I think we have to realize that a surveillance society is an inevitable consequence of surveillance capability.
Yes, it is unfortunate (probably not inevitable though). What doesn't help is that for every person saying "New surveillance tech will bring down our society", there are two more saying "New surveillance tech? Why haven't we implemented it yet?"
When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets?
It'll probably be when the most important parts of running a country are seriously neglected, when people are no longer comfortable and happy. When people feel that the mountainous benefits of living in the US aren't enough. Then they'll take to the streets, and by god, there will be an election like none other for hundreds of years.
Co-operation, sharing and community is what makes us great, not the accumulation of ill-gotten unnecessary wealth.
Oh, you mean like downloading copyrighted works illegally, for free, behind the backs of the people who originally made them, against all their wishes? Then I agree. Down with those pirates! Their greed knows no bounds. Why, I have even witnessed them trying to make their selfish ways into a moral high ground! Often by taking emphasis away from any specific repercussions of their actions, and putting it on terminology like "sharing", in a desperate bid to make it sound beneficial to anyone but them and themselves. Well, I guess the jokes on them, because when they bring down copyright and they have nothing left to "share", they'll realise just how much they were suckling on the copyright teat.
Stuff like "ratios" sounds ominously like math to these executives. The only math they care about is the rate at which money is flowing into their pockets.
I think I've read just today enough executive-bashing for a lifetime. These people are human beings. They aren't some money making machine who's only concern is their bank account (that's what the corporation is for). They have concerns, pride, reputations, futures, fears, friends and families. They can't all just care about money flowing into their pockets. I'm willing to bet that most of them are decent, hard-working people.
It's gotta be tough job, if you really think about it. Why would the shareholders permit an exorbitant salary for one person if there were cheaper alternatives out there? Because there are no cheaper alternatives out there. It's the kind of job that you wouldn't want to work in for less than a multimillion dollar salary.
They're not chasing the money. They're chasing the people who can be made examples of.
They're not trying to find people who can pay the settlements -- they're looking for people they can establish the legal precedent and scare the crap out of people. In their mind, if they can stop it in the places where it happens most, and instill in people a great fear, then people will dutifully line up and buy tickets.
You were going so well until...
This is all about the low-hanging fruit and those that can't easily defend themselves.
No, it's really about what you said earlier. They need examples to scare students away from piracy. They need to get in there nice and early, while their opinions about the world are still forming, and they're building the routines and habits that will last for years to come. Who knows, it might actually do some good?
As a side note...
In their collective minds, if you can't afford to pay to see/hear/hum their products, you should simply do without.
Yeah, that's pretty much the way it is with any product or service. I don't really see why the MPAA is obligated to be the exception.
Any honest, fair and honourable politician would put a review of copyright laws to the public as this is a public issue.
No, they really wouldn't. A fair and honourable politician knows they have to pick their battles, and they can't waste their time and money making every fringe issue into a vote or even a poll. Not only is it a waste of time, but it detracts from the issues that they really do care about. I think you'll find that rather than being corrupt, most politicians recognise that copyright just isn't an issue. While they could make a grab for extra votes by reforming copyright, they'd have to deal with people in the business sector who'd view it as a bad economic decision, as well as those convinced by RIAA rhetoric.
Flamebaits and trolls have nothing to do with truth! The moderation system is designed to accommodate opinions, and doesn't take sides on what's "truth" or not. Even if you strongly believe that something is true, that doesn't mean that everyone else will, but that also doesn't mean you deserve to be modded into oblivion. What truly earns you a Troll or Flamebait mod is how you present your view, and you took an overgeneralised pot-shot at Slashdot as a whole. That's a no-no, for future reference.
Are you just following my account just so you can troll every comment I post?
Ok you must be a paid schill...
If I had a dollar for every time I have been called a paid schill for $RANDOM_COMPANY_THAT_I_DONT_AUTOMATICALLY_HATE, I would be much richer than any paid schill out there. (Just so there's no confusion, that was an unequivocal no, I am not!)
...if you think slashdotters are a fringe element...
Slashdotters ARE a fringe element. Ever why no-one in the wider community never seems to share your views? Why politicians never make the issues you care about into an election issue? It's because you're on the fringes of many of the opinion spectrums. That doesn't imply that you're wrong, just that not everyone agrees with you.
and that sueing grandma's and single mothers is the way to go
I'm not referring to those saintly grandmas and single mothers, rather the approach of suing pirates as a whole. Yes, in terms of good business practices, suing pirates is probably the best way to have gone. They have a choice of either losing the fringes by prosecuting, or losing the whole to the spread of piracy.
your right that the RIAA's actions have polarised the community - against them.
Polarised against them? Do you even know what polarisation means?
The RIAA made it socially acceptable to commit file sharing. People don't see the behavior as criminal, they don't see it as wrong.
No, that's not quite true. Naturally, it's easy to get that impression from sites like Slashdot, but in the wider community AFAICT, people do feel guilty about piracy. One person, I kid you not, was actually relieved that a CD was copy protected, so that he wouldn't have to face the decision of a new CD + guilt, or nothing. What the RIAA has done is polarised the debate somewhat. They've all but jettisoned people on the fringes (i.e. Slashdotters, etc), and have piled the guilt onto people in the centre, so that they are more likely to pay for their music. I think it was probably the best way to go, since not prosecuting pirates would simply lead to piracy becoming acceptable nationwide or worldwide. With that kind of morality, first the small independent labels would go, working its way up to toppling the RIAA and other large copyright holders.
If you disagree with those arguments, that's fine. Misrepresenting people's views, strawman arguments, are never acceptable
But he's not misrepresenting people's views! There are a lot of people out there who are in favour of abolishing copyright. They may not get modded to +5 Insightful very often, but they are there. Some of them are more passive than others, opting to wait and try to steer the market away from copyright. Others are a bit more forward about it, some of whom demand that copyright be abolished NOW! These people DO want to get stuff for free, although many of them wouldn't admit it if you ask them. However, as an entire movement, they've managed to convince me that it isn't primarily greed that's motivating them, rather the genuine ideological conviction that culture and information should be accessible and free to anyone who seeks it out. While I respect that, and I agree it would be nice, I just don't think it's feasible, so I'm constantly locking horns with them.
Don't kid yourself, your "side" of the debate has its share of extreme views, and their influence on the debate is not insignificant.
It's kinda odd. I'm not an artist and I'm not affiliated in any way with any publisher. I think it's something to do with elitism in art. In knowledge, I can forgive. In art, you're just being an asshole.
you are really stretching to paint what I said into a box like that.
Certainly no moreso than I perceived you were painting RIAA music into your own box. I'm pretty sure you were implying that corporations were evil (force-feeding and such), I'm also damn sure you were saying the consumer was dumb (they can be tricked, etc), popular = sheeple was a bit of a stretch, but with your characterisation of popular art as "Widgets" that could be "force-fed" (as opposed to marketed to fairly), I didn't think it was too unreasonable. Me = smart was just an insult thrown generically at people I think are being elitist. If I got it wrong, I'm sorry. However, I still can't see how you managed to get your argument so misleading, assuming you were indeed not making the point I thought you were making.
What I said (or meant) was that the system was currently corrupt, and that we shouldn't be worrying about a dearth of artwork if we decide to reform the system - that won't happen.
Well, that is less offensive, but I still think you're wrong.
The system needs reform and exploits the artists unfairly.
We can't protect the artists if they want to sign a contract. They are (mostly) adults, and they have to be able to decide these things for themselves. If they don't like it, there are alternatives to the RIAA. They don't need, and often don't want your help.
Some other system is needed, and if some corporations go bankrupt, that's less of a bad consequence than the draconian measures that are currently being implemented to prop up a failing business model.
This is what I find most problematic with the anti-copyright argument. People want to bring down the RIAA/MPAA, if not for enforcing copyright law, then for helping the passing laws like the DMCA and helping the making of certain P2P networks illegal, but they take it out on copyright instead. Here's a better idea: instead of going after copyright, how about going after the labels themselves. Here's an even better idea: instead of going after copyright or the labels, go after the holes in the political and legal systems that allow them to influence nationwide policy. Don't sabotage something as useful as copyright, or even the labels. Why not go straight for the source of the problem (and so many problems before it)?
Whoops, forgot to log in. Any mods left on the scene who's rage is now overcoming their feeble commitment to moderator's guidelines can now flamebait me into oblivion.
Ah, I would have replied sooner, but I've been so busy with people with less absurd views. I'm ashamed to say I just dismissed you as so incredibly elitist about such a subjective subject as art, that I thought you weren't worth replying to. Now mods have made you 5 Insightful, and I once again overestimate the intelligence of the masses. Oh well, everyone has left the thread, and if you can't see why telling people what's art and what isn't based on what you and you alone like, and based on the number of people who disagree with you, is so utterly repugnant, then you'll never learn.
So while effective at increasing profits, it also creates a feedback loop for labels: they pick up and run with artist from genre X; it sells well; so they pick another artist from the same genre. Since they're advertising the hell out of that, it also sells well. It takes a very brave executive to suggest going against a cycle like that.
These people aren't stupid. They may not know tech, but they sure as hell know business. They know that while they feedback loop on certain genres and really push an artist, they can also finance other albums. They have coffers to do it and they know that there's a good chance that many people will buy it (since the market they're aiming for is less saturated). The real expense is those massive marketing campaigns, and worldwide massive distribution. They can easily finance a more risky album, cut down on the marketing, and distribute less CDs to cut distribution costs. That way, if it flops, it flops softly. If it makes it, they can distribute more. It makes a tidy profit, and no self-respecting businessman would pass it up.
If you can make a 10-fold return on your investment by doing Thing A, and a 100-fold return on your investment by doing Thing B, then you're not going to do Thing A. Even if you can afford to do both, eventually you're going to decide it's not worth the effort.
Ah, but they have a lot of effort to spare! They have all the studios, the equipment, the producers, and even then most of the work (in terms of time) on an album is done by the musician separately. They're not short of resources, or the manpower. Besides, they know the more albums they release a product to a saturated market, the higher the risk and the lower the profits, so they can't just sign the pop princesses. I also think you exaggerate when you cite $10,000, since the albums would easily make more than that.
So, the music industry is reasonably healthy at the moment, but smaller labels struggle to compete with larger ones. If a talented artist wants wide exposure, they have to go with a big label, which leaves fewer talented artists for the smaller labels. It will only get worse with time, as the big labels get bigger.
Anyone can become a monopoly if they can become popular enough. I don't strike it against the RIAA for doing such a good job that they may become a monopoly. I know that here in Australia, at least, the ARIA (the Australian anagram for RIAA) awards publicly an award for "the best independent album" with the rest of the ARIA awards. I'd hardly consider that anti-competitive.
So, it's okay to devalue physical items if you can get it cheaper somewhere else, but it's not okay to devalue IP from an arbitrary price (the supply is infinite remember, so it can't possibly be set by the marketplace mechanism of supply and demand) by making a copy of it?
OK, you're trying to lynch me not just for word choice, but your word choice (the one I just took up and rolled with). The term you should have used, if you wanted to be correct, would be undervalued. Devalued implies that there is no choice in the matter, the market has just decided that whatever you've invested in is worth less than it was before. In the case of me using it, it was talking about conscious choice by consumers that devalues artist's music, and ultimately our culture as a whole. Undervalued means you could have gotten a better deal if you just looked somewhere else. You're screwing yourself over, essentially. Get it now? One is about one party striking a blow against another, the other is about a party striking a blow against itself.
My fear is that business lucrativeness and cultural rewards aren't necessarily linked. Indeed, cultural rewards to me implies a wide variety of art to cater to all tastes, and easy access by everyone to all of them. Businesses thrive on specialisation; it is more efficient and thus more profitable to sell one kind of widge
The current system doesn't skew the way art is produced?
Only in terms of popularity. Thus the more demanded art will be produced more. But that isn't really a problem since there is plenty of art production for all art forms, just some will be produced more than others, but still enough to satisfy anyone. Not so with no copyright. With an anaemic, underfunded culture, expensive artwork production will be slim to non-existent. Besides, with copyright, artists have a choice of distribution method. There's nothing stopping the people who'd produce in a copyright-free society from producing their art. Without copyright, the artists have absolutely no choice. You are unavoidably cutting down options by taking down copyright.
You speak of blockbuster movies, but is that really the particular expression of film-making artistry which is most beneficial to society? Blockbuster movies are by definition popular, but do they really enrich our culture, or are they largely the same ideas recycled over and over? Would we as a society be better off without such things, in the long term?
What are you, a member of some kind of cultural elite? On one hand, we have people like you, telling others what's good and bad art. Your authority is that you really, really like certain artworks, and not others. Then we have the entire population, voting with their wallets. Their authority is the fact that they are everyone who will enjoy the art. I would have to say the most popular art, if anything, would trump your suggestions. I'm not really for having a cultural dictatorship, especially one that seems so divorced from the wants of the people.
The real profits here belong to those who can distribute the material, and maximising profits requires giving the artists creating the material as little as possible. If you consider the music industry at the moment, artists are effectively competing against each other to offer the labels the best possible deal.
So now we're back on topic. The art industry happens to be very profitable, and also happens to satisfy a lot of people. They help lower the barrier of entry for artists even lower, thus encouraging art production even more. They DON'T just produce "lowest common denominator" art. They produce many varieties of art, with differing popularities. There are only two reasons why they would avoid a market is either no-one wants it, or the market is already being dominated by an independent publisher (i.e. the market's needs are already satisfied). Think about it. If there is solid demand, why wouldn't they explore the market? Either way, it's not a blemish against copyright.
The distributor itself -- the one who gains most of the profits from selling copies of art -- is actively encouraged to devalue the work of the artist.
And those mean consumers! They are actively encouraged to devalue the work of whom they're buying from! It's the nature of any free market exchange. If you don't want to be screwed over, don't devalue yourself! Next you'll be guilt-tripping me because I sometimes shop at a discount store, one that could be charging market prices. I wonder how I live with myself?
Ooh, scary. It may just as well not be the case.
Ooh, reassuring. I suppose we shouldn't worry about firing off nuclear weaponry against Iraq, because we might not cause nuclear holocaust.
Production technologies are better and more affordable than ever; there's no shortage of people interesting in the creation and production of film and music and other forms of modern art.
But obviously not affordable enough, based on the number of artists who need to sign with publishers. I still haven't seen a viable alternative for financing those blockbusters that so many other people like.
It's interesting that you use a "music album that isn't one of those sells-for-sure pop albums (
That is absolutely false, and I'm fairly sure you know it. Or do you actually believe that nobody has ever, or will ever again, create any form of art unless they're compensated monetarily for it?
Naturally not. Not everyone expects to be paid for their art. There will always be people who produce art for free. Just don't expect the same volume, the same time put in, the same attention to detail, the same instruments to be used, the same collaboration opportunities, the same talent pool, the same variety of different genres, the same widespread market penetration, etc, etc. Pouring money in and letting consumers decide is the best way in this capitalist society to improve any potential industry.
it seems likely a lot of people will try to create popular art for the sole purpose of achieving recognition (fame).
Which will skew the art produced. It will skew heavily against subtle, non-vocalised music, or against unbranded software, or behind-the-camera documentary making. Certainly it'll skew against anything that costs any significant amount of money.
This may be a nett gain or loss, but we won't suddenly end up deprived of any form of art and culture if we stop paying people to make copies of it.
Oh yes we will. As an experiment, why don't you see if you can get funding for a big blockbuster movie, with the stipulation that it'll be released into the public domain? Or perhaps a blockbuster game for the PS3, making good use of its raw power? Or even just music album that isn't one of those sells-for-sure pop albums (i.e. anything with any degree of financial risk)? It's not possible. It's not really because the publishing companies (who are necessary for tying the who project together) are greedy so much as they literally can't afford it. And even excluding those, there will be a significant drop in music production. How would you feel if there were only two or so movies/albums produced per year that were worth watching, and even then they are amateurishly produced, and suffer from picture/sound quality issues? That may well be the future without copyright that we're looking at.
Mr2001 is right on a fundamental level
People like Mr2001 are always right on the fundamental level, but abstract principles give way to the interests of the people, and as far as I can tell, the people want a healthy culture.
Change is inevitable, and almost always unpleasant. At least for a while. Eventually a new stable model will emerge.
So you're meaning to tell me that you think we should ditch copyright and hope a new business model will materialise soon after, and that we shouldn't wait, find a new business model, try against the current business model, and decide which is superior, because it's unpleasant but inevitable? WTF?
Mr2001 suggests a possible model.
The beauty of copyright is that Mr2001 is free to release his art under his suggested model. Better still, if it works, it may well become the model-of-choice for everyone! Mr2001, however, has no right to force his model on everyone else, as abolishing copyrights would do.
Here's another one: if art is so important to us as a society, why not just use tax money to pay artists to create new art?
I, for one, actually like that suggestion. Art, ideally, belongs to the people, and if the government pays for it, then indeed the artist would get reimbursed, and the people get his art. This has been often implemented partially through government grants, so we have some idea that it works. However, the downside is that everyone will end up paying for a copy of every artwork. If you thought it was a drain paying for a few albums, a few movies, and a few pieces of software, imagine having to pay for thousands through taxes! It would also lower the number artworks produced, decrease the amount of money paid to the artist per artwo
I think we've discussed before. Your comment about people not being paid for posting seems identical to one from another anonymous coward post, one who was similarly willing to argue similar beliefs. I also suspect you're the same person who's posting all over the thread, and who I've already responded to recently. Basically, I've got nothing to say that I haven't already said.
I pay people to do things that I can't do on my own, or don't want to do. If you ask me to pay you for something that I can easily do myself, you're basically asking for charity.
Precisely. So if you can create music more cheaply than an artist sells it, then you are invited to do so. You would be legitimately competing against the artist, and providing a similar contribution to our culture. If, however, you mean to say you don't need the artist to make a copy for you, then that's false. You still need the artist to make the original for you. No amount of copying will provide you with that. Your copied version is not a fair competitor to the artist's version, since he happens to be your supplier. All piracy does is make sure the art industry collapses under itself.
Those people, however, need to grow the balls to request payment for what they actually do, instead of playing coy by asking to get reimbursed for making copies.
So it's your contention that the artist should ask for a lump sum payment up front for the original work? Who exactly do you expect to pay for that? I am under the impression that making copies is a fine way of "requesting payment for what they actually do", since it means that almost everyone can afford to reap the benefits of what would otherwise be a costly affair.
That is: you want to get paid for creating a song? Fine, tell me (or a few thousand other people like me) what your idea is like and how much it's going to cost us. Collect the money, record the song, and then the transaction is over. Once you've been paid for making that song, it's no longer any of your business where we listen to it, how many copies we make, or who we share those copies with.
Ah, so I see. It's a fine business model, probably not as efficient as the current one, since people know that they'll be able to get the art for free (and legally) once everyone else pays. It also wouldn't always truly reflect demand, since larger sums would be much harder to orchestrate, so artists would be forced to either take a lower entry price and get money immediately, or try for market price, and have to wait a long time, or possibly have it fail.
Tell you what. If you create some art, feel free to sell it like that. Other artists who feel that the other method is better will sell it their way. We'll let the two business models compete it out on the free market, and we'll see who gets more out of it. Since you can't reasonably expect a copyrighted work to be created without copyright, your art will be sold exactly as if there were no copyright at all. I guess we'll see who's business model is superior.
But again, the value isn't "stolen", because the work doesn't become any less valuable as more people obtain copies of it.
Look, let me break it down. Many artists just want to be paid as much as they can for creating their work. Creating unlimited copies discourages people from paying the artist. Lack of payment discourages the artist from creating art. Lack of art is not good. If everyone copies artists' works instead of paying for them, then sooner or later, the pool of available artists will dry up, and there will be nothing new to copy. The works that are currently under copyright will eventually expire (if a little later than they should), and you will have all the rights you could want to whatever work you have your eyes on. By allowing the premature raiding of the cultural piggy bank, you exchange very temporary gains for long-term cultural wealth.
They are the same, and thinking about one song as two "products" is a mistake. It's the same song either way.
The difference is that one song is paid for, the other isn't. It is a difference. One supports our culture, the other drains it. Think about what you're neglecting to pay for when you next illegally download a copyrighted work.
IP *infringes* on the real physical property of others.
Not exactly. (I'm going to assume you refer to copyright as IP, since it's the only form of IP that would make any semblance of sense in this context.) When you buy a copyrighted work, you are not just buying the media, but the concept as well. Ever wondered why people are prepared to pay for more than the media by itself? Basically, it's a free market. If you don't want your "real" physical property rights to be infringed, perhaps you should stop buying copyrighted works.
No, if you give me your IP I have it and you don't.
Total false crap lie. Two people can have the idea of a wheel. If you give someone else the idea of a wheel, do you forget the idea of a wheel? Of course not!
We're talking about IP, not ideas. You don't seem to grasp the fact that property is an abstract assignment of ownership, not just whoever has it. I can stand in the middle of the mall if I want to, but it doesn't mean I own the tile I'm standing on. It does not give me the right to spray-paint graffiti on it. The mall owns it, and they could quite rightly take action against me for it. Similarly, just because you happen to have heard a CD that you've sold, doesn't mean you own it.
Hogwash. For every person which marginally copies the idea of a wheel, the world is net WEALTHIER. People save energy, and are more efficient the more people which use the idea of the wheel. Preventing people from using the idea of the wheel by using violence would only make the world net POORER.
Sure. The same could be said about any property. If everyone had access to a piece of property, everyone would be richer for it. However, communism hasn't exactly gathered a lot of respect, and although it sounds pretty good, we've found that society (and indeed culture) can become richer still if people are allowed to retain private ownership. But ideas, as you say, are often best when spread, making the value of the patent system the most controversial aspect of IP. I certainly wouldn't call it hogwash though.
Socrates addressed Thrasymicus' notion that "might is right" equates to justice.
The democratic government, as an extension of the people, are the one's providing the might here. If you can't live by our laws that we've tailored over time to benefit us a society, then you might as well leave.
Arbitrarily, and only by the use of violent physical force.
What is it with you and violence? You call IP "imaginary" in the face of "real" property, yet these laws somewhat dubiously constitute "real" violence. You don't seem to have too much moral integrity.
Wrong again. There are many ideas that are dependent upon the prior existence of many other ideas each created by many other different creators.
Ya, which is why IP expires, so that both the artist and the public domain can profit from IP. They're essentially borrowing from the public domain, but that doesn't mean they don't have rights to what they create with it.
Linux doesn't become worth less and less as more people install it.
Point taken. So, how much do you spend per Linux copy?
Seriously though, I do see your point. There still is value in Linux, even if it has no scarcity. Nevertheless, it does mean that you can't make a solid business out of selling straight linux copies. It almost falls into the realms of charity since there's no money involved. Art, however, is not always like that. Some people just want to be financially reimbursed for their art creation.
Yes, you still have the account, but you don't have the money that was in it. That's why people talk about stealing money, not stealing bank accounts.
Fair enough. Perhaps we should talk about copyright infringement in terms of stealing value rather than stealing IP? Either way it works for me, because it exposes copyright infringement as stealing.
The value comes from how useful or desirable it is to the people who want it. A song that was made in a week that people actually want to listen to is more "valuable" than a song that took a year to make but still sounds like crap.
Think about it. If there was a desirable song worth some non-trivial amount of money, and a pirated version for free, is there any added value? No. The demand is split between the two products. You really don't need both of the products, since they are both essentially the same. With the split demand, the value is similarly split. And split again. And split again. And continues to split as more and more people copy the same product with little resources necessary. The comment about resources, and the relation to value, still applies, since there is a relation between resources required and demand (and thus price). As I've said already in this thread, if it required no resources to make (no time, no effort, no skill, no money, no endurance, etc, etc) then it would be worthless, because anyone could have it if they wanted it. If anyone could create significant value out of thin air, then what's the point in working?
Slashdot Mirror
Vitalism
It's gotta be tough job, if you really think about it. Why would the shareholders permit an exorbitant salary for one person if there were cheaper alternatives out there? Because there are no cheaper alternatives out there. It's the kind of job that you wouldn't want to work in for less than a multimillion dollar salary.
As a side note...Yeah, that's pretty much the way it is with any product or service. I don't really see why the MPAA is obligated to be the exception.
Configuration necessary for customising Vista!
Story at 11...
... when they decided to recycle the death star threat.
Flamebaits and trolls have nothing to do with truth! The moderation system is designed to accommodate opinions, and doesn't take sides on what's "truth" or not. Even if you strongly believe that something is true, that doesn't mean that everyone else will, but that also doesn't mean you deserve to be modded into oblivion. What truly earns you a Troll or Flamebait mod is how you present your view, and you took an overgeneralised pot-shot at Slashdot as a whole. That's a no-no, for future reference.
Could you please do me a personal favour and declare that no-one believes that copyright should be extended? Thanks in advance.
Don't kid yourself, your "side" of the debate has its share of extreme views, and their influence on the debate is not insignificant.
... I still wouldn't be able to make out Amy Wong's obscene tattoo?
Crap.
Whoops, forgot to log in. Any mods left on the scene who's rage is now overcoming their feeble commitment to moderator's guidelines can now flamebait me into oblivion.
Ah, I would have replied sooner, but I've been so busy with people with less absurd views. I'm ashamed to say I just dismissed you as so incredibly elitist about such a subjective subject as art, that I thought you weren't worth replying to. Now mods have made you 5 Insightful, and I once again overestimate the intelligence of the masses. Oh well, everyone has left the thread, and if you can't see why telling people what's art and what isn't based on what you and you alone like, and based on the number of people who disagree with you, is so utterly repugnant, then you'll never learn.
These people aren't stupid. They may not know tech, but they sure as hell know business. They know that while they feedback loop on certain genres and really push an artist, they can also finance other albums. They have coffers to do it and they know that there's a good chance that many people will buy it (since the market they're aiming for is less saturated). The real expense is those massive marketing campaigns, and worldwide massive distribution. They can easily finance a more risky album, cut down on the marketing, and distribute less CDs to cut distribution costs. That way, if it flops, it flops softly. If it makes it, they can distribute more. It makes a tidy profit, and no self-respecting businessman would pass it up.
Ah, but they have a lot of effort to spare! They have all the studios, the equipment, the producers, and even then most of the work (in terms of time) on an album is done by the musician separately. They're not short of resources, or the manpower. Besides, they know the more albums they release a product to a saturated market, the higher the risk and the lower the profits, so they can't just sign the pop princesses. I also think you exaggerate when you cite $10,000, since the albums would easily make more than that.
Anyone can become a monopoly if they can become popular enough. I don't strike it against the RIAA for doing such a good job that they may become a monopoly. I know that here in Australia, at least, the ARIA (the Australian anagram for RIAA) awards publicly an award for "the best independent album" with the rest of the ARIA awards. I'd hardly consider that anti-competitive.
OK, you're trying to lynch me not just for word choice, but your word choice (the one I just took up and rolled with). The term you should have used, if you wanted to be correct, would be undervalued. Devalued implies that there is no choice in the matter, the market has just decided that whatever you've invested in is worth less than it was before. In the case of me using it, it was talking about conscious choice by consumers that devalues artist's music, and ultimately our culture as a whole. Undervalued means you could have gotten a better deal if you just looked somewhere else. You're screwing yourself over, essentially. Get it now? One is about one party striking a blow against another, the other is about a party striking a blow against itself.
Only in terms of popularity. Thus the more demanded art will be produced more. But that isn't really a problem since there is plenty of art production for all art forms, just some will be produced more than others, but still enough to satisfy anyone. Not so with no copyright. With an anaemic, underfunded culture, expensive artwork production will be slim to non-existent.
Besides, with copyright, artists have a choice of distribution method. There's nothing stopping the people who'd produce in a copyright-free society from producing their art. Without copyright, the artists have absolutely no choice. You are unavoidably cutting down options by taking down copyright.
What are you, a member of some kind of cultural elite? On one hand, we have people like you, telling others what's good and bad art. Your authority is that you really, really like certain artworks, and not others. Then we have the entire population, voting with their wallets. Their authority is the fact that they are everyone who will enjoy the art. I would have to say the most popular art, if anything, would trump your suggestions. I'm not really for having a cultural dictatorship, especially one that seems so divorced from the wants of the people.
So now we're back on topic. The art industry happens to be very profitable, and also happens to satisfy a lot of people. They help lower the barrier of entry for artists even lower, thus encouraging art production even more. They DON'T just produce "lowest common denominator" art. They produce many varieties of art, with differing popularities. There are only two reasons why they would avoid a market is either no-one wants it, or the market is already being dominated by an independent publisher (i.e. the market's needs are already satisfied). Think about it. If there is solid demand, why wouldn't they explore the market? Either way, it's not a blemish against copyright.
And those mean consumers! They are actively encouraged to devalue the work of whom they're buying from! It's the nature of any free market exchange. If you don't want to be screwed over, don't devalue yourself! Next you'll be guilt-tripping me because I sometimes shop at a discount store, one that could be charging market prices. I wonder how I live with myself?
Ooh, reassuring. I suppose we shouldn't worry about firing off nuclear weaponry against Iraq, because we might not cause nuclear holocaust.
But obviously not affordable enough, based on the number of artists who need to sign with publishers. I still haven't seen a viable alternative for financing those blockbusters that so many other people like.
Naturally not. Not everyone expects to be paid for their art. There will always be people who produce art for free. Just don't expect the same volume, the same time put in, the same attention to detail, the same instruments to be used, the same collaboration opportunities, the same talent pool, the same variety of different genres, the same widespread market penetration, etc, etc. Pouring money in and letting consumers decide is the best way in this capitalist society to improve any potential industry.
Which will skew the art produced. It will skew heavily against subtle, non-vocalised music, or against unbranded software, or behind-the-camera documentary making. Certainly it'll skew against anything that costs any significant amount of money.
Oh yes we will. As an experiment, why don't you see if you can get funding for a big blockbuster movie, with the stipulation that it'll be released into the public domain? Or perhaps a blockbuster game for the PS3, making good use of its raw power? Or even just music album that isn't one of those sells-for-sure pop albums (i.e. anything with any degree of financial risk)? It's not possible. It's not really because the publishing companies (who are necessary for tying the who project together) are greedy so much as they literally can't afford it. And even excluding those, there will be a significant drop in music production. How would you feel if there were only two or so movies/albums produced per year that were worth watching, and even then they are amateurishly produced, and suffer from picture/sound quality issues? That may well be the future without copyright that we're looking at.
People like Mr2001 are always right on the fundamental level, but abstract principles give way to the interests of the people, and as far as I can tell, the people want a healthy culture.
So you're meaning to tell me that you think we should ditch copyright and hope a new business model will materialise soon after, and that we shouldn't wait, find a new business model, try against the current business model, and decide which is superior, because it's unpleasant but inevitable? WTF?
The beauty of copyright is that Mr2001 is free to release his art under his suggested model. Better still, if it works, it may well become the model-of-choice for everyone! Mr2001, however, has no right to force his model on everyone else, as abolishing copyrights would do.
I, for one, actually like that suggestion. Art, ideally, belongs to the people, and if the government pays for it, then indeed the artist would get reimbursed, and the people get his art. This has been often implemented partially through government grants, so we have some idea that it works. However, the downside is that everyone will end up paying for a copy of every artwork. If you thought it was a drain paying for a few albums, a few movies, and a few pieces of software, imagine having to pay for thousands through taxes! It would also lower the number artworks produced, decrease the amount of money paid to the artist per artwo
I think we've discussed before. Your comment about people not being paid for posting seems identical to one from another anonymous coward post, one who was similarly willing to argue similar beliefs. I also suspect you're the same person who's posting all over the thread, and who I've already responded to recently. Basically, I've got nothing to say that I haven't already said.
Precisely. So if you can create music more cheaply than an artist sells it, then you are invited to do so. You would be legitimately competing against the artist, and providing a similar contribution to our culture. If, however, you mean to say you don't need the artist to make a copy for you, then that's false. You still need the artist to make the original for you. No amount of copying will provide you with that. Your copied version is not a fair competitor to the artist's version, since he happens to be your supplier. All piracy does is make sure the art industry collapses under itself.
So it's your contention that the artist should ask for a lump sum payment up front for the original work? Who exactly do you expect to pay for that? I am under the impression that making copies is a fine way of "requesting payment for what they actually do", since it means that almost everyone can afford to reap the benefits of what would otherwise be a costly affair.
Ah, so I see. It's a fine business model, probably not as efficient as the current one, since people know that they'll be able to get the art for free (and legally) once everyone else pays. It also wouldn't always truly reflect demand, since larger sums would be much harder to orchestrate, so artists would be forced to either take a lower entry price and get money immediately, or try for market price, and have to wait a long time, or possibly have it fail.
Tell you what. If you create some art, feel free to sell it like that. Other artists who feel that the other method is better will sell it their way. We'll let the two business models compete it out on the free market, and we'll see who gets more out of it. Since you can't reasonably expect a copyrighted work to be created without copyright, your art will be sold exactly as if there were no copyright at all. I guess we'll see who's business model is superior.
Look, let me break it down. Many artists just want to be paid as much as they can for creating their work. Creating unlimited copies discourages people from paying the artist. Lack of payment discourages the artist from creating art. Lack of art is not good. If everyone copies artists' works instead of paying for them, then sooner or later, the pool of available artists will dry up, and there will be nothing new to copy. The works that are currently under copyright will eventually expire (if a little later than they should), and you will have all the rights you could want to whatever work you have your eyes on. By allowing the premature raiding of the cultural piggy bank, you exchange very temporary gains for long-term cultural wealth.
The difference is that one song is paid for, the other isn't. It is a difference. One supports our culture, the other drains it. Think about what you're neglecting to pay for when you next illegally download a copyrighted work.
Seriously though, I do see your point. There still is value in Linux, even if it has no scarcity. Nevertheless, it does mean that you can't make a solid business out of selling straight linux copies. It almost falls into the realms of charity since there's no money involved. Art, however, is not always like that. Some people just want to be financially reimbursed for their art creation.Fair enough. Perhaps we should talk about copyright infringement in terms of stealing value rather than stealing IP? Either way it works for me, because it exposes copyright infringement as stealing.Think about it. If there was a desirable song worth some non-trivial amount of money, and a pirated version for free, is there any added value? No. The demand is split between the two products. You really don't need both of the products, since they are both essentially the same. With the split demand, the value is similarly split. And split again. And split again. And continues to split as more and more people copy the same product with little resources necessary. The comment about resources, and the relation to value, still applies, since there is a relation between resources required and demand (and thus price). As I've said already in this thread, if it required no resources to make (no time, no effort, no skill, no money, no endurance, etc, etc) then it would be worthless, because anyone could have it if they wanted it. If anyone could create significant value out of thin air, then what's the point in working?