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1. "we both know that taking somebody's work, for nothing, against their wishes, is not cool." I'm really not sure I agree with that. "Civilisation is built o

1. "we both know that taking somebody's work, for nothing, against their wishes, is not cool." I'm really not sure I agree with that. "Civilisation is built on mutual respect of rights." Which rights are you talking about in this case exactly? The only one I can detect from your position is the right to be compensated for your work, which doesn't sound like a natural right at all. 2. Well, my position is that a lot of artists are suffering now, under the thumbs of the dinosaurs (to mix metaphors) you're trying to defend. In the future, those artists (as well as those industry players) who cannot or will not adapt will suffer. "In your brave new world, The Beatles would have continued touring pub venues and only the lucky few who got to see them would realise how much they stood out from the 10,000 other bands doing the same thing." But in my brave new world, I actually get to take part in deciding who stands out and who doesn't, instead of waiting for big labels to tell me, and I can rapidly communicate my decision to many other people very quickly. I take a more direct, decentralized stake in my cultural heritage. I find this pleasing. "religious and aristocratic patronage as a primary 'business model' royally sucked" I wasn't saying it was great. I was saying that artists adapt to the circumstances. They will continue to do so. "why the copyright model and the arts have thrived over the last few hundred years" I neither grant this premise, nor understand the causal connection you present. "Its why we get to watch 100MM budget movies." I've found that by my own measure, in the last couple of decades, the quality of a movie has had a generally inversely proportional relationship with the size of its budget. My theory explaining this is that with a larger investment, you need a broader base audience and relatively "safe" content, which translates to bland, soulless, lowest common denominator fare. I'll be happy to see this die. "It's a bloody good system and it's a crying shame to throw it away just because of piracy." I really don't think it's a good system at all. Its primary purpose was to promote continued innovation and creation. I've yet to see convincing evidence that it has done so, or that innovation and creation would suffer in its absence. BTW: Thanks for indulging the argument without resorting to the ugliness that so many of these threadsd tend to devolve into. Even if neither of us convince the other, I find this exchange meaningful and clarifying of my own thoughts. I hope you feel the same.

Tycho 15y ago
The copyright model and the arts have thrived for the last few centuries because copyright was such a vast improvement on what came before it. It led to an explosion of creativity and entertainment industry. Now while a fatted arts industry will always contribute a lot of bloated, formulaic works (although I think people would have to admit that even the more braindead hollywood titles have a lot going for them beyond the plot and script), it also allows big money to spent on worthwhile projects. Think of all the great movies that have been made in the last 70 years - they may not have been the most expensive for their time but they were generally still pretty damn costly to make. And even the shoe-string budget attempts probably would not have been made if the possibility for a massive pay-day did not exist (eg. Blair Witch Project). I think people have got their priorities mixed up. Accessing art is not the problem. We have limited leisure time to spend, so even if we could, we would not want to buy every album/movie/book we could. These items are cheap, though, so since price is not really a concern, our worry should be ensuring that artists and the creative industries have economically viable roles. And do we really want to live in a world where the quality of the TV and film output never rises above the level of, say, Spain?
- joebadmo 15y ago
  "The copyright model and the arts have thrived for the last few centuries because copyright was such a vast improvement on what came before it. It led to an explosion of creativity and entertainment industry." You keep saying this and I keep not believing that that's all there was to it. It was also a matter of people having way more disposable income and leisure time than ever before, as well as the means of production becoming readily available to the masses. You're also mostly talking about an era during which the marginal cost of distribution was significantly greater than zero. That's not the case anymore. "our worry should be ensuring that artists and the creative industries have economically viable roles" I disagree with this. I think most of our enduring works of art come from a time before copyright. Some, e.g. works of oral tradition like Homer, the Ramayana, the Bible, Gilgamesh, etc. actually depend on the unrestricted free exchange of ideas. We just passed through a historical window in which the confluence of surplus disposable income and leisure and scarce distribution models made a few artists very rich (but a few corporations even richer). I would argue that this was never an optimal distribution. Anyway, it's coming to a close. Art will go on. "And do we really want to live in a world where the quality of the TV and film output never rises above the level of, say, Spain?" The only Spanish works I'm familiar with are Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and various films by Pedro Almodovar. They were better than anything on, for example, this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films#Most_expensive_productions_.28adjusted_for_inflation.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films#Mo...

Tycho 15y ago

The copyright model and the arts have thrived for the last few centuries because copyright was such a vast improvement on what came before it. It led to an explosion of creativity and entertainment industry. Now while a fatted arts industry will always contribute a lot of bloated, formulaic works (although I think people would have to admit that even the more braindead hollywood titles have a lot going for them beyond the plot and script), it also allows big money to spent on worthwhile projects. Think of all the great movies that have been made in the last 70 years - they may not have been the most expensive for their time but they were generally still pretty damn costly to make. And even the shoe-string budget attempts probably would not have been made if the possibility for a massive pay-day did not exist (eg. Blair Witch Project). I think people have got their priorities mixed up. Accessing art is not the problem. We have limited leisure time to spend, so even if we could, we would not want to buy every album/movie/book we could. These items are cheap, though, so since price is not really a concern, our worry should be ensuring that artists and the creative industries have economically viable roles. And do we really want to live in a world where the quality of the TV and film output never rises above the level of, say, Spain?

joebadmo 15y ago
"The copyright model and the arts have thrived for the last few centuries because copyright was such a vast improvement on what came before it. It led to an explosion of creativity and entertainment industry." You keep saying this and I keep not believing that that's all there was to it. It was also a matter of people having way more disposable income and leisure time than ever before, as well as the means of production becoming readily available to the masses. You're also mostly talking about an era during which the marginal cost of distribution was significantly greater than zero. That's not the case anymore. "our worry should be ensuring that artists and the creative industries have economically viable roles" I disagree with this. I think most of our enduring works of art come from a time before copyright. Some, e.g. works of oral tradition like Homer, the Ramayana, the Bible, Gilgamesh, etc. actually depend on the unrestricted free exchange of ideas. We just passed through a historical window in which the confluence of surplus disposable income and leisure and scarce distribution models made a few artists very rich (but a few corporations even richer). I would argue that this was never an optimal distribution. Anyway, it's coming to a close. Art will go on. "And do we really want to live in a world where the quality of the TV and film output never rises above the level of, say, Spain?" The only Spanish works I'm familiar with are Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and various films by Pedro Almodovar. They were better than anything on, for example, this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films#Most_expensive_productions_.28adjusted_for_inflation.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films#Mo...