4 ms·

What do you do for work and how much do you charge? Art is a profession, not a charity.

by ethanbond 3y ago

Calavar 3y ago
Today, yes, but that's not universal across human history.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Yes the cave drawings were for funzies. That sort of art still happens, also for funzies. We get higher quality art via professionalization, as is readily apparent in the historical record (not many hobbyists in there).
  - Calavar 3y ago
    I'm not talking about cave paintings. When Livy wrote Ab Urbe Condita, when Chaucer wrote Centerbury Tales, who were they planning to sell the rights too? Professional/career writing didn't become the default until the middle of the 19th century, when a rise in literacy made it financially viable. Even as recently as the first half of the 19th century, most of the literary greats were not professional writers. Leo Tolstoy was a nobleman born into wealth, financially set for life, and wrote purely for the intellectual stimulation. Chekov saw himself first and foremost as a physician, continued to practice with a full patient panel even after he encountered massive success as a writer, and famously said "Medicine is my wife and writing is my mistress." Nathaniel Hawthorne was a low level government bureaucrat throughout his life. Henry David Thoreau alternated between running a pencil factory and being an indigent. And yet no matter their financial situation, no matter their day job, no matter how much or how little income they derived from writing, they all wrote, and they wrote good stuff. Professionalization of writing in the second half of the 19th century directly coincided with the rise of doggerel and dime novels. The volume of new works went up, but the average quality went down - not up as you suggest. When the financial incentive is central there is a push to optimize for quantity over quality.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      What excellent evidence to my point! Livy: Uniquely without a patron, so uniquely able to write without fear of reprisal -- he was independently wealthy Chaucer: Dependent on patronage Tolstoy: Yep, wealthy people can make art in their leisure time Chekov: Yep, wealthy people can make art in their leisure time Hawthorne: Registered his works with the copyright office. Lived with very well-off relatives throughout his youth. Had his college paid for by well-off relatives. Thoreau: Went to Harvard and was the grandson of a very wealthy Boston merchant -- had plenty of access to money. His indigence was a philosophical decision he made. I never argued that no good art is produced outside of commercial incentives, I didn't argue the "average" quality would go up or down. I believe that overall volume and diversity of art increases with commercial motivation, as artists can produce art without a direct attachment to existing wealth and power structures. There are more great pieces of art across a more diverse range of styles, perspectives, formats, etc. This is readily apparent in the historical record, and outliers like Livy are the exceptions that prove the rule. We've never had a problem producing high-quality art from the perspective of and at the whims of the rich and powerful.
      - Calavar 3y ago
        Your initial argument was "art is not a charity" - i.e. people don't produce quality artistic work unless there is a financial incentive, for which copyright is an essential requirement. Now you have carved out three or four different exceptions to that rule and seem to be reshaping your argument into some sort of class-struggle narrative between wealthy authors and middle class authors. That is very different than what you were initially asserting. If anything, you're presenting an argument for a universal basic income so that people have leisure time that they can use for creative purposes, not an argument for copyright as an essential catalyst for creativity.
        ethanbond 3y ago
        Let’s say someone proposes that all code any individual or company writes must be made publicly available immediately upon authoring. After all, some people choose to write OSS and do so voluntarily. Are you also confused by the statement, “software engineering is a profession, not a charity” in the context of that argument? I’ve found the only people who claim to struggle to understand this are motivated in a particular direction (the “we should be allowed to profit from others work” crowd). I’ll restate it more specifically for the literalists: art is both a profession and a hobby (as clarified in my second comment and as is self-evident to everyone on the planet). If you’re using the existence of the hobbyist creator as an excuse to capture the economic value of the professional creator, you’re 1) an asshole and 2) likely to destroy much of the incentive that allows professional creators to get as good as they are today and in such diverse forms, from such diverse perspectives (especially in the memetic diversity sense, which I care most about). > some sort of class-struggle narrative The history of funding methods is one of the most informative lenses one can apply to art history. It literally distorts the historical record (oh it turns out the only good artists in the world were those painting church stories eh!). The economic history is real and isn’t changed by your dismissive reference as “some sort of narrative.” > you’re presenting an argument for UBI No I’m not. I’m presenting an argument for forbidding AI companies from rent-seeking on other people’s work and destroying the incentive to continue producing original work.
andy99 3y ago
Copyright essentially makes it charity. If you're solely relying on copyright, you rely on some combination of the government forcing people to pay you and people ignoring the many circumvention options because of guilt. Business models like live performances, physical delivery of art, commissioned work, etc. can allow one to be a professional without the need for copyright. I reject the idea that people are owed a business model based solely on artificial scarcity.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  You’re forcing people to pay you when they utilize the product of your labor. And that’s correct, that’s a good thing obviously. You presumably don’t work for free do you?
  - andy99 3y ago
    "Work" in the sense you mean means someone wants to pay you. Exerting yourself mentally or physically is not automatically economic work that deserves payment, particularly not a recurring stream of payments.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Then don’t use their production, then you don’t need to pay anyone. No one is making you use it. If it has no economic value then you’d just make it yourself or not utilize it.
  - MacsHeadroom 3y ago
    Copies aren't the product of any creator's labor. I get paid to perform work. I don't collect rent from people who benefit from my work long after I stopped working. I definitely don't ask the government to lock people up if they benefit from my work years after I stopped working on it.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Does copying destroy some incentive to produce the original work? AFAICT, most people who create copyrightable works believe it does. Freeriding rent-seekers who wish to commercialize others’ work tend to believe it doesn’t. I’m personally more inclined to believe the former. Obviously some creators are happy to create without the additional incentives created by copyright. But here’s the thing: they’re more than welcome to produce and share their work that way already.
Levitz 3y ago
No. Art has turned into a profession, precisely because it yields money. It is not, by any means, intrinsically a profession. As a matter of fact, most of those who make videos, play music and write stories don't make and won't ever make a dime off it.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  And most art that people actually consume is not made by such hobbyists. It’s made by professionals because people who are able to make a living out of an activity tend to get much much better at that activity. If it’s so trivial to do as a hobby with no economic output, then do it yourself or don’t use other people’s professional output. No one is forcing you to! Artists are also welcome to publish their work directly into public domain whenever they feel like doing so for charity. You can always go visit your local schoolhouses to see hobbyist art.
  - Levitz 3y ago
    What a roundabout way to concede the point
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      “Software engineering is a profession so it’s bad to take people’s source code without a mutual agreement.” “Actually, software engineering isn’t intrinsically a profession. It’s only such because people pay software engineers to do it.” Gee thanks
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  nothing is intrinsically a profession. Even in prehistoric times there were basic economies exchanging shells and rocks for necessary goods. And that expanded to artistic ideas once humanity didn't need to spend a full time job surviving. This seems to be splitting hairs at this point. Yes, everything "turns into a profession". no, not everyone is a professional, regardless of domain.

What do you do for work and how much do you charge? Art is a profession, not a charity.

Calavar 3y ago

Today, yes, but that's not universal across human history.

ethanbond 3y ago
Yes the cave drawings were for funzies. That sort of art still happens, also for funzies. We get higher quality art via professionalization, as is readily apparent in the historical record (not many hobbyists in there).
- Calavar 3y ago
  I'm not talking about cave paintings. When Livy wrote Ab Urbe Condita, when Chaucer wrote Centerbury Tales, who were they planning to sell the rights too? Professional/career writing didn't become the default until the middle of the 19th century, when a rise in literacy made it financially viable. Even as recently as the first half of the 19th century, most of the literary greats were not professional writers. Leo Tolstoy was a nobleman born into wealth, financially set for life, and wrote purely for the intellectual stimulation. Chekov saw himself first and foremost as a physician, continued to practice with a full patient panel even after he encountered massive success as a writer, and famously said "Medicine is my wife and writing is my mistress." Nathaniel Hawthorne was a low level government bureaucrat throughout his life. Henry David Thoreau alternated between running a pencil factory and being an indigent. And yet no matter their financial situation, no matter their day job, no matter how much or how little income they derived from writing, they all wrote, and they wrote good stuff. Professionalization of writing in the second half of the 19th century directly coincided with the rise of doggerel and dime novels. The volume of new works went up, but the average quality went down - not up as you suggest. When the financial incentive is central there is a push to optimize for quantity over quality.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    What excellent evidence to my point! Livy: Uniquely without a patron, so uniquely able to write without fear of reprisal -- he was independently wealthy Chaucer: Dependent on patronage Tolstoy: Yep, wealthy people can make art in their leisure time Chekov: Yep, wealthy people can make art in their leisure time Hawthorne: Registered his works with the copyright office. Lived with very well-off relatives throughout his youth. Had his college paid for by well-off relatives. Thoreau: Went to Harvard and was the grandson of a very wealthy Boston merchant -- had plenty of access to money. His indigence was a philosophical decision he made. I never argued that no good art is produced outside of commercial incentives, I didn't argue the "average" quality would go up or down. I believe that overall volume and diversity of art increases with commercial motivation, as artists can produce art without a direct attachment to existing wealth and power structures. There are more great pieces of art across a more diverse range of styles, perspectives, formats, etc. This is readily apparent in the historical record, and outliers like Livy are the exceptions that prove the rule. We've never had a problem producing high-quality art from the perspective of and at the whims of the rich and powerful.
    - Calavar 3y ago
      Your initial argument was "art is not a charity" - i.e. people don't produce quality artistic work unless there is a financial incentive, for which copyright is an essential requirement. Now you have carved out three or four different exceptions to that rule and seem to be reshaping your argument into some sort of class-struggle narrative between wealthy authors and middle class authors. That is very different than what you were initially asserting. If anything, you're presenting an argument for a universal basic income so that people have leisure time that they can use for creative purposes, not an argument for copyright as an essential catalyst for creativity.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        Let’s say someone proposes that all code any individual or company writes must be made publicly available immediately upon authoring. After all, some people choose to write OSS and do so voluntarily. Are you also confused by the statement, “software engineering is a profession, not a charity” in the context of that argument? I’ve found the only people who claim to struggle to understand this are motivated in a particular direction (the “we should be allowed to profit from others work” crowd). I’ll restate it more specifically for the literalists: art is both a profession and a hobby (as clarified in my second comment and as is self-evident to everyone on the planet). If you’re using the existence of the hobbyist creator as an excuse to capture the economic value of the professional creator, you’re 1) an asshole and 2) likely to destroy much of the incentive that allows professional creators to get as good as they are today and in such diverse forms, from such diverse perspectives (especially in the memetic diversity sense, which I care most about). > some sort of class-struggle narrative The history of funding methods is one of the most informative lenses one can apply to art history. It literally distorts the historical record (oh it turns out the only good artists in the world were those painting church stories eh!). The economic history is real and isn’t changed by your dismissive reference as “some sort of narrative.” > you’re presenting an argument for UBI No I’m not. I’m presenting an argument for forbidding AI companies from rent-seeking on other people’s work and destroying the incentive to continue producing original work.

andy99 3y ago

Copyright essentially makes it charity. If you're solely relying on copyright, you rely on some combination of the government forcing people to pay you and people ignoring the many circumvention options because of guilt. Business models like live performances, physical delivery of art, commissioned work, etc. can allow one to be a professional without the need for copyright. I reject the idea that people are owed a business model based solely on artificial scarcity.

ethanbond 3y ago
You’re forcing people to pay you when they utilize the product of your labor. And that’s correct, that’s a good thing obviously. You presumably don’t work for free do you?
- andy99 3y ago
  "Work" in the sense you mean means someone wants to pay you. Exerting yourself mentally or physically is not automatically economic work that deserves payment, particularly not a recurring stream of payments.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Then don’t use their production, then you don’t need to pay anyone. No one is making you use it. If it has no economic value then you’d just make it yourself or not utilize it.
- MacsHeadroom 3y ago
  Copies aren't the product of any creator's labor. I get paid to perform work. I don't collect rent from people who benefit from my work long after I stopped working. I definitely don't ask the government to lock people up if they benefit from my work years after I stopped working on it.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Does copying destroy some incentive to produce the original work? AFAICT, most people who create copyrightable works believe it does. Freeriding rent-seekers who wish to commercialize others’ work tend to believe it doesn’t. I’m personally more inclined to believe the former. Obviously some creators are happy to create without the additional incentives created by copyright. But here’s the thing: they’re more than welcome to produce and share their work that way already.

Levitz 3y ago

No. Art has turned into a profession, precisely because it yields money. It is not, by any means, intrinsically a profession. As a matter of fact, most of those who make videos, play music and write stories don't make and won't ever make a dime off it.

ethanbond 3y ago
And most art that people actually consume is not made by such hobbyists. It’s made by professionals because people who are able to make a living out of an activity tend to get much much better at that activity. If it’s so trivial to do as a hobby with no economic output, then do it yourself or don’t use other people’s professional output. No one is forcing you to! Artists are also welcome to publish their work directly into public domain whenever they feel like doing so for charity. You can always go visit your local schoolhouses to see hobbyist art.
- Levitz 3y ago
  What a roundabout way to concede the point
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    “Software engineering is a profession so it’s bad to take people’s source code without a mutual agreement.” “Actually, software engineering isn’t intrinsically a profession. It’s only such because people pay software engineers to do it.” Gee thanks
johnnyanmac 3y ago
nothing is intrinsically a profession. Even in prehistoric times there were basic economies exchanging shells and rocks for necessary goods. And that expanded to artistic ideas once humanity didn't need to spend a full time job surviving. This seems to be splitting hairs at this point. Yes, everything "turns into a profession". no, not everyone is a professional, regardless of domain.