5 ms·

You have no idea what you are talking about, I'm guessing this is because you have never created anything worthwhile on which your livelihood depended. I'm sure

by epo 15y ago

You have no idea what you are talking about, I'm guessing this is because you have never created anything worthwhile on which your livelihood depended. I'm sure you'd be quick to whine if your employer (assuming you are old enough to work) could decide whether or not you should be paid for your work after you had done it. I hope you congratulate the next person to steal from you with a cheery "well done, that's my morality too".

Alexx 15y ago
This misses the fundamental difference between someone choosing to distribute their work for free, and working under false promise of financial reward. Ignoring the condescending tone of this comment, there are many 'creators' in the world who have no desire to personally profit from their work. That is not the issue being raised.
krig 15y ago
You have no idea what you are talking about, I'm guessing this is because you are too old to have grown up with tape trading, VHS copies of films and pirate cable. I have a contract with my employer, he is bound by that agreement to pay me. If he decides he doesn't want to, I stop working for him. If I write a book, no one is under contract to purchase and read it. I'd be happy if someone did, but I'd be foolish to assume that would happen when I started writing it. I have created worthwhile things on which my livelihood depended, and those things have been cheerfully and rampantly pirated (piracy rates of video games estimated at +90%). And the company I worked for made great profits and paid me a nice bonus. Would it have made as much of a profit if those 90%+ of people who played the game, liked it, talked about it, reviewed it without paying for it, had never played it at all? I don't know. Would it have made more profit? I can't say. I doubt you can either.
- bluebridge 15y ago
  As an employee, you have no basis for understanding the perceived loss that piracy incurs- you are paid 100% what you agreed upon for your creative efforts. Someone else is taking the risk and losing the profit. If you went to get your paycheck and found out that it was 40% lower than what you thought, you might feel some of that self-righteous anger that businesses are espousing. More realistically the worst you will feel is a denied promotion, or lost a job because your company can't realize it's investment in you. Unless you are directly culpable for the creation and distribution of a product and lose money on it because people won't honor your effort, you don't have a basis for passing judgment based on your personal experience (in other words, you're no expert :) ).
  - krig 15y ago
    Now you are making a different argument, but I can argue just as effectively against this one. :) In my role as copyright superhero have I not only worked as an employee at companies producing copyrighted works, I have also, personally, produced and sold copyrighted works that have, to some extent, been pirated. I have yet to feel any self-righteous anger. The only anger I might feel is a certain frustration where some of these copyrighted works have not been as successful as I would have wished them to be, but I would be foolish to lay the blame on piracy. More likely, the timing was not right and the quality was not high enough to ensure success. Any business endeavor entails risk. I would hope that my employer has factored in piracy rates and other non-specific factors in the business plan before hiring me to create a video game for him. Sometimes, things don't work out as hoped and the result is a flop. That can happen for many reasons. I have yet to see a convincing argument where piracy was the reason something did not succeed. On the other hand, I can point to numerous examples were piracy was the deciding factor that let something become a success to begin with. The currently popular example is Minecraft, which spread entirely through word of mouth. How successful would that game have been if there had been no way to send it to a friend while telling them to check it out because it's awesome? I really doubt anyone would have known about it at all.
    - bluebridge 15y ago
      Well then, I stand corrected, you do have some basis for your statement. :) Though it doesn't sound like you gained your livelihood from the production of such works. My dad is a farmer who wanted to pass on the farm to my brother. They had various communication issues, but one of the underlying complaints of my father was that my brother didn't understand the seriousness of being in business. He would say, "His nuts aren't in the ringer." I don't think piracy ruins businesses. However, I don't think that anyone can make the argument that they ethically have the right to disregard the producer's terms for consuming their product, regardless of the form the product is in or how unreasonable those terms are. The creator of the product has the right to define their terms and if you violate his/her terms, it's a transgression. It's not a favor, a lesson, or a statement, you're taking without honoring their work in the way they've decided. Maybe it will turn out great for them in the end, maybe not- it doesn't matter, they set the terms and you violated them. Piracy is parasitic, not productive, and everyone loses. We get these stupid censorship bills rolling through and resources are spent in trying to control the phenomena instead of innovating and addressing real issues. Regarding Minecraft-- I did not realize that it was successful because it was pirated. I know that it got some good reviews on popular sites and I believe they sold a cheap development version and were successful because of this accessible model (versus a Microsoft approach). Wikipedia says that the developers decided to start their video game company and focus exclusively on it with the money they earned from their sales. To me, this does not sound like a pirate success story. It actually reinforces my belief that it absolutely requires resources to back any serious effort and this is something that piracy never provides.
goblin89 15y ago
If you are creating something on which your livelihood depends, do so ‘under a promise of financial reward’. It would be foolish to do otherwise, isn't it? But if you choose to publicly distribute your work—accept inevitable risks. Don't like that—go get a real job. You can do contract work writing music, or doing illustration / design.
- seabee 15y ago
  More generally, if you want to be paid then do work under a contract. There are many cases where you will willingly accept promise of financial reward - look no further than Y Combinator - but you're a fool if you don't accept the risks or pretend you should be immune to the illegal actions (rather than seeking compensation after the fact, anyway). Even in something like retail, your product can be stolen and there's no guarantee you'll get recompense. Yet laws regarding shoplifting have remained rather constant and non-draconian in all that time. The problem with the internet is that it's all too easy to get something without paying for it, but people all-too-often forget that the benefit of the internet is that nobody can deprive you of your goods (bandwidth notwithstanding). Yeah, piracy sucks, but look at what other sectors of the economy have to deal with. Risk's everywhere; deal with it.
- goblin89 15y ago
  Another comment on HN[0] said it better, by citing Francis Ford Coppola: > "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script. > This idea of Metallica or some rock n’ roll singer being rich, that’s not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money? > In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you’d be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, “Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money.” Because there are ways around it." [0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491678 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491678

by epo 15y ago

Alexx 15y ago

This misses the fundamental difference between someone choosing to distribute their work for free, and working under false promise of financial reward. Ignoring the condescending tone of this comment, there are many 'creators' in the world who have no desire to personally profit from their work. That is not the issue being raised.

krig 15y ago

You have no idea what you are talking about, I'm guessing this is because you are too old to have grown up with tape trading, VHS copies of films and pirate cable. I have a contract with my employer, he is bound by that agreement to pay me. If he decides he doesn't want to, I stop working for him. If I write a book, no one is under contract to purchase and read it. I'd be happy if someone did, but I'd be foolish to assume that would happen when I started writing it. I have created worthwhile things on which my livelihood depended, and those things have been cheerfully and rampantly pirated (piracy rates of video games estimated at +90%). And the company I worked for made great profits and paid me a nice bonus. Would it have made as much of a profit if those 90%+ of people who played the game, liked it, talked about it, reviewed it without paying for it, had never played it at all? I don't know. Would it have made more profit? I can't say. I doubt you can either.

bluebridge 15y ago
As an employee, you have no basis for understanding the perceived loss that piracy incurs- you are paid 100% what you agreed upon for your creative efforts. Someone else is taking the risk and losing the profit. If you went to get your paycheck and found out that it was 40% lower than what you thought, you might feel some of that self-righteous anger that businesses are espousing. More realistically the worst you will feel is a denied promotion, or lost a job because your company can't realize it's investment in you. Unless you are directly culpable for the creation and distribution of a product and lose money on it because people won't honor your effort, you don't have a basis for passing judgment based on your personal experience (in other words, you're no expert :) ).
- krig 15y ago
  Now you are making a different argument, but I can argue just as effectively against this one. :) In my role as copyright superhero have I not only worked as an employee at companies producing copyrighted works, I have also, personally, produced and sold copyrighted works that have, to some extent, been pirated. I have yet to feel any self-righteous anger. The only anger I might feel is a certain frustration where some of these copyrighted works have not been as successful as I would have wished them to be, but I would be foolish to lay the blame on piracy. More likely, the timing was not right and the quality was not high enough to ensure success. Any business endeavor entails risk. I would hope that my employer has factored in piracy rates and other non-specific factors in the business plan before hiring me to create a video game for him. Sometimes, things don't work out as hoped and the result is a flop. That can happen for many reasons. I have yet to see a convincing argument where piracy was the reason something did not succeed. On the other hand, I can point to numerous examples were piracy was the deciding factor that let something become a success to begin with. The currently popular example is Minecraft, which spread entirely through word of mouth. How successful would that game have been if there had been no way to send it to a friend while telling them to check it out because it's awesome? I really doubt anyone would have known about it at all.
  - bluebridge 15y ago
    Well then, I stand corrected, you do have some basis for your statement. :) Though it doesn't sound like you gained your livelihood from the production of such works. My dad is a farmer who wanted to pass on the farm to my brother. They had various communication issues, but one of the underlying complaints of my father was that my brother didn't understand the seriousness of being in business. He would say, "His nuts aren't in the ringer." I don't think piracy ruins businesses. However, I don't think that anyone can make the argument that they ethically have the right to disregard the producer's terms for consuming their product, regardless of the form the product is in or how unreasonable those terms are. The creator of the product has the right to define their terms and if you violate his/her terms, it's a transgression. It's not a favor, a lesson, or a statement, you're taking without honoring their work in the way they've decided. Maybe it will turn out great for them in the end, maybe not- it doesn't matter, they set the terms and you violated them. Piracy is parasitic, not productive, and everyone loses. We get these stupid censorship bills rolling through and resources are spent in trying to control the phenomena instead of innovating and addressing real issues. Regarding Minecraft-- I did not realize that it was successful because it was pirated. I know that it got some good reviews on popular sites and I believe they sold a cheap development version and were successful because of this accessible model (versus a Microsoft approach). Wikipedia says that the developers decided to start their video game company and focus exclusively on it with the money they earned from their sales. To me, this does not sound like a pirate success story. It actually reinforces my belief that it absolutely requires resources to back any serious effort and this is something that piracy never provides.

goblin89 15y ago

If you are creating something on which your livelihood depends, do so ‘under a promise of financial reward’. It would be foolish to do otherwise, isn't it? But if you choose to publicly distribute your work—accept inevitable risks. Don't like that—go get a real job. You can do contract work writing music, or doing illustration / design.

seabee 15y ago
More generally, if you want to be paid then do work under a contract. There are many cases where you will willingly accept promise of financial reward - look no further than Y Combinator - but you're a fool if you don't accept the risks or pretend you should be immune to the illegal actions (rather than seeking compensation after the fact, anyway). Even in something like retail, your product can be stolen and there's no guarantee you'll get recompense. Yet laws regarding shoplifting have remained rather constant and non-draconian in all that time. The problem with the internet is that it's all too easy to get something without paying for it, but people all-too-often forget that the benefit of the internet is that nobody can deprive you of your goods (bandwidth notwithstanding). Yeah, piracy sucks, but look at what other sectors of the economy have to deal with. Risk's everywhere; deal with it.
goblin89 15y ago
Another comment on HN[0] said it better, by citing Francis Ford Coppola: > "We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script. > This idea of Metallica or some rock n’ roll singer being rich, that’s not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money? > In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you’d be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, “Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money.” Because there are ways around it." [0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491678 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491678