4 ms·
I am a big supporter of copyright reform. However, I think we do need some nuance when it comes to comparing OSS and multimedia/creative work. On OSS, the only
by Thorentis 6y ago
I am a big supporter of copyright reform. However, I think we do need some nuance when it comes to comparing OSS and multimedia/creative work.
On OSS, the only people working on it are people that a) volunteer to work on it b) people that are paid by a larger organisation to work on it (e.g. given x hours/week to work on OSS).
In film/TV, people do not volunteer to act, or edit footage, or operate cameras. Yes, there are indie films, and indie creators. They're all over YouTube. But big budget AAA effects cost money, and somebody has to pay for them. There has to be an incentive to create this content that is monetary.
Now, I am personally in favour of reeling back copyright to only protect the profiting off of work (i.e. only the original creator can sell copies of their work for a limited period of time), but anybody is free to reproduce without profit. And then after x period of time (10 years for instance), anybody is free to also sell it or use it in commercial works/adaptations.
I see no societal benefit to content creators being rewarded in perpetuity. You wrote a great book? Cool, you can profit from it for 10 years as a reward for your work. After that, you can make money doing speaking tours, or interviews, etc. Guaranteeing royalties for a book that I can go and borrow from a library, or for a film I can go watch at a friends place, for longer than around 10 years does not make any sense.
- WalterBright 6y ago> But big budget AAA effects cost money, and somebody has to pay for them. On the other hand, why does society need movies that cost $100 million to make? (Much of that being what the stars cost.) > In film/TV, people do not volunteer to act, or edit footage, or operate cameras. Programmers didn't do it much for free before OSS. > Yes, there are indie films, and indie creators. They're all over YouTube. Exactly. > There has to be an incentive to create this content that is monetary. Does there? Before OSS, people said the same thing about software.
- Thorentis 6y ago> Programmers didn't do it much for free before OSS. Yes they did. Most people started their programming careers by doing it for free at home. The 70s and 80s was full of people working on coding projects and sharing it with friends. This is what the OSS movement was born out of. The reason people don't make high quality films as much for free, is because the equipment and much more expensive. And it also requires a coolocated team. It's just a very different ball game, and I don't think you can compare them.
- WalterBright 6y agoYeah, there were hobbyists doing it. They weren't writing professional quality software, though.
- zaarn 6y ago>On the other hand, why does society need movies that cost $100 million to make? (Much of that being what the stars cost.) I personally like some of these big budget movies. This reminds me of when I was talking on reddit about OSS games and if it would work if everyone did OSS games. I countered to another comment that modern games require a lot of money because artists have to put in a lot of work to make the music and textures and images, coders have to put out a lot of lines of code, etc. To which the reply was "I don't like these games anyway, I prefer text-based games without any of that." That reply isn't wrong per-se, it just misses the target. Maybe you question why it's necessary or you simply don't enjoy them. But other people do and taking away something they enjoy needs to be weighed against why you're taking it away.
- WalterBright 6y agoI do enjoy (some) of them. But I often find a lower budget movie more enjoyable as the tend to concentrate more on having a better plot and wittier dialog. In any case, if LOTR is what I have to give up in order to get an explosion of creativity by removing most copyright barriers, it's a fair trade.
- zaarn 6y agoI don't think it's an entirely fair trade.
- Chris2048 6y ago> why does society need movies that cost $100 million to make? Why don't they need them? Who decides what is worthy? The best answer is - the market. Ignore these movies and they might as well not exist for you.
- WalterBright 6y agoMy point is there's a heavy cost to society in the form of extensive copyright protections. Are the relatively few blockbuster movies worth compromising everything else? For example, myself and my buddies cannot create a new Star Trek episode, or a mashup of existing ST footage. I cannot create music that samples other tunes. Etc.
- Chris2048 6y agoWhat is the high cost to society? If you want to mashup media that you have not created, you are essentially consuming that medium, or leveraging its fan-base despite not funding its growth. This applies to both large blockbusters, and small indie projects, that expect compensation.
- int_19h 6y agoThe market you speak about is itself artificial, created by the copyright regime that we have, and its specific rules. Who decides the rules?