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Thanks for this comment, I have been thinking of alternative ways for compensating artists and almost always conclude that it is, indeed, the state that needs t

Thanks for this comment, I have been thinking of alternative ways for compensating artists and almost always conclude that it is, indeed, the state that needs to take charge of it. Though I guess the problem is a little bit more complex in that, in reality, an artist is not only an artist in the USA but a world-wide phenomenon. So that complicates things a bit. What was most surprising was the number in sales which is significantly lower than I expected and most definitely something that can be managed. I also quite favor a pre-funding stage for top artists. Brandon Sanderson recently had a kickstarter for a couple new books and he raised I think around 40 millions dollars for it. Though this to me highlighted the exact problem with copyright, how is it that a popular author is capable of funding their entire life several times over with a kickstarter campaign but their works are not public? Isn't he kind of doubling down? Of course, people are willing to pay. But I think in order to change the system, which to me is clearly broken, solidarity from top artists is necessary. Don't think we will get that anytime soon though, as artists at the top benefit from the current situation much more than they would in any other regime.

dredmorbius 4y ago
Globally, you can effectively divide markets into roughly the 1 billion inhabitants of advanced industrialised nations, largely in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia/NZ, and the 7 billion others. You could reduce this somewhat to the G7: US, EU, UK, Japan, and Canada, and individually France, Germany, and Italy. Australia and NZ are among the notable exclusions. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7> Combined, the G7 have 10 percent of global population (roughly 800 million), whilst accounting for half of global net worth and 32--46% of global GDP. I'd be reasonably comfortable with some construct based around a core of the G7 underwriting the bulk of global knowledge creation. They already do, though there's notable cultural creation as well in India (Bollywood) and China (no toponym of which I'm aware). There's the question of independent creation outside the advanced core and how that might best be compensated, especially where those works aren't widely accessed from industrialised countries. I'd still suggest a similar general framework. But in general: compensation would be within countries or economic unions, paid by residents of those regions to creators within them. Pre-production financing might be achieved within such a system as well, if production companies or studios were organised as recipients, particularly for large-scale creative works. That ... doesn't seem like a deal-breaker, and there's long-standing precedent in the form of commissioned works, artistic creative organisations (theatres, orchestras, etc.), which have managed long-term sustained funding. Mechanical royalties for any remotely-viewed / streamed productions would seem to offer greater stability and equality of opportunity in such regards.

dredmorbius 4y ago

Globally, you can effectively divide markets into roughly the 1 billion inhabitants of advanced industrialised nations, largely in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia/NZ, and the 7 billion others. You could reduce this somewhat to the G7: US, EU, UK, Japan, and Canada, and individually France, Germany, and Italy. Australia and NZ are among the notable exclusions. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7> Combined, the G7 have 10 percent of global population (roughly 800 million), whilst accounting for half of global net worth and 32--46% of global GDP. I'd be reasonably comfortable with some construct based around a core of the G7 underwriting the bulk of global knowledge creation. They already do, though there's notable cultural creation as well in India (Bollywood) and China (no toponym of which I'm aware). There's the question of independent creation outside the advanced core and how that might best be compensated, especially where those works aren't widely accessed from industrialised countries. I'd still suggest a similar general framework. But in general: compensation would be within countries or economic unions, paid by residents of those regions to creators within them. Pre-production financing might be achieved within such a system as well, if production companies or studios were organised as recipients, particularly for large-scale creative works. That ... doesn't seem like a deal-breaker, and there's long-standing precedent in the form of commissioned works, artistic creative organisations (theatres, orchestras, etc.), which have managed long-term sustained funding. Mechanical royalties for any remotely-viewed / streamed productions would seem to offer greater stability and equality of opportunity in such regards.