4 ms·

> There's no incentive to make a movie if it will never make any money. > Without copyright, anyone can purchase it once and give it away for free or sell each

> There's no incentive to make a movie if it will never make any money. > Without copyright, anyone can purchase it once and give it away for free or sell each copy for $0.01 and undercut all competition. That's not a problem if the creators were paid to make the movie. The parent mentioned several mechanisms to do this. It's not hard: after all, that's how basically all industries have worked since forever. Anecdotally: half of the jobs I've had were producing private, in-house software; I got a regular wage for doing this, since the companies found such software useful. No need for copyright. The other half were paying me to produce FOSS which, once it was written, we wanted people to copy and spread for free, since that would gain us more attention (and potential customers for our related services). Again, no need for copyright (although some were strong copyleft, with network-use clauses)

madmax96 9y ago
I don't think it's wise to compare software development with other creative production. Software can provide a quantitative value through functionality to its users. Copyleft software often makes sense because it becomes possible to create a community of users that also support the project, making it cheaper and functionally superior for everyone. Media is a much different story, and transforming creators into beggars (as suggested) is not a solution. At that point, creators are competing with their ability to beg, and not their ability to create. Any person with a reasonable amount of self-respect and pride in their work would not tolerate that kind of existence.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  Why is it "begging" if, say, a screenwriter does it; but it's "customer aquisition" (or equivalent) for everyone else on the planet?
  - madmax96 9y ago
    Because "customer acquisition" means that a business offers something of value, reaches out to entities that might be interested in obtaining that value, and enters into an agreement to supply that value for another value. That process is totally different from asking for donations (which is literally begging -- no value is being offered, but value is expected to be received.) Kickstarter can certainly produce valuable media, but it eliminates the possibility of a small group of people taking a risk on content. That will undoubtedly have major effects on the kind of content that is produced, the question is what will that impact be?
    - chriswarbo 9y ago
      > That process is totally different from asking for donations Whilst donations might work for some, I was mostly talking about doing work (to provide value, e.g. writing, sculpting, etc.) for an amount agreed-upon in advance (either paid to an escrow service, or invoiced afterwards). Movie companies could take on the role of escrow service, rather than their current role as investment vehicle. > (which is literally begging -- no value is being offered, but value is expected to be received.) If 'no value is being offered' by movies, games, etc. then why do people already pay money for things like DVDs? Copyright can't be the reason, since that doesn't compel anyone to buy stuff they see no value in (copyright just restricts who can do the selling).
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Content creators can not justly be called "beggars", because they provide services and create goods that people value. Most people recognize this and want these creatives to be rewarded. Sometimes it's done through donations, other times through commissions. Patronage of the arts through these means has been going on for most of human history.
gamblor956 9y ago
> That's not a problem if the creators were paid to make the movie. Where do you think the money to pay the creators comes from? Movies, games, and most other modern forms of mass art are incredibly expensive to produce. If the content creators can't recoup their expenses, they produce less of the content.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  > Movies, games, and most other modern forms of mass art are incredibly expensive to produce. Meh. Work expands to consume the available resources. There's nothing special about "modern forms of mass art": it just sits at a local optimum of available capital, risk, labour and technology costs, projected returns, etc. (optimised by the market). Change those factors (e.g. with a labour strike, or an improvement in CGI tools) and the balance comes out differently, and so do the movies. > If the content creators can't recoup their expenses, they produce less of the content. Or they reduce the expense. In general, I would rather have 10 movies made for $1,000,000 each than a single movie with a $10,000,000 budget. It's really easy to throw money at graphics, special effects, technology, etc. which are mostly superficial. Good storytelling, interesting game mechanics, etc. are much cheaper, and have been around for thousands of years. Consider Pixar, for example: they've managed to funnel hollywood money into fundamental computer graphics research (a very neat trick!). They do this under the premise that it's needed for their movies, which could have actually been executed very well as traditional cartoons.
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    I would rather have 1 quality movie made for $10,000,000 than 10 crappy movies made for a million. Movies are more expensive to make than people realize. For $10,000,000, you're not paying for much, if anything, for VFX. Case study: Get Out's budget was $6 million, not including marketing. That includes a single non-practical special effect (the sinking scene). All the actors worked for minimum wages [edit: movie wages]. The movie was limited to 3-4 physical locations. Split had a budget of between $6-9 million, and that movie takes place in two locations.

madmax96 9y ago

I don't think it's wise to compare software development with other creative production. Software can provide a quantitative value through functionality to its users. Copyleft software often makes sense because it becomes possible to create a community of users that also support the project, making it cheaper and functionally superior for everyone. Media is a much different story, and transforming creators into beggars (as suggested) is not a solution. At that point, creators are competing with their ability to beg, and not their ability to create. Any person with a reasonable amount of self-respect and pride in their work would not tolerate that kind of existence.

chriswarbo 9y ago
Why is it "begging" if, say, a screenwriter does it; but it's "customer aquisition" (or equivalent) for everyone else on the planet?
- madmax96 9y ago
  Because "customer acquisition" means that a business offers something of value, reaches out to entities that might be interested in obtaining that value, and enters into an agreement to supply that value for another value. That process is totally different from asking for donations (which is literally begging -- no value is being offered, but value is expected to be received.) Kickstarter can certainly produce valuable media, but it eliminates the possibility of a small group of people taking a risk on content. That will undoubtedly have major effects on the kind of content that is produced, the question is what will that impact be?
  - chriswarbo 9y ago
    > That process is totally different from asking for donations Whilst donations might work for some, I was mostly talking about doing work (to provide value, e.g. writing, sculpting, etc.) for an amount agreed-upon in advance (either paid to an escrow service, or invoiced afterwards). Movie companies could take on the role of escrow service, rather than their current role as investment vehicle. > (which is literally begging -- no value is being offered, but value is expected to be received.) If 'no value is being offered' by movies, games, etc. then why do people already pay money for things like DVDs? Copyright can't be the reason, since that doesn't compel anyone to buy stuff they see no value in (copyright just restricts who can do the selling).
pmoriarty 9y ago
Content creators can not justly be called "beggars", because they provide services and create goods that people value. Most people recognize this and want these creatives to be rewarded. Sometimes it's done through donations, other times through commissions. Patronage of the arts through these means has been going on for most of human history.

gamblor956 9y ago

> That's not a problem if the creators were paid to make the movie. Where do you think the money to pay the creators comes from? Movies, games, and most other modern forms of mass art are incredibly expensive to produce. If the content creators can't recoup their expenses, they produce less of the content.

chriswarbo 9y ago
> Movies, games, and most other modern forms of mass art are incredibly expensive to produce. Meh. Work expands to consume the available resources. There's nothing special about "modern forms of mass art": it just sits at a local optimum of available capital, risk, labour and technology costs, projected returns, etc. (optimised by the market). Change those factors (e.g. with a labour strike, or an improvement in CGI tools) and the balance comes out differently, and so do the movies. > If the content creators can't recoup their expenses, they produce less of the content. Or they reduce the expense. In general, I would rather have 10 movies made for $1,000,000 each than a single movie with a $10,000,000 budget. It's really easy to throw money at graphics, special effects, technology, etc. which are mostly superficial. Good storytelling, interesting game mechanics, etc. are much cheaper, and have been around for thousands of years. Consider Pixar, for example: they've managed to funnel hollywood money into fundamental computer graphics research (a very neat trick!). They do this under the premise that it's needed for their movies, which could have actually been executed very well as traditional cartoons.
- gamblor956 9y ago
  I would rather have 1 quality movie made for $10,000,000 than 10 crappy movies made for a million. Movies are more expensive to make than people realize. For $10,000,000, you're not paying for much, if anything, for VFX. Case study: Get Out's budget was $6 million, not including marketing. That includes a single non-practical special effect (the sinking scene). All the actors worked for minimum wages [edit: movie wages]. The movie was limited to 3-4 physical locations. Split had a budget of between $6-9 million, and that movie takes place in two locations.