9 ms·
> it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them. Nonsense. I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to
by quadrangle 13y ago
> it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them.
Nonsense. I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone. There are real issues with funding mechanisms and creative work in a shareable digital world, but we can reject the idea that you should always pay for anything that is beneficial. If you want to give gifts to creative folks you like, you can go ahead.
- minikites 13y agoThe musicians/recording engineers/conductor/support staff don't deserve to be paid?
- meerita 13y agoWell, this is a big debate. I think musicians must be paid by playing live, amd not when every human listen a song, do a cover, or listen it in a bar. I think artists should be credited and pay when others use their creation for commercial use. Staff, as always, they will have jobs. You think the staff is all day working with the records, no, they do sound work on live shows too, as welll producers, designers, print guys, etc. People evolve.
- minikites 13y agoOkay, so what about artists who are unable to play live for one reason or another (e.g. handicap, musical complexity). Recording engineering is different enough from live sound that it's almost two different jobs. And you're suggesting that the staff who do things like set up microphones and haul speakers should get paid to set that up for a live show but not paid to set that up for a recording?
- meerita 13y agoThen it's easier. You cannot live from something you cannot fully profit. It's a dead model, in this case, for you, but not for the rest. Let's say you're just not a musician but you are a genious at the computer. well, you can still sell your music, but in these days, people may be more open to see you on stage and buying a 20$ CD. Most of the movies, right now, are sold in the metro station in Barcelona tagged 1-2 dollars. And legal stores, not those slave-labor dudes with the house-made copycated movies. The industry already kills its own artists.
- chrismcb 13y agoIf that is the case, why would any entertainer allow themselves to be recorded? And who would bother to waste the time and money to make the recording? I don't have the time nor desire to go to a concert, yet I enjoy listening to good music. Therefore I pay for it.
- devcpp 13y agoIf people aren't willing to, nope. This is a slippery slope and we can't afford to pay every employee of dying professions forever. I think utilities and reasonable physical safety and healthcare should be paid for by the people. But for the rest, the free market will work better than an infinity of laws and incentives to put people in a corner to pay up. Money, uh, finds a way...
- speakme 13y ago> If people aren't willing to, nope. The idea behind this comment is that if people don't care enough about the work to bother viewing it, the maker shouldn't be paid. Which I agree with; I hate the idea of government sponsorship of art no one wants. The difference here is, PEOPLE WANT THE ART, THEY JUST DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR IT. That's a huge distinction. It has value to people, but because they have the opportunity to steal it with no consequence, they do so.
- cheez 13y agoThe performers need to be paid if you want to hear more in the future.
- ctdonath 13y agoYou'll work for free?
- meerita 13y agoPour cast. They can't buy new Ferarris because some kids watch that movie for free.
- JPKab 13y agoI'm a left of center guy, but this kind of thinking is a very ugly slippery slope. Its not that anyone should always expect to pay for things that are beneficial, its the fact that people who very recently WORKED to create the very thing you are benefiting from should be PAID for their work. If everyone followed your logic, we wouldn't have 12 Years A Slave. The props cost money. The costumes cost money. The cameras cost money. The cameramen's families eat fucking food, which costs money. Please, go out and find for me a quality movie that was made by unpaid volunteers. I haven't found one yet.
- Blahah 13y agoquandrangle didn't say don't pay anyone. They said just because something is good, doesn't mean we have to pay every time we consume it. There are other conceivable ways of funding these things. Like crowd-funding, micropayments, whatever. If everyone followed quadrangle's logic, people who wanted to produce movies would find another way to fund them.
- johndavidback 13y agoPlease explain how crowd-funding a movie even makes sense? There are plenty of movies with actors I love that are terrible. Have you seen RED (or worse, RED 2)? For the same reason your boss doesn't pay you for the month you haven't worked yet, you shouldn't expect people to produce movies without any reliable way of getting paid.
- vilhelm_s 13y agoBut there are lots of crowdfunding successes for videogames, even though they present the same problem that you don't know in advance how good it will be. So I don't think the situation is hopeless. Another idea which I think has promise is payment by social conventions. Tipping culture in the US is like this: you are not legally required to pay waitstaff, but everyone does because they would be considered assholes if they didn't. People joke that it's ridiculous that rock bands and web cartoonists make most of their money selling t-shirts, but actually if we are aiming for social pressure t-shirts are the ideal currency---everyone you interact with in your daily life can see that you bought one. So if we got a convention going that "if you regularly read a webcomic you oughta buy the t-shirt", then it would be easy to ostracize the people who violate it.
- chasing 13y agoAh, spoken like someone who has never created anything of value.
- Recoil42 13y ago>I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone. Well, Mozart is dead, for one thing...
- mikkom 13y ago> I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone. Even on legal side you are not required to compensate anyone as it's so old that it's in public domain.
- cscurmudgeon 13y agoAh. This old argument again. It would make sense if people actually support artists. Every time some one brings this up in real life, I ask them for instances where they have actually supported somebody.
- psykovsky 13y agoSupporting them doesn't mean paying for million dollar mansions and vehicles.
- g4m8i7 13y agoJust 2 days ago, I commissioned a work from a local painter. People support artists in many ways. One of those ways is paying to enjoy the things they produce.
- Glyptodon 13y agoCommissions are the same as Kickstarter, IE you pay before it's created. In no way does something like this have any bearing on works by commission, in fact it puts things back on the path of human traditions, which have typically relied on commissions, patronage or performance, rather than ownership.
- ds_ 13y ago
- yojo 13y agoCopyright law acknowledges that the marginal cost is near zero. That's why copyright holders get a temporary monopoly. The goal is to incentivize the creation of these goods so that everyone can (later) get them at near-zero cost. Copyright law does not enshrine the idea that "you should always pay for anything that is beneficial." The idea is that as a society we collectively want to always pay for something that is a net positive. There are many ways this system is currently broken (e.g. copyright lasting 70 years after creators death in US), but the fundamental concept of incentivizing creation of works that ultimately provide public benefit is sound.
- green7ea 13y agoThe interesting thing is that the 'temporary' monopoly isn't really temporary as it keeps being extended before most copyrights expire. In theory it is temporary but in practice it's not (at least so far). To see this in action, look at the copyrights on Mikey mouse and how many times those have been extended right before they were set to expire.
- res0nat0r 13y agoSo do you tell your boss he is free to pay or not pay you based on his mood for the week? And you are Ok with that yes?
- humanrebar 13y agoThere's probably a good analogy somewhere, but that isn't it. I don't have a contract with any movie production studio.
- res0nat0r 13y agoActually you do. You pay the price they ask to consume their content, or you don't consume it. Hence why doing so without paying is illegal.
- humanrebar 13y agoI don't have any continuous contractual relationships with any studios like I do with my employer. Maybe Netflix or HBO would qualify, but they don't charge their customer per unit, so it doesn't really apply here either.
- res0nat0r 13y agoThis really is just a sideshow (excuse) to justify watching movies without paying for them. I don't have any contract with my utility companies whom mail me bills every month for using their services, nor do I have one with Kroger when I go buy groceries. I still am obligated to pay both of them for using their services.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- anonymoushn 13y agoI enjoyed your joke.
- espadrine 13y agoRelated: in the promotional snapshot they use on the front page, all shown movies are in the public domain.
- chasing 13y agoThe sense of smug entitlement in some of the posts in this thread is amazing. "I should just get for free things that other people make because how dare they charge. If they're greedy enough to want to make money for their work, then they should follow a business model I set forth here and only make money by donations or selling other things I'm not going to buy anyway. Because freedom."
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- benched 13y agoThe sense of righteously indignant moralizing at others is just as "amazing" to me. And by amazing, I mean worthy of ridicule.
- quadrangle 13y agoHahahaha. The responses to my comment are hilariously off-the-wall. All I said was that the reasoning in the OP was wrong. The reason to pay for movies has nothing to do with the idea that benefits should always have a price. That's all I said. The rest of my comment acknowledged that the economics and funding for movies is complex. All the copyright apologists are so defensive, it's absurd. It's like you can't accept dropping any of your arguments, even when they are pointed out as plainly wrong. You are so worried that your whole case is ill-founded and won't be able to keep your position if you accept any criticism at all. There might actually be some valid points on the pro-copyright side, but we don't get to see them if you keep defending the obviously invalid arguments…
- chrismcb 13y agoExcept that Mozart had ALREADY benefited from his work. But today many people feel they are entitled to watching movies and listening to music for free. The problem is that quality movies and music are expensive to produce. And rather have one person pay for them, they split the cost up over a lot of people. But if no one chooses to pay, these movies (that people apparently WANT) will no longer be produced.