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So your position is that almost nobody who sells their content should be able to make a living doing that? You either must be able to fund it through ads, host

So your position is that almost nobody who sells their content should be able to make a living doing that? You either must be able to fund it through ads, host it on platform which make piracy effectively impossible and/or impractical like Apple's App Store, YouTube etc. or be independently wealthy and just do it as a hobby? e.g. screw all the authors who are writing books, Amazon should just be able to distribute (or sell for some "convenience" fee) books to everyone who has a Kindle without paying anything to them? That (which would be the logical outcome of nothing having no IP protection) certainly sounds like a reasonable opinion..

toolz 2y ago
In practice I agree with your points, but it's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people. I won't make the argument that society is willing or could switch to that model successfully, but I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > consider that the open source model is alive Not everything revolves around software. Also even then OSS generally seems to only be universally successful in areas where software is a "cost centre" i.e. companies are willing to invest into it when it makes it cheaper for them run their business than building/buying proprietary stuff or they build their products on top of it (A but almost never when it's the actual end product targeted at consumers. And if we extend the definition of software to video games, OS is not even a thing there (besides middleware of course which falls into the previous category).
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >t's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people... I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either. I would. Many people who contribute to FOSS either already or proceeded to work on proprietary technology which makes money. Like Nintendo. The FOSS work in good times is a passion hobby, not a means to live. It'd be nice, but charity for most ventures has never ventured to be a way for the charity giver to sustain a liveable wage. If it could do that then I'd be more on board for FOSS being a model to follow. Instead, just like when you list a couch on Craigslist, you want to charge even a small price (and maybe not even collect the money) just to filter out the most unhinged customers who somehow become even more unhinged over literal free stuff.
choo-t 2y ago
other sources of revenue exist, lot of creators get their revenue through donation, either one time or recurring (monthly, yearly, by release). On another level, we could pivot to UBI instead of dedicating ressource to enforce fake scarcity.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > other sources of revenue exist > revenue through donation So what? Not everyone wants to engage in all of the PR/marketing stuff that's necessary to make any money from that and it would still generally result in significantly lower revenue. > On another level, we could pivot to UBI instead of dedicating And fund it how exactly? Even if that were sustainable why do you think that content creators should be fully content living of UBI + a few pennies in donations while people working in most other industries should be able to money the same way they previously did? IP protection (even if often implemented in a suboptimal way which of course should be improved) have been one of the primaries force behind human progress over that last 300+ years.
  - choo-t 2y ago
    > Not everyone wants to engage in all of the PR/marketing stuff that's necessary to make any money from that That's not a difference, PR/Marketing is already used to profit over IP work. > Even if that were sustainable why do you think that content creators should be fully content living of UBI + a few pennies in donations while people working in most other industries should be able to money the same way they previously did? This is assuming creators are fully content on how stuff work now, and I'm betting that's not the case for the vast majority, most of them cannot make end meets with the current system, regardless of how hard they work on their book/song/game/etc, and they have to have a side job just to put food on the table. > IP protection (even if often implemented in a suboptimal way which of course should be improved) have been one of the primaries force behind human progress over that last 300+ years. That's a bold claim. Most of, if not all, human progress on this period is directly attributable to the use of fossil fuel, from the steam engine to the modern use of it, and how it empowered us to do so much more with less human-hour.
neuralRiot 2y ago
Piracy is product of artificial scarcity, people pirate mostly because it is easier and more convenient than the legitimate counterpart, music piracy almost disappeared when convenient streaming services appeared, same for movies until studios decided that they wanted “cable tv 2.0” Make something as easy as pirating and people will pay for it.
- adamc 2y ago
  Convenient streaming services do not pay musicians a living wage for their work. It's basically still ripping them off.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >people pirate mostly because it is easier and more convenient than the legitimate counterpart Sure, same logic as "people steal when it's easy to do so" >music piracy almost disappeared when convenient streaming services appeared Too much to go into now, but Spotify is definately next on the list of enshittification. It's very easy to "end piracy" when your plan is to capture the market with unsustainable business models and clamp down later when money is tight. >Make something as easy as pirating and people will pay for it. We're kind of seeing that right now with Gamepass. And all that does is make me fear for the end of games preservation as we speak. But I suppose that's the market demand, so it is what it is. We already saw what happened with the mobile scene with this. apps are essentially "free" so it's easier than piracy to jump in. I'm not sure if that's an ideal model either.
  - ysofunny 2y ago
    i just want megaupload for all mankind because we can. it's a dumbass problem that we cannot afford it (but somehow a crook from down and under could? hmmm)
  - komali2 2y ago
    There's still really phenomenal games on phones, there's just also a ton of "free" (ad and micro transaction driven) crap. Also phones can emulate and there's some interesting homebrew they can thus run like micromages.
hirako2000 2y ago
Throwing away these abused IP laws wouldn't prevent creators from making a living off their art. Plenty of ways for artist to monetize. Selling a copy of the art is one way, very cherished by publishers. Creators for the most part don't make money off copy distribution of their art. That was the case with physical copies, still the case with online distribution. The good old "let's protect the artists" is a fallacy. It's only to protect publishers and distributors. These IP laws, at least their interpretation acts against the public interest, creators included. Other forms of monetisation of art? Performance, training and teaching, patronage, custom requests, etc. Ask Taylor Swift where most of her money is coming from, that's not from Spotify.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  so you're basically saying you're fine with a creator needing to get a business major in order to sell merch... just so they can give away the thing they real care for? I'd hope premium games would show there's a market where you don't need to become a coporate model just to make ends meet, but I guess when even games are dismissing that it was only a dream. >The good old "let's protect the artists" is a fallacy. It's only to protect publishers and distributors. Who do you think is the first to be cut when publishers/distributors are low on money? It's not like they need that money to live. They can shut down the business and still retire comfortably. >Ask Taylor Swift where most of her money is coming from okay. >Swift's income streams include revenue from her concert tour ticket sales, music catalog, streaming deals and record sales. She also owns numerous pricey properties across the U.S. Both Bloomberg and Forbes pin her net worth at an estimated $1.1 billion on the low end, based on analyses of her fortune. so... either she's really good in real estate or she command enough power to get a fair cut from stuff 99.9% of artists barely get anything out of. Never thought about comparing Swift to the typical music market but I was expecting something a little bit more surprising.
  - boltzmann-brain 2y ago
    > so you're basically saying you're fine with a creator needing to get a business major in order to sell merch... just so they can give away the thing they real care for? What a nonsensical, bad-faith, mis-representation of GP. At this point you might as well start talking about hot air balloons, another thing that wasn't mentioned in GP. If this is what you're going to be doing, you shouldn't be on this website at all. Your comments particularly stand out as always being on the wrong side of the conversation, no matter what point is brought up. It's obvious you just want to be a contrarian for no sake at all.

toolz 2y ago

In practice I agree with your points, but it's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people. I won't make the argument that society is willing or could switch to that model successfully, but I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either.

Wytwwww 2y ago
> consider that the open source model is alive Not everything revolves around software. Also even then OSS generally seems to only be universally successful in areas where software is a "cost centre" i.e. companies are willing to invest into it when it makes it cheaper for them run their business than building/buying proprietary stuff or they build their products on top of it (A but almost never when it's the actual end product targeted at consumers. And if we extend the definition of software to video games, OS is not even a thing there (besides middleware of course which falls into the previous category).
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>t's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people... I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either. I would. Many people who contribute to FOSS either already or proceeded to work on proprietary technology which makes money. Like Nintendo. The FOSS work in good times is a passion hobby, not a means to live. It'd be nice, but charity for most ventures has never ventured to be a way for the charity giver to sustain a liveable wage. If it could do that then I'd be more on board for FOSS being a model to follow. Instead, just like when you list a couch on Craigslist, you want to charge even a small price (and maybe not even collect the money) just to filter out the most unhinged customers who somehow become even more unhinged over literal free stuff.

choo-t 2y ago

other sources of revenue exist, lot of creators get their revenue through donation, either one time or recurring (monthly, yearly, by release). On another level, we could pivot to UBI instead of dedicating ressource to enforce fake scarcity.

Wytwwww 2y ago
> other sources of revenue exist > revenue through donation So what? Not everyone wants to engage in all of the PR/marketing stuff that's necessary to make any money from that and it would still generally result in significantly lower revenue. > On another level, we could pivot to UBI instead of dedicating And fund it how exactly? Even if that were sustainable why do you think that content creators should be fully content living of UBI + a few pennies in donations while people working in most other industries should be able to money the same way they previously did? IP protection (even if often implemented in a suboptimal way which of course should be improved) have been one of the primaries force behind human progress over that last 300+ years.
- choo-t 2y ago
  > Not everyone wants to engage in all of the PR/marketing stuff that's necessary to make any money from that That's not a difference, PR/Marketing is already used to profit over IP work. > Even if that were sustainable why do you think that content creators should be fully content living of UBI + a few pennies in donations while people working in most other industries should be able to money the same way they previously did? This is assuming creators are fully content on how stuff work now, and I'm betting that's not the case for the vast majority, most of them cannot make end meets with the current system, regardless of how hard they work on their book/song/game/etc, and they have to have a side job just to put food on the table. > IP protection (even if often implemented in a suboptimal way which of course should be improved) have been one of the primaries force behind human progress over that last 300+ years. That's a bold claim. Most of, if not all, human progress on this period is directly attributable to the use of fossil fuel, from the steam engine to the modern use of it, and how it empowered us to do so much more with less human-hour.

neuralRiot 2y ago

Piracy is product of artificial scarcity, people pirate mostly because it is easier and more convenient than the legitimate counterpart, music piracy almost disappeared when convenient streaming services appeared, same for movies until studios decided that they wanted “cable tv 2.0” Make something as easy as pirating and people will pay for it.

adamc 2y ago
Convenient streaming services do not pay musicians a living wage for their work. It's basically still ripping them off.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>people pirate mostly because it is easier and more convenient than the legitimate counterpart Sure, same logic as "people steal when it's easy to do so" >music piracy almost disappeared when convenient streaming services appeared Too much to go into now, but Spotify is definately next on the list of enshittification. It's very easy to "end piracy" when your plan is to capture the market with unsustainable business models and clamp down later when money is tight. >Make something as easy as pirating and people will pay for it. We're kind of seeing that right now with Gamepass. And all that does is make me fear for the end of games preservation as we speak. But I suppose that's the market demand, so it is what it is. We already saw what happened with the mobile scene with this. apps are essentially "free" so it's easier than piracy to jump in. I'm not sure if that's an ideal model either.
- ysofunny 2y ago
  i just want megaupload for all mankind because we can. it's a dumbass problem that we cannot afford it (but somehow a crook from down and under could? hmmm)
- komali2 2y ago
  There's still really phenomenal games on phones, there's just also a ton of "free" (ad and micro transaction driven) crap. Also phones can emulate and there's some interesting homebrew they can thus run like micromages.

hirako2000 2y ago

Throwing away these abused IP laws wouldn't prevent creators from making a living off their art. Plenty of ways for artist to monetize. Selling a copy of the art is one way, very cherished by publishers. Creators for the most part don't make money off copy distribution of their art. That was the case with physical copies, still the case with online distribution. The good old "let's protect the artists" is a fallacy. It's only to protect publishers and distributors. These IP laws, at least their interpretation acts against the public interest, creators included. Other forms of monetisation of art? Performance, training and teaching, patronage, custom requests, etc. Ask Taylor Swift where most of her money is coming from, that's not from Spotify.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
so you're basically saying you're fine with a creator needing to get a business major in order to sell merch... just so they can give away the thing they real care for? I'd hope premium games would show there's a market where you don't need to become a coporate model just to make ends meet, but I guess when even games are dismissing that it was only a dream. >The good old "let's protect the artists" is a fallacy. It's only to protect publishers and distributors. Who do you think is the first to be cut when publishers/distributors are low on money? It's not like they need that money to live. They can shut down the business and still retire comfortably. >Ask Taylor Swift where most of her money is coming from okay. >Swift's income streams include revenue from her concert tour ticket sales, music catalog, streaming deals and record sales. She also owns numerous pricey properties across the U.S. Both Bloomberg and Forbes pin her net worth at an estimated $1.1 billion on the low end, based on analyses of her fortune. so... either she's really good in real estate or she command enough power to get a fair cut from stuff 99.9% of artists barely get anything out of. Never thought about comparing Swift to the typical music market but I was expecting something a little bit more surprising.
- boltzmann-brain 2y ago
  > so you're basically saying you're fine with a creator needing to get a business major in order to sell merch... just so they can give away the thing they real care for? What a nonsensical, bad-faith, mis-representation of GP. At this point you might as well start talking about hot air balloons, another thing that wasn't mentioned in GP. If this is what you're going to be doing, you shouldn't be on this website at all. Your comments particularly stand out as always being on the wrong side of the conversation, no matter what point is brought up. It's obvious you just want to be a contrarian for no sake at all.