5 ms·

Terrible, terrible analogy. The strip club has limited space in which to fit patrons. If you sneak in for free, you're taking up a spot that an otherwise paying

Terrible, terrible analogy. The strip club has limited space in which to fit patrons. If you sneak in for free, you're taking up a spot that an otherwise paying customer would fill. When you copy the bits that comprise a movie or a song, you are not denying anybody else that copy of the movie or song. Taken to an extreme, if I hear a song on the radio and I later recall that song, perhaps even performing it in my shower, I have not stolen anything, although by anti-piracy advocates's standards I basically have. Hogwash.

rayiner 14y ago
I don't know what strip clubs you go to, but most of them are only full friday/saturday nights. The venue is sized to handle those big crowds, but during the work week there is just a slow stream of regulars. Someone sneaking in for free on a Wednesday isn't taking a spot away from anyone. Heck, he might even buy a beer!
- ynniv 14y ago
  You're discounting the liability of letting people in to a physical establishment for free (bar fights, medial emergencies, guests not actually there to watch, etc). These are absent from media. There is also the difficulty of variable pricing at the door, where you still want to charge the previously paying customers but let in others for free. This is directly analogous, and while destructive to the content business, is not usually weighed against the public good of greater distribution.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    The point is that the "there is no scarcity with digital distribution" argument isn't the slam-dunk people think it is. Even with physical services, things usually aren't at capacity. If you have a private lake and charge people to take out boats, someone sneaking in is probably not taking a spot from a paying customer. As a practical matter, digital distribution is not the only scenario in which scarcity is artificial. Yet, we generally believe that people are entitled to charge others for the privilege of utilizing a service they provide, even when the service is not at capacity and the marginal cost is negligible. You can extend the analogy even to physical products. What you're saying when you argue that you should be able to copy music because it doesn't take anything away from someone else is that you should be able to get the music at its marginal cost of production, which is zero. By this analogy, why don't I have the moral right to get any other product s it's marginal cost of production, even if that is non-zero?
    - ynniv 14y ago
      the marginal cost is negligible The marginal cost to the creator is not negligible, it is absent. That's an important fundamental change that invalidates most arguments that parallel non-digital interactions. The only cost to the creator is the erosion of the paying market.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        You're trying to create a categorical distinction between "negligible" and "absent" marginal costs that doesn't have any practical significance. What if I went into a Prada store, took a handbag, and left an amount of money equal precisely to the marginal production cost of the handbag plus the cost of restocking the item. Is that morally justifiable? After all, the creator is no worse off than he was before. I haven't taken away an item from someone else--the money I left precisely compensates for manufacturing and restocking a new one for another customer. He has lost a potential sale to me, but who says I was going to buy it in the first place? Most people would say the Coach example is not morally justifiable, but in purely economic terms the circumstances are identical. As long as the "taker" compensates the creator by an amount equal to the marginal cost (in the case of a digital music distributor, zero), the creator is no worse off than he was before. There is nothing magical about the transition from small marginal costs to zero marginal costs in economic terms.
        ynniv 14y ago
        You're trying to create a categorical distinction between "negligible" and "absent" marginal costs that doesn't have any practical significance. There is a huge difference between ten million negligible and ten million absent, which is highly relevant to this discussion. If the benefit is negligible per person, and the cost is negligible, the social good is difficult to evaluate. If the benefit is negligible and the cost is nothing, then the social good is clear. If you can't see this, you can't be effective in this argument. and left an amount of money equal precisely to the marginal production cost Paying for something at cost is actually a net benefit to the creator. It reduces risk, increases market visibility, and lowers production costs by increasing volumes. Now, a business that doesn't make any profit is a difficult business to operate, but I'm not sure that it's morally wrong to pay for the marginal cost of production. Products are often sold at deep discount (probably not below cost) or are given away for the benefit of the creator.
BCM43 14y ago
Does this apply if the strip club is not full? What if you only sneak in during slow times?
reinhardt 14y ago
So as long as the strip club is not (expected to be) packed, it's ok to sneak in? I'd love to move in your area. "When you copy the bits that comprise a movie or a song, you are not denying anybody else that copy of the movie or song." Terrible, terrible argument. Taken to an extreme, there should never be more than one paying customer for every piece of digital (or convertible to digital) content ever created. Hogwash.
- ynniv 14y ago
  Taken to an extreme, there should never be more than one paying customer for every piece of digital (or convertible to digital) content ever created It's easy to forget, but patronage was the primary form of funding for the arts for the vast majority of human history. Commercialized media outside of books and newspapers is probably only a hundred years old. There are many benefits to consumerization of art, but a single paying customer is clearly sufficient.
  - alexqgb 14y ago
    "It's easy to forget, but patronage was the primary form of funding for the arts for the vast majority of human history." You must mean "civilization's history" (~6,000 years), not "human history" (~200,000 years). Throughout the history of civilization, peasantry, serfdom, and outright slavery were the primary source of labor, and provided the wealth that the very small patron class spent on art for themselves. Artists under patronage didn't create what they wanted. They created what their patrons wanted. Some was great, to be sure, but the comparatively narrow range of human expression from this period stands in sharp contrast to the cultural explosion that took place when modern economies allowed artists to follow their muses well beyond the suffocating folds of the aristocracy, which was chiefly interested in creating markers of its own power and domination. This is not to say that industrialization set creative genius entirely free. As a practical matter, publishers and producers became the patrons by financing the development and production of work in hopes of selling access on a larger market. The critical difference is that the personal tastes and interests of the publishers gave way to those of the far more diverse general public. Thus, the astonishing creative explosion which began in the 19th century, and characterizes the 20th century. By killing off these middlemen, you destroy a vital link in this infrastructure in that you loose the people with concentrated piles of cash who are willing to underwrite the very risky and unpredictable process of artistic creation, and who do so not for their own enjoyment and social elevation, but for the much wider (paid) enjoyment of the general public. Since this modern system of commercial patronage appeared, it utterly eclipsed everything that came before, in terms of output. Royal patronage is hardly an option in a country like America. Patronage by the Church isn't what it used to be. Corporate patronage is better known as "advertising", and patronage by the 0.01% is also out of the question unless you're exceedingly well-connected socially. Kickstarter is a great idea, and a welcome contribution, but comparing the projects there with the range of completed work on Amazon, and I'll think you'll start to appreciate the limits. People are justifiably disenchanted with publishers in light of their abusive practices. But it's worth remembering that the scale of the abuse was a direct reflection of the deeper value they provided. And duplication and distribution, as it turns out, was the least of it. Yes, that's where they recovered their money. But the real cultural value was in their power to commission, and their willingness to put more freedom and control in the hands of artists than anyone had ever granted in the past. When you talk about "going back" to old systems it sounds a lot like telling suburbanites that they need to "go back" to sharecropping. In many ways, this reflects the broader economic trend that's actually playing out, in which a few enormously wealthy people tower over increasingly impoverished masses while the middle class flat-lines before going into reverse. To my mind, this isn't something to celebrate.

rayiner 14y ago

I don't know what strip clubs you go to, but most of them are only full friday/saturday nights. The venue is sized to handle those big crowds, but during the work week there is just a slow stream of regulars. Someone sneaking in for free on a Wednesday isn't taking a spot away from anyone. Heck, he might even buy a beer!

ynniv 14y ago
You're discounting the liability of letting people in to a physical establishment for free (bar fights, medial emergencies, guests not actually there to watch, etc). These are absent from media. There is also the difficulty of variable pricing at the door, where you still want to charge the previously paying customers but let in others for free. This is directly analogous, and while destructive to the content business, is not usually weighed against the public good of greater distribution.
- rayiner 14y ago
  The point is that the "there is no scarcity with digital distribution" argument isn't the slam-dunk people think it is. Even with physical services, things usually aren't at capacity. If you have a private lake and charge people to take out boats, someone sneaking in is probably not taking a spot from a paying customer. As a practical matter, digital distribution is not the only scenario in which scarcity is artificial. Yet, we generally believe that people are entitled to charge others for the privilege of utilizing a service they provide, even when the service is not at capacity and the marginal cost is negligible. You can extend the analogy even to physical products. What you're saying when you argue that you should be able to copy music because it doesn't take anything away from someone else is that you should be able to get the music at its marginal cost of production, which is zero. By this analogy, why don't I have the moral right to get any other product s it's marginal cost of production, even if that is non-zero?
  - ynniv 14y ago
    the marginal cost is negligible The marginal cost to the creator is not negligible, it is absent. That's an important fundamental change that invalidates most arguments that parallel non-digital interactions. The only cost to the creator is the erosion of the paying market.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      You're trying to create a categorical distinction between "negligible" and "absent" marginal costs that doesn't have any practical significance. What if I went into a Prada store, took a handbag, and left an amount of money equal precisely to the marginal production cost of the handbag plus the cost of restocking the item. Is that morally justifiable? After all, the creator is no worse off than he was before. I haven't taken away an item from someone else--the money I left precisely compensates for manufacturing and restocking a new one for another customer. He has lost a potential sale to me, but who says I was going to buy it in the first place? Most people would say the Coach example is not morally justifiable, but in purely economic terms the circumstances are identical. As long as the "taker" compensates the creator by an amount equal to the marginal cost (in the case of a digital music distributor, zero), the creator is no worse off than he was before. There is nothing magical about the transition from small marginal costs to zero marginal costs in economic terms.
      - ynniv 14y ago
        You're trying to create a categorical distinction between "negligible" and "absent" marginal costs that doesn't have any practical significance. There is a huge difference between ten million negligible and ten million absent, which is highly relevant to this discussion. If the benefit is negligible per person, and the cost is negligible, the social good is difficult to evaluate. If the benefit is negligible and the cost is nothing, then the social good is clear. If you can't see this, you can't be effective in this argument. and left an amount of money equal precisely to the marginal production cost Paying for something at cost is actually a net benefit to the creator. It reduces risk, increases market visibility, and lowers production costs by increasing volumes. Now, a business that doesn't make any profit is a difficult business to operate, but I'm not sure that it's morally wrong to pay for the marginal cost of production. Products are often sold at deep discount (probably not below cost) or are given away for the benefit of the creator.

BCM43 14y ago

Does this apply if the strip club is not full? What if you only sneak in during slow times?

reinhardt 14y ago

So as long as the strip club is not (expected to be) packed, it's ok to sneak in? I'd love to move in your area. "When you copy the bits that comprise a movie or a song, you are not denying anybody else that copy of the movie or song." Terrible, terrible argument. Taken to an extreme, there should never be more than one paying customer for every piece of digital (or convertible to digital) content ever created. Hogwash.

ynniv 14y ago
Taken to an extreme, there should never be more than one paying customer for every piece of digital (or convertible to digital) content ever created It's easy to forget, but patronage was the primary form of funding for the arts for the vast majority of human history. Commercialized media outside of books and newspapers is probably only a hundred years old. There are many benefits to consumerization of art, but a single paying customer is clearly sufficient.
- alexqgb 14y ago
  "It's easy to forget, but patronage was the primary form of funding for the arts for the vast majority of human history." You must mean "civilization's history" (~6,000 years), not "human history" (~200,000 years). Throughout the history of civilization, peasantry, serfdom, and outright slavery were the primary source of labor, and provided the wealth that the very small patron class spent on art for themselves. Artists under patronage didn't create what they wanted. They created what their patrons wanted. Some was great, to be sure, but the comparatively narrow range of human expression from this period stands in sharp contrast to the cultural explosion that took place when modern economies allowed artists to follow their muses well beyond the suffocating folds of the aristocracy, which was chiefly interested in creating markers of its own power and domination. This is not to say that industrialization set creative genius entirely free. As a practical matter, publishers and producers became the patrons by financing the development and production of work in hopes of selling access on a larger market. The critical difference is that the personal tastes and interests of the publishers gave way to those of the far more diverse general public. Thus, the astonishing creative explosion which began in the 19th century, and characterizes the 20th century. By killing off these middlemen, you destroy a vital link in this infrastructure in that you loose the people with concentrated piles of cash who are willing to underwrite the very risky and unpredictable process of artistic creation, and who do so not for their own enjoyment and social elevation, but for the much wider (paid) enjoyment of the general public. Since this modern system of commercial patronage appeared, it utterly eclipsed everything that came before, in terms of output. Royal patronage is hardly an option in a country like America. Patronage by the Church isn't what it used to be. Corporate patronage is better known as "advertising", and patronage by the 0.01% is also out of the question unless you're exceedingly well-connected socially. Kickstarter is a great idea, and a welcome contribution, but comparing the projects there with the range of completed work on Amazon, and I'll think you'll start to appreciate the limits. People are justifiably disenchanted with publishers in light of their abusive practices. But it's worth remembering that the scale of the abuse was a direct reflection of the deeper value they provided. And duplication and distribution, as it turns out, was the least of it. Yes, that's where they recovered their money. But the real cultural value was in their power to commission, and their willingness to put more freedom and control in the hands of artists than anyone had ever granted in the past. When you talk about "going back" to old systems it sounds a lot like telling suburbanites that they need to "go back" to sharecropping. In many ways, this reflects the broader economic trend that's actually playing out, in which a few enormously wealthy people tower over increasingly impoverished masses while the middle class flat-lines before going into reverse. To my mind, this isn't something to celebrate.