4 ms·

> People who create stuff should have an exclusive right to publish their work-- for awhile. Or there should be some other ways of providing livelihood for peo

> People who create stuff should have an exclusive right to publish their work-- for awhile. Or there should be some other ways of providing livelihood for people who create stuff. Preferably something that doesn't artificially limit the availability of their work. E.g. in Finland authors can get more income from library loans (paid from public funds) than what pittance the publishers allow for them from sales. Such system could be quite easily extended. But in any case, very few authors really make a living from book proceedings. "Think of the authors" is mostly a narrative pushed by the industry that does their best to exploit the authors and minimize their share of the income.

mlyle 2y ago
> very few authors really make a living from book proceedings. Sure, but there's very few notable authors, too. > industry that does their best to exploit the authors Granted. There's a lot of creative works that are very, very expensive to make (feature films, AAA video games, etc). Paying for them from proceeds makes sense-- hence the Constitution didn't really get it wrong with "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Likewise, writing a book takes a great degree of personal time and effort at risk. > some other ways of providing livelihood for people who create stuff. I do think that, even if we don't go all the way to a full basic income, it would still be good to have policy that somewhat lowers personal risk in creative, entrepreneurial, and inventive pursuits, as well as career changes. But still, that's not going to get the job done on its own.