3 ms·

We've had two decades to envision alternative funding models for music production, and all of them are substantially worse for the musician than "assign a creat

We've had two decades to envision alternative funding models for music production, and all of them are substantially worse for the musician than "assign a creator's monopoly to the musician and civil liabilities for those who fail to negotiate proper licenses to it". Free markets are designed to allocate scarce goods; with the corollary any person whose work is not scarce does not get to eat. Ergo, if you want certain kinds of nonscarce goods to be made, you need to make them artificially scarce for some limited period. This is particular to creative works. Free Software gets around this with lots of subsidies, commodified complements, corporate investment, and occasional labors of love. The fact that software is highly collaborative and that licenses like the GPL exist helps. A handful of collaborating developers can produce a spare-time project that is actually useful to other people who will sponsor development of further improvements to the project. Music does not work that way.

falcolas 6y ago
I largely agree with this. If you want music to be libre, someone needs to subsidize the cost of creation: The wages for the musicians for one-two months, the wages of the technicians, the rent for the studio, and also subsidize the cost of writing the song in the first place. The current paradigm amortizes those costs among all listeners of a song, with some profit for the facilitators.
- ccsnags 6y ago
  An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it. This does not require legal fiction. Entire genres of music have been created from inexpensive musical equipment and free software. Art has never been more accessible to the people than it is now.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it. Then we simply never get their work. Some people would absolutely continue to create for the fun of it, but they'll remain the minority. Movies you'd watch in a Theater? Completely gone. Commercially funded TV shows, gone. A vast majority of books, written by full time writers and researchers, gone. And I'll also posit that most music would go away too. Even the amateurs I know expect to be paid for a gig. Most musicians are not willing to busk for a living. And, don't forget, software development relies heavily upon Copyright as well (licenses, your work-for-hire, etc).
    - breck 6y ago
      If everyone who threatens to stop creating content if they can't enslave ideas, were to stop creating content, the world would be a better place. The idea that people would stop creating is absurd. I work in Cancer Research and the absolute least contributing people in the medical industry are the ones obsessed with patenting and copyrighting their work, which is usually garbage and of frivolous value compared to the hard grunt work of millions of unsung heroes grinding it out for non-monopoly wages. I was an engineer at Microsoft and the average code there was total garbage compared to the open source code powering top public domain projects. And no modern epic is significantly better than Ἰλιάς. Every letter we are using; every word; every bit of tooling; was made by other people in a long pyramid stretching back tens of thousands of years and billions of people wide. All of us are putting grains of sand on top.
      - falcolas 6y ago
        > the world would be a better place. Really? Sounds pretty terrible to me. Few books. Few videogames. No movies. No TV shows. Most of the internet obliterated. Any content that is created is copied and regurgitated so much you'd be hard pressed find out who actually created it. I personally like consuming entertainment. I work with the creative side of my brain all day long, and being able to go home and turn it off with some relatively mindless entertainment (my form is a combination of books and videogames). I'd hate to come home one day and only have a zero budget, poorly tested, game to play, or a book that I've already re-read enough to quote it by memory. > And no modern epic is significantly better than Ἰλιάς. Pure opinion. And in any case, there's only one Iliad. There's hundreds of other "modern" epics out there - many of which I find more entertaining, though they are not as literarily significant. > the open source code powering top public domain projects Is it worth re-iterating that all of the open source licenses is supported by copyright protections? > All of us are putting grains of sand on top. Which obviously has its own value, as aptly demonstrated by the entertainment industry as a whole being valued in the trillions of dollars.
        breck 6y ago
        > Really? Sounds pretty terrible to me. Few books. Few videogames. No movies. No TV shows. Most of the internet obliterated. This is such bullsht. First of all, the fcking Internet is public domain tech (DARPA, Web). Second, the evidence is overwhelming that people will create vast amounts of content without any idea enslavement rights. According to your logic we wouldn't have janitors cleaning rooms if they couldn't collect a toll in perpetuity. > Any content that is created is copied and regurgitated so much you'd be hard pressed find out who actually created it. Here's a hint: no one. You created zero of the 25 letters you used in that comment, zero of the punctation marks, zero of the 184 words. You strung some words together in a unique arrangement, but you are piggybacking on a vast amount of effort which you contributed effectively zilch too. And you think your contributions deserve special treatment? What a f*cking joke. > Is it worth re-iterating that all of the open source licenses is supported by copyright protections? I don't support licenses. Licenses are for losers. Public domain is the only game that matters. Keep in mind that the tool we are using to communicate was made public domain by Tim Berners Lee.
cwkoss 6y ago
Music is a passion and hobby for many. People would still make music if the didn't make money from it. Might have lower production quality and less glitzy marketing, but the vast quantity of free music out there is proof that many will continue making music regardless of financial incentive.

falcolas 6y ago

I largely agree with this. If you want music to be libre, someone needs to subsidize the cost of creation: The wages for the musicians for one-two months, the wages of the technicians, the rent for the studio, and also subsidize the cost of writing the song in the first place. The current paradigm amortizes those costs among all listeners of a song, with some profit for the facilitators.

ccsnags 6y ago
An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it. This does not require legal fiction. Entire genres of music have been created from inexpensive musical equipment and free software. Art has never been more accessible to the people than it is now.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it. Then we simply never get their work. Some people would absolutely continue to create for the fun of it, but they'll remain the minority. Movies you'd watch in a Theater? Completely gone. Commercially funded TV shows, gone. A vast majority of books, written by full time writers and researchers, gone. And I'll also posit that most music would go away too. Even the amateurs I know expect to be paid for a gig. Most musicians are not willing to busk for a living. And, don't forget, software development relies heavily upon Copyright as well (licenses, your work-for-hire, etc).
  - breck 6y ago
    If everyone who threatens to stop creating content if they can't enslave ideas, were to stop creating content, the world would be a better place. The idea that people would stop creating is absurd. I work in Cancer Research and the absolute least contributing people in the medical industry are the ones obsessed with patenting and copyrighting their work, which is usually garbage and of frivolous value compared to the hard grunt work of millions of unsung heroes grinding it out for non-monopoly wages. I was an engineer at Microsoft and the average code there was total garbage compared to the open source code powering top public domain projects. And no modern epic is significantly better than Ἰλιάς. Every letter we are using; every word; every bit of tooling; was made by other people in a long pyramid stretching back tens of thousands of years and billions of people wide. All of us are putting grains of sand on top.
    - falcolas 6y ago
      > the world would be a better place. Really? Sounds pretty terrible to me. Few books. Few videogames. No movies. No TV shows. Most of the internet obliterated. Any content that is created is copied and regurgitated so much you'd be hard pressed find out who actually created it. I personally like consuming entertainment. I work with the creative side of my brain all day long, and being able to go home and turn it off with some relatively mindless entertainment (my form is a combination of books and videogames). I'd hate to come home one day and only have a zero budget, poorly tested, game to play, or a book that I've already re-read enough to quote it by memory. > And no modern epic is significantly better than Ἰλιάς. Pure opinion. And in any case, there's only one Iliad. There's hundreds of other "modern" epics out there - many of which I find more entertaining, though they are not as literarily significant. > the open source code powering top public domain projects Is it worth re-iterating that all of the open source licenses is supported by copyright protections? > All of us are putting grains of sand on top. Which obviously has its own value, as aptly demonstrated by the entertainment industry as a whole being valued in the trillions of dollars.
      - breck 6y ago
        > Really? Sounds pretty terrible to me. Few books. Few videogames. No movies. No TV shows. Most of the internet obliterated. This is such bullsht. First of all, the fcking Internet is public domain tech (DARPA, Web). Second, the evidence is overwhelming that people will create vast amounts of content without any idea enslavement rights. According to your logic we wouldn't have janitors cleaning rooms if they couldn't collect a toll in perpetuity. > Any content that is created is copied and regurgitated so much you'd be hard pressed find out who actually created it. Here's a hint: no one. You created zero of the 25 letters you used in that comment, zero of the punctation marks, zero of the 184 words. You strung some words together in a unique arrangement, but you are piggybacking on a vast amount of effort which you contributed effectively zilch too. And you think your contributions deserve special treatment? What a f*cking joke. > Is it worth re-iterating that all of the open source licenses is supported by copyright protections? I don't support licenses. Licenses are for losers. Public domain is the only game that matters. Keep in mind that the tool we are using to communicate was made public domain by Tim Berners Lee.

cwkoss 6y ago

Music is a passion and hobby for many. People would still make music if the didn't make money from it. Might have lower production quality and less glitzy marketing, but the vast quantity of free music out there is proof that many will continue making music regardless of financial incentive.