9 ms·

Let me first state that I'm in basically total agreement with OP and mostly agree with parent, but one point sticks in my craw: >> The point is that this is my

by sequoia 15y ago

Let me first state that I'm in basically total agreement with OP and mostly agree with parent, but one point sticks in my craw: >> The point is that this is my decision. >Granting the creator such rights takes them away from everyone else. Why is that justified? Why should one person, the creator, be able to tell other people what they can and cannot do? http://thegatheringplacehome.myfastforum.org/archive/life-lessons-the-little-red-hen__o_t__t_1606.html http://thegatheringplacehome.myfastforum.org/archive/life-le... "Granting the hen the right to distribute (or not) the bread takes that right away from everyone else. How is this justified?" asked the cow. Um, because the hen made the fucking bread, and the cow didn't. I think that our copyright system is bad, and I personally take similar stance to OP vis-a-vis Big Media, but you'll notice that OPs arguments are pragmatic. "You don't provide a good product" "You hurt me with the fees I pay" "The UX of pirating is better." He's attacking the lazy industry for litigating rather than innovating, attacking the middlemen who are McDucking in swimming pools of cash, and attacking their specious arguments about how you're "hurting the artist" (Funny coming from them: record companies aren't generally known for their generous behavior towards artists). Nowhere does he say "no one should have control over their own works."

ThomPete 15y ago
The second an artist is trying to mass produce they are businessmen not artists anymore. The artist didn't make the ability to produce in large numbers and distribute at zero cost, that is what technology did. A technology that served the labels and musicians for one hundred years. Now it is turning on them and they start to complain. Bo freaking ho. People make music without making a single dime on it. Great music in fact fantastic music. The big artists are big because the record labels and IP laws make them big. Not because they through some fair game was the best of the crop.
- sequoia 15y ago
  And I suppose charging for a concert makes them a filthy businessman as well. Should I get to choose whether or not I must pay to see them play live?
  - ThomPete 15y ago
    Of course not, that requires their physical presence and physical distribution. Very different.
    - sequoia 15y ago
      Their "physical distribution" by means of a complex technological infrastructure involving microphones, amplifiers, speakers, lighting, electricity etc. etc., which, as you point out, "the artist didn't make," but which the artist wishes to leverage in order to make a greater profit. The argument of "well you didn't invent TCP/IP so you can't expect to make money distributing digital copies of your music" is the slipperiest of slippery slopes, as none of us personally created all the technologies we use to make a living. I use a laptop, text editor, and web browser, none of which I created: have I forfeit my right to make a living as a web developer? It seems that the simplest, most generic expression of your argument (correct me if I'm wrong) is "No one can reasonably expect to make money on anything which can be reproduced digitally, and this is more or less fair." I disagree.
      - ThomPete 15y ago
        You keep confusing the two. If I take an microphone from you, you don't have an microphone. If I copy a song from you, you still have the song yourself. It might be that you don't see the difference but I do and therein is our disagreement.
        reinhardt 15y ago
        "If I take an microphone from you, you don't have an microphone." ..and so I have to buy a new one if we both want to have one at the same time. "If I copy a song from you, you still have the song yourself." Awesome, we can just buy one then and split the cost! But why stop there? Let's also give a copy to Tom, Dick and Harry so that each pays 20%! Now, what if we could somehow share the song and the cost with a hundred million people across the world..
- gravitronic 15y ago
  Part of me hopes that your vision becomes reality and all financially backed art falls apart.. just so you, ThomPete, can live in a world that shitty and know that this is what you wanted. Enjoy your cat videos.
  - ThomPete 15y ago
    Do you even know how much great great great music gets created without ever making a single dime.
    - Czarnian 15y ago
      Leaving aside the rather obvious question of what makes you think your taste in music is superior to anyone else, how much MORE of that great, great, great music would get created if the artists didn't have to wash dishes for 10 hours a day to make rent and eat? Every hour you have to spend working a day job is an hour you can't spend creating.
      - ThomPete 15y ago
        This is getting silly. I am telling you that even with the music you like whatever that is there is plenty of great music that you never have heard of and never will. That's how it is in all genres of music.
        jiggy2011 15y ago
        Let's assume we are discussing modern music not Bach or something. There are of course good musicians who distribute their music monetarily free but how much of it is explicitly copyright free (i.e libre not gratis)? I know a number of aspiring musicians who if a large media company took their music and redistributed it under a different name with different people lip syncing to their vocals then boy would they be pissed.
  - praptak 15y ago
    Yeah, a totally shitty world with those crappy pre-copyright amateurs like Shakespeare and without the great art of Justin Bieber. The horror, the horror.
- troll24601 15y ago
  I assume that once you pitch designs to one of your clients, it's fine with you if they photograph it, copy it, and never pay you a dime? People love design, and do great design without making a single dime on it. The rich designers are rich because professional networking, big companies and IP laws make them big. Not because they were the best of the crop. Boo Freaking Hoo. Real designers do it for love. Only phonies want to get paid.
  - ThomPete 15y ago
    First of all I have had plenty of my ideas, designs etc. copied. I don't care cause at the end of the day it doesn't matter. I don't know why you guys keep arguing the same misguided argument. Here is the difference. When I design for a client I put in the work and design specifically to to them. I am in other words a performing artist. I don't just send them a CD with the same design I did for all my other clients. Are you really telling me that you can't see the difference here? I am not saying artists shouldn't make money so there is no need to repeat the same tired claim. This is about whether it's a right to make money on mass-producing CDs?
    - jiggy2011 15y ago
      Part of the reason you are paid so much as a designer who works "for hire" either employed or as a freelancer is that your client wants something unique. Let's assume that there is no copyright. You get a contract from a client to design them a logo , website and smartphone app to promote their business. However your client knows that if a competitor wishes to copy their entire website including logo and app etc they can do so with impunity so all that they will get from whatever sum they invest in your work is a slight first mover advantage and probably the better the work you do the more likely someone else is to copy it. How much do you think they are willing to pay you for your work now?
      - ThomPete 15y ago
        A competitor can do that today. In fact that happens all the time, even among creatives. Do you know how many songs are stealing of each other? Should we tell musicians to pay for the licks and riffs they takes from someone else music and incorporate into his how?
- tatsuke95 15y ago
  I'm not sure why the down votes? Look, I'm as business-oriented as anyone here, but this is the truth. Art can be profitable for the artist, but whether it is or isn't, it's still happening. People will create sculptures to admire and music to dance to. The distribution stream was invented far, far later. Let's not conflate the creation of the art and the business of selling it.
fabjan 15y ago
So the hen should control what the cow does with any bread the hen chooses to give the cow?
- sequoia 15y ago
  No, the cow should- the cow is like the pirate- the cow should, I mean the hen should- let me back up for a minute: the mill is like the DNS system, and the oven is like RIAA, so the hen should be able to give bread to the co- shoot, now I'm all confused.
hxa7241 15y ago
> because the hen made the fucking bread, and the cow didn't Yes, we could say that work justifies payment (very simply and roughly). But that is not in dispute. It is that it does not justify payment by a particular means -- one that restricts the freedom (to copy etc.) of others. And -- you will forgive me if I am mistaken -- I am afraid inclusion of the word 'fucking' does not quite cover that. Does payment depend, necessarily, on restriction of copying? No, it does not. It is possible to be paid in other ways -- that do not impose on other freedoms. Then in the most general sense, that sounds like what we ought to be doing (i.e. that is moral). Again, in so far as it turns out most practical to pay by copyright, that is how far it is justified. Not in some other ethical way.
- Volpe 15y ago
  I like your point, you are basically saying artist should sell things under CreativeCommons-like licenses (meaning you aren't restricting the rights of your consumers). Correct? So treat Expressive works just like any other product, that can be bought, resold, copied, modifyed/hacked. Is that the logical conclusion of your position? How do we (should we?) protect innovation? The patent system? the copyright system? Some other form of protection?
- stevecooperorg 15y ago
  > Does payment depend, necessarily, on restriction of copying? No, it does not. The only other way I can think of is patronage; I produce a work for a patron according to their wishes, and hand it over for a fee, at which point I relinquish any further control. Are there other models?
  - sudonim 15y ago
    Isn't this largely what the recording industry and movie studio model is? They front the money to an artist to pay to produce a work and the artist relinquishes further control. In this case the patron is buying the work in order to resell it.
  - gabaix 15y ago
    You can sell rights to be the first viewer/reader/consumer. With a world where all digital content is almost free, first-time exclusivity can increase highly its value.
bdonlan 15y ago
I've talked about this before on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3366032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3366032), but I think a big problem with these discussions is people seem to assume, as an axiom, that allowing authors to control downstream copying is natural. It isn't - this principle was invented around the time the printing press made mass production of creative works possible, for reasons which were very good at the time, but which may not be justified, overall, anymore. Any argument about copyright cannot end up in "Well, I think the authors should have control of their own works." This is circular, and it boils down to assuming copyright as an axiom without justification. It also can't end up in an analogy to a case in the physical world - there are too many differences between physical goods and IP. For instance, in your example of the hen with bread, if this were a case of copyright, everyone _including the hen_ could end up eating bread, after the hen put in the work. Is this fair to the hen? Maybe not. On the other hand, though, there have to be ways to balance things just enough to reward the hen for her efforts without starving all the other animals. The conclusion we gained from the physical-world analogy in which _only one animal_ could eat the bread simply does not apply, as one of its fundamental assumptions has been violated. In short, there are perfectly good arguments you can use (and which have been used, when copyright was invented) to argue why copyright is good and essential _for society as a whole_, and there are of course arguments against it as well, but too often these are not articulated _at all_. People argue from the end result "Artists should have control over their work!", which is essentially the _definition_ of copyright, and use it to argue for copyright. And all too often, the position of the rest of society - which, since they outnumber the artists, ought to be given more weight - is ignored.
- gurkendoktor 15y ago
  Bravo. > a big problem with these discussions is people seem to assume, as an axiom, that allowing authors to control downstream copying is natural. It isn't But neither is physical ownership of things or land. We could well go back to letting the 'free market' sort it out, or conversely split everything evenly and legalize any maneuvers to do so. I'm not arguing that physical and digital goods are the same, but rather that both are arbitrary. For a tiny example, German law downplays the usual importance of physical ownership if theft is about food for direct consumption. This decision is just as arbitrary as heightening the value of authorship. All laws have to be analyzed as an arbitrary society-as-a-whole thing to make any sense. And that's why I think it's harmful that this discussion is always reduced to tiny examples with two people and a car, or in this case a hen and other animals, and a single transaction at one point in time only. Not disagreeing with the core of your posting at all, but I think you got lost in the hen analogy too. > And all too often, the position of the rest of society - which, since they outnumber the artists, ought to be given more weight - is ignored. Not sure about the phrasing of that argument. If female nurses demanded more wages than male ones, should this opinion be given 95% of the weight?
vidarh 15y ago
A comparison with physical goods is pretty much irrelevant. If you take away copyright, you take away a limitation on others, but don't prevent the creator of the work from enjoying the work itself. There is a reason copyright law and property law are universally separate: One creates an artificial restriction on the public to prevent them from doing something which would not take away the freedom to act of the creator of the work, the other places restrictions on the public to prevent them from taking away the freedoms of the owner of something, who would be deprived of the use of what is stolen. Pretty much every legal system on earth recognizes that these are fundamentally different, and pretty much every one of them recognize that copyright protection is a tool putatively intended for the benefit of society - not created to protect against injustice.
- tjr 15y ago
  If my only options for what to do with my digital works are to keep them to myself, or release them unhindered into the public domain, then in some cases I would not release at all. I do not want music I have composed to be used in risqué films; I do not want software that I released under the GPL to be assimilated into proprietary products; etc. If by releasing my work to the public I relinquish all control, then I can do nothing to enforce my wishes. Is it better for the public that I do not release anything that I am not willing to let be used in any fashion whatsoever? Or is it better that I do release, but assert copyright restrictions on how the public may use my works (which they wouldn't have at all if I kept them to myself)?

by sequoia 15y ago

ThomPete 15y ago

The second an artist is trying to mass produce they are businessmen not artists anymore. The artist didn't make the ability to produce in large numbers and distribute at zero cost, that is what technology did. A technology that served the labels and musicians for one hundred years. Now it is turning on them and they start to complain. Bo freaking ho. People make music without making a single dime on it. Great music in fact fantastic music. The big artists are big because the record labels and IP laws make them big. Not because they through some fair game was the best of the crop.

sequoia 15y ago
And I suppose charging for a concert makes them a filthy businessman as well. Should I get to choose whether or not I must pay to see them play live?
- ThomPete 15y ago
  Of course not, that requires their physical presence and physical distribution. Very different.
  - sequoia 15y ago
    Their "physical distribution" by means of a complex technological infrastructure involving microphones, amplifiers, speakers, lighting, electricity etc. etc., which, as you point out, "the artist didn't make," but which the artist wishes to leverage in order to make a greater profit. The argument of "well you didn't invent TCP/IP so you can't expect to make money distributing digital copies of your music" is the slipperiest of slippery slopes, as none of us personally created all the technologies we use to make a living. I use a laptop, text editor, and web browser, none of which I created: have I forfeit my right to make a living as a web developer? It seems that the simplest, most generic expression of your argument (correct me if I'm wrong) is "No one can reasonably expect to make money on anything which can be reproduced digitally, and this is more or less fair." I disagree.
    - ThomPete 15y ago
      You keep confusing the two. If I take an microphone from you, you don't have an microphone. If I copy a song from you, you still have the song yourself. It might be that you don't see the difference but I do and therein is our disagreement.
      - reinhardt 15y ago
        "If I take an microphone from you, you don't have an microphone." ..and so I have to buy a new one if we both want to have one at the same time. "If I copy a song from you, you still have the song yourself." Awesome, we can just buy one then and split the cost! But why stop there? Let's also give a copy to Tom, Dick and Harry so that each pays 20%! Now, what if we could somehow share the song and the cost with a hundred million people across the world..
gravitronic 15y ago
Part of me hopes that your vision becomes reality and all financially backed art falls apart.. just so you, ThomPete, can live in a world that shitty and know that this is what you wanted. Enjoy your cat videos.
- ThomPete 15y ago
  Do you even know how much great great great music gets created without ever making a single dime.
  - Czarnian 15y ago
    Leaving aside the rather obvious question of what makes you think your taste in music is superior to anyone else, how much MORE of that great, great, great music would get created if the artists didn't have to wash dishes for 10 hours a day to make rent and eat? Every hour you have to spend working a day job is an hour you can't spend creating.
    - ThomPete 15y ago
      This is getting silly. I am telling you that even with the music you like whatever that is there is plenty of great music that you never have heard of and never will. That's how it is in all genres of music.
      - jiggy2011 15y ago
        Let's assume we are discussing modern music not Bach or something. There are of course good musicians who distribute their music monetarily free but how much of it is explicitly copyright free (i.e libre not gratis)? I know a number of aspiring musicians who if a large media company took their music and redistributed it under a different name with different people lip syncing to their vocals then boy would they be pissed.
- praptak 15y ago
  Yeah, a totally shitty world with those crappy pre-copyright amateurs like Shakespeare and without the great art of Justin Bieber. The horror, the horror.
troll24601 15y ago
I assume that once you pitch designs to one of your clients, it's fine with you if they photograph it, copy it, and never pay you a dime? People love design, and do great design without making a single dime on it. The rich designers are rich because professional networking, big companies and IP laws make them big. Not because they were the best of the crop. Boo Freaking Hoo. Real designers do it for love. Only phonies want to get paid.
- ThomPete 15y ago
  First of all I have had plenty of my ideas, designs etc. copied. I don't care cause at the end of the day it doesn't matter. I don't know why you guys keep arguing the same misguided argument. Here is the difference. When I design for a client I put in the work and design specifically to to them. I am in other words a performing artist. I don't just send them a CD with the same design I did for all my other clients. Are you really telling me that you can't see the difference here? I am not saying artists shouldn't make money so there is no need to repeat the same tired claim. This is about whether it's a right to make money on mass-producing CDs?
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Part of the reason you are paid so much as a designer who works "for hire" either employed or as a freelancer is that your client wants something unique. Let's assume that there is no copyright. You get a contract from a client to design them a logo , website and smartphone app to promote their business. However your client knows that if a competitor wishes to copy their entire website including logo and app etc they can do so with impunity so all that they will get from whatever sum they invest in your work is a slight first mover advantage and probably the better the work you do the more likely someone else is to copy it. How much do you think they are willing to pay you for your work now?
    - ThomPete 15y ago
      A competitor can do that today. In fact that happens all the time, even among creatives. Do you know how many songs are stealing of each other? Should we tell musicians to pay for the licks and riffs they takes from someone else music and incorporate into his how?
tatsuke95 15y ago
I'm not sure why the down votes? Look, I'm as business-oriented as anyone here, but this is the truth. Art can be profitable for the artist, but whether it is or isn't, it's still happening. People will create sculptures to admire and music to dance to. The distribution stream was invented far, far later. Let's not conflate the creation of the art and the business of selling it.

fabjan 15y ago

So the hen should control what the cow does with any bread the hen chooses to give the cow?

sequoia 15y ago
No, the cow should- the cow is like the pirate- the cow should, I mean the hen should- let me back up for a minute: the mill is like the DNS system, and the oven is like RIAA, so the hen should be able to give bread to the co- shoot, now I'm all confused.

hxa7241 15y ago

> because the hen made the fucking bread, and the cow didn't Yes, we could say that work justifies payment (very simply and roughly). But that is not in dispute. It is that it does not justify payment by a particular means -- one that restricts the freedom (to copy etc.) of others. And -- you will forgive me if I am mistaken -- I am afraid inclusion of the word 'fucking' does not quite cover that. Does payment depend, necessarily, on restriction of copying? No, it does not. It is possible to be paid in other ways -- that do not impose on other freedoms. Then in the most general sense, that sounds like what we ought to be doing (i.e. that is moral). Again, in so far as it turns out most practical to pay by copyright, that is how far it is justified. Not in some other ethical way.

Volpe 15y ago
I like your point, you are basically saying artist should sell things under CreativeCommons-like licenses (meaning you aren't restricting the rights of your consumers). Correct? So treat Expressive works just like any other product, that can be bought, resold, copied, modifyed/hacked. Is that the logical conclusion of your position? How do we (should we?) protect innovation? The patent system? the copyright system? Some other form of protection?
stevecooperorg 15y ago
> Does payment depend, necessarily, on restriction of copying? No, it does not. The only other way I can think of is patronage; I produce a work for a patron according to their wishes, and hand it over for a fee, at which point I relinquish any further control. Are there other models?
- sudonim 15y ago
  Isn't this largely what the recording industry and movie studio model is? They front the money to an artist to pay to produce a work and the artist relinquishes further control. In this case the patron is buying the work in order to resell it.
- gabaix 15y ago
  You can sell rights to be the first viewer/reader/consumer. With a world where all digital content is almost free, first-time exclusivity can increase highly its value.

bdonlan 15y ago

I've talked about this before on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3366032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3366032), but I think a big problem with these discussions is people seem to assume, as an axiom, that allowing authors to control downstream copying is natural. It isn't - this principle was invented around the time the printing press made mass production of creative works possible, for reasons which were very good at the time, but which may not be justified, overall, anymore. Any argument about copyright cannot end up in "Well, I think the authors should have control of their own works." This is circular, and it boils down to assuming copyright as an axiom without justification. It also can't end up in an analogy to a case in the physical world - there are too many differences between physical goods and IP. For instance, in your example of the hen with bread, if this were a case of copyright, everyone _including the hen_ could end up eating bread, after the hen put in the work. Is this fair to the hen? Maybe not. On the other hand, though, there have to be ways to balance things just enough to reward the hen for her efforts without starving all the other animals. The conclusion we gained from the physical-world analogy in which _only one animal_ could eat the bread simply does not apply, as one of its fundamental assumptions has been violated. In short, there are perfectly good arguments you can use (and which have been used, when copyright was invented) to argue why copyright is good and essential _for society as a whole_, and there are of course arguments against it as well, but too often these are not articulated _at all_. People argue from the end result "Artists should have control over their work!", which is essentially the _definition_ of copyright, and use it to argue for copyright. And all too often, the position of the rest of society - which, since they outnumber the artists, ought to be given more weight - is ignored.

gurkendoktor 15y ago
Bravo. > a big problem with these discussions is people seem to assume, as an axiom, that allowing authors to control downstream copying is natural. It isn't But neither is physical ownership of things or land. We could well go back to letting the 'free market' sort it out, or conversely split everything evenly and legalize any maneuvers to do so. I'm not arguing that physical and digital goods are the same, but rather that both are arbitrary. For a tiny example, German law downplays the usual importance of physical ownership if theft is about food for direct consumption. This decision is just as arbitrary as heightening the value of authorship. All laws have to be analyzed as an arbitrary society-as-a-whole thing to make any sense. And that's why I think it's harmful that this discussion is always reduced to tiny examples with two people and a car, or in this case a hen and other animals, and a single transaction at one point in time only. Not disagreeing with the core of your posting at all, but I think you got lost in the hen analogy too. > And all too often, the position of the rest of society - which, since they outnumber the artists, ought to be given more weight - is ignored. Not sure about the phrasing of that argument. If female nurses demanded more wages than male ones, should this opinion be given 95% of the weight?

vidarh 15y ago

A comparison with physical goods is pretty much irrelevant. If you take away copyright, you take away a limitation on others, but don't prevent the creator of the work from enjoying the work itself. There is a reason copyright law and property law are universally separate: One creates an artificial restriction on the public to prevent them from doing something which would not take away the freedom to act of the creator of the work, the other places restrictions on the public to prevent them from taking away the freedoms of the owner of something, who would be deprived of the use of what is stolen. Pretty much every legal system on earth recognizes that these are fundamentally different, and pretty much every one of them recognize that copyright protection is a tool putatively intended for the benefit of society - not created to protect against injustice.

tjr 15y ago
If my only options for what to do with my digital works are to keep them to myself, or release them unhindered into the public domain, then in some cases I would not release at all. I do not want music I have composed to be used in risqué films; I do not want software that I released under the GPL to be assimilated into proprietary products; etc. If by releasing my work to the public I relinquish all control, then I can do nothing to enforce my wishes. Is it better for the public that I do not release anything that I am not willing to let be used in any fashion whatsoever? Or is it better that I do release, but assert copyright restrictions on how the public may use my works (which they wouldn't have at all if I kept them to myself)?