5 ms·

The number of generally appreciated works produced and delivered with $0 in costs is so small as to be not worth mentioning. Money, and therefore exchange (i.e.

by alexqgb 13y ago

The number of generally appreciated works produced and delivered with $0 in costs is so small as to be not worth mentioning. Money, and therefore exchange (i.e. business) is inseparable from just about anything worth anyone's attention. Indeed, money is as inseparable from the most popular art forms as gravity is from rocketry. Entire mediums wax and wane in response to the flow of finance. Film, opera, books, television, to say nothing of architecture are almost evntierly defined by the commercial melieu. Mastery of this dimension provides the very cornerstone of professional accomplishment, since nothing else is possible without the requisite budget. To the extent that time is money, every creative type who values the often considerable amount of time it takes to produce the work they want to produce understands the constraints of finance in their bones. They all do their best to do the most with what they can get. That a big part of the reason they get so frustrated with audiences who refuse to pay. How can you possibly fail to recognize this?

baddox 13y ago
In your model, which seems to assume that IP laws result in a net positive to society by some measure, do you actually figure in the cost to society of maintaining and enforcing the IP laws?
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  If it is so detrimental why hasn't it been replaced with something better? Note any conspiracy about the MAFIAA running the show behind the scenes as to why it hasn't been replaced aren't reasonable...
  - betterunix 13y ago
    Why is it unreasonable to think that copyright has been maintained because of lobbyists when copyright was established by a vast lobbying effort in the first place? The Statute of Anne was created following literally years of pressure on the British parliament by the publishers who wanted to revive the monopoly they had once held under the Licensing of the Press Act. At no point did the politicians actually care about artists or art; it was money, from the very beginning until today.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      >Why is it unreasonable to think that copyright has been maintained because of lobbyists when copyright was established by a vast lobbying effort in the first place? This is possibly true, but ignoring the fact that many artists still continue to release their work under copyright vs. some sort of free license without any compensation.
      - betterunix 13y ago
        That is a false dichotomy and you are ignoring the fact that we never spent much time setting up any other system for compensating artists. This also ignores the fact that the vast majority of artists have to do some other work, usually full time, just to pay their rent. It also ignores the large body of art and entertainment that existed prior to copyrights, much of which was produced without any hope or guarantee of payment.
        res0nat0r 13y ago
        It is? Maybe we've never spent much time setting up any other system is because the system as it currently stands is working for the majority and they see no need to seek out another system. Also yes a large body of small time artists have to work other jobs to pay their rent, so many use copyright to try and secure income. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing. Just because you can easily subvert the system due to mp3's and fat bandwidth doesn't mean it should somehow now be legal, copyright is moot, and we tell every artist to "deal with it."
        alexqgb 13y ago
        Actually, the amount of creative work in any medium that existed before the Enlightenment era is pretty thin relative to what came after. And it's not even a drop in the bucked compared to the explosion of material that followed the industrial revolutions on general and the modification of copyrights to make them transferable in particular. This legal innovation became the bedrock for the massively collaborative forms of media that went on to define the 20th century (newspapers, encyclopedias, literary anthologies, films, broadcasts, video games to name the biggest). Also, the point of copyright is to resolve a very specific problem, which is reconciling the high capital costs of content creation with the low marginal cost of duplication. Of course, none of the people who casually and dismissively say "just figure out a different model" will be ever be clear about exactly what problem needs solving. That's because acknowledging the mathematically inevitable failures awaiting any endevor with high R&D costs and low manufacturing and distribution costs make the logic of copyright clear. Either we create legal protections for the business or let it die. Given the extraordinary value offered by intangible goods, advanced economies have made the smart choice of creating legal protections in case where markets left to themselves would leave many of our best and brightest high and dry.
  - baddox 13y ago
    > If it is so detrimental why hasn't it been replaced with something better? That's a ridiculous argument, which is clear if you apply it to other detrimental things like wars, murder, and disease.
    - alexqgb 13y ago
      Uh, that was a rhetorical question. Intelligent readers can see that he's saying copyright, as a social institution, isn't actually the travesty some make it out to be. Intelligent people also recognize that "detrimental" is a pretty broad category, and that you can't necessarily make an apples to apples comparison between two things simply because they're both detrimental. Copyright is a legal and social institution. Wars, murder, and disease are not. Neither are earthquakes for that matter, or volcano eruptions. Detrimental as they may be, they're hardly things we can simply legislate out of existence (even I that's exactly what one of the Carolinas is trying to do in response to rising sea levels). If you want to make a proper apple to apples comparison, pick something that is, at least, remotely analogous. Slavery, for instance, or the poll tax. Just make sure it's something people can actually legislate one way or the other, and not something that is obviously beyond the reach of the law.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        Come on, I'm sure you can be more condescending. I also like how you first imply that social institutions cannot be travesties, then you give an example of a social institution that is a travesty.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        alexqgb 13y ago
        I was actually throwing you a bone. By drawing your attention to institutions that were obviously bad (and which were duely changed) I gave you a clue about how you could have been smarter in your response. Which is not to say that copyright represent injustices similar to either of these institutions. But at least you'd be saying something only halfway stupid instead of something completely stupid.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  No, for the obvious reason that such costs remain unknown and therefore can't be accounted for by anyone. It's like trying to put a price on national parks. What I do know is that the material underpinnings of the creative forms which remain the most popular took generations—and sometimes centuries—to reach their current stages of development. Like old growth redwood groves, they can't be easily replaced if people decide that chopping them down was a mistake. In other words, we're not talking about "creative destruction" here. Just destruction. Saying "prove the unprovable or die" is not an admirable way to care for something that vast numbers value highly and which lives by careful passage from generation to generation.
bo1024 13y ago
For centuries art mainly survived on the patron model (people would pay artists before the work was created, not afterward). I'm not sure why you're argument that artists need money has anything inherently to do with copyright.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Yes, and art was also the preserve of a tiny elite. The patron model is not that great, I'm not sure why there's this meme that developers or other innovators should be able to make fat money but artists should shut up and be happy someone underwrites them, as opposed to trying to make money from selling their work to the public.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  The fact that you don't see the connection does not mean that the connection doesn't exist. It just means you have no idea how the business of art actually works. Indeed, it seems like you don't know much about art itself. When you note that artists used to rely on patrons for money (for materials and living) you forget that patrons also told the artists what to create. This meant lots of Biblical scenes for the Church, plenty of portraits, sculpture, and landscape paintings for the Aristocracy, and not much else. One of the most important cultural developments in the history of cultural developments has been the emergence of artists a autonomous creators. This is what elevated their roles from those of highly skilled craftsmen to leading intellectuals, pushing the boundaries of human perception. Culturally and creatively, we started to live in a totally different universe once the artistic class freed itself from the very narrow, conservative, and self-glorifying interests of the patron class. I'm sorry, but the idea of "going back" seems like going back to government by heridetaty monarchy, alchemy, candle-lit everything, and anastesia-free dentistry. It's not what most people want. Copyright leaves a lot to be desired, and it has plenty of room for improvement. Even so, it is vastly preferable to the alternative.
  - bo1024 13y ago
    I never mentioned "going back" and you still haven't shown any connection. I'm just pointing out that the fact that artists need money to survive doesn't mean that we need super stringent copyright terms. The 16th century patron model is certainly not "the [only] alternative" to our current model of copyright.

by alexqgb 13y ago

baddox 13y ago

In your model, which seems to assume that IP laws result in a net positive to society by some measure, do you actually figure in the cost to society of maintaining and enforcing the IP laws?

res0nat0r 13y ago
If it is so detrimental why hasn't it been replaced with something better? Note any conspiracy about the MAFIAA running the show behind the scenes as to why it hasn't been replaced aren't reasonable...
- betterunix 13y ago
  Why is it unreasonable to think that copyright has been maintained because of lobbyists when copyright was established by a vast lobbying effort in the first place? The Statute of Anne was created following literally years of pressure on the British parliament by the publishers who wanted to revive the monopoly they had once held under the Licensing of the Press Act. At no point did the politicians actually care about artists or art; it was money, from the very beginning until today.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    >Why is it unreasonable to think that copyright has been maintained because of lobbyists when copyright was established by a vast lobbying effort in the first place? This is possibly true, but ignoring the fact that many artists still continue to release their work under copyright vs. some sort of free license without any compensation.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      That is a false dichotomy and you are ignoring the fact that we never spent much time setting up any other system for compensating artists. This also ignores the fact that the vast majority of artists have to do some other work, usually full time, just to pay their rent. It also ignores the large body of art and entertainment that existed prior to copyrights, much of which was produced without any hope or guarantee of payment.
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        It is? Maybe we've never spent much time setting up any other system is because the system as it currently stands is working for the majority and they see no need to seek out another system. Also yes a large body of small time artists have to work other jobs to pay their rent, so many use copyright to try and secure income. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing. Just because you can easily subvert the system due to mp3's and fat bandwidth doesn't mean it should somehow now be legal, copyright is moot, and we tell every artist to "deal with it."
      - alexqgb 13y ago
        Actually, the amount of creative work in any medium that existed before the Enlightenment era is pretty thin relative to what came after. And it's not even a drop in the bucked compared to the explosion of material that followed the industrial revolutions on general and the modification of copyrights to make them transferable in particular. This legal innovation became the bedrock for the massively collaborative forms of media that went on to define the 20th century (newspapers, encyclopedias, literary anthologies, films, broadcasts, video games to name the biggest). Also, the point of copyright is to resolve a very specific problem, which is reconciling the high capital costs of content creation with the low marginal cost of duplication. Of course, none of the people who casually and dismissively say "just figure out a different model" will be ever be clear about exactly what problem needs solving. That's because acknowledging the mathematically inevitable failures awaiting any endevor with high R&D costs and low manufacturing and distribution costs make the logic of copyright clear. Either we create legal protections for the business or let it die. Given the extraordinary value offered by intangible goods, advanced economies have made the smart choice of creating legal protections in case where markets left to themselves would leave many of our best and brightest high and dry.
- baddox 13y ago
  > If it is so detrimental why hasn't it been replaced with something better? That's a ridiculous argument, which is clear if you apply it to other detrimental things like wars, murder, and disease.
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    Uh, that was a rhetorical question. Intelligent readers can see that he's saying copyright, as a social institution, isn't actually the travesty some make it out to be. Intelligent people also recognize that "detrimental" is a pretty broad category, and that you can't necessarily make an apples to apples comparison between two things simply because they're both detrimental. Copyright is a legal and social institution. Wars, murder, and disease are not. Neither are earthquakes for that matter, or volcano eruptions. Detrimental as they may be, they're hardly things we can simply legislate out of existence (even I that's exactly what one of the Carolinas is trying to do in response to rising sea levels). If you want to make a proper apple to apples comparison, pick something that is, at least, remotely analogous. Slavery, for instance, or the poll tax. Just make sure it's something people can actually legislate one way or the other, and not something that is obviously beyond the reach of the law.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      Come on, I'm sure you can be more condescending. I also like how you first imply that social institutions cannot be travesties, then you give an example of a social institution that is a travesty.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - alexqgb 13y ago
        I was actually throwing you a bone. By drawing your attention to institutions that were obviously bad (and which were duely changed) I gave you a clue about how you could have been smarter in your response. Which is not to say that copyright represent injustices similar to either of these institutions. But at least you'd be saying something only halfway stupid instead of something completely stupid.
alexqgb 13y ago
No, for the obvious reason that such costs remain unknown and therefore can't be accounted for by anyone. It's like trying to put a price on national parks. What I do know is that the material underpinnings of the creative forms which remain the most popular took generations—and sometimes centuries—to reach their current stages of development. Like old growth redwood groves, they can't be easily replaced if people decide that chopping them down was a mistake. In other words, we're not talking about "creative destruction" here. Just destruction. Saying "prove the unprovable or die" is not an admirable way to care for something that vast numbers value highly and which lives by careful passage from generation to generation.

bo1024 13y ago

For centuries art mainly survived on the patron model (people would pay artists before the work was created, not afterward). I'm not sure why you're argument that artists need money has anything inherently to do with copyright.

anigbrowl 13y ago
Yes, and art was also the preserve of a tiny elite. The patron model is not that great, I'm not sure why there's this meme that developers or other innovators should be able to make fat money but artists should shut up and be happy someone underwrites them, as opposed to trying to make money from selling their work to the public.
alexqgb 13y ago
The fact that you don't see the connection does not mean that the connection doesn't exist. It just means you have no idea how the business of art actually works. Indeed, it seems like you don't know much about art itself. When you note that artists used to rely on patrons for money (for materials and living) you forget that patrons also told the artists what to create. This meant lots of Biblical scenes for the Church, plenty of portraits, sculpture, and landscape paintings for the Aristocracy, and not much else. One of the most important cultural developments in the history of cultural developments has been the emergence of artists a autonomous creators. This is what elevated their roles from those of highly skilled craftsmen to leading intellectuals, pushing the boundaries of human perception. Culturally and creatively, we started to live in a totally different universe once the artistic class freed itself from the very narrow, conservative, and self-glorifying interests of the patron class. I'm sorry, but the idea of "going back" seems like going back to government by heridetaty monarchy, alchemy, candle-lit everything, and anastesia-free dentistry. It's not what most people want. Copyright leaves a lot to be desired, and it has plenty of room for improvement. Even so, it is vastly preferable to the alternative.
- bo1024 13y ago
  I never mentioned "going back" and you still haven't shown any connection. I'm just pointing out that the fact that artists need money to survive doesn't mean that we need super stringent copyright terms. The 16th century patron model is certainly not "the [only] alternative" to our current model of copyright.