7 ms·

Hopefully instead of just jealousy this prompts some thinking in those of us wwho don't get residuals about why the systems of the world favor having money so m

Hopefully instead of just jealousy this prompts some thinking in those of us wwho don't get residuals about why the systems of the world favor having money so much more than having the product of labor. Or rather, if you do the labor, you don't get to have it. Only a few people (like here) have had the ability to negotiate an ongoing right to the output) at all. But the world is built so that if you have the money, you expect to be able to perpetually benefit from things you put it towards. Sure, you might lose investments sometimes, but you have limited liability so you likely aren't losing everything. And you can also lose your ability to do more labor in certain jobs, so it's not like the risk is higher if you're an owner. And the expectation is that you just work work work work, and you'll get snarky shots fired at you from the other poor suckers out there if you try to challenge that.

gruez 3y ago
>Or rather, if you do the labor, you don't get to have it. Labor is just another input that goes into making a product. I don't see why they should be entitled to perpetual income any more than the company that supplied the film should be entitled to perpetual income. If you want perpetual income, create your own enterprise, or become an investor yourself. Most of the headline members of the AMPTP are public companies.
- pluto_modadic 3y ago
  this is a good argument for not letting companies have perpetual IP based income :)
  - gruez 3y ago
    1. Outside of trademarks, "IP" typically isn't "perpetual". Copyrights last a long time, but they're not perpetual either. 2. If you sell a widget, that item gets irreversibly transferred to the buyer. If you sell your time (ie. what you're doing as an employee) the same thing happens with your time. If you "sell" a movie, that doesn't happen. Well, technically that happens all the time between companies, but doesn't apply to the typical consumer transaction. "perpetual IP based income" is a way to make products that are infinitely copyable have a viable business model. Otherwise if you want to watch a movie, you'll have to pay for the whole thing.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Copyrights last a long time, but they're not perpetual either. For the creators, copyright is effectively perpetual. It expires eventually, but rarely until after you're dead. "As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first." https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
- lapcat 3y ago
  > I don't see why they should be entitled to perpetual income any more than the company that supplied the film should be entitled to perpetual income. Why do you think of it in terms of "entitlement". Residuals were negotiated between actors, writers, and the studios. Just like stock options are negotiated for some software engineering jobs, for example. And many companies in various industries have forms of employee profit sharing. This is no different. The issue here is that the market has changed, and the preexisting deal for residuals didn't take into account the streaming services. So the writers and actors are naturally looking to renegotiate the terms. What's wrong with that? It's a contract negotiation. Now, if you want to completely overturn capitalism and institute some kind of Marxist labor theory of value, we can argue over that, but it seems a bit tangential here.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >Why do you think of it in terms of "entitlement". Because that's the angle that the OP was going for, pointing out how it's some sort of injustice that capital gets a perpetual income stream but labor doesn't.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Because that's the angle that the OP was going for, pointing out how it's some sort of injustice that capital gets a perpetual income stream but labor doesn't. Well, "injustice" aside, doesn't it seem somewhat arbitrary, inconsistent, bizarre to be ok with capitalists having perpetual income from their products while ridiculing labor (the "snarky shots fired at you") for wanting perpetual income from their products too? You said this, which seems to deny even the possibility of perpetual income for anyone except the owning class: > If you want perpetual income, create your own enterprise, or become an investor yourself.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        > Well, "injustice" aside, doesn't it seem somewhat arbitrary, inconsistent, bizarre to be ok with capitalists having perpetual income from their products while ridiculing labor If I bought a car and used it to drive for Uber are you okay with paying the factory workers a share of your income? If you owned a mom and pop restaurant should the people who built the restaurant get a share of your profits? If you started a software business are you okay with the authors of every library you used getting a share of your profits?
jemmyw 3y ago
Maybe we could see it from the other direction, there shouldn't be perpetual income. You're paid to act, paid for writing, paid for making music. I don't know how it could work, but people want new movies and new music so some mechanism could pay for future work more directly than charging for each play of an existing bit of art
- kthejoker2 3y ago
  Copyright laws just need to be shrunk back significantly. Then nobody is gaining income from it. No residuals, no licenses.
- nunez 3y ago
  On the other hand, you, the talent, receiving $x for your work while your producer receives ${$Inf}x for it feels lopsided too.
scarface_74 3y ago
So are you okay with paying residuals for every npm package you download? > Or rather, if you do the labor, you don't get to have it. Should everyone who worked on a building get residuals for it? If instead of selling your house, you decide to rent it out, would you be happy giving the builder part of your rent income? Are you happy with all of your software being subscription based instead of pay once? > but you have limited liability so you likely aren't losing everything As a shareholder you are also shielded by limited liability. Do you have any of your money invested in stocks?
- majormajor 3y ago
  These are all interesting questions (personally if paid software would push things away from the npm/js ecosystem of a million tiny packages world in favor of fewer, more curated things, I think that's almost reason enough right there ;) ) but I think it's an incomplete list. Should a contractor be able to retire off building one house? Should an actor be able to retire off residuals from one movie? Should a studio executive with an MBA be able to retire off of one year's salary despite contributing nothing to the films that people enjoyed? Should a wealthy person be able to retire off their parents having a buttload of cash? I would not be opposed to a world that incentivizes continual work for everyone but it would have to actually apply to everyone. And vice versa, if we want to give people outsized financial rewards and power for one-big-hit type things, why is it that we do it for middleman-shit like stock trading or big-corporate-management-pointy-heads vs, say, writers and actors? Or VCs instead of software developers? HN in aggregate seems to be more sympathetic to complaints of line-level software devs against non-technical managers than to complaints of actors or writers against non-creative managers ;).
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    > I would not be opposed to a world that incentivizes continual work for everyone Should my parents never have been able to retire? My mom retired at 53 after working on the school system for 30 years because her pension was invested in stocks. My dad retired at 55 based on stock in his company - he was factory worker. They are now 80 and 78 and have four checks deposited in their accounts every month - social security, a pension and an annuity. > Or VCs instead of software developers I hope to retire one day based on my investments as a software developer based on earnings I made as far back in 1996
snapplebobapple 3y ago
Generally the current system makes sense because capital is taking the risk and paying the labor up front to produce something that is also generally the idea of the group with the capital and the up front payment is determined by supply and demand dynamics in the labor market. Specific to the case of copyright, the idea to reduce copyright term is correct because the natural competitive state of the world is for ideas to be copied by everybody and be pushed to their marginal cost of production quickly (that number is so close to zero for digital media that it should just be thought of as zero). Copyright is fixing the market failure of the fixed cost of media production being unaccounted for in the natural market outcome and that negative spread dissinsentiving new content production. So the correct term to set copyright for is one that insentivizes most media creation with the minimum intervention in the natural market outcome and one has to be insane to think anyone is making new content because of returns from holding a monopoly on its production for more than ten to fifteen years. All the rest of the term is just about unjustly enriching capital, at great cost to society from deadweight loss due to the cost of reproduction not going to zero, by limiting competition for new creations from old creations and capturing residual income from the fraction of one percent of the works that are still financially viable after 15 years.

gruez 3y ago

>Or rather, if you do the labor, you don't get to have it. Labor is just another input that goes into making a product. I don't see why they should be entitled to perpetual income any more than the company that supplied the film should be entitled to perpetual income. If you want perpetual income, create your own enterprise, or become an investor yourself. Most of the headline members of the AMPTP are public companies.

pluto_modadic 3y ago
this is a good argument for not letting companies have perpetual IP based income :)
- gruez 3y ago
  1. Outside of trademarks, "IP" typically isn't "perpetual". Copyrights last a long time, but they're not perpetual either. 2. If you sell a widget, that item gets irreversibly transferred to the buyer. If you sell your time (ie. what you're doing as an employee) the same thing happens with your time. If you "sell" a movie, that doesn't happen. Well, technically that happens all the time between companies, but doesn't apply to the typical consumer transaction. "perpetual IP based income" is a way to make products that are infinitely copyable have a viable business model. Otherwise if you want to watch a movie, you'll have to pay for the whole thing.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Copyrights last a long time, but they're not perpetual either. For the creators, copyright is effectively perpetual. It expires eventually, but rarely until after you're dead. "As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first." https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
lapcat 3y ago
> I don't see why they should be entitled to perpetual income any more than the company that supplied the film should be entitled to perpetual income. Why do you think of it in terms of "entitlement". Residuals were negotiated between actors, writers, and the studios. Just like stock options are negotiated for some software engineering jobs, for example. And many companies in various industries have forms of employee profit sharing. This is no different. The issue here is that the market has changed, and the preexisting deal for residuals didn't take into account the streaming services. So the writers and actors are naturally looking to renegotiate the terms. What's wrong with that? It's a contract negotiation. Now, if you want to completely overturn capitalism and institute some kind of Marxist labor theory of value, we can argue over that, but it seems a bit tangential here.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Why do you think of it in terms of "entitlement". Because that's the angle that the OP was going for, pointing out how it's some sort of injustice that capital gets a perpetual income stream but labor doesn't.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Because that's the angle that the OP was going for, pointing out how it's some sort of injustice that capital gets a perpetual income stream but labor doesn't. Well, "injustice" aside, doesn't it seem somewhat arbitrary, inconsistent, bizarre to be ok with capitalists having perpetual income from their products while ridiculing labor (the "snarky shots fired at you") for wanting perpetual income from their products too? You said this, which seems to deny even the possibility of perpetual income for anyone except the owning class: > If you want perpetual income, create your own enterprise, or become an investor yourself.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      > Well, "injustice" aside, doesn't it seem somewhat arbitrary, inconsistent, bizarre to be ok with capitalists having perpetual income from their products while ridiculing labor If I bought a car and used it to drive for Uber are you okay with paying the factory workers a share of your income? If you owned a mom and pop restaurant should the people who built the restaurant get a share of your profits? If you started a software business are you okay with the authors of every library you used getting a share of your profits?

jemmyw 3y ago

Maybe we could see it from the other direction, there shouldn't be perpetual income. You're paid to act, paid for writing, paid for making music. I don't know how it could work, but people want new movies and new music so some mechanism could pay for future work more directly than charging for each play of an existing bit of art

kthejoker2 3y ago
Copyright laws just need to be shrunk back significantly. Then nobody is gaining income from it. No residuals, no licenses.
nunez 3y ago
On the other hand, you, the talent, receiving $x for your work while your producer receives ${$Inf}x for it feels lopsided too.

scarface_74 3y ago

So are you okay with paying residuals for every npm package you download? > Or rather, if you do the labor, you don't get to have it. Should everyone who worked on a building get residuals for it? If instead of selling your house, you decide to rent it out, would you be happy giving the builder part of your rent income? Are you happy with all of your software being subscription based instead of pay once? > but you have limited liability so you likely aren't losing everything As a shareholder you are also shielded by limited liability. Do you have any of your money invested in stocks?

majormajor 3y ago
These are all interesting questions (personally if paid software would push things away from the npm/js ecosystem of a million tiny packages world in favor of fewer, more curated things, I think that's almost reason enough right there ;) ) but I think it's an incomplete list. Should a contractor be able to retire off building one house? Should an actor be able to retire off residuals from one movie? Should a studio executive with an MBA be able to retire off of one year's salary despite contributing nothing to the films that people enjoyed? Should a wealthy person be able to retire off their parents having a buttload of cash? I would not be opposed to a world that incentivizes continual work for everyone but it would have to actually apply to everyone. And vice versa, if we want to give people outsized financial rewards and power for one-big-hit type things, why is it that we do it for middleman-shit like stock trading or big-corporate-management-pointy-heads vs, say, writers and actors? Or VCs instead of software developers? HN in aggregate seems to be more sympathetic to complaints of line-level software devs against non-technical managers than to complaints of actors or writers against non-creative managers ;).
- scarface_74 3y ago
  > I would not be opposed to a world that incentivizes continual work for everyone Should my parents never have been able to retire? My mom retired at 53 after working on the school system for 30 years because her pension was invested in stocks. My dad retired at 55 based on stock in his company - he was factory worker. They are now 80 and 78 and have four checks deposited in their accounts every month - social security, a pension and an annuity. > Or VCs instead of software developers I hope to retire one day based on my investments as a software developer based on earnings I made as far back in 1996

snapplebobapple 3y ago

Generally the current system makes sense because capital is taking the risk and paying the labor up front to produce something that is also generally the idea of the group with the capital and the up front payment is determined by supply and demand dynamics in the labor market. Specific to the case of copyright, the idea to reduce copyright term is correct because the natural competitive state of the world is for ideas to be copied by everybody and be pushed to their marginal cost of production quickly (that number is so close to zero for digital media that it should just be thought of as zero). Copyright is fixing the market failure of the fixed cost of media production being unaccounted for in the natural market outcome and that negative spread dissinsentiving new content production. So the correct term to set copyright for is one that insentivizes most media creation with the minimum intervention in the natural market outcome and one has to be insane to think anyone is making new content because of returns from holding a monopoly on its production for more than ten to fifteen years. All the rest of the term is just about unjustly enriching capital, at great cost to society from deadweight loss due to the cost of reproduction not going to zero, by limiting competition for new creations from old creations and capturing residual income from the fraction of one percent of the works that are still financially viable after 15 years.