6 ms·

You’re suggesting that actors/directors/musicians shouldn’t be paid because the marginal cost of their product approaches $0? Wouldn’t that disincentivize prod

by jmpman 7y ago

You’re suggesting that actors/directors/musicians shouldn’t be paid because the marginal cost of their product approaches $0? Wouldn’t that disincentivize production of new TV/Movies/Music? Enshrining the right to piracy is enshrining the right to destroy your artist community.

clarry 7y ago
> You’re suggesting that actors/directors/musicians shouldn’t be paid They're suggesting that we move to a different model.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- res0nat0r 7y ago
  What is that model? Whichever this new model is, folks still would like to be paid and make a living being artists/musicians/directors etc...
tfha 7y ago
Most content creators already aren't paid well. Value accrues to the publishers and the publishers today have massive control over distribution channels. We're demanding a better solution.
- slg 7y ago
  Isn't that mostly how Silicon Valley works too? Software developers like content creators are generally compensated well enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle, but their compensation doesn't necessarily match the value they create. Instead much of the value is captured by VC or production companies. This is because those companies are the ones who bare the largest percentage of the risk. If a project completely falls flat on its face, software developers and writers, actors, directors, etc still collect their paycheck. It is the VC and production company that lose money.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    Isn't that mostly how Silicon Valley works too? Software developers like content creators are generally compensated well enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle, but their compensation doesn't necessarily match the value they create. Instead much of the value is captured by VC or production companies. It's not just that. Society is still catching up to the ramifications of the additional value extracted by social media and tech media companies. People can't deny that automotive technology made much of the US population dependent in their daily lives on cars. (Whether this is a good or a bad thing is besides the point for this discussion. Probably bad in many ways, good in a few.) This gave the auto makers a certain responsibility for meeting minimum levels of safety, reliability, and environmental friendliness. Society eventually caught up to the implications of automotive technology, and this was reflected in laws codifying that social responsibility. This is because those companies are the ones who bare the largest percentage of the risk. If a project completely falls flat on its face, software developers and writers, actors, directors, etc still collect their paycheck. It is the VC and production company that lose money. Then it is also the "production company" which should bear the social responsibility for their impact on the media landscape and social discourse. As was the case for the appearance of laws and regulations covering the activities of the automotive industry, as that industry had ever greater impact upon the general public's life, so too is the case for social media tech companies. If they reap the rewards, then they should take on the social responsibility.
  - ggg2 7y ago
    yes. What's the point?
    - slg 7y ago
      I thought it was interesting to highlight the similarities because this community would likely push back much harder if you said the startup scene is inherently flawed like that comment said about content creation.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
0815test 7y ago
Look at what people routinely pay for in crowdfunding models, where all costs are 100% transparent and marginal cost is indeed generally low or even zero. You'll find a whole lot of indie stuff (very high-quality indie stuff in fact - because the same well-established reputational mechanisms that are active in the FLOSS community work there as well!), and few or no "actors/directors/musicians" of the mainstream sort getting any money there. This is how it should be - there is simply no rational case for mindless entertainment ("TV/Movies/Music") that costs on the order of $10M or $100M to make!
- macintux 7y ago
  And yet those big budget films/TV shows are one of the few things remaining that provide a common cultural experience. It’s nice to be able to talk about something besides the weather with a complete stranger.
  - clarry 7y ago
    > And yet those big budget films/TV shows are one of the few things remaining that provide a common cultural experience. For some people. Believe me, there are lots and lots of people who do not share that experience.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      I think you gave in to the temptation to point out that you're not like the rest of us sheeple even though it wasn't relevant.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    > things... that provide a common cultural experience. That's what the public domain is for, of course. It's too bad that this limits us to 1923-or-before material (in the U.S., and ignoring non-copyright-renewed stuff from later in the 20th c.) but that still covers centuries of shared culture - even millennia, in some cases!
    - 7y ago
dev_throw 7y ago
No, this incentivizes different models to reward content creators. Torrents are technologically a super efficient way to promote discovery. Off the top of my head, artists can make money off live events, live streams, interacting with their community, sponsorships, patronage, etc.
8bitsrule 7y ago
"The "Uber of Live Music" will charge you $1100-1600 to book a house show, pay musicians $100" https://boingboing.net/2019/05/22/dont-pay-the-piper.html https://boingboing.net/2019/05/22/dont-pay-the-piper.html This is, once again, the ethic of the existing model.
vespasianhun 7y ago
This whole thing usually goes in circles but I think I've observed a few consistent facts in the discussions on HN: * People believe that you shouldn't be able to remix art to make money off it. * People believe that you should be able to pirate games for free, often because they feel that the games makers are exploiting them (via DLCs, in-game purchases, whatever) * People believe that essays, books, etc. should be pirateable * People believe that business software shouldn't be pirateable because software engineers need to make money. You'll usually be downvoted if you suggest this on, say, a Jetbrains release or something. All this taken together, to me, provides some amount of evidence to me that this stuff is just characteristic of the kinds of employment that most people on this forum have, rather than some sort of philosophical position people have on this issue. Hope this saves you some time in discussion.
- CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
  My take is that copyright got lost when people started treating it as property. In that aspect I think GPL has a better philosophical standing as treating code as a commons to be protected from becoming property. Would not be sad to see it go out as collateral damage if it would mean abolishment of copyright and it’s philosophical failure though. We should focus more on how to incorporate the commons in all we do. Economics, politics, justice. This is what John Locke was talking about when he suggested that not everything can be private property. Yochai Benklers the Wealth of Networks is a good overview of the concept of commons based peer-production, and the tragedy of the anti commons. Any talk by Lawrence Lessing from way back when the topic was hot is fantastic takes remix culture Personally I add to that the thinking of Henry George on how an just society should divide the land rent as public dividend. Also checkout geo-libertarianism and surrounding ideologies. Perhaps taking it a step further: Locke argues that land becomes property when you mix it with your labor. But only if there is no contention, the land is after all for all to share. I’ll restate that as this: The commons is primary. We all have an equal claim to it all. To take something from the commons and make it private requires a fair trade. It’s not enough to put a stake in the ground and just claim it. Instead what is lost to the commons must be repaid. Hence the question should never be, “how should x get paid?” but rather “what value can we derive from granting x exclusivity?” Just consider for a moment the amount of resources are spent on enforcing the artificial scarcity supposedly motivating copyright. The primary costs of policing it. Employing people to fight legal battles over it. Implementing automatic enforcements. The cost to those getting caught in violation. The cost of practioners in negotiating rights (what would it cost TPB to secure rights for everything it facilitate access too?) Then there is the secondary costs. The opportunity costs of not having free access, the Napster that could have been. The things all those people impacted by the primary costs could have done instead, what value could they have provided? My mind boggles when contemplating it, and I can’t for a second believe that if that is what it takes to get Game of Thrones produced, that I couldn’t live without it for a freer world.
mikorym 7y ago
I can't speak for actors and directors, but as a musician I have made peace that the only pennies I'll be having are from live events. Even if you pay $5 a month for <insert music streaming service> and only listen to my songs, I get literally $0.00 (up to significant figures). They pool everything together so essentially you are subsidising Justin Bieber; just putting it out there...
- johntiger1 7y ago
  Sorry but it seems like you just aren't getting many streams . But let's say I give you $5/month for a year. Do you want it?
  - mikorym 7y ago
    > just aren't getting many streams Exactly, yes. But many fans (of other artists; when referring to myself we'll have sampling bias) actually have no idea that their $5 doesn't go directly to the songs they listen to in a month. > let's say I would happily accept if we can cut out transaction costs. My idea of a "good" streaming platform for music is one with only a flat rate (say $5), no free option, and no pooling. That means that if I listen to Scatman once in the month and it is the only song I listened to, then John Larkin's estate should get exactly $5, min some small platform fee. (Sorry for picking a dead artist; royalties after death is complicated. Personally I guess I would limit mine to about 10 years, but then again I don't receive any royalties.)
    - mikorym 7y ago
      Sorry, just another clarification. I am not against pirated music. But I am just explaining a possible improvement over Spotify / Apple music. Also, this "improvement" may actually discribe a niche kind of "fandomify" that maybe will always be small. But if you implement the above it puts the onus on the customer to support their artists. It also disincentivises account sharing for hard core fans that want to give money to their favourite artists. You can easily check that your money goes where you want it to from a statement at the end of the month... If you see that Justin Bieber's Baby got $0.99 then of course it's plausible because your "friend" logged in and listened to the song 99 times out of your 500 listens that month.
NikolaNovak 7y ago
Not everywhere do Pirate Party and Pirate Bay have similar or compatible goals. In Canada, Pirate Party claims to stand for: - Increased privacy of citizens - Increased ability of citizens to own and control their data - Increased visibility and public discourse &debate of technology's impact on private lives, business climate, intellectual property, societal changes, etc As such, it is the only party here to openly tackle, let alone make it their core platform, what I personally perceive to be the defining issues of the 21st century. I feel that Pirate Party may end up like the Green party of few decades ago -- initially perceived as fringe, marginalized, irrelevant; until we realize they are tackling emerging core societal problems. As such, while I'm extremely in favour of supporting creators (all my software, from OS to Photoshop is legally purchased; I duly pay my Netflix/Spotify/Prime, purchase photography and clipart when I need them, go to concerts, go to cinema, tip baskers, participate in Patreon, buy webcomic books, etc; and discussion on whether those appropriately pay artists is important but orthogonal to this one), I do support Pirate Party of Canada through my membership and might consider voting if they had a local candidate.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  >I feel that Pirate Party may end up like the Green party of few decades ago -- initially perceived as fringe, marginalized, irrelevant; until we realize they are tackling emerging core societal problems. I don't know how much if at all the Canadian Green Party relates to the US Green Party, but the Green party south of the border is certainly still perceived as "fringe, marginalized, irrelevant". A quick look at Wikipedia suggests that the Canadian Green Party probably still fits that bill as well.
  - frenchy 7y ago
    The Green Party is certainly marginalized here, but a lot less so than in the US. The party leader actually has a seat in Parliment and is regularly quoted on public radio. They also form a small part of the a coalition government in BC and almost did in PEI. The Green Party here suffers from our poor electoral system (FPTP), but they definitly have supporters, even if their supporters don't vote for them for strategic reasons.
probably_wrong 7y ago
> Wouldn’t that disincentivize production of new TV/Movies/Music? I think fan fiction is a clear example of the kind of vibrant art community that could emerge if the law got out of its way. The right to piracy wouldn't kill art. It could cripple the art business, though, but that seems to me like a fair deal.
- Noos 7y ago
  If by "vibrant art community" you mean "an endless firehose of low-grade porn and fetish junk based on existing properties," maybe.
  - krapp 7y ago
    Most amateur art in any field is low quality, and likely porn. Sturgeon's Law always applies.
  - GNOMES 7y ago
    Porn is inevitable though even with the laws... I think the parent is referring to people making games and writing stories based on popular franchises. Look at game companies stopping fan made games. I remember hearing about a fan remake of PS1 Metal Gear Solid. Was gathering huge fan far and had kojima's blessing, but the studio shut it down. https://gameranx.com/features/id/159002/article/10-incredible-fan-games-that-were-legally-taken-down/ https://gameranx.com/features/id/159002/article/10-incredibl... A success story for one fan project though was Sonic Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania I have also seen theories for movies on r/writingprompts that blow actual sequels out of the water.
  - komali2 7y ago
    An endless firehose of art will have a bunch of weird shit in it yup, we've known that about the internet since like 2001. But then again, this is nothing new: (nsfw) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art#/media/File:Shuvalov_Painter_erotic_scene_Antikensammlung_Berlin_F2414.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art#/media/File:Shuvalo...
  - 7y ago
Iv 7y ago
No, I am not suggesting that in any way. I am suggesting that when the marginal cost of their product approaches zero, a system that is based on retributing them based on the number of copies do not make sense anymore. Actually I am goign to vote for them more because of their proposals on liquid and direct democracy, I haven't followed their debate on copyrights in the last few years. When I was the most popular proposal to replace copyright was a global license, which actually exists in a very badly implemented form in France for bars and shops.

by jmpman 7y ago

clarry 7y ago

> You’re suggesting that actors/directors/musicians shouldn’t be paid They're suggesting that we move to a different model.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
res0nat0r 7y ago
What is that model? Whichever this new model is, folks still would like to be paid and make a living being artists/musicians/directors etc...

tfha 7y ago

Most content creators already aren't paid well. Value accrues to the publishers and the publishers today have massive control over distribution channels. We're demanding a better solution.

slg 7y ago
Isn't that mostly how Silicon Valley works too? Software developers like content creators are generally compensated well enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle, but their compensation doesn't necessarily match the value they create. Instead much of the value is captured by VC or production companies. This is because those companies are the ones who bare the largest percentage of the risk. If a project completely falls flat on its face, software developers and writers, actors, directors, etc still collect their paycheck. It is the VC and production company that lose money.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  Isn't that mostly how Silicon Valley works too? Software developers like content creators are generally compensated well enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle, but their compensation doesn't necessarily match the value they create. Instead much of the value is captured by VC or production companies. It's not just that. Society is still catching up to the ramifications of the additional value extracted by social media and tech media companies. People can't deny that automotive technology made much of the US population dependent in their daily lives on cars. (Whether this is a good or a bad thing is besides the point for this discussion. Probably bad in many ways, good in a few.) This gave the auto makers a certain responsibility for meeting minimum levels of safety, reliability, and environmental friendliness. Society eventually caught up to the implications of automotive technology, and this was reflected in laws codifying that social responsibility. This is because those companies are the ones who bare the largest percentage of the risk. If a project completely falls flat on its face, software developers and writers, actors, directors, etc still collect their paycheck. It is the VC and production company that lose money. Then it is also the "production company" which should bear the social responsibility for their impact on the media landscape and social discourse. As was the case for the appearance of laws and regulations covering the activities of the automotive industry, as that industry had ever greater impact upon the general public's life, so too is the case for social media tech companies. If they reap the rewards, then they should take on the social responsibility.
- ggg2 7y ago
  yes. What's the point?
  - slg 7y ago
    I thought it was interesting to highlight the similarities because this community would likely push back much harder if you said the startup scene is inherently flawed like that comment said about content creation.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

0815test 7y ago

Look at what people routinely pay for in crowdfunding models, where all costs are 100% transparent and marginal cost is indeed generally low or even zero. You'll find a whole lot of indie stuff (very high-quality indie stuff in fact - because the same well-established reputational mechanisms that are active in the FLOSS community work there as well!), and few or no "actors/directors/musicians" of the mainstream sort getting any money there. This is how it should be - there is simply no rational case for mindless entertainment ("TV/Movies/Music") that costs on the order of $10M or $100M to make!

macintux 7y ago
And yet those big budget films/TV shows are one of the few things remaining that provide a common cultural experience. It’s nice to be able to talk about something besides the weather with a complete stranger.
- clarry 7y ago
  > And yet those big budget films/TV shows are one of the few things remaining that provide a common cultural experience. For some people. Believe me, there are lots and lots of people who do not share that experience.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    I think you gave in to the temptation to point out that you're not like the rest of us sheeple even though it wasn't relevant.
- 0815test 7y ago
  > things... that provide a common cultural experience. That's what the public domain is for, of course. It's too bad that this limits us to 1923-or-before material (in the U.S., and ignoring non-copyright-renewed stuff from later in the 20th c.) but that still covers centuries of shared culture - even millennia, in some cases!
  - 7y ago

dev_throw 7y ago

No, this incentivizes different models to reward content creators. Torrents are technologically a super efficient way to promote discovery. Off the top of my head, artists can make money off live events, live streams, interacting with their community, sponsorships, patronage, etc.

8bitsrule 7y ago

"The "Uber of Live Music" will charge you $1100-1600 to book a house show, pay musicians $100" https://boingboing.net/2019/05/22/dont-pay-the-piper.html https://boingboing.net/2019/05/22/dont-pay-the-piper.html This is, once again, the ethic of the existing model.

vespasianhun 7y ago

This whole thing usually goes in circles but I think I've observed a few consistent facts in the discussions on HN: * People believe that you shouldn't be able to remix art to make money off it. * People believe that you should be able to pirate games for free, often because they feel that the games makers are exploiting them (via DLCs, in-game purchases, whatever) * People believe that essays, books, etc. should be pirateable * People believe that business software shouldn't be pirateable because software engineers need to make money. You'll usually be downvoted if you suggest this on, say, a Jetbrains release or something. All this taken together, to me, provides some amount of evidence to me that this stuff is just characteristic of the kinds of employment that most people on this forum have, rather than some sort of philosophical position people have on this issue. Hope this saves you some time in discussion.

CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
My take is that copyright got lost when people started treating it as property. In that aspect I think GPL has a better philosophical standing as treating code as a commons to be protected from becoming property. Would not be sad to see it go out as collateral damage if it would mean abolishment of copyright and it’s philosophical failure though. We should focus more on how to incorporate the commons in all we do. Economics, politics, justice. This is what John Locke was talking about when he suggested that not everything can be private property. Yochai Benklers the Wealth of Networks is a good overview of the concept of commons based peer-production, and the tragedy of the anti commons. Any talk by Lawrence Lessing from way back when the topic was hot is fantastic takes remix culture Personally I add to that the thinking of Henry George on how an just society should divide the land rent as public dividend. Also checkout geo-libertarianism and surrounding ideologies. Perhaps taking it a step further: Locke argues that land becomes property when you mix it with your labor. But only if there is no contention, the land is after all for all to share. I’ll restate that as this: The commons is primary. We all have an equal claim to it all. To take something from the commons and make it private requires a fair trade. It’s not enough to put a stake in the ground and just claim it. Instead what is lost to the commons must be repaid. Hence the question should never be, “how should x get paid?” but rather “what value can we derive from granting x exclusivity?” Just consider for a moment the amount of resources are spent on enforcing the artificial scarcity supposedly motivating copyright. The primary costs of policing it. Employing people to fight legal battles over it. Implementing automatic enforcements. The cost to those getting caught in violation. The cost of practioners in negotiating rights (what would it cost TPB to secure rights for everything it facilitate access too?) Then there is the secondary costs. The opportunity costs of not having free access, the Napster that could have been. The things all those people impacted by the primary costs could have done instead, what value could they have provided? My mind boggles when contemplating it, and I can’t for a second believe that if that is what it takes to get Game of Thrones produced, that I couldn’t live without it for a freer world.

mikorym 7y ago

I can't speak for actors and directors, but as a musician I have made peace that the only pennies I'll be having are from live events. Even if you pay $5 a month for <insert music streaming service> and only listen to my songs, I get literally $0.00 (up to significant figures). They pool everything together so essentially you are subsidising Justin Bieber; just putting it out there...

johntiger1 7y ago
Sorry but it seems like you just aren't getting many streams . But let's say I give you $5/month for a year. Do you want it?
- mikorym 7y ago
  > just aren't getting many streams Exactly, yes. But many fans (of other artists; when referring to myself we'll have sampling bias) actually have no idea that their $5 doesn't go directly to the songs they listen to in a month. > let's say I would happily accept if we can cut out transaction costs. My idea of a "good" streaming platform for music is one with only a flat rate (say $5), no free option, and no pooling. That means that if I listen to Scatman once in the month and it is the only song I listened to, then John Larkin's estate should get exactly $5, min some small platform fee. (Sorry for picking a dead artist; royalties after death is complicated. Personally I guess I would limit mine to about 10 years, but then again I don't receive any royalties.)
  - mikorym 7y ago
    Sorry, just another clarification. I am not against pirated music. But I am just explaining a possible improvement over Spotify / Apple music. Also, this "improvement" may actually discribe a niche kind of "fandomify" that maybe will always be small. But if you implement the above it puts the onus on the customer to support their artists. It also disincentivises account sharing for hard core fans that want to give money to their favourite artists. You can easily check that your money goes where you want it to from a statement at the end of the month... If you see that Justin Bieber's Baby got $0.99 then of course it's plausible because your "friend" logged in and listened to the song 99 times out of your 500 listens that month.

NikolaNovak 7y ago

Not everywhere do Pirate Party and Pirate Bay have similar or compatible goals. In Canada, Pirate Party claims to stand for: - Increased privacy of citizens - Increased ability of citizens to own and control their data - Increased visibility and public discourse &debate of technology's impact on private lives, business climate, intellectual property, societal changes, etc As such, it is the only party here to openly tackle, let alone make it their core platform, what I personally perceive to be the defining issues of the 21st century. I feel that Pirate Party may end up like the Green party of few decades ago -- initially perceived as fringe, marginalized, irrelevant; until we realize they are tackling emerging core societal problems. As such, while I'm extremely in favour of supporting creators (all my software, from OS to Photoshop is legally purchased; I duly pay my Netflix/Spotify/Prime, purchase photography and clipart when I need them, go to concerts, go to cinema, tip baskers, participate in Patreon, buy webcomic books, etc; and discussion on whether those appropriately pay artists is important but orthogonal to this one), I do support Pirate Party of Canada through my membership and might consider voting if they had a local candidate.

0xffff2 7y ago
>I feel that Pirate Party may end up like the Green party of few decades ago -- initially perceived as fringe, marginalized, irrelevant; until we realize they are tackling emerging core societal problems. I don't know how much if at all the Canadian Green Party relates to the US Green Party, but the Green party south of the border is certainly still perceived as "fringe, marginalized, irrelevant". A quick look at Wikipedia suggests that the Canadian Green Party probably still fits that bill as well.
- frenchy 7y ago
  The Green Party is certainly marginalized here, but a lot less so than in the US. The party leader actually has a seat in Parliment and is regularly quoted on public radio. They also form a small part of the a coalition government in BC and almost did in PEI. The Green Party here suffers from our poor electoral system (FPTP), but they definitly have supporters, even if their supporters don't vote for them for strategic reasons.

probably_wrong 7y ago

> Wouldn’t that disincentivize production of new TV/Movies/Music? I think fan fiction is a clear example of the kind of vibrant art community that could emerge if the law got out of its way. The right to piracy wouldn't kill art. It could cripple the art business, though, but that seems to me like a fair deal.

Noos 7y ago
If by "vibrant art community" you mean "an endless firehose of low-grade porn and fetish junk based on existing properties," maybe.
- krapp 7y ago
  Most amateur art in any field is low quality, and likely porn. Sturgeon's Law always applies.
- GNOMES 7y ago
  Porn is inevitable though even with the laws... I think the parent is referring to people making games and writing stories based on popular franchises. Look at game companies stopping fan made games. I remember hearing about a fan remake of PS1 Metal Gear Solid. Was gathering huge fan far and had kojima's blessing, but the studio shut it down. https://gameranx.com/features/id/159002/article/10-incredible-fan-games-that-were-legally-taken-down/ https://gameranx.com/features/id/159002/article/10-incredibl... A success story for one fan project though was Sonic Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania I have also seen theories for movies on r/writingprompts that blow actual sequels out of the water.
- komali2 7y ago
  An endless firehose of art will have a bunch of weird shit in it yup, we've known that about the internet since like 2001. But then again, this is nothing new: (nsfw) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art#/media/File:Shuvalov_Painter_erotic_scene_Antikensammlung_Berlin_F2414.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art#/media/File:Shuvalo...
- 7y ago

Iv 7y ago

No, I am not suggesting that in any way. I am suggesting that when the marginal cost of their product approaches zero, a system that is based on retributing them based on the number of copies do not make sense anymore. Actually I am goign to vote for them more because of their proposals on liquid and direct democracy, I haven't followed their debate on copyrights in the last few years. When I was the most popular proposal to replace copyright was a global license, which actually exists in a very badly implemented form in France for bars and shops.