4 ms·

If you agree that people should be rewarded for their contributions, then you should support a system which does that. The system of paying for zero-marginal-co

by tszyn 15y ago

If you agree that people should be rewarded for their contributions, then you should support a system which does that. The system of paying for zero-marginal-cost copies at least attempts to reward people proportionally to the perceived value of their work. Surely that's better than no system at all. Creating a system that rewards desirable behavior is the job of regulators. I don't see why we should succumb to defeatist claims like "It's all over. Just accept that your work is now worthless". No, we should do something about it, just like we are tackling pollution, crime, etc. One crucial step would be to make it easy for a creator to sell their work over the Web with a one-click interface, like buying an iPhone app. (BTW, I agree with the "less badly" assessment. Capitalism has been known to reward total crap.)

joebadmo 15y ago
It's not no system at all. It's capitalism. I guess I think capitalism is a sufficient system for people to get rewarded, generally. And I think copyright introduces lots of opportunity for abuse, as well as introducing weird notions (like "intellectual property") into the culture. I don't like that people think they can own ideas. Just look at the state of patents. I suppose you could introduce technologies that make it so cheap and easy to buy music that it's not worth the effort to pirate, but I don't see that as a very good source of revenue. I think things like what Amanda Palmer is doing are great. I also think Kickstarter shows that we're only just beginning to see the possibilities for new ways to reward people for their contributions without having to resort to extra regulations. In short, my attitude is not defeatist, it's optimistic for a decentralized, entrepeneurial, directly participatory future of art and culture! And, btw, thanks so much for the lively discussion (on this and the other thread) without devolving into flaminess! I feel enriched for having had the exchange.
- tszyn 15y ago
  I haven't seen a single workable model (other than copyright) that rewards creative work rather than "added services" like performing concerts. What if you're a writer or an independent software developer? What if you are a 40-year-old musician with a family, and cannot be on tour for the better part of the year? What if you are terrible live, but a great composer? I think the best approach is to reward the actual creative activity, not "added services". It's a basic management principle: reward for what is actually valuable. For example, if you ask programmers to provide their software for free and charge for support services (which is often proposed as a substitute for per-copy charges), you are incentivizing them to design hard-to-use software. Similarly, if musicians are only able to make money on concerts, this will incentivize the creation of music that sounds good live (not all good music does) and caters to the concert-going demographic (usu. young people with no families). Kickstarter is nice, but I don't see it as a real source of income. How many people are going to pay for the promise of a product vs. for the actual product? I don't know what Amanda Palmer is doing. From what I can tell from her site, it's the "live shows + t-shirts" model I've already discussed. I don't know what abuse of copyright you have in mind, but I am the first to argue that copyright law should be reformed. I would shorten the copyright term, for example. Finally, I would like to address something you've brought up repeatedly in this thread: the issue of zero marginal cost. There is no rule that says that the cost of something should be equal to its marginal cost. Do you believe the cost of a book should be the cost of the paper + distribution? Or that if there are free seats at a movie screening, I should be legally allowed to watch that movie for free (since the marginal cost of another viewer is zero)? Time to wrap up. Thanks for the discussion. I would like to change somebody's mind on the Internet just once. So far it hasn't happened (I've been on the Web for 16 years). Maybe next year will be the year.
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    Your point about added services is interesting, but a bit askew, I think. For a performing artist, the actual creative activity is the performance. For no one is the actual creative act the distribution of recordings. A 40 y/o musician with a family might not have a market. Some people don't. A great composer might have to sell to other musicians. This is already a thing. I think Kickstarter is potentially game-changing. Not only can you market-test an idea before you even execute it, but you can form a relationship with your audience and form a community. People don't really know about it yet, but I for one would gladly fund the efforts of some of my favorite artists. Amanda Palmer isn't just doing concerts and t-shirts. She's doing all kinds of stuff like comics, weird collaborations, short films, plays, etc. She's doing everything and seeing what sticks, but she's also always forming relationships with her audience. re marginal cost: I think it's a fairly basic rule of economics, that in a competitive market, the price of a product falls to its marginal cost. I wasn't making a moral judgment, just an economic observation. Maybe you're arguing that this is a special circumstance that doesn't apply? I'm curious as to how. re changing my mind: I was for intellectual property before I was against it. Someone on the internet changed my mind. It happens, probably not very often, but it does. I guess a pertinent question is: what would it take to change your mind?
    - tszyn 15y ago
      I said you have to reward for the value that is provided to society. That's the ideal system. For a recording musician or independent software developer, value is demonstrated when people use their work. That's why the reward must be tied to the use of the product. If you proposed another system in which a recording (not performing!) artist or software publisher gets rewarded proportionally to the value people place on their work, then I might be convinced that copyright should go away. Kickstarter is interesting and if it worked, it might be able to fulfill this need, but I am not optimistic because it encourages free-riding. If I'm a fan of Stephen King, it does not make sense for me to fund his next book on Kickstarter. The optimal strategy is to wait for others to bear the cost, then consume the work for free (since there's no copyright). I'm not absolutely certain that Kickstarter won't work, but I wouldn't bet on it. I am not okay with saying "if you're a musician with a family, then you'd better find another job". A recording musician with a family can produce valuable works of art. In an ideal world, he would produce these works and society would reward him. For me the only question is, how to bring about that ideal world? Copyright is closer to that world than free copying. re: economics: I'm not sure why you're bringing up that economic rule. We are talking about what SHOULD HAPPEN, not what HAPPENS in a free-market economy. I don't think either of us believes the free market equilibrium is always optimal for society. Arguing whether that rule really holds (and BTW I don't think it does in the real world) would serve no purpose here. re intellectual property: Notice that if there were no IP laws at all, then I could take someone's song and claim I wrote it. Then I could make money by performing it. I mean, once we accept that intellectual property doesn't exist and that the original creator doesn't own his creation in any way, what's to stop me? I think you actually support a middle-ground system, where I am allowed to make a copy of anything and give it to anyone, but I am NOT allowed to profit from it -- only the creator gets to do that. If so, then you support IP to some degree. (Just an observation. No real argument here.) re changing your mind: Did you change your mind in an Internet discussion or after reading some article? The latter seems much more likely to me. In a public discussion, people never say "Your arguments convinced me and now I believe the opposite of what I said in the beginning." Doing so would mean conceding the other party's intellectual superiority and would make one appear inconsistent. The best you'll get is something like "Okay, there's some merit in what you're saying, but...". Translation: "Alright, you won this one, but don't think you're such a smartass". The desire to be consistent means the more times you publicly state your point of view, the more invested you become in it. So each subsequent exchange between you and me actually decreases the probability that one of us will change his mind. If either of us changes his mind, it will be long after this public exchange is over. This makes convincing strangers on the Internet a very unrewarding activity, as I will probably never find out if you changed your mind eventually (and vice versa). You may want to check out this talk by Jaron Lanier. He was not the one who convinced me of the value of copyright, but his book ("You Are Not A Gadget") provides some nice examples and arguments. http://zocalopublicsquare.org/full_video.php?event_id=359&video= http://zocalopublicsquare.org/full_video.php?event_id=359&#3...

by tszyn 15y ago

joebadmo 15y ago

It's not no system at all. It's capitalism. I guess I think capitalism is a sufficient system for people to get rewarded, generally. And I think copyright introduces lots of opportunity for abuse, as well as introducing weird notions (like "intellectual property") into the culture. I don't like that people think they can own ideas. Just look at the state of patents. I suppose you could introduce technologies that make it so cheap and easy to buy music that it's not worth the effort to pirate, but I don't see that as a very good source of revenue. I think things like what Amanda Palmer is doing are great. I also think Kickstarter shows that we're only just beginning to see the possibilities for new ways to reward people for their contributions without having to resort to extra regulations. In short, my attitude is not defeatist, it's optimistic for a decentralized, entrepeneurial, directly participatory future of art and culture! And, btw, thanks so much for the lively discussion (on this and the other thread) without devolving into flaminess! I feel enriched for having had the exchange.

tszyn 15y ago
I haven't seen a single workable model (other than copyright) that rewards creative work rather than "added services" like performing concerts. What if you're a writer or an independent software developer? What if you are a 40-year-old musician with a family, and cannot be on tour for the better part of the year? What if you are terrible live, but a great composer? I think the best approach is to reward the actual creative activity, not "added services". It's a basic management principle: reward for what is actually valuable. For example, if you ask programmers to provide their software for free and charge for support services (which is often proposed as a substitute for per-copy charges), you are incentivizing them to design hard-to-use software. Similarly, if musicians are only able to make money on concerts, this will incentivize the creation of music that sounds good live (not all good music does) and caters to the concert-going demographic (usu. young people with no families). Kickstarter is nice, but I don't see it as a real source of income. How many people are going to pay for the promise of a product vs. for the actual product? I don't know what Amanda Palmer is doing. From what I can tell from her site, it's the "live shows + t-shirts" model I've already discussed. I don't know what abuse of copyright you have in mind, but I am the first to argue that copyright law should be reformed. I would shorten the copyright term, for example. Finally, I would like to address something you've brought up repeatedly in this thread: the issue of zero marginal cost. There is no rule that says that the cost of something should be equal to its marginal cost. Do you believe the cost of a book should be the cost of the paper + distribution? Or that if there are free seats at a movie screening, I should be legally allowed to watch that movie for free (since the marginal cost of another viewer is zero)? Time to wrap up. Thanks for the discussion. I would like to change somebody's mind on the Internet just once. So far it hasn't happened (I've been on the Web for 16 years). Maybe next year will be the year.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Your point about added services is interesting, but a bit askew, I think. For a performing artist, the actual creative activity is the performance. For no one is the actual creative act the distribution of recordings. A 40 y/o musician with a family might not have a market. Some people don't. A great composer might have to sell to other musicians. This is already a thing. I think Kickstarter is potentially game-changing. Not only can you market-test an idea before you even execute it, but you can form a relationship with your audience and form a community. People don't really know about it yet, but I for one would gladly fund the efforts of some of my favorite artists. Amanda Palmer isn't just doing concerts and t-shirts. She's doing all kinds of stuff like comics, weird collaborations, short films, plays, etc. She's doing everything and seeing what sticks, but she's also always forming relationships with her audience. re marginal cost: I think it's a fairly basic rule of economics, that in a competitive market, the price of a product falls to its marginal cost. I wasn't making a moral judgment, just an economic observation. Maybe you're arguing that this is a special circumstance that doesn't apply? I'm curious as to how. re changing my mind: I was for intellectual property before I was against it. Someone on the internet changed my mind. It happens, probably not very often, but it does. I guess a pertinent question is: what would it take to change your mind?
  - tszyn 15y ago
    I said you have to reward for the value that is provided to society. That's the ideal system. For a recording musician or independent software developer, value is demonstrated when people use their work. That's why the reward must be tied to the use of the product. If you proposed another system in which a recording (not performing!) artist or software publisher gets rewarded proportionally to the value people place on their work, then I might be convinced that copyright should go away. Kickstarter is interesting and if it worked, it might be able to fulfill this need, but I am not optimistic because it encourages free-riding. If I'm a fan of Stephen King, it does not make sense for me to fund his next book on Kickstarter. The optimal strategy is to wait for others to bear the cost, then consume the work for free (since there's no copyright). I'm not absolutely certain that Kickstarter won't work, but I wouldn't bet on it. I am not okay with saying "if you're a musician with a family, then you'd better find another job". A recording musician with a family can produce valuable works of art. In an ideal world, he would produce these works and society would reward him. For me the only question is, how to bring about that ideal world? Copyright is closer to that world than free copying. re: economics: I'm not sure why you're bringing up that economic rule. We are talking about what SHOULD HAPPEN, not what HAPPENS in a free-market economy. I don't think either of us believes the free market equilibrium is always optimal for society. Arguing whether that rule really holds (and BTW I don't think it does in the real world) would serve no purpose here. re intellectual property: Notice that if there were no IP laws at all, then I could take someone's song and claim I wrote it. Then I could make money by performing it. I mean, once we accept that intellectual property doesn't exist and that the original creator doesn't own his creation in any way, what's to stop me? I think you actually support a middle-ground system, where I am allowed to make a copy of anything and give it to anyone, but I am NOT allowed to profit from it -- only the creator gets to do that. If so, then you support IP to some degree. (Just an observation. No real argument here.) re changing your mind: Did you change your mind in an Internet discussion or after reading some article? The latter seems much more likely to me. In a public discussion, people never say "Your arguments convinced me and now I believe the opposite of what I said in the beginning." Doing so would mean conceding the other party's intellectual superiority and would make one appear inconsistent. The best you'll get is something like "Okay, there's some merit in what you're saying, but...". Translation: "Alright, you won this one, but don't think you're such a smartass". The desire to be consistent means the more times you publicly state your point of view, the more invested you become in it. So each subsequent exchange between you and me actually decreases the probability that one of us will change his mind. If either of us changes his mind, it will be long after this public exchange is over. This makes convincing strangers on the Internet a very unrewarding activity, as I will probably never find out if you changed your mind eventually (and vice versa). You may want to check out this talk by Jaron Lanier. He was not the one who convinced me of the value of copyright, but his book ("You Are Not A Gadget") provides some nice examples and arguments. http://zocalopublicsquare.org/full_video.php?event_id=359&video= http://zocalopublicsquare.org/full_video.php?event_id=359&#3...