3 ms·

So if you write a book, and sell it for $20, and I make a copy of your book and sell it for $10, you are ok with this?

breck 4y ago
That question and more answered here: https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html
- Vaslo 4y ago
  Or you could just answer the question here as it was asked instead of getting hits for your site.
  - breck 4y ago
    > instead of getting hits for your site. Here you go, get the full site without hitting my web server: `git clone https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com` > just answer the question >> So if you write a book, and sell it for $20, and I make a copy of your book and sell it for $10, you are ok with this? If I make a hammer, and sell it for $20, and the person I sell it to uses it to make more hammers that he sells for $10, are you okay with this? Your question shows a shallowness of thinking. What is a book? Did you come up with 100% of the words in the book? If not, are you tracking down and compensating all the people who invented the words you used (or their ancestors?). What about the letters? Let's talk about the machinery you used to print the book. Are you providing a "royalty" to the printing press manufacturer? The problem with me wasting my time is that your question is so basic and shows such lack of thought that I can't distinguish whether you are being genuine or are a paid shill by the (c)opywrong regime out there muddying the waters. And yes, there are a tremendous amount of paid shills out there spreading false and dishonest information about (c)opywrongs.
    - jagged-chisel 4y ago
      Hammers require physical materials to reproduce. (Aside: there’s nothing in current IP law that precludes a profit by the manufacturer on my physical tool design. A patented design just means I can charge for a license to manufacture my design.) Back to digital books: how does an author get paid for writing when there’s no legal protection for his work? It costs nothing for any customer to forward along copies. Without laws to allow a temporary monopoly, the author might see a few sales. Pricing one’s time for so few sales (ergo higher prices) will inevitably encourage further free copying. In a society of capitalism, where would the motivation to create (and iterate, and hone) come from without a monopoly on copying? If the naysayers of IP laws want to advocate for a different, non-capitalist paradigm, that’s fine. But the lack of intellectual rigor behind the “eliminate IP laws” argument isn’t everyone else’s fault when they fail to make it convincing.
      - breck 4y ago
        > how does an author get paid for writing when there’s no legal protection for his work? How do cotton farm owners make money if they have to pay their employees? Saying we need (c)opywrong laws to have creative content is like saying we need slavery to have cotton. It's just completely false and absurd.
        jagged-chisel 4y ago
        And yet again you fail to explain. Labor laws make sure employees get paid. It's the farmer's job to price his product with his own margin in it. So how does this apply to creative digital artists? Are you suggesting that they all need to be employed by someone else? How does THAT person make money on the digital product? Seems to me you don't have a completely formed thought around this entire concept and therefore can't explain.
        breck 4y ago
        Lol. The United States government employs more knowledge workers than all other companies (see NIH, DoD, CDC, NASA, NOAA, NWS, et cetera). Everything they produce is public domain, by law. And yet, they still get paid! You are arguing for slavery on behalf of slaveowners. We don't need slavery. We still have cotton even after the 13th Amendment (we actually have more and better cotton now), and we will still have creative works after the passing of the Intellectual Freedom Amendment (we actually will have more and better creative works). You are on the wrong side of history.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  No, it isn't. Perhaps the point you are trying to make would be clearer if you quoted what in that link answers the question?
- jagged-chisel 4y ago
  > "But shouldn't creators be paid for their work?" Yes. Pay them upon delivery. Not a satisfactory answer. Delivery to whom? Once the creator has “delivered” a digital creation to a paying customer, all other customers can take “delivery” from previous customers and never pay the creator again. So the question still stands: how does a creator of works (especially digital works) actually get paid for their work without temporary legal monopoly on their creation?
  - breck 4y ago
    > So the question still stands: how does a creator of works (especially digital works) actually get paid for their work without temporary legal monopoly on their creation? How do cotton farms still make money even after slavery was abolished in the United States? They found a way! Turns out, you don't need slavery. But I understand, those who have a lot of slaves do not want to give up their power.
mistercow 4y ago
What I really wonder is if we replaced copyright laws with plagiarism laws, how would that shake out? That is, you can distribute my work however you want, but you can't claim it's yours, and you can't claim that I'm being compensated if you charge for it. The question I think is interesting here is: can you still be an author without being lucky enough to gain celebrity that you can slurp value out of (e.g. endorsements, etc.)? Certainly there would be plenty of freeloading. I don't think there would be much reselling, except for extremely low margin stuff on the level of print-on-demand, because it would be easy enough for buyers to just get the content for free. But there would also certainly be social pressure to compensate creators for their work. What I wonder is how that balances out when CC-BY is the norm and not some weird thing that most consumers are learning about for the first time when they see a donate link.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Interesting idea, and I think social pressure probably would have worked pretty well in the pre internet days. But anonymity for the buyer and seller would ruin it, I think.
carapace 4y ago
What if (and I'm spitballing here) people didn't write to make money? (That might sound snarky but I don't mean it that way.) - - - - It seems to me that we will see a kind of memetic evolution: some folks will develop a culture of giving credit and money to original authors, while others will develop a culture of free-for-all. Often you'll have different standards for different realms or subjects. E.g. I pay for books often and gladly, but software seldom and then only if I truly can't find a FOSS solution (has never yet happened BTW.) - - - - Really it's kinda regressive to try to make money selling hardcopies of books: it makes way more economic sense to let the books go where they will and then trade on your fame to sell t-shirts or whatever. ("10k rabid fans" and all that.)

That question and more answered here: https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html

Vaslo 4y ago
Or you could just answer the question here as it was asked instead of getting hits for your site.
- breck 4y ago
  > instead of getting hits for your site. Here you go, get the full site without hitting my web server: `git clone https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com` > just answer the question >> So if you write a book, and sell it for $20, and I make a copy of your book and sell it for $10, you are ok with this? If I make a hammer, and sell it for $20, and the person I sell it to uses it to make more hammers that he sells for $10, are you okay with this? Your question shows a shallowness of thinking. What is a book? Did you come up with 100% of the words in the book? If not, are you tracking down and compensating all the people who invented the words you used (or their ancestors?). What about the letters? Let's talk about the machinery you used to print the book. Are you providing a "royalty" to the printing press manufacturer? The problem with me wasting my time is that your question is so basic and shows such lack of thought that I can't distinguish whether you are being genuine or are a paid shill by the (c)opywrong regime out there muddying the waters. And yes, there are a tremendous amount of paid shills out there spreading false and dishonest information about (c)opywrongs.
  - jagged-chisel 4y ago
    Hammers require physical materials to reproduce. (Aside: there’s nothing in current IP law that precludes a profit by the manufacturer on my physical tool design. A patented design just means I can charge for a license to manufacture my design.) Back to digital books: how does an author get paid for writing when there’s no legal protection for his work? It costs nothing for any customer to forward along copies. Without laws to allow a temporary monopoly, the author might see a few sales. Pricing one’s time for so few sales (ergo higher prices) will inevitably encourage further free copying. In a society of capitalism, where would the motivation to create (and iterate, and hone) come from without a monopoly on copying? If the naysayers of IP laws want to advocate for a different, non-capitalist paradigm, that’s fine. But the lack of intellectual rigor behind the “eliminate IP laws” argument isn’t everyone else’s fault when they fail to make it convincing.
    - breck 4y ago
      > how does an author get paid for writing when there’s no legal protection for his work? How do cotton farm owners make money if they have to pay their employees? Saying we need (c)opywrong laws to have creative content is like saying we need slavery to have cotton. It's just completely false and absurd.
      - jagged-chisel 4y ago
        And yet again you fail to explain. Labor laws make sure employees get paid. It's the farmer's job to price his product with his own margin in it. So how does this apply to creative digital artists? Are you suggesting that they all need to be employed by someone else? How does THAT person make money on the digital product? Seems to me you don't have a completely formed thought around this entire concept and therefore can't explain.
        breck 4y ago
        Lol. The United States government employs more knowledge workers than all other companies (see NIH, DoD, CDC, NASA, NOAA, NWS, et cetera). Everything they produce is public domain, by law. And yet, they still get paid! You are arguing for slavery on behalf of slaveowners. We don't need slavery. We still have cotton even after the 13th Amendment (we actually have more and better cotton now), and we will still have creative works after the passing of the Intellectual Freedom Amendment (we actually will have more and better creative works). You are on the wrong side of history.
shkkmo 4y ago
No, it isn't. Perhaps the point you are trying to make would be clearer if you quoted what in that link answers the question?
jagged-chisel 4y ago
> "But shouldn't creators be paid for their work?" Yes. Pay them upon delivery. Not a satisfactory answer. Delivery to whom? Once the creator has “delivered” a digital creation to a paying customer, all other customers can take “delivery” from previous customers and never pay the creator again. So the question still stands: how does a creator of works (especially digital works) actually get paid for their work without temporary legal monopoly on their creation?
- breck 4y ago
  > So the question still stands: how does a creator of works (especially digital works) actually get paid for their work without temporary legal monopoly on their creation? How do cotton farms still make money even after slavery was abolished in the United States? They found a way! Turns out, you don't need slavery. But I understand, those who have a lot of slaves do not want to give up their power.

mistercow 4y ago

What I really wonder is if we replaced copyright laws with plagiarism laws, how would that shake out? That is, you can distribute my work however you want, but you can't claim it's yours, and you can't claim that I'm being compensated if you charge for it. The question I think is interesting here is: can you still be an author without being lucky enough to gain celebrity that you can slurp value out of (e.g. endorsements, etc.)? Certainly there would be plenty of freeloading. I don't think there would be much reselling, except for extremely low margin stuff on the level of print-on-demand, because it would be easy enough for buyers to just get the content for free. But there would also certainly be social pressure to compensate creators for their work. What I wonder is how that balances out when CC-BY is the norm and not some weird thing that most consumers are learning about for the first time when they see a donate link.

fallingknife 4y ago
Interesting idea, and I think social pressure probably would have worked pretty well in the pre internet days. But anonymity for the buyer and seller would ruin it, I think.

carapace 4y ago

What if (and I'm spitballing here) people didn't write to make money? (That might sound snarky but I don't mean it that way.) - - - - It seems to me that we will see a kind of memetic evolution: some folks will develop a culture of giving credit and money to original authors, while others will develop a culture of free-for-all. Often you'll have different standards for different realms or subjects. E.g. I pay for books often and gladly, but software seldom and then only if I truly can't find a FOSS solution (has never yet happened BTW.) - - - - Really it's kinda regressive to try to make money selling hardcopies of books: it makes way more economic sense to let the books go where they will and then trade on your fame to sell t-shirts or whatever. ("10k rabid fans" and all that.)