4 ms·

Excellent comment. People in tech seem to believe that access to Hollywood productions is a right of humanity. On the contrary, it should be paid, and it should

Excellent comment. People in tech seem to believe that access to Hollywood productions is a right of humanity. On the contrary, it should be paid, and it should be quite expensive, because it is not culture, it is just entertainment.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Culture is significantly defined by the people's entertainment, so I don't think you can split the two up. However, that doesn't mean entertainment has to be free. You still had to pay your two pence to see Hamlet at the Globe.
rayiner 14y ago
I think it's very much the demographics of people in tech, and I mean that in a cynical way. 10-15 years ago, if you were in tech, you wrote software to sell to people. Back then I don't remember much righteous indignation about the morality of copyrights. Today, working in tech often means working at a "middle man" place like Google or Netlfix or Amazon, which profit by being gateways to other people's content. It's unsurprising that these folks may have different views on copyright.
- vy8vWJlco 14y ago
  "10-15 years ago, if you were in tech, you wrote software to sell to people. Back then I don't remember much righteous indignation about the morality of copyrights." People didn't have nearly as much access to the Internet then, and the implications of copyright enforcement were much less pronounced (and more endurable). It was a time when 90% of Windows installations were unlicensed. It was also an economic boom (and Microsoft in particular was on fire). Now the Internet touches much more, and enforcing copyright laws among other things (increasing surveillance, etc), feels suffocating. Most countries are in a recession, for one reason or another...
walshemj 14y ago
Its also expensive to produce a cheap TV show runs 1/2 M per 45 minute show - I rember on slashdot where some commentators where incensed about how the lead actors on a show are over paid (and the scale rate for a featured player is about 1/2 the starting salary for the average programmer in SV) And for actors getting a lead on a show is maybe the top 1% or 2% of there profession.
alexqgb 14y ago
Groceries are vital. That doesn't mean I get them for free. I need access to the roads as well, which is why I pay taxes. Producing this stuff costs money, and those costs are expected to be carried by the people benefiting. Cultural works are exactly that - works. They represent tremendous concentrations of time, energy, talent, pain, risk, and resources. The fact that the up-front costs are high while the marginal costs of duplication and distribution are negligible in no way changes this basic proposition: this stuff costs money. Lots and lots of money. And that means it needs to be paid for. If people don't like paying for copies, then what? By what precise mechanism are they going to transfer non-trivial sums of money from themselves to the people who produce the work? Also, where's the enforcement to handle those who don't? Grocers, after all, only have to worry about attracting honest customers. If they catch someone stealing, they don't take it upon themselves to neutralize this threat to their business. They just call the cops. Throwing the idiots in jail isn't their problem. So what do you do about people who steal from artists? Are these folks expected to operate without the legal protections that the rest of society takes for granted? Note, I'm not talking about stealing media, which is hard to steal in the strict sense due to its infinite reproducibility. I'm talking about stealing money, which is what people do when they make a copy they don't pay for, since the act of copying - by law - simultaneously creates an legal obligation to pay the author. But if people just decide to keep the money in their pockets, then they're holding onto something that is no longer theirs. And that's stealing. It's like writing a check. The money to pay it may sit in their accounts for a few days until the check clears, but if they spend it on something else and cause the check to bounce, they've done something criminal. Likewise, if they make a copy, but spend the money they now owe on a cup of coffee instead, they've just screwed the artist out of cash to which he he's legally entitled. And if everybody does this, then the artist is really in trouble. After all, media may be endlessly reproducible, but money isn't. People can copy artist's work freely, but artist's can't "copy" the money in their audiences accounts, even when they're legally entitled to a portion of it. Obviously, the creation of a legal debt to the artist is not triggered by every act of of copying. But assuming we're not talking about something covered by fair use, in the public domain, etc. then making copies absolutely means creating obligations to pay for them - which people widely and habitually disregard. At present, we're functioning on the honor system. And as any established commercial concern will tell you, this turns out to be a really shitty business model.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

Culture is significantly defined by the people's entertainment, so I don't think you can split the two up. However, that doesn't mean entertainment has to be free. You still had to pay your two pence to see Hamlet at the Globe.

rayiner 14y ago

I think it's very much the demographics of people in tech, and I mean that in a cynical way. 10-15 years ago, if you were in tech, you wrote software to sell to people. Back then I don't remember much righteous indignation about the morality of copyrights. Today, working in tech often means working at a "middle man" place like Google or Netlfix or Amazon, which profit by being gateways to other people's content. It's unsurprising that these folks may have different views on copyright.

vy8vWJlco 14y ago
"10-15 years ago, if you were in tech, you wrote software to sell to people. Back then I don't remember much righteous indignation about the morality of copyrights." People didn't have nearly as much access to the Internet then, and the implications of copyright enforcement were much less pronounced (and more endurable). It was a time when 90% of Windows installations were unlicensed. It was also an economic boom (and Microsoft in particular was on fire). Now the Internet touches much more, and enforcing copyright laws among other things (increasing surveillance, etc), feels suffocating. Most countries are in a recession, for one reason or another...

walshemj 14y ago

Its also expensive to produce a cheap TV show runs 1/2 M per 45 minute show - I rember on slashdot where some commentators where incensed about how the lead actors on a show are over paid (and the scale rate for a featured player is about 1/2 the starting salary for the average programmer in SV) And for actors getting a lead on a show is maybe the top 1% or 2% of there profession.

alexqgb 14y ago

Groceries are vital. That doesn't mean I get them for free. I need access to the roads as well, which is why I pay taxes. Producing this stuff costs money, and those costs are expected to be carried by the people benefiting. Cultural works are exactly that - works. They represent tremendous concentrations of time, energy, talent, pain, risk, and resources. The fact that the up-front costs are high while the marginal costs of duplication and distribution are negligible in no way changes this basic proposition: this stuff costs money. Lots and lots of money. And that means it needs to be paid for. If people don't like paying for copies, then what? By what precise mechanism are they going to transfer non-trivial sums of money from themselves to the people who produce the work? Also, where's the enforcement to handle those who don't? Grocers, after all, only have to worry about attracting honest customers. If they catch someone stealing, they don't take it upon themselves to neutralize this threat to their business. They just call the cops. Throwing the idiots in jail isn't their problem. So what do you do about people who steal from artists? Are these folks expected to operate without the legal protections that the rest of society takes for granted? Note, I'm not talking about stealing media, which is hard to steal in the strict sense due to its infinite reproducibility. I'm talking about stealing money, which is what people do when they make a copy they don't pay for, since the act of copying - by law - simultaneously creates an legal obligation to pay the author. But if people just decide to keep the money in their pockets, then they're holding onto something that is no longer theirs. And that's stealing. It's like writing a check. The money to pay it may sit in their accounts for a few days until the check clears, but if they spend it on something else and cause the check to bounce, they've done something criminal. Likewise, if they make a copy, but spend the money they now owe on a cup of coffee instead, they've just screwed the artist out of cash to which he he's legally entitled. And if everybody does this, then the artist is really in trouble. After all, media may be endlessly reproducible, but money isn't. People can copy artist's work freely, but artist's can't "copy" the money in their audiences accounts, even when they're legally entitled to a portion of it. Obviously, the creation of a legal debt to the artist is not triggered by every act of of copying. But assuming we're not talking about something covered by fair use, in the public domain, etc. then making copies absolutely means creating obligations to pay for them - which people widely and habitually disregard. At present, we're functioning on the honor system. And as any established commercial concern will tell you, this turns out to be a really shitty business model.