break into any service industry. And yet they do: sometimes by putting together a portfolio to prove their ability, sometimes just by setting their prices lower than established names.
Why pay, if others paying might be enough?
As I said: "But [a consumer who waits for others to pay] is taking the risk that other people won't provide the rest of the funding, and thus the new content won't be produced. Whether he actually decides to pay will depend on how much he values having new content."
The answer to "why pay" is "because that's how you ensure the work will be produced". If you don't care whether or not it's produced, then go ahead and wait. Maybe someone else will care more than you do.
If it turns out that no one really cares whether or not the work is produced, then it won't be. And it shouldn't be, if there's really so little demand for it.
Why pay, if others already have paid enough to make the artist produce?
Yes, why indeed? You shouldn't!
When a mechanic is willing to fix your car for $300, you aren't obligated to give him $600 instead. He set the price, you met it, that's it. If he wanted $600, he could've asked for $600 in the first place -- just like an artist who wants more money can just ask for it. If he's willing to accept $300, then that's what he'll get, just like in any other industry.
When placed in a situation like that, where they might need to get good grades in order to feed and clothe their siblings, what's the difference between that and child labor?
Well, if you're going to put it that way...
When kids are just expected to get good grades because they're kids, required to spend 6 hours every day at school and then a couple more hours at night doing homework, with no say in the situation and without even being paid, what's the difference between that and child slavery?
(The only difference that comes to mind is that slave labor produces something of benefit: cotton, pyramids, etc. School labor only produces completed schoolwork: answers to questions whose answers are already known, essays that are thrown away after being graded, tests that serve only to change the letter that appears on a piece of paper at the end of the quarter.)
I had to read your post a few times, mostly because I have such a hard time relating to it. You are implying either directly or indirectly that you coast or have coasted in school because there's no money in it. Also, it seems to be that you inherently find no value in education.
Well, I agree almost 100% with him.
I coasted in school because I hated it. I kicked ass on tests, but once I hit high school, I pretty much stopped doing homework. I graduated, barely, after failing one required class twice and passing an "alternate" version of that class the third time.
It's not that I found no inherent value in education. I spent plenty of time at home learning and practicing things that I cared about, and that's why I now have a well-paying job that I enjoy.
The problem was that the "education" offered at school was, with a few exceptions, wholly uninteresting. I didn't, and still don't, see any inherent value in answering several pages of questions about the plot of Watership Down, or memorizing the list of Indian tribes that lived in this region centuries ago. I saw no inherent value in getting high grades at the end of the quarter, either, so I didn't.
Of all the memories I have, none of the really good ones are about money. All of them are about something I worked hard over a period of time and felt proud of either the accomplishment or the praise of others, sometimes both. I remember skating backwards for the first time. I remember getting my dad to come to one of my shows. An odd memory I have is working hard for my dad one summer doing dreadful work in the hot summer sun, but it was for the purpose of helping him build the house our family lived in.
Do you have any fond memories of doing things that serve no greater purpose and end up being useless to you in the future? Digging holes just to fill them back in, perhaps? Spending all day counting the grains of sand in a jar, only to find that the person who asked already has the answer and doesn't care anyway?
Because that's what school felt like most of the time. I have plenty of fond memories of accomplishing things that I worked hard at, but none of them were school projects.
And in fact, the best memories I have of schoolwork are for the work I got the lowest grades on: the anti-prohibition essay that resulted in me being the only kid to fail DARE, the essay on Fahrenheit 451 that focused on an incidental bit of technology rather than the philosophical issues the teacher wanted me to write about, the epilogue to The Grapes of Wrath in which I imitated Steinbeck's style and expressed my dislike for that tedious novel.
However, I have found that the less tangible rewards (time is a big one for me now) are far more rewarding.
I agree, time is a great reward. That's why I chose to use my time for things I cared about instead of wasting it on meaningless schoolwork.
Money is a great incentive for higher grades, and if scoring higher is the goal, then paying kids for schoolwork is the way to achieve it. But I think that's the wrong goal. Grades don't matter. We don't gain anything by convincing kids to work harder at meaningless tasks that provide no real benefit for them or anyone else.
Who is going to pay, and how will they be encouraged to pay?
Anyone who benefits from the existence of new content has an incentive to pay for its creation. Mostly, that means the people who want to watch/play/listen to it: if I'm a gamer, I will derive enjoyment from having a new game to play, and that enjoyment is worth money.
In other words, the lion's share of the money would ultimately come from the same people who provide it today: consumers. And they'd be encouraged by the same thing that encourages them today: access to new content.
In this model, a consumer who doesn't care very much about new content would have the option of holding out to see if other people will fund it. From the creator's perspective, that doesn't matter; all that matters is whether they collect enough money to make it worth their time. But that consumer is taking the risk that other people won't provide the rest of the funding, and thus the new content won't be produced. Whether he actually decides to pay will depend on how much he values having new content.
Drugs, prostitution, and assassination all differ greatly from "digital entertainment". The former have a cost per copy the later doesn't.
I'm talking about services -- labor -- not copies. If you want to hear a new song, someone has to record it first. And if he doesn't want to work for free, you're going to have to pay him.
Why would anyone pay more than zero for an exact copy?
Yes, why indeed? That's why it's foolish to base your business model on charging for copies instead of charging for the actual work you're doing. People can make their own copies of existing content for free, so they have no reason to buy copies from you. But they can't produce their own new content, so you can make money by producing it for them.
For a better understanding of this you could read up on scarcity and recall that scarcity is one of the reason to have a market economy.
Indeed, and that's exactly why this plan will work. The skill and labor that goes into producing new content is scarce, which makes it valuable.
Copies of existing works are easy to make, and not scarce at all. But if you want to hear a new song, you need to find a talented musician to write and record it, and he probably won't work for free. As long as there are people who want to hear new music, musicians will be able to earn a living by charging to make it.
So if you approach a company and say I have a product just like the one you already use and I can add feature X....so give me money to make it worth my time...you know what that company will do? They'll go to the creators of their current software and tell them they want feature X and they'll ignore you completely.
OK, so what's wrong with that? If that company would rather hire someone else to improve their software, that's their right, isn't it? You aren't entitled to get the job just because you were there first. If you want to win the bid, try lowering your asking price or providing more value. That's competition.
I am so tired of hearing how evil copyright is...as a developer I don't want anyone to use my software without my permission and paying me first and no model on the planet can protect me except copyright.
Sorry, but as a fellow developer, I have no sympathy for this position. A program is a number. You and I have no right to dictate to anyone else what numbers they're allowed to send to other people or feed into their computers.
When I want to get paid for writing software, you know what I do? I find a paying customer! And when I write software that no one is paying me for, I don't expect to get paid for it after the fact.
It's not words that are copyrighted, it's the book, the work as a whole.
Of course, but the work as a whole can be described by a collection of facts. Therefore, "freedom of matters of fact" is incompatible with copyright: if you want to prevent unauthorized copying, you have no choice but to stop people from sharing facts about property they own.
It's not a very convincing defense. "Sorry your honour. I didn't mean to kill the guy, I was just creating entropy. And the freedom of information act says that's okay."
Except it doesn't. There is no "Freedom of Matters of Fact Act" either, so I'm not claiming that copyright contradicts any other law, or that infringement is legal.
I am, however, claiming that Mr. Artor3 is a hypocrite. He claims to support "freedom of matters of fact", but apparently only for the facts that can't be used to reconstruct a copyrighted work.
It's informed speculation, backed by non-representative data from the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, who received huge amounts of free advertising from the press both because they were already established, and because they were trying something new.
I think you're mistaken. I didn't mention Radiohead or NIN. They haven't done anything like this.
Radiohead essentially released an album for free and then asked for donations. It's great that they were able to make so much money from it, but I'm not expecting that to work for anyone else.
My "informed speculation" is backed by data from every other market for services, as I said. When you have one group of people who are willing to do XYZ for money, and another group of people who like XYZ enough to pay for it, those people end up exchanging money for services and both parties benefit.
We have a group of people who are willing to record new music for money (otherwise there would be no recording industry). We have another group of people who like new music enough to pay for it (otherwise no one would buy albums). So, if we take away copyright, what reason is there to think those people won't end up exchanging money for services?
Yes, and when that "market" consists of people taking and distributing stuff for free, there is no exchange of money. Does your informed speculation take that into account? No, it doesn't.
Actually, it does.
You see, in order to "take and distribute stuff for free", that stuff has to exist first. You can't copy a song that hasn't been recorded; a musician has to create the song before anyone can copy it. And that musician can demand to be paid first.
The "service" you claim people are willing to perform, is seeding a torrent, not producing content.
No, you've misunderstood.
The service that people are willing to perform is producing content. People are, in fact, willing to record songs in exchange for money -- otherwise there would be no "recording industry".
I'm claiming you're dreaming up a magical market solution that lacks the necessary market functions to actually work.
I'm sorry you think that; I know you've had a hard time understanding this proposal. I hope I've clarified it for you. Let me know if you're still having trouble.
If this is sustainable, then why don't we see it now? There is nothing to prevent this 'new industry' from existing today, except maybe competition from the 'old' industry.
I think that's mainly it. Creating a work for free and then selling copies is more convenient; you don't have to plan ahead very far. But that also means it's easy to avoid planning ahead at all, which is why we see so many failed projects: people sink hundreds of millions of dollars into films like Battlefield Earth without taking the time to determine whether there's actually an audience that will pay to see them.
But if the old industry has a competitive advantage, why would any music maker eschew it in favour of the [new] industry?
Basically, the old business model seems more appealing because it's subsidized. Keeping people from making their own copies is very expensive, but artists don't see the bill.
Everyone pays for copyright: in tax dollars to prosecute copyright infringement, in lost freedoms, in restrictions on technical innovation, and in unauthorized derivative works that are never made.
Like all artificial social constructs, it was created for a reason. That reason hasn't gone away just because circumventing the construct has become so much easier.
Actually, I think it has.
Copyright can only be effective when mass duplication is practical for the few but not the many. There was a time when mass duplication was impossible for anyone, and copyright was unnecessary, because each copy had a high marginal cost.
Then we developed printing presses, CD manufacturing plants, etc. and mass duplication became possible for those who owned factories, but not for average consumers: copyright was useful because it mainly served to keep other factory owners in line.
Now we have computers and P2P, and copyright is virtually unenforceable. It still serves to keep the other factory owners in line, but now the threat to the business model is average consumers, not rival corporations.
But you're also overlooking the other technological advances that have come at the same time. We don't need copyright to fund production anymore, because collecting funding up front is easier than it's ever been. You don't need to find a rich investor and then pay him back by selling copies; you can set up a web site and raise tens of thousands of dollars, $10 at a time.
The chance of the film appearing doesn't actually change by any meaningful amount, my action has no real consequence, so I'm just wasting my money. No matter how much you may want the film, it's illogical to pay for it under this model.
That's an interesting hypothesis, but things just don't work that way in the real world. Political campaigns raise $millions from small contributions, even though everyone knows "the chance of the [ad being produced, or whatever] doesn't actually change by any meaningful amount, my action has no real consequence, so I'm just wasting my money." Sellaband has produced 21 albums at $50,000 apiece using a similar model.
At best it will kill off all but the most well established production teams - after all, who's going to back someone they've never heard of?
Again, take a look at the real world. If things actually worked that way, no one would ever be able to break into any service industry. Why spend money on a dentist you've never heard of, or a barber, or a mechanic, or an accountant, or a CEO? And yet somehow we get new dentists, barbers, mechanics, accountants, and CEOs all the time. Without a proven track record, you might have to lower your asking price, but you aren't shut out forever.
At worst it removes the incentive to produce a good film, since you can't make any extra money that way.
I think what you're referring to is the gambling effect: copyright lets you roll the dice and maybe make a runaway hit that brings in a huge windfall. On the other hand, it also lets you invest a lot of money into a film that no one really wants to see, and lose it all.
Collecting payment up front certainly does not remove the incentive to make a good film. That's because good filmmakers can command a higher price for their work than bad ones. What it does is change the dynamics of that situation: you can't rely on word of mouth, you have to actually convince buyers that you're a good filmmaker, which means you probably have to have more than a single good film in you.
Your system doesn't [let you split the payment between interested parties without knowing who they are in advance], and that's a lot to give up for no real advantage.
No real advantage? I strongly disagree.
1. It lets you know ahead of time whether or not your work will be profitable. For every Dark Knight, there are a handful of Battlefield Earths that cost just as much to make but never recoup their costs.
2. It can't be undermined by new technology. We no longer live in an era where copyright holders can expect to be the sole source of copies: every generation of P2P has been easier to use and harder to shut down. Collecting payment up front means that isn't a problem.
3. As a result of #2, this model means we can repeal the laws that restrict speech and technological innovation. I don't know about you, but I personally think freedom of speech is pretty damn important, and preserving it is a huge advantage.
So now we go back to a system where rich people commmision pieces of art and horde it for themselves as a status object.
This is fascinating: you quoted step 4 in the first half of your comment, but you seem to have completely ignored it when writing the second half.
I know there are forms of pseudo-blindness where people are unaware of things happening to their left or right sides. I'm no doctor, but it looks to me like you're suffering from a similar affliction that makes you unaware of things you've quoted at the top of a comment. You might want to get that checked out.
Slashdot Mirror
you are crazy if you think I'm not going to call the police if I see something about the user being a terrorist or other kind of a criminal.
[...]
If I work on your PC, I am obligated to keep secret your legitimate business secrets. As a matter of fact, you can and should sue me if I make public that kind of information. But reveal to me that you are a threat to yourself or others and I promise you a call to the authorities.
You're making a big leap from "[some] other kind of a criminal" to "a threat to yourself or others". A person with pirated content on his computer is not a threat to anyone. Even a person with child porn on his computer is not a threat to anyone, unless he's the one who made it.
Also, in 2006, it was barely acceptable that it didn't put out high def. Now, in 2009, with a large percentage of people owning high def widescreen TVs, it's inconceivable that a modern console will top out at 480p.
Two-thirds of households are still using SD. Lack of HD is not yet a dealbreaker. Maybe it isn't "acceptable" to you, but you're not the target audience: how many people buying the cheapest console do you really expect to have spent $1000 on a TV?
When a living room sized HDTV costs $300, then HD support will be a necessity.
The Sonic the hedgehog picture is dithered around the edges of the flag!
Yeah, but look how much bigger the Sonic picture is! Who cares how many colors the SNES has if you can barely even see them?
I think that these examples are more telling of the weaknesses of the model than anything else. First let's take the example of Presidential candidates [...] the overwhelming majority of candidates only just manage to draw in enough individual contributions to make one single Hollywood film. If McCain struggles to make it to $200m is it realistic to expect to raise $185 for a film?
Perhaps not. But how many films really need $185 million budgets? My goal is not to come up with an alternate way to fund exactly the same pieces of content we see today, but to come up with an alternate way to fund content that (1) works in a world where private copying is cheap and unpreventable and (2) doesn't depend on restricting everyone's freedoms or technology for its survival.
Sellaband has, in fact, produced 21 albums using the traditional model, just with a different way of finding investors.
I doubt very many of those "investors" actually see it as such: putting $10 into an album for a band that few people have heard of isn't going to be very lucrative. But without data on their motivations, it's hard to argue much about this either way. In any case, Sellaband's model isn't very different from what I've proposed; only a few tweaks would be necessary.
For one thing, these professionals all have to provide a good service because they rely on repeat business; if a film maker manages to get $50m in donations to make a film, they don't need any repeat business. Given a 10% profit margin they're already millionaires, and can make the most dreadful film in history. How many such films does it take to totally shatter peoples' confidence in the system?
Couldn't you say the same about the current system? Is it really any different when the funding comes from a few very wealthy investors instead of thousands of individuals? If you can swindle the public, then surely you can swindle a few investors.
["For every Dark Knight, there are a handful of Battlefield Earths that cost just as much to make but never recoup their costs."]
I don't see how this is a good thing. Are you saying that every film has a right to be profitable, regardless of whether people actually want to see it?
I'm saying the films people don't want to see probably shouldn't have been made in the first place: copyright encourages speculative overproduction. If filmmakers focus on projects that audiences are actually willing to pay for, that's a good thing for both filmmakers and audiences.
Distribution and P2P may cease to be a problem, but getting enough funding to make a film at all will be. It doesn't make a lot of difference what your solution to the distribution problem is once you've got nothing to distribute.
This is a false dichotomy: the works that would become more difficult to fund are a small fraction of all works. You wouldn't have "nothing to distribute"; you'd have fewer of some works and more of others.
I would certainly agree that freedom of speech is important, but I don't really see the relevance it has to copyright.
I'm puzzled by this. I don't see how one can consider copyright as anything but a restriction on speech.
I believe I start out with the right to say whatever sequence of words I feel like, to share any information I know with anyone else who cares to listen. Copyright law diminishes that by making it illegal to share certain information without a third party's permission: part of your right to speak is taken away from you and put into someone else's hands. Copyright holders veto speech just like government censors; they just have different reasons for doing so.
I'm not arguing that freedom of speech is absolute, only that every limitation must be carefully weighed and the benefit must exceed the cost. I don't believe it does, and for decades the costs have been ignored entirely by t
*plonk*
Yup, that's one way to avoid admitting you're wrong. Guess I was right about you!
Sorry to make it two replies, but your last paragraph can largely apply to zero copyright too (except for more access to past works and fewer court cases).
Er... I think you left something out. How exactly would abolishing copyright result in lost freedoms, foregone innovations, or limits on technology?
The only one of those I can imagine an argument for is foregone innovations, if you think copyright holders produce new things thanks to copyright that wouldn't have been created otherwise -- and that those outweigh the innovations that people are currently unable to pursue because of copyright. But I don't think it's fair to assume people motivated by copyright are any more innovative than people who are paid directly for their work, or people who work for their own reasons without being paid for it.
Your problems seem to have more to do with abusive expansion of copyright law, which I think anyone here has problems with.
No, my objection is to copyright itself. I believe it's fundamentally wrong to tell anyone "you can't say these words, they belong to someone else".
Information doesn't work like physical property; it shouldn't be subject to that sort of ownership at all. And we shouldn't encourage artists to gamble their livelihoods on the fading chance that they can prevent other people from making unauthorized copies.
No copyright leads to a freeloader-filled market. To solve this, you want media to rely on people commissioning the work ahead of time. In other words, the rich will control the media.
No, not at all.
Yes, there is now a middle class, but I don't get the impression that you'll have many songs/movies/etc. commissioned mostly with $20 contributions.
Why not? That's the central point here, you can't just wave your hands and make it go away.
If you don't think it's possible to fund works with $20 contributions -- even though people pay that much for music/movies today, even though political campaigns regularly raise millions $20 at a time, and even though Sellaband has actually funded many albums $10 at a time -- then you're going to have to say why. The evidence is against you; you need more than just an assertion.
Commissioned work can still be done today, so if you are so convinced it will work better than copyright, shouldn't copyright fade out on its own?
No, because it's not necessarily "better" for the artists themselves (yet), even though it is better for everyone else. It gives artists a guarantee that the work they do will be profitable, but it also requires more from them - planning ahead to find their audience, instead of making something first and worrying about the audience later.
If artists had to pay the entire cost of enforcing copyright, they'd switch in an instant. But they don't. Copyright is subsidized by the rest of us, through our tax dollars (for courts and law enforcement) and the loss of our freedoms.
So, we can either take away the subsidy by abolishing copyright and give them a head start on switching, or we can wait for P2P to become so widespread that no one sells any copies anymore and let them switch out of necessity. But abolishing copyright restores everyone else's freedoms immediately; waiting withholds those freedoms until artists feel like giving them back.
I also wanted to point out you could use better analogies - if a friend gets his hair cut, he can't just give me the haircut too, I have to go to the barber and pay for my own copy of his services.
You're confusing the labor with the artistic work that gets created from it.
If your friend gets his hair cut, you can enjoy his haircut for free (by looking at it and thinking about what a cool guy he is to have such great hair), but if you want your own haircut, you'll have to pay the barber yourself.
Likewise, if your friend pays for a song to be produced, you can enjoy that song for free (by listening to it), but if you want a different song, you'll have to pay the musician yourself.
There is also the point that you don't keep your haircut forever and have to go back to get another - sounds like a DRM scheme to me.
You don't enjoy a song forever, either. Otherwise we'd all still be listening to disco.
Exactly, which you then compare to a non-service product to make your point. Total econ fail.
Incorrect - drugs are debatable (there are services involved in the drug trade, but the drugs themselves are goods), but prostitution and assassination are undeniably services.
Nice try, though. You'll make a fine troll someday.
What you are suggesting is mostly pie-in-the-sky. While I have seen it work in one niche area (the "reign" rpg), I believe it will simply not fly for big ticket items.
Well, you're entitled to believe whatever you like, but real-world evidence suggests you're wrong. Political fundraising sites raise millions of dollars from individual contributions, and Sellaband has successfully raised over $1 million for album production from small contributions (and that's only counting the albums that have reached their goal and been produced).
Few people will pay first, and you will stifle the rate of artistic advancement as compared to now.
Unlikely. Artistic labor is valuable, and people are clearly already willing to pay for it. Tweaking the arrangement won't change that. And although it might be harder to fund hundred-million-dollar blockbusters, that will be balanced out by the availability of new derivative works that never could've seen the light of day under a copyright regime.
and an educated child. A child that will grow up to have better opportunities and be able to provide better for themselves.
Well, that's the theory, but in practice, much of what kids are required to do in school bears no relation to future opportunities or providing for themselves.
So the difference is: one produces a benefit for the slaver, at the expense of the child, where the other produces no benefit for the educator, and a benefit for the child.
It isn't a benefit just because you call it a benefit, or just because you intend for it to be beneficial.
For example, virtually no one benefits from filling out a vocabulary worksheet to translate the imaginary bunny language of Watership Down into English, or from knowing which tribe settled the Willamette Valley, but those are exactly the sorts of work that many students' grades depend on. Frankly, they'd be better off picking cotton or building pyramids than wasting their time on busy work like that.
That's a pseudo-argument. You don't pay up front for any of those.
You enter into a contract, which is close enough.
When you drop off your car and say "hey, fix my clutch" and the guy says "that'll be $200" and you say "OK, I'll be back tonight", you're agreeing to pay $200 for the work he's doing. If you refuse to pay after he does the work, you will have broken the contract; he knows who you are and he'll take you to court for theft of services.
Likewise, if someone agrees to pay $10 toward the production of your novel, and then refuses to hand over the money once it's finished, you can sue him for theft of services.
If you actually need the money up front, you can take out a loan, secured with all that money that's been promised to you in legally binding contracts -- just like any other business might take out a loan secured with their accounts receivable.
No one would pay you up front to write a novel. Would you spend a year writing one, just to show that you're capable?
I might write something smaller than a novel, sure. If they want to see a whole novel, they can pay for one.
If a record costs $50000 to produce and I'm happy to invest $10 (why pay more?), I'll need 4999 other people to pay as well. My influence is negligible, and the best possible result is a return of my investment. I risk not getting something which I did not pay for by not paying, you say? Oh wow.
In other words: "I don't care if this record ever gets produced." You're not a fan. That's fine, you don't have to be. They're not counting on the support of people who don't care about their music.
They're counting on the support of actual fans: you know, the people who do care whether or not the record gets made. If the band doesn't have any fans, then it isn't profitable for them to make a record, and they should find another way to earn a living.
Yes, and why even applaud a musician/actor/performer when I already paid to see them play? Have you ever been to a concert? A play?
WTF are you on? You go from "why pay, if others already have paid enough to make the artist produce" to "why applaud"?
If you want to give the artist some extra money above his asking price to show your appreciation, then go ahead. No one's stopping you from doing that. But no one's forcing you to do it either, just like no one forces you to applaud after a concert or tip your bartender.
You want stuff for free, and you dream up a silly "model" that will give you stuff for free.
I "want stuff for free", and that's why I spend so much time defending a model for paying for content?
OK, I get it. No one could be as thick as you're pretending to be. I've been trolled. Congratulations!
And you've thought about this for several years, right?
Yup. Clearly longer than you have, considering the obvious lack of thought put into your objections.
There's little incentive for paying in your model, and even less for taking a risk on unknown talent. Why pay, if the artist isn't capable of producing?
Why hire an electrician, barber, accountant, etc. if they're "unknown talent"?
If services in the real world actually worked the way you seem to think, no one would ever be able to break into any service industry. And yet they do: sometimes by putting together a portfolio to prove their ability, sometimes just by setting their prices lower than established names.
Why pay, if others paying might be enough?
As I said: "But [a consumer who waits for others to pay] is taking the risk that other people won't provide the rest of the funding, and thus the new content won't be produced. Whether he actually decides to pay will depend on how much he values having new content."
The answer to "why pay" is "because that's how you ensure the work will be produced". If you don't care whether or not it's produced, then go ahead and wait. Maybe someone else will care more than you do.
If it turns out that no one really cares whether or not the work is produced, then it won't be. And it shouldn't be, if there's really so little demand for it.
Why pay, if others already have paid enough to make the artist produce?
Yes, why indeed? You shouldn't!
When a mechanic is willing to fix your car for $300, you aren't obligated to give him $600 instead. He set the price, you met it, that's it. If he wanted $600, he could've asked for $600 in the first place -- just like an artist who wants more money can just ask for it. If he's willing to accept $300, then that's what he'll get, just like in any other industry.
When placed in a situation like that, where they might need to get good grades in order to feed and clothe their siblings, what's the difference between that and child labor?
Well, if you're going to put it that way...
When kids are just expected to get good grades because they're kids, required to spend 6 hours every day at school and then a couple more hours at night doing homework, with no say in the situation and without even being paid, what's the difference between that and child slavery?
(The only difference that comes to mind is that slave labor produces something of benefit: cotton, pyramids, etc. School labor only produces completed schoolwork: answers to questions whose answers are already known, essays that are thrown away after being graded, tests that serve only to change the letter that appears on a piece of paper at the end of the quarter.)
I had to read your post a few times, mostly because I have such a hard time relating to it. You are implying either directly or indirectly that you coast or have coasted in school because there's no money in it. Also, it seems to be that you inherently find no value in education.
Well, I agree almost 100% with him.
I coasted in school because I hated it. I kicked ass on tests, but once I hit high school, I pretty much stopped doing homework. I graduated, barely, after failing one required class twice and passing an "alternate" version of that class the third time.
It's not that I found no inherent value in education. I spent plenty of time at home learning and practicing things that I cared about, and that's why I now have a well-paying job that I enjoy.
The problem was that the "education" offered at school was, with a few exceptions, wholly uninteresting. I didn't, and still don't, see any inherent value in answering several pages of questions about the plot of Watership Down, or memorizing the list of Indian tribes that lived in this region centuries ago. I saw no inherent value in getting high grades at the end of the quarter, either, so I didn't.
Of all the memories I have, none of the really good ones are about money. All of them are about something I worked hard over a period of time and felt proud of either the accomplishment or the praise of others, sometimes both. I remember skating backwards for the first time. I remember getting my dad to come to one of my shows. An odd memory I have is working hard for my dad one summer doing dreadful work in the hot summer sun, but it was for the purpose of helping him build the house our family lived in.
Do you have any fond memories of doing things that serve no greater purpose and end up being useless to you in the future? Digging holes just to fill them back in, perhaps? Spending all day counting the grains of sand in a jar, only to find that the person who asked already has the answer and doesn't care anyway?
Because that's what school felt like most of the time. I have plenty of fond memories of accomplishing things that I worked hard at, but none of them were school projects.
And in fact, the best memories I have of schoolwork are for the work I got the lowest grades on: the anti-prohibition essay that resulted in me being the only kid to fail DARE, the essay on Fahrenheit 451 that focused on an incidental bit of technology rather than the philosophical issues the teacher wanted me to write about, the epilogue to The Grapes of Wrath in which I imitated Steinbeck's style and expressed my dislike for that tedious novel.
However, I have found that the less tangible rewards (time is a big one for me now) are far more rewarding.
I agree, time is a great reward. That's why I chose to use my time for things I cared about instead of wasting it on meaningless schoolwork.
Money is a great incentive for higher grades, and if scoring higher is the goal, then paying kids for schoolwork is the way to achieve it. But I think that's the wrong goal. Grades don't matter. We don't gain anything by convincing kids to work harder at meaningless tasks that provide no real benefit for them or anyone else.
Who is going to pay, and how will they be encouraged to pay?
Anyone who benefits from the existence of new content has an incentive to pay for its creation. Mostly, that means the people who want to watch/play/listen to it: if I'm a gamer, I will derive enjoyment from having a new game to play, and that enjoyment is worth money.
In other words, the lion's share of the money would ultimately come from the same people who provide it today: consumers. And they'd be encouraged by the same thing that encourages them today: access to new content.
In this model, a consumer who doesn't care very much about new content would have the option of holding out to see if other people will fund it. From the creator's perspective, that doesn't matter; all that matters is whether they collect enough money to make it worth their time. But that consumer is taking the risk that other people won't provide the rest of the funding, and thus the new content won't be produced. Whether he actually decides to pay will depend on how much he values having new content.
Total economics fail.
More like total reading comprehension fail.
Drugs, prostitution, and assassination all differ greatly from "digital entertainment". The former have a cost per copy the later doesn't.
I'm talking about services -- labor -- not copies. If you want to hear a new song, someone has to record it first. And if he doesn't want to work for free, you're going to have to pay him.
Why would anyone pay more than zero for an exact copy?
Yes, why indeed? That's why it's foolish to base your business model on charging for copies instead of charging for the actual work you're doing. People can make their own copies of existing content for free, so they have no reason to buy copies from you. But they can't produce their own new content, so you can make money by producing it for them.
For a better understanding of this you could read up on scarcity and recall that scarcity is one of the reason to have a market economy.
Indeed, and that's exactly why this plan will work. The skill and labor that goes into producing new content is scarce, which makes it valuable.
Copies of existing works are easy to make, and not scarce at all. But if you want to hear a new song, you need to find a talented musician to write and record it, and he probably won't work for free. As long as there are people who want to hear new music, musicians will be able to earn a living by charging to make it.
So if you approach a company and say I have a product just like the one you already use and I can add feature X....so give me money to make it worth my time...you know what that company will do? They'll go to the creators of their current software and tell them they want feature X and they'll ignore you completely.
OK, so what's wrong with that? If that company would rather hire someone else to improve their software, that's their right, isn't it? You aren't entitled to get the job just because you were there first. If you want to win the bid, try lowering your asking price or providing more value. That's competition.
I am so tired of hearing how evil copyright is...as a developer I don't want anyone to use my software without my permission and paying me first and no model on the planet can protect me except copyright.
Sorry, but as a fellow developer, I have no sympathy for this position. A program is a number. You and I have no right to dictate to anyone else what numbers they're allowed to send to other people or feed into their computers.
When I want to get paid for writing software, you know what I do? I find a paying customer! And when I write software that no one is paying me for, I don't expect to get paid for it after the fact.
It's not words that are copyrighted, it's the book, the work as a whole.
Of course, but the work as a whole can be described by a collection of facts. Therefore, "freedom of matters of fact" is incompatible with copyright: if you want to prevent unauthorized copying, you have no choice but to stop people from sharing facts about property they own.
It's not a very convincing defense. "Sorry your honour. I didn't mean to kill the guy, I was just creating entropy. And the freedom of information act says that's okay."
Except it doesn't. There is no "Freedom of Matters of Fact Act" either, so I'm not claiming that copyright contradicts any other law, or that infringement is legal.
I am, however, claiming that Mr. Artor3 is a hypocrite. He claims to support "freedom of matters of fact", but apparently only for the facts that can't be used to reconstruct a copyrighted work.
It's informed speculation, backed by non-representative data from the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, who received huge amounts of free advertising from the press both because they were already established, and because they were trying something new.
I think you're mistaken. I didn't mention Radiohead or NIN. They haven't done anything like this.
Radiohead essentially released an album for free and then asked for donations. It's great that they were able to make so much money from it, but I'm not expecting that to work for anyone else.
My "informed speculation" is backed by data from every other market for services, as I said. When you have one group of people who are willing to do XYZ for money, and another group of people who like XYZ enough to pay for it, those people end up exchanging money for services and both parties benefit.
We have a group of people who are willing to record new music for money (otherwise there would be no recording industry). We have another group of people who like new music enough to pay for it (otherwise no one would buy albums). So, if we take away copyright, what reason is there to think those people won't end up exchanging money for services?
Yes, and when that "market" consists of people taking and distributing stuff for free, there is no exchange of money. Does your informed speculation take that into account? No, it doesn't.
Actually, it does.
You see, in order to "take and distribute stuff for free", that stuff has to exist first. You can't copy a song that hasn't been recorded; a musician has to create the song before anyone can copy it. And that musician can demand to be paid first.
The "service" you claim people are willing to perform, is seeding a torrent, not producing content.
No, you've misunderstood.
The service that people are willing to perform is producing content. People are, in fact, willing to record songs in exchange for money -- otherwise there would be no "recording industry".
I'm claiming you're dreaming up a magical market solution that lacks the necessary market functions to actually work.
I'm sorry you think that; I know you've had a hard time understanding this proposal. I hope I've clarified it for you. Let me know if you're still having trouble.
If this is sustainable, then why don't we see it now? There is nothing to prevent this 'new industry' from existing today, except maybe competition from the 'old' industry.
I think that's mainly it. Creating a work for free and then selling copies is more convenient; you don't have to plan ahead very far. But that also means it's easy to avoid planning ahead at all, which is why we see so many failed projects: people sink hundreds of millions of dollars into films like Battlefield Earth without taking the time to determine whether there's actually an audience that will pay to see them.
But if the old industry has a competitive advantage, why would any music maker eschew it in favour of the [new] industry?
Basically, the old business model seems more appealing because it's subsidized. Keeping people from making their own copies is very expensive, but artists don't see the bill.
Everyone pays for copyright: in tax dollars to prosecute copyright infringement, in lost freedoms, in restrictions on technical innovation, and in unauthorized derivative works that are never made.
Like all artificial social constructs, it was created for a reason. That reason hasn't gone away just because circumventing the construct has become so much easier.
Actually, I think it has.
Copyright can only be effective when mass duplication is practical for the few but not the many. There was a time when mass duplication was impossible for anyone, and copyright was unnecessary, because each copy had a high marginal cost.
Then we developed printing presses, CD manufacturing plants, etc. and mass duplication became possible for those who owned factories, but not for average consumers: copyright was useful because it mainly served to keep other factory owners in line.
Now we have computers and P2P, and copyright is virtually unenforceable. It still serves to keep the other factory owners in line, but now the threat to the business model is average consumers, not rival corporations.
But you're also overlooking the other technological advances that have come at the same time. We don't need copyright to fund production anymore, because collecting funding up front is easier than it's ever been. You don't need to find a rich investor and then pay him back by selling copies; you can set up a web site and raise tens of thousands of dollars, $10 at a time.
The chance of the film appearing doesn't actually change by any meaningful amount, my action has no real consequence, so I'm just wasting my money. No matter how much you may want the film, it's illogical to pay for it under this model.
That's an interesting hypothesis, but things just don't work that way in the real world. Political campaigns raise $millions from small contributions, even though everyone knows "the chance of the [ad being produced, or whatever] doesn't actually change by any meaningful amount, my action has no real consequence, so I'm just wasting my money." Sellaband has produced 21 albums at $50,000 apiece using a similar model.
At best it will kill off all but the most well established production teams - after all, who's going to back someone they've never heard of?
Again, take a look at the real world. If things actually worked that way, no one would ever be able to break into any service industry. Why spend money on a dentist you've never heard of, or a barber, or a mechanic, or an accountant, or a CEO? And yet somehow we get new dentists, barbers, mechanics, accountants, and CEOs all the time. Without a proven track record, you might have to lower your asking price, but you aren't shut out forever.
At worst it removes the incentive to produce a good film, since you can't make any extra money that way.
I think what you're referring to is the gambling effect: copyright lets you roll the dice and maybe make a runaway hit that brings in a huge windfall. On the other hand, it also lets you invest a lot of money into a film that no one really wants to see, and lose it all.
Collecting payment up front certainly does not remove the incentive to make a good film. That's because good filmmakers can command a higher price for their work than bad ones. What it does is change the dynamics of that situation: you can't rely on word of mouth, you have to actually convince buyers that you're a good filmmaker, which means you probably have to have more than a single good film in you.
Your system doesn't [let you split the payment between interested parties without knowing who they are in advance], and that's a lot to give up for no real advantage.
No real advantage? I strongly disagree.
1. It lets you know ahead of time whether or not your work will be profitable. For every Dark Knight, there are a handful of Battlefield Earths that cost just as much to make but never recoup their costs.
2. It can't be undermined by new technology. We no longer live in an era where copyright holders can expect to be the sole source of copies: every generation of P2P has been easier to use and harder to shut down. Collecting payment up front means that isn't a problem.
3. As a result of #2, this model means we can repeal the laws that restrict speech and technological innovation. I don't know about you, but I personally think freedom of speech is pretty damn important, and preserving it is a huge advantage.
So now we go back to a system where rich people commmision pieces of art and horde it for themselves as a status object.
This is fascinating: you quoted step 4 in the first half of your comment, but you seem to have completely ignored it when writing the second half.
I know there are forms of pseudo-blindness where people are unaware of things happening to their left or right sides. I'm no doctor, but it looks to me like you're suffering from a similar affliction that makes you unaware of things you've quoted at the top of a comment. You might want to get that checked out.