4 ms·

I don't disagree with you in principle, but it's the system we have. So, 1) What's a good way to ensure that authors continue to author books while not dying o

by geofft 6y ago

I don't disagree with you in principle, but it's the system we have. So, 1) What's a good way to ensure that authors continue to author books while not dying of exposure (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something)? 2) How do we implement that system?

jancsika 6y ago
> (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something) Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about? There are other concerns certainly. But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question. It sure sounds like a conceptual anachronism to me. (Though not nearly as bad as the person who wanted to shift from discussing copying data to holding up a bank the last time this topic came up.)
- jefftk 6y ago
  I think if you talked to most authors and asked "would you still do this if it were unpaid" you'd get almost entirely "no"s. Do you expect otherwise?
  - indigochill 6y ago
    If you asked most software engineers if they'd code if it were unpaid, you'd also get mostly "no"s. And yet FOSS carries on. There are some people who simply need to create. And yes, some FOSS is subsidized by companies who pay their engineers to contribute, but there are also people who contribute on their own time.
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      > "And yet FOSS carries on." Isn't it already very well established that FOSS is currently largely being built by people employed by corporations? They are most definitely not unpaid.
    - jefftk 6y ago
      I agree that writing wouldn't go to zero. But I do think we'd get a lot less of it! (And the same if FOSS were entirely unpaid)
    - geofft 6y ago
      The amount of FOSS in the world that exists from people who contribute on their own time is a small fraction of the amount of software (total) in the world. Yes, software won't die out, but if somehow people couldn't get paid to be software engineers any more, there would be a lot less software engineering happening. It's certainly possible to argue that copyright is so bad that we should have way fewer authors and musicians in this world, such that only those who are truly passionate about writing and making music (and/or independently wealthy) will do it, but it doesn't seem to me that that's what people are arguing.
  - sjy 6y ago
    The question isn’t whether they’d work for free, it’s whether they’d work if it was impossible to generate revenue through enforceable copyrights. We know that even under these conditions, some authors would work for free, others would be paid by companies that benefit from their work other than through the sale of licensed copies, and still others would be paid by patrons and governments. It’s impossible to say whether the loss of all new works that don’t fall into these categories would outweigh the gain of all existing creative works becoming available for unlimited free use, but we can be pretty confident that there would still be more new creative works (perhaps of lower average quality) than any person could consume in a lifetime.
- geofft 6y ago
  > Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about? Yes, I've heard many authors saying that they're unhappy with the emergency library in particular because they are concerned they won't be able to get paid to write books if this happens. And, based on my training and experience, if someone isn't paid to do their job anymore, they'll look for another job. I'm aware of GitHub. I've published things to GitHub myself. Many of them I was paid to publish. There's a lot more I would publish to GitHub if I weren't writing proprietary code all day. You can go see all the pull requests I haven't responded to. I think it's absolutely true that if you gave people a way to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, they'd do work they love anyway, and I myself point to GitHub as an example of that. I think it's also true that if you don't give people a way to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, they'll find something else to do with their life that does. I've also visited Wikipedia. Here's a quote from the first person to make one million edits: "Being suddenly and involuntarily unemployed will do that to you." I think that demonstrates that if he could do something else and get paid for it, he would have.
  - pabs3 6y ago
    In case you aren't aware of it, FOSSjobs is a site where companies post jobs for working on open source. There is also a list of resources, which contains a list of a bunch of open source companies and other ways to get paid to work on open source. https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
  - jancsika 6y ago
    I thought the greater implication of your parenthetical was that there is a danger that down the line fewer books of probably less quality would end up being written. I gave an example in the context of encyclopedias where vastly more articles of at least equal quality ended up being written. I'm asking for any citation you can give of trends that go in the opposite direction of encyclopedias, music recordings, blogs, citizen journalism, propaganda, to name a few. It's my observation that when the cost to publish and read hits essentially zero the amount of content goes up, not down.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question. I can't decide whether that statement is autistic or pedantic, or both. - neither are 200 page literary works, so your comparison is very strange. I don't know anybody who goes to github for entertainment. - a lot of Wikipedia "editors" are PR firms (ie. paid) - the entire reason for copyright law was to allow authors and musicians to monetize their work, authorized by Congress. So there was an obvious need for that legislation. - Amazon's first product was books, so obviously somebody appreciates them enough to pay for them. Do github and Wikipedia replace movies in your world too?
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> What's a good way to ensure that authors continue to author books while not dying Authors should be paid for the act of writing, not the sale of the resulting work. > How do we implement that system? Crowdfunding and patronage seem to be gaining traction these days.
- geofft 6y ago
  Makes sense, at a high level. Should we cancel copyright before this system is well-established and stable? It seems like there could be arguments for it, if copyright is indeed a great abuse, but if it's not, it seems like it would be systematically better to establish the new system in parallel with copyright, and then we could argue not only that copyright is bad but it's no longer necessary. Is copyright in fact no longer necessary? How many people support crowdfunding projects with digital rewards or join programs like Patreon specifically for access to copyrighted works (whether that's because they want legal access, or because there's some form of DRM, or whatever) vs. because they are happy to support the creator anyway? That is, to what extent would getting rid of copyright also reduce the profitability of crowdfunding/patronage? (There's an inverse question - could we get rid of copyright and still have people interested in buying physical books from official sources? That is, could we change the legal mechanism but not the social one? If we think people will pay creators just because they like their work - and it seems that in fact they do - why wouldn't they buy copies of works from creators just because they like their work, even if not compelled to do so via copyright?) How do new authors (or new creators/artists of any kind, really) get a living wage via crowdfunding? I contribute to the Patreon of a couple of creators I like, but they're all established in some way - i.e. I contribute to support these particular creators not needing to participate in the system of selling licensed works for royalties, but it doesn't seem to be a systematic change. How much do creators make via crowdfunding/patronage make, anyway - do established writers tend to earn money comparable to the advances and royalties they'd get from a traditional publisher? One feature of the current system is that if your books are popular with people who don't have much money (students being one of many examples), you still get paid through taxpayer-funded libraries buying copies of your work. How should we preserve that property - should we make it a norm for your local public library to participate in patronage? Did Internet Archive do anything to advertise the crowdfunding sites of authors whose books they lent? Could they have? Related to that, is it possible for the Internet Archive to continue operating infrastructure for digital lending for creators who want to be supported for their work by letting authors post e-books and linking to crowdfunding/patronage sites?

by geofft 6y ago

jancsika 6y ago

> (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something) Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about? There are other concerns certainly. But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question. It sure sounds like a conceptual anachronism to me. (Though not nearly as bad as the person who wanted to shift from discussing copying data to holding up a bank the last time this topic came up.)

jefftk 6y ago
I think if you talked to most authors and asked "would you still do this if it were unpaid" you'd get almost entirely "no"s. Do you expect otherwise?
- indigochill 6y ago
  If you asked most software engineers if they'd code if it were unpaid, you'd also get mostly "no"s. And yet FOSS carries on. There are some people who simply need to create. And yes, some FOSS is subsidized by companies who pay their engineers to contribute, but there are also people who contribute on their own time.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    > "And yet FOSS carries on." Isn't it already very well established that FOSS is currently largely being built by people employed by corporations? They are most definitely not unpaid.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    I agree that writing wouldn't go to zero. But I do think we'd get a lot less of it! (And the same if FOSS were entirely unpaid)
  - geofft 6y ago
    The amount of FOSS in the world that exists from people who contribute on their own time is a small fraction of the amount of software (total) in the world. Yes, software won't die out, but if somehow people couldn't get paid to be software engineers any more, there would be a lot less software engineering happening. It's certainly possible to argue that copyright is so bad that we should have way fewer authors and musicians in this world, such that only those who are truly passionate about writing and making music (and/or independently wealthy) will do it, but it doesn't seem to me that that's what people are arguing.
- sjy 6y ago
  The question isn’t whether they’d work for free, it’s whether they’d work if it was impossible to generate revenue through enforceable copyrights. We know that even under these conditions, some authors would work for free, others would be paid by companies that benefit from their work other than through the sale of licensed copies, and still others would be paid by patrons and governments. It’s impossible to say whether the loss of all new works that don’t fall into these categories would outweigh the gain of all existing creative works becoming available for unlimited free use, but we can be pretty confident that there would still be more new creative works (perhaps of lower average quality) than any person could consume in a lifetime.
geofft 6y ago
> Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about? Yes, I've heard many authors saying that they're unhappy with the emergency library in particular because they are concerned they won't be able to get paid to write books if this happens. And, based on my training and experience, if someone isn't paid to do their job anymore, they'll look for another job. I'm aware of GitHub. I've published things to GitHub myself. Many of them I was paid to publish. There's a lot more I would publish to GitHub if I weren't writing proprietary code all day. You can go see all the pull requests I haven't responded to. I think it's absolutely true that if you gave people a way to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, they'd do work they love anyway, and I myself point to GitHub as an example of that. I think it's also true that if you don't give people a way to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, they'll find something else to do with their life that does. I've also visited Wikipedia. Here's a quote from the first person to make one million edits: "Being suddenly and involuntarily unemployed will do that to you." I think that demonstrates that if he could do something else and get paid for it, he would have.
- pabs3 6y ago
  In case you aren't aware of it, FOSSjobs is a site where companies post jobs for working on open source. There is also a list of resources, which contains a list of a bunch of open source companies and other ways to get paid to work on open source. https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
- jancsika 6y ago
  I thought the greater implication of your parenthetical was that there is a danger that down the line fewer books of probably less quality would end up being written. I gave an example in the context of encyclopedias where vastly more articles of at least equal quality ended up being written. I'm asking for any citation you can give of trends that go in the opposite direction of encyclopedias, music recordings, blogs, citizen journalism, propaganda, to name a few. It's my observation that when the cost to publish and read hits essentially zero the amount of content goes up, not down.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question. I can't decide whether that statement is autistic or pedantic, or both. - neither are 200 page literary works, so your comparison is very strange. I don't know anybody who goes to github for entertainment. - a lot of Wikipedia "editors" are PR firms (ie. paid) - the entire reason for copyright law was to allow authors and musicians to monetize their work, authorized by Congress. So there was an obvious need for that legislation. - Amazon's first product was books, so obviously somebody appreciates them enough to pay for them. Do github and Wikipedia replace movies in your world too?

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> What's a good way to ensure that authors continue to author books while not dying Authors should be paid for the act of writing, not the sale of the resulting work. > How do we implement that system? Crowdfunding and patronage seem to be gaining traction these days.

geofft 6y ago
Makes sense, at a high level. Should we cancel copyright before this system is well-established and stable? It seems like there could be arguments for it, if copyright is indeed a great abuse, but if it's not, it seems like it would be systematically better to establish the new system in parallel with copyright, and then we could argue not only that copyright is bad but it's no longer necessary. Is copyright in fact no longer necessary? How many people support crowdfunding projects with digital rewards or join programs like Patreon specifically for access to copyrighted works (whether that's because they want legal access, or because there's some form of DRM, or whatever) vs. because they are happy to support the creator anyway? That is, to what extent would getting rid of copyright also reduce the profitability of crowdfunding/patronage? (There's an inverse question - could we get rid of copyright and still have people interested in buying physical books from official sources? That is, could we change the legal mechanism but not the social one? If we think people will pay creators just because they like their work - and it seems that in fact they do - why wouldn't they buy copies of works from creators just because they like their work, even if not compelled to do so via copyright?) How do new authors (or new creators/artists of any kind, really) get a living wage via crowdfunding? I contribute to the Patreon of a couple of creators I like, but they're all established in some way - i.e. I contribute to support these particular creators not needing to participate in the system of selling licensed works for royalties, but it doesn't seem to be a systematic change. How much do creators make via crowdfunding/patronage make, anyway - do established writers tend to earn money comparable to the advances and royalties they'd get from a traditional publisher? One feature of the current system is that if your books are popular with people who don't have much money (students being one of many examples), you still get paid through taxpayer-funded libraries buying copies of your work. How should we preserve that property - should we make it a norm for your local public library to participate in patronage? Did Internet Archive do anything to advertise the crowdfunding sites of authors whose books they lent? Could they have? Related to that, is it possible for the Internet Archive to continue operating infrastructure for digital lending for creators who want to be supported for their work by letting authors post e-books and linking to crowdfunding/patronage sites?