The second an artist is trying to mass produce they are businessmen not artists anymore.
The artist didn't make the ability to produce in large numbers and distribute at zero cost, that is what technology did.
A technology that served the labels and musicians for one hundred years.
Now it is turning on them and they start to complain. Bo freaking ho.
People make music without making a single dime on it. Great music in fact fantastic music. The big artists are big because the record labels and IP laws make them big. Not because they through some fair game was the best of the crop.
Their "physical distribution" by means of a complex technological infrastructure involving microphones, amplifiers, speakers, lighting, electricity etc. etc., which, as you point out, "the artist didn't make," but which the artist wishes to leverage in order to make a greater profit.
The argument of "well you didn't invent TCP/IP so you can't expect to make money distributing digital copies of your music" is the slipperiest of slippery slopes, as none of us personally created all the technologies we use to make a living. I use a laptop, text editor, and web browser, none of which I created: have I forfeit my right to make a living as a web developer?
It seems that the simplest, most generic expression of your argument (correct me if I'm wrong) is "No one can reasonably expect to make money on anything which can be reproduced digitally, and this is more or less fair." I disagree.
if you work a day for me and then I decide not to pay you, you aren't any poorer than you were before so no harm right?
In the absence of a contract (if I just decided to work for a day for you without your prior agreement to pay for the day of work), yes. Doing work does not automatically create an obligation of others to pay you for having done it.
There are two things that can create such an obligation:
* altering something you already had (such as an object or your body)
If I work a day for you, it is a day that I am not able to work for someone else (possibly myself in my own business). So, yes, I have lost a workday. If I am not compensated for that workday, then I am that much poorer.
"If I take an microphone from you, you don't have an microphone."
..and so I have to buy a new one if we both want to have one at the same time.
"If I copy a song from you, you still have the song yourself."
Awesome, we can just buy one then and split the cost! But why stop there? Let's also give a copy to Tom, Dick and Harry so that each pays 20%! Now, what if we could somehow share the song and the cost with a hundred million people across the world..
I do, do you? Microphone sharing (a) means only one person at a time can access it and (b) it is way more inconvenient. Microphone creators are not threatened by sharing, digital creators are.
If someone steals 20 microphones from the mic creator he has 20 microphones less. If someone downloads 20 songs from a song creator the creator of that song still has the song.
And say, with your wife and children ? Would you share it with them or make them pay too ? And when you listen to the music, streaming, with friends at a party you throw, do they all have to pay ?
And in most cases you pay for a unique concert, sure it's the same songs as the last show but musicians rarely play the music exactly the same way. The best concert include a lot more than just playing the songs. It's worth paying for. The best concert artist put on an act and improvise on stage. It's not easy and it takes talent and work.
This is of course an opinion (one I generally share).
Generally the more niche something is the less fans it will have but the more those fans will love it.
A lot of pop music and modern moves + video games are designed specifically to appeal a bit to a large number of people. It's almost impossible to create something that appeals a lot to everyone.
So the other option is to find a small niche following and concentrate on extracting the most amount of money from them. I imagine that without some form of copyright most of the music produced would either be stuff produced by musicians for other musicians or for the upper classes who would fund it's continued development.
Part of me hopes that your vision becomes reality and all financially backed art falls apart.. just so you, ThomPete, can live in a world that shitty and know that this is what you wanted. Enjoy your cat videos.
Yeah, a totally shitty world with those crappy pre-copyright amateurs like Shakespeare and without the great art of Justin Bieber. The horror, the horror.
I assume Shakespeare made his money from ticket sales to his shows.
There were no cameras in those days if there was somebody would simply record the show and distribute it, I would imagine Shakespeare would want some of that action himself.
Just because someone wants something doesn't mean they have a right to it.
I'd like to charge everyone who sees me when I walk down the street - I'd make a bundle - but I'd think society would be pretty stupid if they indulged me.
You really can't see the difference between that and somebody making money from your work (possibly more than you do) without providing you with any compensation?
Leaving aside the rather obvious question of what makes you think your taste in music is superior to anyone else, how much MORE of that great, great, great music would get created if the artists didn't have to wash dishes for 10 hours a day to make rent and eat?
Every hour you have to spend working a day job is an hour you can't spend creating.
I am telling you that even with the music you like whatever that is there is plenty of great music that you never have heard of and never will. That's how it is in all genres of music.
Let's assume we are discussing modern music not Bach or something.
There are of course good musicians who distribute their music monetarily free but how much of it is explicitly copyright free (i.e libre not gratis)?
I know a number of aspiring musicians who if a large media company took their music and redistributed it under a different name with different people lip syncing to their vocals then boy would they be pissed.
I'm not sure why the down votes? Look, I'm as business-oriented as anyone here, but this is the truth.
Art can be profitable for the artist, but whether it is or isn't, it's still happening. People will create sculptures to admire and music to dance to. The distribution stream was invented far, far later. Let's not conflate the creation of the art and the business of selling it.
I assume that once you pitch designs to one of your clients, it's fine with you if they photograph it, copy it, and never pay you a dime?
People love design, and do great design without making a single dime on it. The rich designers are rich because professional networking, big companies and IP laws make them big. Not because they were the best of the crop.
Boo Freaking Hoo. Real designers do it for love. Only phonies want to get paid.
Part of the reason you are paid so much as a designer who works "for hire" either employed or as a freelancer is that your client wants something unique.
Let's assume that there is no copyright.
You get a contract from a client to design them a logo , website and smartphone app to promote their business.
However your client knows that if a competitor wishes to copy their entire website including logo and app etc they can do so with impunity so all that they will get from whatever sum they invest in your work is a slight first mover advantage and probably the better the work you do the more likely someone else is to copy it.
How much do you think they are willing to pay you for your work now?
Ever walked into a department store like Macy's? It's all ripoff from designers. There is no copyright on clothe design yet that hasn't killed the designer clothing market.
Counterfeit goods to my knowledge fall under trademark laws.
I think this is why people have such high regard for labels in fashion.
Fashion is also a very visible way to display wealth whilst software is not, "aaah but was your copy of Office 2010 compiled by Steve Ballmer himself".. just doesn't happen.
If we got rid of software copyright what would actually happen would be that all commercial software would be moved into a SaaS model and companies would keep their servers and code under lock and key so that nobody could get physical access to it. This would probably give you less freedom rather than more.
Perhaps some movies would also be screened only at cinemas so that nobody ended up with a DVD that they could copy.
Its worth pointing out that fashion is a unique industry when it comes to copying; everyone copies everyone else.
There was a great article on this on the net, written by someone in the industry who fleshed it out with anecdotes which included a high level designer going into a budget store and looking at the design and products there, to copy.
If all my software is only available via a cloud service then it would restrict my freedom compared to having a local copy to the extent that I have no control over any changes to the software.
If they release an update that I don't like for example then it will not be possible for me to retain the older version.
If they decide to discontinue the software or go bust etc then I will lose access to it, this would not happen if I had my own copy.
If I have all my data saved on their servers then I am at their whim as I don't have the files myself so that makes it harder to move to another piece of software should they change their ToS in a way I do not agree with.
If I have confidential data stored with them and their servers are broken into then this causes issues that could be avoided by holding it on my own computer firewalled away from the internet.
And crucially I will not be able to access it without a working internet connection.
This may be the way of the future whether I like it or not but I wouldn't hail it completely as a good thing in terms of freedom or digital rights etc.
I actually find it somewhat ironic that a lot of the best FOSS work (Linux , Apache , Python etc) that was intended to create a software freedom utopia is actually being used primarily to build walled gardens where you have no control over the software.
All your software don't have to be available via the cloud. The data could be or vice versa. There will still be plenty of free alternatives just as there are today.
You very well know there are plenty of ways around this and it is being practiced today.
Spotify is one example.
You are creating pseudo problems that would not really exist.
If you have software without the cloud then you return to the same copyright problem repeated ad nauseum in this thread.
Ok, perhaps you could have applications in the cloud with locally stored data but I can't see this as being popular for 2 reasons.
1) Vendors would like the lock-in power that storing your data gives.
2) If I have a lot of data it may not be practical to upload it every time I use the cloud software on a slow uplink.
There are not really "plenty of free alternatives" to many types of software, at least alternatives that are as good as commercial offerings. Examples would include image editors and games.
Using Spotify as an example, all of the music is streamed from the internet so if they remove a track from their library then I lose my ability to stream it.
Also to sign up for Spotify now you need a facebook account, I don't have one or want one. Luckily I got my account before this was a requirement but if they decide to apply this policy retroactively then I'm shit out of luck.
Assuming there is another service that fits my needs, doesn't have the same problem, has a price I like and will let me move all my data over from the old service..
I just don't understand why you think losing all control over your software would be preferable to copyright?
Of course people create cover versions of songs or re-use a good riff, there is always an element of copying ideas but I think this is different to completely ripping something off 100% since you must still create the rest of the body of work around the original idea.
Of course you could argue how much imitation should be allowed before it is considered a copyright or patent violation.
I think the legal system deals with that.
If you believe that you are losing money due to somebody else stealing your intellectual property then you can sue.
I would not equate copying necessarily with stealing but each copy that is made of your software/music whatever will dilute it's value to an extent unless there is some compensation. Commercial software hopes you will compensate by paying money, OSS hopes you will compensate by providing code or some other service.
So it's not really any different, besides of course that transcribing someone's licks and incorporating it into your own style isn't going to get exposed.
What do you mean "isn't going to get exposed" , people complain all the time that certain songs re-use riffs from older songs.
Your argument seems to boil down to what the minimum unit of valid IP is. This is a complex issue and is often fought in courts.
Taking a riff from someone elses song and rebuilding a new song around it requires a lot more creativity time and money than simply copying and redistributing the song.
Copyright isn't so much for protecting an "idea" as such (that's what patents are for).
It is to stop somebody reproducing a complete piece of work without prior agreement.
Let's say I build a new type of software and publish it, then somebody else thinks that is a good idea and builds their own version that is similar to mine (without re-using my source code). I would view that as flattery and competition. However I have a strong first mover advantage and whilst they may have learned from some of my mistakes they still have to actually do the work of creating their software which puts us economically on a relatively even footing.
Suppose instead they simply redistribute my software with their logo on it for half the price then they have a strong economical advantage because they didn't have to invest the initial development costs that I did.
So to clarify: if you do work with the intent of selling it to one buyer it should be protected, but if you do work with the intent of selling it to two or more buyers it should not?
No. Rather, the point is that you are paid for your work rather than a copy of the result of your work. This is just like a software developer working for a salary rather than somebody eking out an existence in an app store.
But who will pay me for my work if it is not some bespoke contract thing?
Will you ask for donations?
What happens if you announce you will work on something and take a bunch of donations in the first couple of months (enough to live off).
What happens if the donations then dry up and you run out of money so you can't continue to work on the program full time but it is not finished? Do you have to go into debt to repay the people who donated or do they have to take a gamble that your program will get finished and be good enough?
Or do you only start work when you have sufficient donations to finish development? What happens if you misjudge this?
I don't know how it translates to non-programming stuff, but the vast majority of developers do work for in-house stuff (I've seen this cited somewhere, but can't remember exactly where). Only a minority try to actually sell programs (admittedly including some big companies like Adobe and Microsoft, but that's a different story). Moreover, as somebody using exclusively open-source tools--and being more productive than before--I can testify that the world would not be too bad without anybody selling proprietary programs.
My point isn't that this model can carry over unchanged to a different field; rather, all I maintain is that it is possible for a creative endeavor to be pushed largely by creators working for a salary rather than a royalty. I do not know enough about fields outside of programming to figure out exactly how it would work, but I see no reason it could not exist.
Paying someone a salary inhouse will work for stuff like "Bespoke BigCorp Customer Database" but I don't think it would work so well for general use applications intended to be sold to the population and I don't think we want those type of apps to die.
Open source dev tools are great because they are built by developers who understand what developers want and crucially they were built because they were needed i.e there was nothing commercial that did the job in the way they wanted.
How many developers know enough about developing image , video or audio editing software to do it well on their own? Most OSS solutions in this area are basically poor clones of commercial software. Also where will the money come from to fund them doing this full time?
I know as one example Ardour is developed full time and is quite a cool piece of OSS for sound editing but it's developed by one guy who can barely pay his bills from the donations, he probably makes what he would at burger king.
You would think that computer programmers would be able to design some awesome OSS games right? After all about 50% of my CS class joined the course because they wanted to make games and it's probably one of the most popular topics on any programming forum.
Well I can't really think of a single OSS game that has ever really impressed me and certainly none have become popular in the same way Half life or Skyrim has (by OSS game I mean a game that was developed under an OSS model, not something where the code was released by the developer 10 years later or something that is essentially an open source mod for a commercially developed game).
And I have yet to be provided with any reasonable business model that would still enable the creation of something like the Great Pyramids of Giza, or the Great Wall of China. I just don't think this idea of abolishing slavery has legs.
Well I'm no historian but I think it's possible that in the time of the ancient Egyptians the idea to abolish slavery would not be feasible whilst retaining their society. If they didn't have slaves to do the heavy lifting then it's likely that another civilization which did use slavery would simply wipe them out due to better efficiency.
Slavery was abolished partly because there was enough technology to make it less necessary.
If we could automate human creativity then I suppose copyright would no longer be necessary.
There was a time, not that long ago, when there was no such thing as recorded music or films. People just performed the music live. Then one day, the phonograph was invented, and thomas edison paid musicians to perform in front of a phonograph recording machine. The musicians were happy, because they got paid for a performance. Thomas Edison was happy, because he got to make a gajillian zillion dollars off of that artists performance using his "automated creativity machine". Since then the major advance has been that record companies have worked out how to not bother paying the musicians for that original recorded performance.
Not really a helpful answer, doesn't address any of my points.
I think "adapt or die" has the risk of killing a lot of good business models that have so far provided us with some great content/software etc.
I have yet to be provided with a good business model for content in a post copyright world that can be made to work for every type of content that we currently enjoy.
Come on ! That's exactly what happens everyday. When you pitch some creative work, you know you're throwing it to the winds and hope the pitched guy will see more benefit in hiring you than in copying it. You cannot protect art in general.
I've worked for very decent folks (google in Dublin to name one) and very undecent ones. When you are not a mainstream artist, when you are part of the profesional artists crowd (people who live from it but don't make millions) which is the overwhelming majority of artists, you don't give a damn about all this bullshit on piracy. But you do pay attention on the fact that anything that further strenghtens big corporations will in turn make your situation more fragile.
The artist didn't make the ability to produce in large numbers and distribute at zero cost, that is what technology did.
A technology that served the labels and musicians for one hundred years.
Now it is turning on them and they start to complain. Bo freaking ho.
People make music without making a single dime on it. Great music in fact fantastic music. The big artists are big because the record labels and IP laws make them big. Not because they through some fair game was the best of the crop.