7 ms·

People are working weeks, months, years, often under extreme conditions to create a work of art, like, say an episode of Game of Thrones. Not just one person, b

by est31 7y ago

People are working weeks, months, years, often under extreme conditions to create a work of art, like, say an episode of Game of Thrones. Not just one person, but hundreds of them. Getting such large teams to work on a project would not be possible if people could just donate for that work or something, because you'd get much much less money from it. Sure there are issues with copyright, for one terms are decades too long, but your extreme view of it is as wrong as the extreme view of Sonny Bono.

hutzlibu 7y ago
"Getting such large teams to work on a project would not be possible if people could just donate for that work or something, because you'd get much much less money from it. " Currently yes. Because the normal person is conditioned to only pay if he or she has to. But imagine if there is sudddenly no more copyright and ... oh my god, no more episode of series xyz because of no money ... you really believe all those hardcore fans would not quickly adopt to pay freely if the result is more of the content they want, if the alternative is no more content?
- mjevans 7y ago
  Yes, I do believe that. However I actually would love to switch to a more kickstarter/etc like system where fans fund the creation of works they enjoy and then those works are just in the public domain / culture as a result. The creators and everyone else involved would be paid before, not after, making something.
- est31 7y ago
  They will pay, and for big famous pieces of art like GoT they'll pay lots of money, but even then it will be off by an order of magnitude of the production budget, not even calculating the marketing budgets needed to keep that fanbase.
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    Well then GoT would go away, if not enough people are willing to pay for it. The world will move on. More critical would be medical research, but I believe there is actually already lots of freely donated money for example in cancer research involved. But surely much more is needed, so the change would be with friction ... but if suddenly all the medicine can be made freely, the benefit for the current world population which mostly cannot afford expensive medicine would outweight it, I believe. (anyway all hypothetically anyway)
    - est31 7y ago
      Medical research is protected by patents, which are different from copyright. Their term is shorter (that's good) and they have exhaustion (even better). Patents protect not just medical research but also engineering research, etc. It's a good idea to have them in general, as people otherwise employ secrecy over their methods and might not invest into research at all as it's not lucrative. Software patents are a very bad idea and quite counter productive though.
      - hutzlibu 7y ago
        Sure, sure, but obviously in the hypothetical scenario of a world without copyright I meant also without patents. In general I believe the idea of intellectual property is wrong and innovation blocking. But since we live in a world with it by default, it is hard to prove it right or wrong. And it is very hard to prove it small scale, since the big industry woukd just use the work of a small inventor without any compensation if they don't have to, just like with open source. And to the point of the example of patents and secrecy I would add, that for example Elon Musk decided insome cases to not make a patent, because it is a blueprint for others. (don't have the link right now)
  - erikbye 7y ago
    Why do you keep on calling GoT art? It is just another commercial cash cow.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with you. But I'll give you this -- that I've thought the same thing before and I'd be interested in seeing more people experiment with systems around that idea. To expand on that, Kickstarter is a platform where you get people to give you money so you can make something in the future, which is... fine. But it's more of a bootstrapping platform than anything else, and it suffers from that. Kickstarter exploits people FOMO, but it's hampered by the inherent risk that the thing you're funding might never exist. I'm working on independent games right now. I haven't chosen to Kickstart them, for a lot of reasons. What I would be curious to do is to pick maybe a smaller title, completely finish it, and then put it on Kickstarter for the full amount of money I wanted to get out of it -- not just to fund it, but including my target returns. The game would be done, it would be reviewable by press, once it got funded I would just immediately put it as a free download. But I wouldn't release it until people pledged enough money to make it worth my while -- meaning not just cost of production, but revenue. In theory, exploiting FOMO but with none of the risks that the game won't be finished or that it'll turn out terrible. I've gone back and forth about the negatives there. It would be way more expensive than an average Kickstarter goal. You have to decide up-front how much money your game is going to make. And you're still fighting against the fact that fans can just say, "well, someone else should fund it." I'm not sure it's actually a feasible model in practice. But I'm really curious to see how the patron model could evolve; just not curious enough to experiment with bigger games where I need them to do well financially. I am not a copyright abolitionist. I am really interested in seeing alternative models develop, even interested enough that I might experiment in those areas in the future, but I think that there needs to be more working examples of those models before I'm willing to jump ship on copyright.
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    "but I think that there needs to be more working examples of those models before I'm willing to jump ship on copyright" I understand that. I am also not a fanatic in the sense, that I would fight towards a political change to abolish copyright (would be hopeless anyway with the current state of things). I just want to work and fight for more models of working alternatives. The linux and blender foundations and wikipedia are the best examples I know of. And I want to add another working example soon.
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  Maybe once there's no more content for them to mainline, the audience will finally go outside and have an original thought for once in their lives.
michaelmrose 7y ago
The most valuable creative works require all of one person and little technology. If all of TV and movies were lost not much would be lost. I cannot imagine configuring our society and culture to this end.
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
I work in this field. It's fine, honestly. We really don't need copyright to sustain the arts.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
So what? Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. I'd happily sacrifice all of Hollywood so that computers and the internet can remain free. What do you value more? Hollywood's shows or computing and internet freedom? That's what it comes down to. Because in order for copyright to be enforceable in the 21st century, we'd have to give up control of our computers to a higher authority. The ability to run any program we want is precisely what enables us to copy stuff without any restrictions. That's why they want to take it away. That's why they put DRM even in the hardware itself. Copyright enforcement is actually just the beginning of the end for computer freedom. Governments would also enjoy having more control over the software their citizens run. Encryption can defeat courts, militaries... Like guns, many government officials think mere citizens shouldn't have access to these things. These people don't care about computers the way we do. To them, it's just a tool to achieve their ends. When the power of the computer threatens them, they cripple the computer in order to protect themselves. I would rather see the computer's full potential realized even if it comes at the cost of these old businesses.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  I'd happily sacrifice all of Hollywood so that computers and the internet can remain free. It wouldn't just be all of Hollywood, but even if it were, who are you to make that decision for the millions of people who enjoy the creative work Hollywood produces? The rest of your argument is a straw man. It is illegal for me to drive my car at 100mph past a school, but my car doesn't have any physical means of stopping me. As a society we have agreed that this is a reasonable rule and codified it in law so everyone knows the consensus, and almost everyone complied voluntarily, and those who break the rule are penalised for it. The strange thing about copyright is that it remains mostly a civil matter, which leaves the burden of enforcement on the victim of copyright infringement and so makes enforcement of small infringements prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile, a police officer can and will arrest a 15-year-old who walks into a corner shop and gets caught stealing a chocolate bar. That anomaly in turn then leads to attempts to make enforcement of small infringements on a wide scale more viable, which gets you far from ideal solutions like the DMCA and its counterparts around the world.
  - 7y ago
u801e 7y ago
> People are working weeks, months, years, often under extreme conditions to create a work of art, like, say an episode of Game of Thrones. Not just one person, but hundreds of them. Getting such large teams to work on a project would not be possible if people could just donate for that work or something, Many people work on projects like the Linux kernel and git without any compensation.
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
There are other modes of production, for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky Maybe not to everyones taste, but it shows what is possible. Technically it is better than much of the trash Hollywood is regurgitating, though no real 'blockbuster' either. Anyways, can't wait for 'Blaxxund Nazombitchez from Vriler Haze!'

by est31 7y ago

hutzlibu 7y ago

"Getting such large teams to work on a project would not be possible if people could just donate for that work or something, because you'd get much much less money from it. " Currently yes. Because the normal person is conditioned to only pay if he or she has to. But imagine if there is sudddenly no more copyright and ... oh my god, no more episode of series xyz because of no money ... you really believe all those hardcore fans would not quickly adopt to pay freely if the result is more of the content they want, if the alternative is no more content?

mjevans 7y ago
Yes, I do believe that. However I actually would love to switch to a more kickstarter/etc like system where fans fund the creation of works they enjoy and then those works are just in the public domain / culture as a result. The creators and everyone else involved would be paid before, not after, making something.
est31 7y ago
They will pay, and for big famous pieces of art like GoT they'll pay lots of money, but even then it will be off by an order of magnitude of the production budget, not even calculating the marketing budgets needed to keep that fanbase.
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  Well then GoT would go away, if not enough people are willing to pay for it. The world will move on. More critical would be medical research, but I believe there is actually already lots of freely donated money for example in cancer research involved. But surely much more is needed, so the change would be with friction ... but if suddenly all the medicine can be made freely, the benefit for the current world population which mostly cannot afford expensive medicine would outweight it, I believe. (anyway all hypothetically anyway)
  - est31 7y ago
    Medical research is protected by patents, which are different from copyright. Their term is shorter (that's good) and they have exhaustion (even better). Patents protect not just medical research but also engineering research, etc. It's a good idea to have them in general, as people otherwise employ secrecy over their methods and might not invest into research at all as it's not lucrative. Software patents are a very bad idea and quite counter productive though.
    - hutzlibu 7y ago
      Sure, sure, but obviously in the hypothetical scenario of a world without copyright I meant also without patents. In general I believe the idea of intellectual property is wrong and innovation blocking. But since we live in a world with it by default, it is hard to prove it right or wrong. And it is very hard to prove it small scale, since the big industry woukd just use the work of a small inventor without any compensation if they don't have to, just like with open source. And to the point of the example of patents and secrecy I would add, that for example Elon Musk decided insome cases to not make a patent, because it is a blueprint for others. (don't have the link right now)
- erikbye 7y ago
  Why do you keep on calling GoT art? It is just another commercial cash cow.
danShumway 7y ago
I'm not sure I agree with you. But I'll give you this -- that I've thought the same thing before and I'd be interested in seeing more people experiment with systems around that idea. To expand on that, Kickstarter is a platform where you get people to give you money so you can make something in the future, which is... fine. But it's more of a bootstrapping platform than anything else, and it suffers from that. Kickstarter exploits people FOMO, but it's hampered by the inherent risk that the thing you're funding might never exist. I'm working on independent games right now. I haven't chosen to Kickstart them, for a lot of reasons. What I would be curious to do is to pick maybe a smaller title, completely finish it, and then put it on Kickstarter for the full amount of money I wanted to get out of it -- not just to fund it, but including my target returns. The game would be done, it would be reviewable by press, once it got funded I would just immediately put it as a free download. But I wouldn't release it until people pledged enough money to make it worth my while -- meaning not just cost of production, but revenue. In theory, exploiting FOMO but with none of the risks that the game won't be finished or that it'll turn out terrible. I've gone back and forth about the negatives there. It would be way more expensive than an average Kickstarter goal. You have to decide up-front how much money your game is going to make. And you're still fighting against the fact that fans can just say, "well, someone else should fund it." I'm not sure it's actually a feasible model in practice. But I'm really curious to see how the patron model could evolve; just not curious enough to experiment with bigger games where I need them to do well financially. I am not a copyright abolitionist. I am really interested in seeing alternative models develop, even interested enough that I might experiment in those areas in the future, but I think that there needs to be more working examples of those models before I'm willing to jump ship on copyright.
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  "but I think that there needs to be more working examples of those models before I'm willing to jump ship on copyright" I understand that. I am also not a fanatic in the sense, that I would fight towards a political change to abolish copyright (would be hopeless anyway with the current state of things). I just want to work and fight for more models of working alternatives. The linux and blender foundations and wikipedia are the best examples I know of. And I want to add another working example soon.
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
Maybe once there's no more content for them to mainline, the audience will finally go outside and have an original thought for once in their lives.

michaelmrose 7y ago

The most valuable creative works require all of one person and little technology. If all of TV and movies were lost not much would be lost. I cannot imagine configuring our society and culture to this end.

jacobwilliamroy 7y ago

I work in this field. It's fine, honestly. We really don't need copyright to sustain the arts.

matheusmoreira 7y ago

So what? Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. I'd happily sacrifice all of Hollywood so that computers and the internet can remain free. What do you value more? Hollywood's shows or computing and internet freedom? That's what it comes down to. Because in order for copyright to be enforceable in the 21st century, we'd have to give up control of our computers to a higher authority. The ability to run any program we want is precisely what enables us to copy stuff without any restrictions. That's why they want to take it away. That's why they put DRM even in the hardware itself. Copyright enforcement is actually just the beginning of the end for computer freedom. Governments would also enjoy having more control over the software their citizens run. Encryption can defeat courts, militaries... Like guns, many government officials think mere citizens shouldn't have access to these things. These people don't care about computers the way we do. To them, it's just a tool to achieve their ends. When the power of the computer threatens them, they cripple the computer in order to protect themselves. I would rather see the computer's full potential realized even if it comes at the cost of these old businesses.

Silhouette 7y ago
I'd happily sacrifice all of Hollywood so that computers and the internet can remain free. It wouldn't just be all of Hollywood, but even if it were, who are you to make that decision for the millions of people who enjoy the creative work Hollywood produces? The rest of your argument is a straw man. It is illegal for me to drive my car at 100mph past a school, but my car doesn't have any physical means of stopping me. As a society we have agreed that this is a reasonable rule and codified it in law so everyone knows the consensus, and almost everyone complied voluntarily, and those who break the rule are penalised for it. The strange thing about copyright is that it remains mostly a civil matter, which leaves the burden of enforcement on the victim of copyright infringement and so makes enforcement of small infringements prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile, a police officer can and will arrest a 15-year-old who walks into a corner shop and gets caught stealing a chocolate bar. That anomaly in turn then leads to attempts to make enforcement of small infringements on a wide scale more viable, which gets you far from ideal solutions like the DMCA and its counterparts around the world.
- 7y ago

u801e 7y ago

> People are working weeks, months, years, often under extreme conditions to create a work of art, like, say an episode of Game of Thrones. Not just one person, but hundreds of them. Getting such large teams to work on a project would not be possible if people could just donate for that work or something, Many people work on projects like the Linux kernel and git without any compensation.

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago

There are other modes of production, for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky Maybe not to everyones taste, but it shows what is possible. Technically it is better than much of the trash Hollywood is regurgitating, though no real 'blockbuster' either. Anyways, can't wait for 'Blaxxund Nazombitchez from Vriler Haze!'