And I've already explained that your system is unrealistic.
Apparently you think a new model has to exactly duplicate the status quo in order to be "realistic". I find that unrealistic.
You simply aren't going to be able to find people to pay up front in nearly the numbers that you can find to pay after you complete the project (under a copyright system). I'd be amazed if, for example, Killzone 2 could bring even a fraction of their $70 million development costs before they even began development. ($70 million was their development cost.)
Well, that's a lot of money, but I don't think it's impossible to raise that much up front. Just difficult (especially considering how the first Killzone was received).
But look. Suppose Killzone 2 wouldn't have been made. So what?
The goal isn't to find an alternate way to fund the production of every single thing we see on shelves today, it's to find a way to fund the production of intellectual works that (1) still works in an era where copying is easy, cheap, and unpreventable, (2) doesn't rely on restricting speech or technological innovation. Like the AC said, if you make substantial changes, you'll get a different outcome... but different doesn't mean worse. What we lose in Killzone 2s not made, we gain in new works being made that would be impossible to release today, as well as restored freedoms.
And don't forget, for every project that turns a profit (if indeed Killzone 2 has turned a profit yet, which isn't clear), there are several projects that never recoup their development costs. We don't expect people in other fields to treat their work as a lottery; why should we expect that of artists?
The costs of finding those people in the first place would add millions of dollars to the project (and that's money that has to be paid even if you decide not to do the project at all).
That isn't new overhead, it replaces the corresponding overhead in the copyright model. Putting a game onto thousands of retail shelves isn't free.
It's almost like you're so in love with a copyrightless world that you're willing to go to any length to justify it.
It's almost like you're so in love with a few blockbuster titles like Killzone 2 that you're willing to give up your rights and mine -- as well as all the other titles we'll never see because of copyright, and the technological innovations we'll never see because they offend copyright holders -- in order to get them.
If MS takes firefox then rebrands it to IE, they can say this is MS IE and never mention firefox... how is that fraud? It is still IE, they have changed it to that. It is a browser still.
This is why we have judges instead of robots interpreting the law.
If Microsoft releases a browser called "Microsoft Internet Explorer" that's actually a renamed version of Firefox, then every human being who hears the case will realize that Microsoft is implying false authorship. That's because they know that a person who sees a product called "Microsoft Internet Explorer", carries Microsoft logos, is distributed from microsoft.com, etc. will reasonably assume Microsoft made it, unless there's a clear notice to the contrary.
You know that too, of course; that's the whole point of this hypothetical. If you and I can see right through it, then so can a judge.
I am getting very confused trying to reconcile these two quotes. So the Firefox team creates some content - who do they charge for the work they did? Their users, hypothetically.
This is a strange hypothetical, since Firefox is currently coded by volunteers (funded by ads, perhaps, but not by selling the software or the development labor). But OK, I'm with you so far.
And then the MS team says, look, here's a product made by the FF team, buy it from us. The only way this works for FF is if people value buying the original work. And if MS can market it better, what can FF do?
Now I'm confused.
You just said the Firefox developers are charging Firefox users for the development work, right? So by the time any code is available, the Firefox devs have already been paid -- that's what charging for work means. Why should they care what Microsoft does with their code once it's released?
If those users think Microsoft will do a better job of improving Firefox than the original Firefox team, then they should pay Microsoft to improve the browser in the future. If they think the original Firefox team will do a better job, since they wrote the browser in the first place, then they should keep paying the Firefox team. Either way, no one is getting ripped off: no one has to do any work without getting paid for it, unless they choose to volunteer their time.
Isn't this exactly why copyright exists? So people can actually charge for the work they do, and other people can't charge for the work someone else did?
No, copyright exists to promote the fiction that you can slice up a finite amount of development labor, put it in an infinite number of boxes, and sell it over and over forever.
Nobody needs copyright to charge for the work they do. All they need to do is say "hi, I will write a browser if you give me $X", and then refuse to write any browsers until someone hands over the money.
Now, if you pay someone to write you a browser, and it turns out he just put his name on Firefox, then you have a fraud claim against him (assuming your contract specified that he was going to write a new browser). He claimed he was going to do one thing, you paid him based on that claim, but he actually did something entirely different. That's fraud.
What if the RIAA or other interests used fraud laws in distribution. "In reciting these words, I am {Corporation X}" or embedding a snippet of text "In distributing this file, I am {Corporation X}". This would work for Itunes (Apple) or Amazon or Corporation X, or Money Grubbing Individual Y.
Interesting thought, but it's been tried before.
The Sega Genesis would look for the word "SEGA" in cartridge ROM and, if found, show the message "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES LTD"; if the word "SEGA" was not present, the console refused to start the game. Accolade reverse-engineered this system and produced their own games that contained the word and printed the license message, even though Accolade had no license, which meant the statement was false. Their packaging, however, stated the truth: the game was not licensed by Sega.
Sega sued Accolade over this. The first court found in favor of Sega, but Accolade won on appeal. The appeals court found that this was a functional use of Sega's trademark, since there was no apparent way to make a functional game without using Sega's trademark and causing the message to appear. The court ruled that any customer confusion was Sega's fault for imposing this system, not Accolade's fault for doing what they had to for interoperability. (Sega even brought in one of their employees who managed to make a working cartridge that didn't show the message, as evidence that Accolade could've done the same thing. The court wasn't swayed, because there was no industry knowledge of this technique.)
The quality of trolling on this site has really taken a nosedive over the last few years...
I'll say. The old "misunderstand your opponent's position and harangue him for something he never posted" troll is so passe. Try to be more original next time.;)
WTF are you talking about? The way the content industry works is you create content and then you sell copies of it for profit. If everybody copies your work and distributes it for free, which is the way you seem to be suggesting the content industry should be working, there is no profit and hence no money to pay people for work done.
You're mistaken: he isn't suggesting what you think he's suggesting (nor am I). That would indeed be silly. Let me break it down for you in the traditional Slashdot business-model format.
The current model:
1. Artist makes content for free. 2. Artist sells copies of content. 3. Profit!
What you seem to think we're suggesting:
1. Artist makes content for free. 2. Artist gives away copies of content. 3. ??? 4. Profit?
What we're actually suggesting:
1. Artist finds people who want content made. 2. Artist makes content in exchange for money. 3. Profit! 4. Artist gives away copies of content.
Notice that money changes hands -- or at least, an agreement is signed -- before any content is available to the public. By the time anyone has a chance to copy it, the artist has already been paid.
So if we had king sized Star Trek type replicators [...] to, say... replicate cars, car manufacturer's coffers would still be filling up to the brim with all the imaginary goodwill dollars they'd be getting from all you and all the other people who pirate-copied their cars in these replicators without paying real world money for the privilege?
Not quite. Car manufacturers would be obsolete, because manufacturing would be something anyone could do at home, without needing a factory.
Car designers, on the other hand, would still earn a living as long as the public still wanted new car designs. That's because you can't manufacture a new kind of car until someone designs it, and if the designer says "I'm not designing anything until you pay me", your only choices are to pay him or to keep using the old designs.
In other words, cheap replicator technology would force the auto industry to separate design/engineering (their job) from manufacturing (not their job), just like P2P will force artists to separate creation (their job) from making copies (not their job).
Essentially, what you're arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll stop creating all this digital content.
No, I think the confusion is on your end. That isn't what I'm arguing.
What I'm arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll delay creating content until they've found paying customers. Since the demand for digital content is well-established, I have no reason to think those paying customers will be hard to find, at least for works that actually turn a profit under today's copyright-based model.
Do you think there is too much digital content in the world? Because your system would have the effect of greatly diminishing the amount of media people create.
Again, I think that's a false assumption. It would only diminish the amount of unprofitable media that people create expecting to turn a profit.
It would not, however, diminish the amount of media for which there's actual demand, because that would still be profitable to create. Nor would it diminish the amount of media created for reasons other than profit. And it would increase the amount of media created, for profit or for other reasons, that copyright law currently forbids (unauthorized sequels, adaptations, translations, mashups, etc.).
Why is that fraud? You say its fraud but does not explain why so.
Misrepresenting your products is false advertising, a form of fraud. Whether the false statement is "these cigarettes will cure AIDS" or "this go-kart I made in my back yard is actually a Honda Accord" or "this Firefox-based browser is actually my own work", it's all fraud.
And in the event that this situation isn't covered by fraud (e.g. your state's fraud laws only apply to products being sold, not given away), I fully support extending fraud laws to cover it. I support copying, not lying.
Firefox does not cease to exist if Microsoft copies it and changes it. They simply have a modified form of firefox, and since it is 'their copy' they should be able to do whatever they like to it. (Argument seem familiar?)
Yes, that's why it isn't theft. But we're talking about fraud, which is a completely different act. Your attempt to equate piracy with plagiarism is cute but misguided.
A serious question, and not an attempt to troll: has anyone actually done it that way, successfully?
Sellaband implements a model that's similar, but not quite the same. On their store page, it looks like there have been 21 albums produced with their model so far.
What I like most about Sellaband is that it's a social, community-oriented site. It's not just a place to type in your credit card number (like Fundable), it's a place for fans to discover new music and artists to connect with their fans.
What I don't like is that they're only using fan funding to pay for album production costs (at a fixed price of $50k or $100k), rather than including profit. Artists are still expected to make their profit by selling copies (only one track per album is free). There's no room on Sellaband for an artist who has a guitar and a laptop, doesn't need to rent a studio, doesn't have 13 tracks in mind, but wants to make a couple hundred bucks by recording one or two songs.
My dream site would look a lot like Sellaband, except (1) the artist would choose his own price and project format, (2) the artist would have the option of doing his own production and keeping the money, (3) the finished tracks would all be released for free public download, and if the artist wants more money he can sell merchandise, request donations, or start a new project.
Still, even though the model is slightly different, I think the fact that they've gotten fans to fund album production to the tune of over a million dollars (plus whatever they've collected for artists that haven't yet met the goal) is strong evidence that an up-front funding model can work.
Um - what? Lots of people create things with the anticipation or hope that someone will pay for it once it's created.
Please make up your mind. Are you talking about the world as it exists today, where copyright law makes it illegal to sell someone else's content without permission, or a hypothetical world with no copyright, where there's no incentive to work for free anyway?
Your objection seems to be that with no copyright, people would still create works for free and then get exploited, but that's utterly irrational. Why would anyone write a book for free, hoping to sell it to a publisher, when he knows that there's no reason for anyone to buy publishing rights?
Different incentives lead to different behavior. With no copyright, the behavior of working for free would not be rewarded, and thus would not occur except when money isn't a motivating factor anyway.
How is the artist being "smarter than you give them credit for" going to stop Walmart from printing up copies of music, books, games, and software?
Because those music, books, games, and software don't exist until someone writes them, and a sensible person wouldn't write them for free if he's expecting to get paid for his writing.
You seem to think artists will create all that stuff for free, and then be surprised at the last second when Walmart sells copies without paying them. In other words, you seem to think artists are incapable of planning ahead or predicting how other people will react. I disagree.
That simply doesn't work for any project with a large number of users. [...] You think about 1 million Americans would be interested in this product. You spam everyone you can possibly find. About 1/300 people who hear about your product think it's a good idea and agree to buy-in. If you could contact all 300 million Americans, you could get your 1 million customers. But, you can't.
You seem to be assuming that the artist is on his own here. But lone artists can hardly expect success under the current model either! You can't single-handedly get a CD (or any other product) into every retail store in the country; that's why you have an arrangement with a distributor.
Likewise, if you want to sell your services to a million customers, don't try to contact them all yourself. Make an arrangement with someone else who'll help with promotion, handle the transactions, and deal with customer support in exchange for a cut.
Further, there are all kinds of problems with the "pay up front" model - [1] it takes years before you get your product, [2] you don't know what the quality will be (it could be a total lemon), [3] the creator will only get a small fraction of the people to pay, [4] people will have an incentive to not join in paying for something (choosing, instead, to freeload after its release).
1. This is true, and it may lead to a shift in the type of works that are produced. If that means fewer Duke Nukem Forevers, I don't think we'll miss much. But on the other hand, I don't think it's impossible to convince people to pay for something to be delivered a couple years later -- you just have to use a different marketing style.
2. This same issue exists with any other service, and it's a non-issue. You don't know what the quality of your auto repair, landscaping, or surgery will be until it's been performed either, yet people pay for these services all the time. They agree on the service to be performed beforehand, and if the result is unacceptable, they take their dispute to one of the well-established venues (complaints, bad reviews, chargebacks, small claims court, etc.).
3. The proportion of end users who pay is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the person performing the service receives enough money to make it worth his time.
4. Again, as long as enough people pay, this is no problem. If enough people aren't paying, that means there isn't sufficient demand: every person who chooses to wait instead of paying is gambling (taking the risk that the work will never be made in exchange for saving some money), and that means they don't really care about your work anyway, right?
Copyright solves all kinds of these problems.
Well, yes and no. Copyright is only effective to the extent that the author can actually control the flow of copies, and as we've seen, the era of authors being able to do that is rapidly fading. If you're doing the work for free, hoping to recoup your costs by selling copies, and then pirates cut you out of the loop by satisfying the demand for copies without you, copyright hasn't solved anything -- it's made the situation worse by enticing you to work for free in the first place.
Copyright is not free. We pay the cost in lost freedoms, foregone innovations, restricted access to past works, and limits on technology, as well as the monetary cost of law enforcement and courts. I don't believe the it provides nearly enough benefit to offset the huge costs.
I think the wild success of political fundraising sites ought to be enough proof. Candidates and bloggers regularly raise tens of thousands of dollars from lots of small contributions, and the contributors aren't even getting anything in return. Never underestimate the motivational power of a thermometer graph.
Walmart can print up copies of books, music, games, and software and sell them without paying anyone for anything. A movie company could take a screenplay and make a movie out of it - without paying the author anything.
You're skipping a step here. Where did those books, music, games, and software come from, if no one was paid for them? Where did that screenplay come from if its author wasn't paid?
If someone is willing to create content for free, then yes, other people will be able to sell copies of it without paying him. I don't see a problem with that. If you want to get paid, then don't work for free!
There's a whole bunch of things that would suddenly be allowed that most people would object to.
They might be allowed, but they wouldn't actually happen, because I think most artists are smarter than you give them credit for.
Will anyone pay them to do the work when there's almost no chance of even getting the money back, let alone making any kind of profit?
I think you're missing the point. The funders aren't looking for a profit, because they're mostly the same people who (ultimately) pay for production today: people who want the work for its own sake.
People don't buy $15 CDs hoping to sell them for $25 and turn a profit; they buy CDs because they want to listen to the music. Likewise, most of the people funding a musician would be doing it so they could hear his works, not so they could extract a profit somehow.
Will enough people who view/watch/listen to their work pay them when they don't have to?
Yes, because otherwise those works won't get made, and everyone knows it. If the only way to get new content is to pay for it, then what other choice do you have if you care about new content?
You can wait for someone else to send in those last few dollars to meet the artist's goal, but it's a game of chicken. Sooner or later you'll realize that the other guy isn't going to pay, and then it becomes a question of which one of you cares more about seeing the work created.
Seriously, though - when people create copyrighted material, they sell it for FAR less than the production cost. There might be hundreds of thousands of man-hours put into a project. Then, they turn around and sell it for $10 or $50 or $100. You're paying a small fraction of the actual development cost. Hopefully, the [Profit Per Sale * Number Of Customers] is larger than [Development Costs] for them, or else they're going bankrupt.
Paying directly for production would end up working the same way in most cases. Instead of finding one customer to pay you $40,000 for a project, you'd more likely find a thousand customers who each pay $40.
The difference is that you don't have to "hope" that your gross revenue is greater than your development costs. Your gross revenue is set by you as an asking price, and you don't incur any development costs until you already have customers lined up to pay for development. So if there isn't enough interest in your project for it to be profitable, you can spend your time on something else.
You'd be better-off getting your money upfront, despite your assumption that copyright = cash cow.
Yes, abolishing copyright would likely be beneficial to all parties. However, for up-front funding to replace copyright, it would require infrastructure that only barely exists yet (middlemen to take the burden of dealing with thousands of funders off the artist's back), and some time for customers to get used to paying for production rather than buying "one art, please" off the shelf.
If we take your "free speech" argument seriously, then you have to allow people to sell copyrighted material. Afterall, "free speech" covers both paid and unpaid speech.
Well, there is no such thing as "copyrighted material" if copyright is abolished.
I agree that people should be able to sell speech if they wish. No one should be forced to speak, or distribute copies, against his will. If you write a book and you don't want to give out a copy unless someone pays you for it, then go right ahead.
But that does not give you the right to interfere with transactions between other parties. If someone buys the book from you, he must be allowed to read from it, or distribute copies of it, on his terms (unless he signs an agreement stating otherwise). Your freedom of speech does not entitle you to restrict the speech of others.
In every other market, where you have (1) people who are willing to perform a service in exchange for money and (2) people who are willing to pay for that service, those people manage to come together and exchange money for services in a way that benefits both parties. Even when the law explicitly forbids it (drugs, prostitution, assassination), the market still operates.
So if you're claiming that this won't happen with "digital entertainment", which is perfectly legal and for which supply and demand are well-established, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why it's an exception.
What makes you think the same market forces that successfully provide every other service will fail when applied to creating music, movies, software, or other intellectual works?
For people who supposedly pride themselves rational thought, have you ever taken a step back to look at your own views?
Absolutely. The position I'm putting forth here isn't something I slapped together in five minutes, it's something I've put a lot of thought into over several years -- unlike the objections of those people who think it can't work because it isn't exactly the same as the status quo.
And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free? Just hope for donations?
No. Creating content is a service, and they can get paid the same way as anyone else who performs a service: by charging for the work they do.
A professional barber doesn't cut hair unless someone is paying him for a haircut. Why should a professional musician write or record songs if no one is paying him to do it?
How about the freedom of matters of fact? For example, we should have the freedom to know how our tax dollars are spent.
OK, let's see how dedicated you really are to "freedom of matters of fact".
I have a book open right now, and it's a matter of fact that the first word in the first chapter is "Simply". It's also a fact that the second word is "stated". Here are some more facts about that book: the third word is "animation", the fourth word is "is", the fifth word is "a".
I could keep going, but I think you get the picture. These are all matters of fact about a book that I own, and there are hundreds of thousands more facts I could tell you about it, but thanks to copyright law, it'd be illegal for me to share all those facts with you. And even if I did share those facts with you, it'd probably be illegal for you to write them down.
So, if you're in favor of "freedom of matters of fact", would you support a change in the law that made it legal for anyone to share as many facts about their own property as they'd like with anyone else who cared to know them?
That doesn't mean Microsoft should have the freedom to steal the code for Firefox, slap an IE-logo on it, and call it their own.
No, of course not. That would be fraud.
I do, however, believe that Microsoft should have the freedom to take the code for Firefox, slap an IE logo on it, and call it the next version of Internet Explorer as long as they told the truth: that the code was written by the Firefox team, not Microsoft.
You've got to be kidding. You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?
No. But I do really think that "freedom of speech" means "the freedom to speak", not "the freedom to criticize government policies" -- it shouldn't matter whether I'm speaking an anti-government manifesto or the text of a copyrighted book.
I'm willing to make an exception in cases where speech poses a direct threat, such as fraudulent advertising, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or leaking nuclear launch codes to the Commies. But I believe freedom of speech is too important to be restricted when the only reason to do so is to create a market for that speech. And in general, I believe we should not forbid the majority from doing something (like selling copies of a book) just to let a minority command a higher price for doing the same thing.
In other news, car-jacking is to be called 'motor-car scrumping', hence making it seem socially acceptable.
If "scrumping" means making a copy of a car while leaving the original untouched and fully functional, then it already is socially acceptable (it's just not possible). If you manage to invent a device that makes "scrumping" as easy as copying songs, you'll win a Nobel Prize and put an end to poverty and hunger.
I won't hold my breath, though, since if you can't even imagine a business model that doesn't depend on copyright, I doubt you're going to be coming up with any revolutionary technology anytime soon.
I'd be happier if the pirate party re-branded itself the 'lets kill off the digital entertainment industry' party, because that is the upshot of their 'policies'.
That's a pretty ignorant interpretation of their policies. The digital entertainment industry in its current form might depend on copyright, but abolishing copyright would result in a new digital entertainment industry that separates producing content (their job) from making copies (not their job).
I'm a very liberal voter who supports freedom of information
But not, apparently, the freedom to share information. So what "freedom of information" are you talking about -- the freedom for information to exist? The freedom to own information and stifle the speech and actions of anyone else who wishes to use or share it?
Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.
Only if your definition of "freedom" excludes freedom of speech.
The prices to the consumer have nothing to do with "costs", especially material costs. It has to do with what the market will pay. If they charge $1 a message and people will pay it, that is the price.
No, you're missing an important part of how markets are supposed to work.
In a free market, if providers A and B are charging $1 for a message, then even if people are willing to pay $1, provider C will notice that they can grab a lot of customers by charging, say, $0.75. They'll lower their prices, and customers will jump at the opportunity to save 25% on their messaging. Then A and B will have little choice but to lower their own prices... and this process will repeat every so often, until the price is so low that it can't be lowered any more (without becoming unprofitable).
But that hasn't happened. SMS prices have gone up, not down, despite strong evidence that the current price could be slashed dramatically while still remaining profitable (i.e. forwarding an SMS message costs almost nothing). Perhaps the providers are colluding to keep prices high, or perhaps the cost of switching providers is so high that there's effectively no competition. Either way, this is clearly a market failure, and resolving market failures is a duty of the government.
Take a closer look at that comment. They're talking about "the original iPhone situation", i.e. before the SDK existed for public use, when would-be developers were told that the way to extend the iPhone was to make a web site that could be accessed from the iPhone's browser.
Needless to say, no one was happy with that, and Apple eventually released a real SDK.
And here are the answers for my proposed method. I think you'll find they aren't much different, they just treat your work as a service rather than a manufactured product.
They also aren't much different from the way anyone else gets paid for doing any other service, which is why I didn't think they needed to be spelled out before.
1. The people who find your work as valuable or more valuable than your asking price will pay you. The funding can come from anyone who believes he'll benefit from your work, whether it's an "end user" (someone who wants to play your game, read your book, or hear your song) or a third party (someone who makes money indirectly from the existence of more games/books/songs, like NVIDIA or Amazon). Government funding is an option too, I suppose, but it's not what I had in mind.
2. Anyone who comes across your past work, and your proposed future work, will have their own unique measurement of the value of your labor.
3. The measurement of value will be different for everyone who encounters you. You set the price wherever you want, possibly by calculating a number that will maximize the profit you receive. Or you can do the work for free if you feel it's valuable in some way that isn't based on money, or you can enter into a deal with some company or other entity, etc.
4. Again, you can set the price wherever you want: most likely a fixed amount for the entire job, or a flat rate per hour. The "measurement of work" is based on whatever you and your buyer(s) agree to base it on. Once you've completed the work, you will have been compensated for all the time you spent on it, as per your agreement with the people paying for it, and thus you don't need a cut of the price of any copies nor the right to restrict the flow of copies.
Look at that fourth screenshot. What possible harm could loading a project do, I wonder? Does it already (partially?) execute even when it is just sitting there in the development environment? Is this an attempt to banish evil compilers from accidentally compiling source?
As it says right there in the screenshot, the possible harm is from custom build steps.
Unix developers are already used to this, because makefiles have the same risks: if you untar an untrusted project and type "make", you might find that one of the build steps erases your home directory.
Slashdot Mirror
And I've already explained that your system is unrealistic.
Apparently you think a new model has to exactly duplicate the status quo in order to be "realistic". I find that unrealistic.
You simply aren't going to be able to find people to pay up front in nearly the numbers that you can find to pay after you complete the project (under a copyright system). I'd be amazed if, for example, Killzone 2 could bring even a fraction of their $70 million development costs before they even began development. ($70 million was their development cost.)
Well, that's a lot of money, but I don't think it's impossible to raise that much up front. Just difficult (especially considering how the first Killzone was received).
But look. Suppose Killzone 2 wouldn't have been made. So what?
The goal isn't to find an alternate way to fund the production of every single thing we see on shelves today, it's to find a way to fund the production of intellectual works that (1) still works in an era where copying is easy, cheap, and unpreventable, (2) doesn't rely on restricting speech or technological innovation. Like the AC said, if you make substantial changes, you'll get a different outcome... but different doesn't mean worse. What we lose in Killzone 2s not made, we gain in new works being made that would be impossible to release today, as well as restored freedoms.
And don't forget, for every project that turns a profit (if indeed Killzone 2 has turned a profit yet, which isn't clear), there are several projects that never recoup their development costs. We don't expect people in other fields to treat their work as a lottery; why should we expect that of artists?
The costs of finding those people in the first place would add millions of dollars to the project (and that's money that has to be paid even if you decide not to do the project at all).
That isn't new overhead, it replaces the corresponding overhead in the copyright model. Putting a game onto thousands of retail shelves isn't free.
It's almost like you're so in love with a copyrightless world that you're willing to go to any length to justify it.
It's almost like you're so in love with a few blockbuster titles like Killzone 2 that you're willing to give up your rights and mine -- as well as all the other titles we'll never see because of copyright, and the technological innovations we'll never see because they offend copyright holders -- in order to get them.
If MS takes firefox then rebrands it to IE, they can say this is MS IE and never mention firefox... how is that fraud? It is still IE, they have changed it to that. It is a browser still.
This is why we have judges instead of robots interpreting the law.
If Microsoft releases a browser called "Microsoft Internet Explorer" that's actually a renamed version of Firefox, then every human being who hears the case will realize that Microsoft is implying false authorship. That's because they know that a person who sees a product called "Microsoft Internet Explorer", carries Microsoft logos, is distributed from microsoft.com, etc. will reasonably assume Microsoft made it, unless there's a clear notice to the contrary.
You know that too, of course; that's the whole point of this hypothetical. If you and I can see right through it, then so can a judge.
I am getting very confused trying to reconcile these two quotes. So the Firefox team creates some content - who do they charge for the work they did? Their users, hypothetically.
This is a strange hypothetical, since Firefox is currently coded by volunteers (funded by ads, perhaps, but not by selling the software or the development labor). But OK, I'm with you so far.
And then the MS team says, look, here's a product made by the FF team, buy it from us. The only way this works for FF is if people value buying the original work. And if MS can market it better, what can FF do?
Now I'm confused.
You just said the Firefox developers are charging Firefox users for the development work, right? So by the time any code is available, the Firefox devs have already been paid -- that's what charging for work means. Why should they care what Microsoft does with their code once it's released?
If those users think Microsoft will do a better job of improving Firefox than the original Firefox team, then they should pay Microsoft to improve the browser in the future. If they think the original Firefox team will do a better job, since they wrote the browser in the first place, then they should keep paying the Firefox team. Either way, no one is getting ripped off: no one has to do any work without getting paid for it, unless they choose to volunteer their time.
Isn't this exactly why copyright exists? So people can actually charge for the work they do, and other people can't charge for the work someone else did?
No, copyright exists to promote the fiction that you can slice up a finite amount of development labor, put it in an infinite number of boxes, and sell it over and over forever.
Nobody needs copyright to charge for the work they do. All they need to do is say "hi, I will write a browser if you give me $X", and then refuse to write any browsers until someone hands over the money.
Now, if you pay someone to write you a browser, and it turns out he just put his name on Firefox, then you have a fraud claim against him (assuming your contract specified that he was going to write a new browser). He claimed he was going to do one thing, you paid him based on that claim, but he actually did something entirely different. That's fraud.
What if the RIAA or other interests used fraud laws in distribution. "In reciting these words, I am {Corporation X}" or embedding a snippet of text "In distributing this file, I am {Corporation X}". This would work for Itunes (Apple) or Amazon or Corporation X, or Money Grubbing Individual Y.
Interesting thought, but it's been tried before.
The Sega Genesis would look for the word "SEGA" in cartridge ROM and, if found, show the message "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES LTD"; if the word "SEGA" was not present, the console refused to start the game. Accolade reverse-engineered this system and produced their own games that contained the word and printed the license message, even though Accolade had no license, which meant the statement was false. Their packaging, however, stated the truth: the game was not licensed by Sega.
Sega sued Accolade over this. The first court found in favor of Sega, but Accolade won on appeal. The appeals court found that this was a functional use of Sega's trademark, since there was no apparent way to make a functional game without using Sega's trademark and causing the message to appear. The court ruled that any customer confusion was Sega's fault for imposing this system, not Accolade's fault for doing what they had to for interoperability. (Sega even brought in one of their employees who managed to make a working cartridge that didn't show the message, as evidence that Accolade could've done the same thing. The court wasn't swayed, because there was no industry knowledge of this technique.)
The quality of trolling on this site has really taken a nosedive over the last few years...
I'll say. The old "misunderstand your opponent's position and harangue him for something he never posted" troll is so passe. Try to be more original next time. ;)
WTF are you talking about? The way the content industry works is you create content and then you sell copies of it for profit. If everybody copies your work and distributes it for free, which is the way you seem to be suggesting the content industry should be working, there is no profit and hence no money to pay people for work done.
You're mistaken: he isn't suggesting what you think he's suggesting (nor am I). That would indeed be silly. Let me break it down for you in the traditional Slashdot business-model format.
The current model:
1. Artist makes content for free.
2. Artist sells copies of content.
3. Profit!
What you seem to think we're suggesting:
1. Artist makes content for free.
2. Artist gives away copies of content.
3. ???
4. Profit?
What we're actually suggesting:
1. Artist finds people who want content made.
2. Artist makes content in exchange for money.
3. Profit!
4. Artist gives away copies of content.
Notice that money changes hands -- or at least, an agreement is signed -- before any content is available to the public. By the time anyone has a chance to copy it, the artist has already been paid.
So if we had king sized Star Trek type replicators [...] to, say... replicate cars, car manufacturer's coffers would still be filling up to the brim with all the imaginary goodwill dollars they'd be getting from all you and all the other people who pirate-copied their cars in these replicators without paying real world money for the privilege?
Not quite. Car manufacturers would be obsolete, because manufacturing would be something anyone could do at home, without needing a factory.
Car designers, on the other hand, would still earn a living as long as the public still wanted new car designs. That's because you can't manufacture a new kind of car until someone designs it, and if the designer says "I'm not designing anything until you pay me", your only choices are to pay him or to keep using the old designs.
In other words, cheap replicator technology would force the auto industry to separate design/engineering (their job) from manufacturing (not their job), just like P2P will force artists to separate creation (their job) from making copies (not their job).
Essentially, what you're arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll stop creating all this digital content.
No, I think the confusion is on your end. That isn't what I'm arguing.
What I'm arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll delay creating content until they've found paying customers. Since the demand for digital content is well-established, I have no reason to think those paying customers will be hard to find, at least for works that actually turn a profit under today's copyright-based model.
Do you think there is too much digital content in the world? Because your system would have the effect of greatly diminishing the amount of media people create.
Again, I think that's a false assumption. It would only diminish the amount of unprofitable media that people create expecting to turn a profit.
It would not, however, diminish the amount of media for which there's actual demand, because that would still be profitable to create. Nor would it diminish the amount of media created for reasons other than profit. And it would increase the amount of media created, for profit or for other reasons, that copyright law currently forbids (unauthorized sequels, adaptations, translations, mashups, etc.).
Why is that fraud? You say its fraud but does not explain why so.
Misrepresenting your products is false advertising, a form of fraud. Whether the false statement is "these cigarettes will cure AIDS" or "this go-kart I made in my back yard is actually a Honda Accord" or "this Firefox-based browser is actually my own work", it's all fraud.
And in the event that this situation isn't covered by fraud (e.g. your state's fraud laws only apply to products being sold, not given away), I fully support extending fraud laws to cover it. I support copying, not lying.
Firefox does not cease to exist if Microsoft copies it and changes it. They simply have a modified form of firefox, and since it is 'their copy' they should be able to do whatever they like to it. (Argument seem familiar?)
Yes, that's why it isn't theft. But we're talking about fraud, which is a completely different act. Your attempt to equate piracy with plagiarism is cute but misguided.
A serious question, and not an attempt to troll: has anyone actually done it that way, successfully?
Sellaband implements a model that's similar, but not quite the same. On their store page, it looks like there have been 21 albums produced with their model so far.
What I like most about Sellaband is that it's a social, community-oriented site. It's not just a place to type in your credit card number (like Fundable), it's a place for fans to discover new music and artists to connect with their fans.
What I don't like is that they're only using fan funding to pay for album production costs (at a fixed price of $50k or $100k), rather than including profit. Artists are still expected to make their profit by selling copies (only one track per album is free). There's no room on Sellaband for an artist who has a guitar and a laptop, doesn't need to rent a studio, doesn't have 13 tracks in mind, but wants to make a couple hundred bucks by recording one or two songs.
My dream site would look a lot like Sellaband, except (1) the artist would choose his own price and project format, (2) the artist would have the option of doing his own production and keeping the money, (3) the finished tracks would all be released for free public download, and if the artist wants more money he can sell merchandise, request donations, or start a new project.
Still, even though the model is slightly different, I think the fact that they've gotten fans to fund album production to the tune of over a million dollars (plus whatever they've collected for artists that haven't yet met the goal) is strong evidence that an up-front funding model can work.
Um - what? Lots of people create things with the anticipation or hope that someone will pay for it once it's created.
Please make up your mind. Are you talking about the world as it exists today, where copyright law makes it illegal to sell someone else's content without permission, or a hypothetical world with no copyright, where there's no incentive to work for free anyway?
Your objection seems to be that with no copyright, people would still create works for free and then get exploited, but that's utterly irrational. Why would anyone write a book for free, hoping to sell it to a publisher, when he knows that there's no reason for anyone to buy publishing rights?
Different incentives lead to different behavior. With no copyright, the behavior of working for free would not be rewarded, and thus would not occur except when money isn't a motivating factor anyway.
How is the artist being "smarter than you give them credit for" going to stop Walmart from printing up copies of music, books, games, and software?
Because those music, books, games, and software don't exist until someone writes them, and a sensible person wouldn't write them for free if he's expecting to get paid for his writing.
You seem to think artists will create all that stuff for free, and then be surprised at the last second when Walmart sells copies without paying them. In other words, you seem to think artists are incapable of planning ahead or predicting how other people will react. I disagree.
That simply doesn't work for any project with a large number of users. [...] You think about 1 million Americans would be interested in this product. You spam everyone you can possibly find. About 1/300 people who hear about your product think it's a good idea and agree to buy-in. If you could contact all 300 million Americans, you could get your 1 million customers. But, you can't.
You seem to be assuming that the artist is on his own here. But lone artists can hardly expect success under the current model either! You can't single-handedly get a CD (or any other product) into every retail store in the country; that's why you have an arrangement with a distributor.
Likewise, if you want to sell your services to a million customers, don't try to contact them all yourself. Make an arrangement with someone else who'll help with promotion, handle the transactions, and deal with customer support in exchange for a cut.
Further, there are all kinds of problems with the "pay up front" model - [1] it takes years before you get your product, [2] you don't know what the quality will be (it could be a total lemon), [3] the creator will only get a small fraction of the people to pay, [4] people will have an incentive to not join in paying for something (choosing, instead, to freeload after its release).
1. This is true, and it may lead to a shift in the type of works that are produced. If that means fewer Duke Nukem Forevers, I don't think we'll miss much. But on the other hand, I don't think it's impossible to convince people to pay for something to be delivered a couple years later -- you just have to use a different marketing style.
2. This same issue exists with any other service, and it's a non-issue. You don't know what the quality of your auto repair, landscaping, or surgery will be until it's been performed either, yet people pay for these services all the time. They agree on the service to be performed beforehand, and if the result is unacceptable, they take their dispute to one of the well-established venues (complaints, bad reviews, chargebacks, small claims court, etc.).
3. The proportion of end users who pay is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the person performing the service receives enough money to make it worth his time.
4. Again, as long as enough people pay, this is no problem. If enough people aren't paying, that means there isn't sufficient demand: every person who chooses to wait instead of paying is gambling (taking the risk that the work will never be made in exchange for saving some money), and that means they don't really care about your work anyway, right?
Copyright solves all kinds of these problems.
Well, yes and no. Copyright is only effective to the extent that the author can actually control the flow of copies, and as we've seen, the era of authors being able to do that is rapidly fading. If you're doing the work for free, hoping to recoup your costs by selling copies, and then pirates cut you out of the loop by satisfying the demand for copies without you, copyright hasn't solved anything -- it's made the situation worse by enticing you to work for free in the first place.
Copyright is not free. We pay the cost in lost freedoms, foregone innovations, restricted access to past works, and limits on technology, as well as the monetary cost of law enforcement and courts. I don't believe the it provides nearly enough benefit to offset the huge costs.
I think the wild success of political fundraising sites ought to be enough proof. Candidates and bloggers regularly raise tens of thousands of dollars from lots of small contributions, and the contributors aren't even getting anything in return. Never underestimate the motivational power of a thermometer graph.
Walmart can print up copies of books, music, games, and software and sell them without paying anyone for anything. A movie company could take a screenplay and make a movie out of it - without paying the author anything.
You're skipping a step here. Where did those books, music, games, and software come from, if no one was paid for them? Where did that screenplay come from if its author wasn't paid?
If someone is willing to create content for free, then yes, other people will be able to sell copies of it without paying him. I don't see a problem with that. If you want to get paid, then don't work for free!
There's a whole bunch of things that would suddenly be allowed that most people would object to.
They might be allowed, but they wouldn't actually happen, because I think most artists are smarter than you give them credit for.
Will anyone pay them to do the work when there's almost no chance of even getting the money back, let alone making any kind of profit?
I think you're missing the point. The funders aren't looking for a profit, because they're mostly the same people who (ultimately) pay for production today: people who want the work for its own sake.
People don't buy $15 CDs hoping to sell them for $25 and turn a profit; they buy CDs because they want to listen to the music. Likewise, most of the people funding a musician would be doing it so they could hear his works, not so they could extract a profit somehow.
Will enough people who view/watch/listen to their work pay them when they don't have to?
Yes, because otherwise those works won't get made, and everyone knows it. If the only way to get new content is to pay for it, then what other choice do you have if you care about new content?
You can wait for someone else to send in those last few dollars to meet the artist's goal, but it's a game of chicken. Sooner or later you'll realize that the other guy isn't going to pay, and then it becomes a question of which one of you cares more about seeing the work created.
Seriously, though - when people create copyrighted material, they sell it for FAR less than the production cost. There might be hundreds of thousands of man-hours put into a project. Then, they turn around and sell it for $10 or $50 or $100. You're paying a small fraction of the actual development cost. Hopefully, the [Profit Per Sale * Number Of Customers] is larger than [Development Costs] for them, or else they're going bankrupt.
Paying directly for production would end up working the same way in most cases. Instead of finding one customer to pay you $40,000 for a project, you'd more likely find a thousand customers who each pay $40.
The difference is that you don't have to "hope" that your gross revenue is greater than your development costs. Your gross revenue is set by you as an asking price, and you don't incur any development costs until you already have customers lined up to pay for development. So if there isn't enough interest in your project for it to be profitable, you can spend your time on something else.
You'd be better-off getting your money upfront, despite your assumption that copyright = cash cow.
Yes, abolishing copyright would likely be beneficial to all parties. However, for up-front funding to replace copyright, it would require infrastructure that only barely exists yet (middlemen to take the burden of dealing with thousands of funders off the artist's back), and some time for customers to get used to paying for production rather than buying "one art, please" off the shelf.
If we take your "free speech" argument seriously, then you have to allow people to sell copyrighted material. Afterall, "free speech" covers both paid and unpaid speech.
Well, there is no such thing as "copyrighted material" if copyright is abolished.
I agree that people should be able to sell speech if they wish. No one should be forced to speak, or distribute copies, against his will. If you write a book and you don't want to give out a copy unless someone pays you for it, then go right ahead.
But that does not give you the right to interfere with transactions between other parties. If someone buys the book from you, he must be allowed to read from it, or distribute copies of it, on his terms (unless he signs an agreement stating otherwise). Your freedom of speech does not entitle you to restrict the speech of others.
No, it's informed speculation. ;)
In every other market, where you have (1) people who are willing to perform a service in exchange for money and (2) people who are willing to pay for that service, those people manage to come together and exchange money for services in a way that benefits both parties. Even when the law explicitly forbids it (drugs, prostitution, assassination), the market still operates.
So if you're claiming that this won't happen with "digital entertainment", which is perfectly legal and for which supply and demand are well-established, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why it's an exception.
What makes you think the same market forces that successfully provide every other service will fail when applied to creating music, movies, software, or other intellectual works?
For people who supposedly pride themselves rational thought, have you ever taken a step back to look at your own views?
Absolutely. The position I'm putting forth here isn't something I slapped together in five minutes, it's something I've put a lot of thought into over several years -- unlike the objections of those people who think it can't work because it isn't exactly the same as the status quo.
And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free? Just hope for donations?
No. Creating content is a service, and they can get paid the same way as anyone else who performs a service: by charging for the work they do.
A professional barber doesn't cut hair unless someone is paying him for a haircut. Why should a professional musician write or record songs if no one is paying him to do it?
How about the freedom of matters of fact? For example, we should have the freedom to know how our tax dollars are spent.
OK, let's see how dedicated you really are to "freedom of matters of fact".
I have a book open right now, and it's a matter of fact that the first word in the first chapter is "Simply". It's also a fact that the second word is "stated". Here are some more facts about that book: the third word is "animation", the fourth word is "is", the fifth word is "a".
I could keep going, but I think you get the picture. These are all matters of fact about a book that I own, and there are hundreds of thousands more facts I could tell you about it, but thanks to copyright law, it'd be illegal for me to share all those facts with you. And even if I did share those facts with you, it'd probably be illegal for you to write them down.
So, if you're in favor of "freedom of matters of fact", would you support a change in the law that made it legal for anyone to share as many facts about their own property as they'd like with anyone else who cared to know them?
That doesn't mean Microsoft should have the freedom to steal the code for Firefox, slap an IE-logo on it, and call it their own.
No, of course not. That would be fraud.
I do, however, believe that Microsoft should have the freedom to take the code for Firefox, slap an IE logo on it, and call it the next version of Internet Explorer as long as they told the truth: that the code was written by the Firefox team, not Microsoft.
You've got to be kidding. You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?
No. But I do really think that "freedom of speech" means "the freedom to speak", not "the freedom to criticize government policies" -- it shouldn't matter whether I'm speaking an anti-government manifesto or the text of a copyrighted book.
I'm willing to make an exception in cases where speech poses a direct threat, such as fraudulent advertising, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or leaking nuclear launch codes to the Commies. But I believe freedom of speech is too important to be restricted when the only reason to do so is to create a market for that speech. And in general, I believe we should not forbid the majority from doing something (like selling copies of a book) just to let a minority command a higher price for doing the same thing.
In other news, car-jacking is to be called 'motor-car scrumping', hence making it seem socially acceptable.
If "scrumping" means making a copy of a car while leaving the original untouched and fully functional, then it already is socially acceptable (it's just not possible). If you manage to invent a device that makes "scrumping" as easy as copying songs, you'll win a Nobel Prize and put an end to poverty and hunger.
I won't hold my breath, though, since if you can't even imagine a business model that doesn't depend on copyright, I doubt you're going to be coming up with any revolutionary technology anytime soon.
I'd be happier if the pirate party re-branded itself the 'lets kill off the digital entertainment industry' party, because that is the upshot of their 'policies'.
That's a pretty ignorant interpretation of their policies. The digital entertainment industry in its current form might depend on copyright, but abolishing copyright would result in a new digital entertainment industry that separates producing content (their job) from making copies (not their job).
I'm a very liberal voter who supports freedom of information
But not, apparently, the freedom to share information. So what "freedom of information" are you talking about -- the freedom for information to exist? The freedom to own information and stifle the speech and actions of anyone else who wishes to use or share it?
Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.
Only if your definition of "freedom" excludes freedom of speech.
The prices to the consumer have nothing to do with "costs", especially material costs. It has to do with what the market will pay. If they charge $1 a message and people will pay it, that is the price.
No, you're missing an important part of how markets are supposed to work.
In a free market, if providers A and B are charging $1 for a message, then even if people are willing to pay $1, provider C will notice that they can grab a lot of customers by charging, say, $0.75. They'll lower their prices, and customers will jump at the opportunity to save 25% on their messaging. Then A and B will have little choice but to lower their own prices... and this process will repeat every so often, until the price is so low that it can't be lowered any more (without becoming unprofitable).
But that hasn't happened. SMS prices have gone up, not down, despite strong evidence that the current price could be slashed dramatically while still remaining profitable (i.e. forwarding an SMS message costs almost nothing). Perhaps the providers are colluding to keep prices high, or perhaps the cost of switching providers is so high that there's effectively no competition. Either way, this is clearly a market failure, and resolving market failures is a duty of the government.
Take a closer look at that comment. They're talking about "the original iPhone situation", i.e. before the SDK existed for public use, when would-be developers were told that the way to extend the iPhone was to make a web site that could be accessed from the iPhone's browser.
Needless to say, no one was happy with that, and Apple eventually released a real SDK.
And here are the answers for my proposed method. I think you'll find they aren't much different, they just treat your work as a service rather than a manufactured product.
They also aren't much different from the way anyone else gets paid for doing any other service, which is why I didn't think they needed to be spelled out before.
1. The people who find your work as valuable or more valuable than your asking price will pay you. The funding can come from anyone who believes he'll benefit from your work, whether it's an "end user" (someone who wants to play your game, read your book, or hear your song) or a third party (someone who makes money indirectly from the existence of more games/books/songs, like NVIDIA or Amazon). Government funding is an option too, I suppose, but it's not what I had in mind.
2. Anyone who comes across your past work, and your proposed future work, will have their own unique measurement of the value of your labor.
3. The measurement of value will be different for everyone who encounters you. You set the price wherever you want, possibly by calculating a number that will maximize the profit you receive. Or you can do the work for free if you feel it's valuable in some way that isn't based on money, or you can enter into a deal with some company or other entity, etc.
4. Again, you can set the price wherever you want: most likely a fixed amount for the entire job, or a flat rate per hour. The "measurement of work" is based on whatever you and your buyer(s) agree to base it on. Once you've completed the work, you will have been compensated for all the time you spent on it, as per your agreement with the people paying for it, and thus you don't need a cut of the price of any copies nor the right to restrict the flow of copies.
Look at that fourth screenshot. What possible harm could loading a project do, I wonder? Does it already (partially?) execute even when it is just sitting there in the development environment? Is this an attempt to banish evil compilers from accidentally compiling source?
As it says right there in the screenshot, the possible harm is from custom build steps.
Unix developers are already used to this, because makefiles have the same risks: if you untar an untrusted project and type "make", you might find that one of the build steps erases your home directory.
1. We're talking about Washington.
2. I see what you did there. Refusing to answer the question is not an answer.
Of course they can. Turn off WGA and CD key checking, or ship it with a crack. Software was sold for many years with no "keysets".