4 ms·

This is very shortsighted. People are motivated by wealth. Paper books cannot be copied for free but ebooks can, same thing with music. The creators must be com

This is very shortsighted. People are motivated by wealth. Paper books cannot be copied for free but ebooks can, same thing with music. The creators must be compensated or the content that you enjoy would cease to exist.

arch-ninja 6y ago
I've had similar thoughts, and my conclusion is that most copy-able assets should be copy-able. The real value is in discovery and curation, which may be sold as a subscription. Many companies already realize this, and DRM requirements are set by 1 stockholder who pushes for it and nobody can give a good reason why it would hurt paying customers.
- kgwxd 6y ago
  The subscription model seems generally good for the consumer but terrible for the creators. As a customer, I really like the Bandcamp model. I can't directly speak for the creator side of things but I feel like that would get them a far better cut.
  - genghizkhan 6y ago
    The issue is that if you have a model which is bad for consumers it doesn’t matter how awesome it is for creators. It won’t work out.
  - arch-ninja 6y ago
    Never thought of it from the creators perspective. Thanks for giving me a new problem to solve during quarantine! I'm 100% certain there is an ideal system to manage every human problem, it's just a matter of investigation.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    How is it terrible for creators exactly? I don't quite know what you mean. Streamers often complain about the "always on" nature but that seems more related to having to handle building engagement as well. Patreon is a popular enough that there are several clones for whatever content they exclude to help their image ranging from taboo porn to extremists. The payment stream seems peripheral to the deal they get. Creators get screwed in publication models as well. The best deal I can see in a "Netflix" style package is a bit tracky in having a maintainer cut and a time weighted service by the consumers under the logic that if 1 work is why you are there it deserves the share more than anything you don't consume while among N works each matters a bit less. More content grows the pie but it is fixdd share. Heavy users pay the same as light but that is because metering and surprise bills are too stressing and loses customers combined with a marginal real cost.
    - kgwxd 6y ago
      I ment subscription to service like Spotify or Netflix. Direct subscription to streamers is something I do often, but that doesn't work for music and movies.
  - hvis 6y ago
    Why is it bad for the creators? Currently, I hardly ever buy ebooks (maybe like 1-2 per year), mostly because I hate DRM and the hassle that comes with stripping it off. A monthly 4$ subscription to a store where all books of the world are available would make the industry see a lot more of my money. Surely that would be good for the creators.
    - Noos 6y ago
      How on earth would any author make money from you paying $4 a month? Why don't we pay all computer programmers $10 an hour, that's pretty much the price equivalent of paying what you ask.
      - hvis 6y ago
        From economies of scale. The authors where I am the only reader won't make on writing alone either way.
gjs278 6y ago
nope. just let the idiots pay for the books. we can steal them. same reason piracy didn’t kill netflix even though it’s trivial to get all the shows.
jp555 6y ago
Music was being made LONG before there was a music industry. Creating value and collecting a portion of the value created are completely different skill sets. You can't put them together by just saying it MUST BE SO. That's the "central committee" approach and history has shown that while it appears attractive, it will more likely destroy it all.
sneak 6y ago
None of what you wrote seems to me to be a justification for DRM.
sn41 6y ago
Very few content-creators get a fair royalty. DRM is mostly about publisher wealth, not creator wealth. I think selling books for 25 cents etc. can result in massive sales. There is a middle-ground between selling overpriced editions with small changes in between, and outright piracy. Digital formats allow large-scale distribution, so pricing copies for under a dollar makes piracy not that attractive, when following the law and your conscience comes so cheap. But somehow publishers want it all - the large scale distribution possibility of the digital medium, and the margins of the print medium.
- Zenbit_UX 6y ago
  You need to consider perceived value, most of the books I buy are $9.99-14.99 and if I saw a new book come out for $0.25 my first reaction would be Wtf, then probably: did a child write this?
  - justaguyhere 6y ago
    Maybe a middle ground, like what Louis C.K did. He was selling his videos for $5 at one point, if I remember correctly - directly from his website, cutting out the middlemen. Yes, one can buy it and send it to all their friends, but the price is low enough that many people would just buy it..
  - crtasm 6y ago
    Then you spot other books at a similar price and maybe something that directly interests you, and your assumptions change.
butdotheytho 6y ago
honestly, having given it much thought, i don't think this is actually the case. all i can say in a short comment on my reasoning is: 1. works of art done for love or the need to share are peices of content probably worth spending very valuable time on 2. works of art created for money are inevitably optimising for wasting your life - films and books are dragged out to series that largely go no where, vacuous music and media is created in the hope of getting you to spend money, not expanding your mind and adding to the value of society 3. historically this doesn't really seem to have been an issue. if you are good you can make money out of commissions and guest appearances or signed copies etc. this is not perfect, but it certainly makes it more likely money will go to the creator rather than a distributor. - note also the current system is far from perfect and many creators suffer from its failures today 4. nothing is done in isolation: inevitably you created your thing based on what you learned from others and opportunities society gave you.. but most importantly the value comes from other people need, NOT your creation - ability to write code is not valuable, removing someones problem is. 5. controlling and restricting the ability for other to create as they are not creating how some right holder wants seems drastically counter productive and greatly slows progress and de-motivates people who could be adding to society. 6. if we got better about respecting what others had contributed to our ideas (as we felt less need to hoard them) then overall i think people would be worried less when its someone else take on their idea that "makes it big". if thre was less ot be gained financially, it would remove incentives for deceit. i suppose in summary, i think that you should create out of love and because you think that thing needs creating. if all "for profit" inventions and art were to vanish from existence, i don't actually think we would be missing much. there is no race we are trying to win with progress and there is no final state to get to.
interestica 6y ago
Why don't you pay for recipes?
- waynenilsen 6y ago
  Many people do pay for the best ones. Recipe books are still very popular. Most people pay for their recipes by viewing ads.

arch-ninja 6y ago

I've had similar thoughts, and my conclusion is that most copy-able assets should be copy-able. The real value is in discovery and curation, which may be sold as a subscription. Many companies already realize this, and DRM requirements are set by 1 stockholder who pushes for it and nobody can give a good reason why it would hurt paying customers.

kgwxd 6y ago
The subscription model seems generally good for the consumer but terrible for the creators. As a customer, I really like the Bandcamp model. I can't directly speak for the creator side of things but I feel like that would get them a far better cut.
- genghizkhan 6y ago
  The issue is that if you have a model which is bad for consumers it doesn’t matter how awesome it is for creators. It won’t work out.
- arch-ninja 6y ago
  Never thought of it from the creators perspective. Thanks for giving me a new problem to solve during quarantine! I'm 100% certain there is an ideal system to manage every human problem, it's just a matter of investigation.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  How is it terrible for creators exactly? I don't quite know what you mean. Streamers often complain about the "always on" nature but that seems more related to having to handle building engagement as well. Patreon is a popular enough that there are several clones for whatever content they exclude to help their image ranging from taboo porn to extremists. The payment stream seems peripheral to the deal they get. Creators get screwed in publication models as well. The best deal I can see in a "Netflix" style package is a bit tracky in having a maintainer cut and a time weighted service by the consumers under the logic that if 1 work is why you are there it deserves the share more than anything you don't consume while among N works each matters a bit less. More content grows the pie but it is fixdd share. Heavy users pay the same as light but that is because metering and surprise bills are too stressing and loses customers combined with a marginal real cost.
  - kgwxd 6y ago
    I ment subscription to service like Spotify or Netflix. Direct subscription to streamers is something I do often, but that doesn't work for music and movies.
- hvis 6y ago
  Why is it bad for the creators? Currently, I hardly ever buy ebooks (maybe like 1-2 per year), mostly because I hate DRM and the hassle that comes with stripping it off. A monthly 4$ subscription to a store where all books of the world are available would make the industry see a lot more of my money. Surely that would be good for the creators.
  - Noos 6y ago
    How on earth would any author make money from you paying $4 a month? Why don't we pay all computer programmers $10 an hour, that's pretty much the price equivalent of paying what you ask.
    - hvis 6y ago
      From economies of scale. The authors where I am the only reader won't make on writing alone either way.

gjs278 6y ago

nope. just let the idiots pay for the books. we can steal them. same reason piracy didn’t kill netflix even though it’s trivial to get all the shows.

jp555 6y ago

Music was being made LONG before there was a music industry. Creating value and collecting a portion of the value created are completely different skill sets. You can't put them together by just saying it MUST BE SO. That's the "central committee" approach and history has shown that while it appears attractive, it will more likely destroy it all.

sneak 6y ago

None of what you wrote seems to me to be a justification for DRM.

sn41 6y ago

Very few content-creators get a fair royalty. DRM is mostly about publisher wealth, not creator wealth. I think selling books for 25 cents etc. can result in massive sales. There is a middle-ground between selling overpriced editions with small changes in between, and outright piracy. Digital formats allow large-scale distribution, so pricing copies for under a dollar makes piracy not that attractive, when following the law and your conscience comes so cheap. But somehow publishers want it all - the large scale distribution possibility of the digital medium, and the margins of the print medium.

Zenbit_UX 6y ago
You need to consider perceived value, most of the books I buy are $9.99-14.99 and if I saw a new book come out for $0.25 my first reaction would be Wtf, then probably: did a child write this?
- justaguyhere 6y ago
  Maybe a middle ground, like what Louis C.K did. He was selling his videos for $5 at one point, if I remember correctly - directly from his website, cutting out the middlemen. Yes, one can buy it and send it to all their friends, but the price is low enough that many people would just buy it..
- crtasm 6y ago
  Then you spot other books at a similar price and maybe something that directly interests you, and your assumptions change.

butdotheytho 6y ago

honestly, having given it much thought, i don't think this is actually the case. all i can say in a short comment on my reasoning is: 1. works of art done for love or the need to share are peices of content probably worth spending very valuable time on 2. works of art created for money are inevitably optimising for wasting your life - films and books are dragged out to series that largely go no where, vacuous music and media is created in the hope of getting you to spend money, not expanding your mind and adding to the value of society 3. historically this doesn't really seem to have been an issue. if you are good you can make money out of commissions and guest appearances or signed copies etc. this is not perfect, but it certainly makes it more likely money will go to the creator rather than a distributor. - note also the current system is far from perfect and many creators suffer from its failures today 4. nothing is done in isolation: inevitably you created your thing based on what you learned from others and opportunities society gave you.. but most importantly the value comes from other people need, NOT your creation - ability to write code is not valuable, removing someones problem is. 5. controlling and restricting the ability for other to create as they are not creating how some right holder wants seems drastically counter productive and greatly slows progress and de-motivates people who could be adding to society. 6. if we got better about respecting what others had contributed to our ideas (as we felt less need to hoard them) then overall i think people would be worried less when its someone else take on their idea that "makes it big". if thre was less ot be gained financially, it would remove incentives for deceit. i suppose in summary, i think that you should create out of love and because you think that thing needs creating. if all "for profit" inventions and art were to vanish from existence, i don't actually think we would be missing much. there is no race we are trying to win with progress and there is no final state to get to.

interestica 6y ago

Why don't you pay for recipes?

waynenilsen 6y ago
Many people do pay for the best ones. Recipe books are still very popular. Most people pay for their recipes by viewing ads.