5 ms·

Just because the marginal cost of a copy is zero does not mean there's no value in the information, and it's perfectly reasonable to gate access to that value.

Just because the marginal cost of a copy is zero does not mean there's no value in the information, and it's perfectly reasonable to gate access to that value. Copying a video file is free too but I'm sure you wouldn't argue that anyone can watch a movie for free just because someone else made it. People have a right to own and control the distribution of their works that they invested in creating.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> it's perfectly reasonable to gate access to that value It's also perfectly reasonable to distribute that information widely and without limits. The fact information is valuable to someone doesn't make it scarce. The harsh reality that creators need to face is that only the first copy need be paid for. > I'm sure you wouldn't argue that anyone can watch a movie for free just because someone else made it I would. Instead of charging money for copies of a movie, film makers need to figure out how to get paid before the movie is made. Creation must act like an investment, not a product. Maybe the answer is crowdfunding? Whatever it is, it needs to pay the creators before they start working so that the final result can be released into the public domain immediately. > People have a right to own and control the distribution of their works that they invested in creating. That's nothing but an illusion. Once the information is out there, it can no longer be controlled. People will copy it, distribute it, edit it, create derivative works, memes... And there's next to nothing creators can do to stop it. The work becomes part of mankind's culture. People infringe copyright every day without even realizing it. "Creators have the right to control..." sounds like a neat idea on paper but it completely breaks down when put into practice. When authors try to "exercise control over their content", we end up with websites which disable right click and create annoying pop ups when we try to copy paste. It's completely ineffective and serves only to annoy people. The only way to control information is to control all the computers that process it. Currently, it's impossible but not for lack of trying. In order to prevent infringement, the copyright industry is prepared and willing to sacrifice computing freedom: their ultimate goal is to prevent us from running "unauthorized" software. Programs that do subversive things like copy movies or play movies without checking for a valid license first would not be signed by the authorities and the processor would then refuse to execute such code. Therefore, the copyright industry is an existential threat to hackers and the free and open source software community. I'd rather sacrifice the entire copyright industry than computing freedom.
- matwood 6y ago
  > Creation must act like an investment, not a product. This is exactly how it works today, and then the investors (people who either gave money or time) hope to get their investment back plus some profit through distribution.
- manigandham 6y ago
  The law is how control is enforced. The same way we handle other unwanted or criminal actions. Just because you can do something does not give you the right or permission to do so. You can drive all over the road, or ride the train without a ticket, or walk out of the store without paying. But you wouldn't because it's against the law. As far as crowdfunding, some projects have already taken that route but the results have shown that it doesn't really support the AAA content that consumers demand. If you think you can convince millions of people to pay upfront for content, and enough to outweigh all the free consumers, then I'm sure the industry would be very happy to hear from you.
- ericathegreat 6y ago
  Why would someone pay in advance for something that they will get for free at the same time as everything else? Fundamental limitation of capitalism is that one of its goals is to acquire the maximum amount of value for yourself, while losing the minimum amount. Even the most successful Patreon users rely on "Patreon exclusive content" for their supporters to be able to make some kind of livable money.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    > Why would someone pay in advance for something that they will get for free at the same time as everything else? Because the content wouldn't get created unless they do pay. That's why worthwhile Kickstarter projects tend to reach their funding threshold, even when they're to be released for no added cost.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    That's not a goal of capitalism. It has no goals. All it means is that you, the individual, own the means to production. And you own the resulting profits or losses, regardless of how much value you create or how efficient you are in the process.
coldpie 6y ago
> People have a right to own and control the distribution of their works that they invested in creating. I don't agree. People should be paid for the work they do, yes, but look at all the crap we've had to put up with for trying to restrict an infinite supply. The right model is to pay people to do work, not to pay them for having done work. Yes, it's hard to transition from one model to the other, but the inability to control copying in the Internet age is a simple fact. Gravity makes flying airplanes hard, too. Deal with it.
- Ajedi32 6y ago
  That's an interesting perspective. What system would you propose to allow people to be "paid to do" this sort of creative work in a fair manner? Particularly since it's not always clear what the value of that work is until you see the finished product. (E.g. It's possible for two movies with identical multi-million dollar budgets to be produced, and one to turn out to be unwatchable garbage and the other a masterpiece that everyone loves.)
  - coldpie 6y ago
    It's a good question, and I don't know. Perhaps some model like Patreon; perhaps just having voluntary payments (actually not dissimilar to what we have now, which seems to be working reasonably well); perhaps sponsored by wealthy individuals or corporations; perhaps something I haven't thought of. People would figure it out, and we could finally stop trying to pretend that you can prevent computers from copying bits.
    - Zonulet 6y ago
      I am an author in the middle of my career. I make my living on book sales. Personally I would prefer not to gamble my survival on this airy assumption that "people would figure it out".
- manigandham 6y ago
  What did you have to put up with? How do you pay people to "do work" instead of "done work"? What's that mean exactly?
sergeykish 6y ago
Interestingly a lot of films (like Transformers and Fast and Furious franchises) cost a lot, yet are incredibly boring. Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner had much smaller budget. And Youtube rocks on modest earnings. It is like AAA vs indie games - Undertale is incredible (as many AAA games are). I do not argue against ownership. Just of ability of big money to hide lack of story. It happens that books live in most open (paper) and most close (DRM hardware) variants. Somehow reminds Elsevier and arXiv. I'm glad I don't have to run DRM hardware for software development and this conversation.
- manigandham 6y ago
  That's an entirely different issue. There are still good movies being made but the high budget blockbusters have to appeal to an ever broader audience, often with international releases, so the story is usually just mediocre enough to pass.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Yes, sorry if that was not clear, there are good movies. I mean can it be that current system is not fair to the customer? We compare ownership with physical object. What if movie is not good? Can I get a refund? File is in perfect condition. Companies spent a lot on advertisement, some products I would consider fraud. Trailers usually the only good parts of the movie. Yet it is aired from every corner. Part of book store experience is reading. I have a lot of child books, I like them all, we read again and again. When kid grown up he can present them, donate or sell. In my mind Internet Archive made mistake. Not better than cracking Windows or jailbraking iPhone. These should become niche products, no need to advertise them, better help other communities.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> it's perfectly reasonable to gate access to that value It's also perfectly reasonable to distribute that information widely and without limits. The fact information is valuable to someone doesn't make it scarce. The harsh reality that creators need to face is that only the first copy need be paid for. > I'm sure you wouldn't argue that anyone can watch a movie for free just because someone else made it I would. Instead of charging money for copies of a movie, film makers need to figure out how to get paid before the movie is made. Creation must act like an investment, not a product. Maybe the answer is crowdfunding? Whatever it is, it needs to pay the creators before they start working so that the final result can be released into the public domain immediately. > People have a right to own and control the distribution of their works that they invested in creating. That's nothing but an illusion. Once the information is out there, it can no longer be controlled. People will copy it, distribute it, edit it, create derivative works, memes... And there's next to nothing creators can do to stop it. The work becomes part of mankind's culture. People infringe copyright every day without even realizing it. "Creators have the right to control..." sounds like a neat idea on paper but it completely breaks down when put into practice. When authors try to "exercise control over their content", we end up with websites which disable right click and create annoying pop ups when we try to copy paste. It's completely ineffective and serves only to annoy people. The only way to control information is to control all the computers that process it. Currently, it's impossible but not for lack of trying. In order to prevent infringement, the copyright industry is prepared and willing to sacrifice computing freedom: their ultimate goal is to prevent us from running "unauthorized" software. Programs that do subversive things like copy movies or play movies without checking for a valid license first would not be signed by the authorities and the processor would then refuse to execute such code. Therefore, the copyright industry is an existential threat to hackers and the free and open source software community. I'd rather sacrifice the entire copyright industry than computing freedom.

matwood 6y ago
> Creation must act like an investment, not a product. This is exactly how it works today, and then the investors (people who either gave money or time) hope to get their investment back plus some profit through distribution.
manigandham 6y ago
The law is how control is enforced. The same way we handle other unwanted or criminal actions. Just because you can do something does not give you the right or permission to do so. You can drive all over the road, or ride the train without a ticket, or walk out of the store without paying. But you wouldn't because it's against the law. As far as crowdfunding, some projects have already taken that route but the results have shown that it doesn't really support the AAA content that consumers demand. If you think you can convince millions of people to pay upfront for content, and enough to outweigh all the free consumers, then I'm sure the industry would be very happy to hear from you.
ericathegreat 6y ago
Why would someone pay in advance for something that they will get for free at the same time as everything else? Fundamental limitation of capitalism is that one of its goals is to acquire the maximum amount of value for yourself, while losing the minimum amount. Even the most successful Patreon users rely on "Patreon exclusive content" for their supporters to be able to make some kind of livable money.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > Why would someone pay in advance for something that they will get for free at the same time as everything else? Because the content wouldn't get created unless they do pay. That's why worthwhile Kickstarter projects tend to reach their funding threshold, even when they're to be released for no added cost.
- manigandham 6y ago
  That's not a goal of capitalism. It has no goals. All it means is that you, the individual, own the means to production. And you own the resulting profits or losses, regardless of how much value you create or how efficient you are in the process.

coldpie 6y ago

> People have a right to own and control the distribution of their works that they invested in creating. I don't agree. People should be paid for the work they do, yes, but look at all the crap we've had to put up with for trying to restrict an infinite supply. The right model is to pay people to do work, not to pay them for having done work. Yes, it's hard to transition from one model to the other, but the inability to control copying in the Internet age is a simple fact. Gravity makes flying airplanes hard, too. Deal with it.

Ajedi32 6y ago
That's an interesting perspective. What system would you propose to allow people to be "paid to do" this sort of creative work in a fair manner? Particularly since it's not always clear what the value of that work is until you see the finished product. (E.g. It's possible for two movies with identical multi-million dollar budgets to be produced, and one to turn out to be unwatchable garbage and the other a masterpiece that everyone loves.)
- coldpie 6y ago
  It's a good question, and I don't know. Perhaps some model like Patreon; perhaps just having voluntary payments (actually not dissimilar to what we have now, which seems to be working reasonably well); perhaps sponsored by wealthy individuals or corporations; perhaps something I haven't thought of. People would figure it out, and we could finally stop trying to pretend that you can prevent computers from copying bits.
  - Zonulet 6y ago
    I am an author in the middle of my career. I make my living on book sales. Personally I would prefer not to gamble my survival on this airy assumption that "people would figure it out".
manigandham 6y ago
What did you have to put up with? How do you pay people to "do work" instead of "done work"? What's that mean exactly?

sergeykish 6y ago

Interestingly a lot of films (like Transformers and Fast and Furious franchises) cost a lot, yet are incredibly boring. Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner had much smaller budget. And Youtube rocks on modest earnings. It is like AAA vs indie games - Undertale is incredible (as many AAA games are). I do not argue against ownership. Just of ability of big money to hide lack of story. It happens that books live in most open (paper) and most close (DRM hardware) variants. Somehow reminds Elsevier and arXiv. I'm glad I don't have to run DRM hardware for software development and this conversation.

manigandham 6y ago
That's an entirely different issue. There are still good movies being made but the high budget blockbusters have to appeal to an ever broader audience, often with international releases, so the story is usually just mediocre enough to pass.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Yes, sorry if that was not clear, there are good movies. I mean can it be that current system is not fair to the customer? We compare ownership with physical object. What if movie is not good? Can I get a refund? File is in perfect condition. Companies spent a lot on advertisement, some products I would consider fraud. Trailers usually the only good parts of the movie. Yet it is aired from every corner. Part of book store experience is reading. I have a lot of child books, I like them all, we read again and again. When kid grown up he can present them, donate or sell. In my mind Internet Archive made mistake. Not better than cracking Windows or jailbraking iPhone. These should become niche products, no need to advertise them, better help other communities.