5 ms·

Another point of view: the more amazing they are, the more important it is that they are in the public domain, as it would be a valuable asset for the commons.

by nfoz 12y ago

slantedview 12y ago
Commons or not, the guy still needs to make a living.
- nfoz 12y ago
  It seems that he is (or, used to be) making a living from a specific business model that only exists because it is upheld by copyright law. I am of the opinion that copyright law should be (slowly, responsibly) abolished. As long as people have a need for photographs, we will fund their development.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The overwhelming majority of HN users make their living in another business model that only exists because of copyright law.
    - yellowapple 12y ago
      That would've been more true 10 years ago. Now, the overwhelming majority of HN users make their living in yet another business model that exists increasingly because of the relative obsolescence of the previous business model - namely, by shifting into the $foo-as-a-service realm.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        The wages of all those people wiring up form fields to databases for cat sharing companies are propped up --- drastically propped up --- by scarcities engineered into the economy by copyright.
        yellowapple 12y ago
        How do you figure? Nowadays, a very large majority of web devleopment primarily consists of taking some collection of open-source tools and other services in order to create a service. The entire justification for the existence of such a service is the idea that most people aren't inclined to do all this themselves. This isn't a matter of scarcities at all (other than the time of the end user), let alone engineered/artificial ones. It's a matter of "I'm too lazy to setup my own web server to share my cat GIFs, so I'm gonna just use Imgur instead, since they've already done the hard part".
    - tomjen3 12y ago
      Not really. You can't copy SAAS (assuming we disallow e.g hacking into servers, which seems fair in so far as you also can't read my diary, since it exist exclusively in my house). You can't copy a cloud system and you cannot meaningfully copy hardware.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - icebraining 12y ago
      I agree. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    As long as people have a need for photographs, we will fund their development. Fantastic! My email address is my profile. Please send me a list of your requirements with advance payment through Paypal - I'll eat the fees - as I am unable to locate any checks or money orders from you. I look forward to doing business with you!
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    >As long as people have a need for photographs, we will fund their development. Please explain how.
    - nfoz 12y ago
      One obvious way is taxation. It's the same way we fund expensive photographs of space, and high-quality journalism, and world-class educational materials... all of which contribute to the common good, like these insect photos. There are many other ways. Is it hard to think them up yourself? Private foundations, crowdfunding, tangential services and showcases (he's already doing that), etc... This isn't some novel idea, it's how a great amount of our works are produced today even though we also have copyright. Without copyright, we would lubricate different models for the knowledge economy. It's not like the world could only possibly be the exact way we do things now.
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    You're going to have to provide proof for that assertion. You're also going to have to provide proof that images of the same quality are going to be produced.
  - URSpider94 12y ago
    I think you're making a logical error in applying the open-source software development model to the arts. First, software packages are typically collaborative works of many people, improved over time. A photograph is created by a single photographer in an instant (excluding editing time for rhetorical purposes). Second, photographers are not fungible resources, while software developers are, even controlling for skill level. The photos I take aren't the same as the ones you take, nor are those of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
    - nfoz 12y ago
      > I think you're making a logical error in applying the open-source software development model to the arts. I am not. I have not said anything about software. I think all copyright should be abolished (slowly, responsibly). I have considered the ramifications for different types of arts. Relatedly, I think the areas to which we have (by convention) chosen that copyright should or should not apply in law is arbitrary and sometimes silly (e.g. copyright of fashion). > Second, photographers are not fungible resources, while software developers are, even controlling for skill level. Software developers are not fungible resources. Two authorings of software to the same requirements will be substantially different; same for photography.
      - URSpider94 12y ago
        After thinking about this more, I believe that some of the answer is whether the copyrighted material is art or craft. I would define art as a creation where the form is more important than the function, and conversely craft as something where the function is more important than the form. Clearly, there's an analog scale between these two poles. But, take for a moment an http request library. Given a certain spec, multiple programmers (or teams of programmers) might take different approaches to meet that spec -- but the result is functionally the same, and if they faithfully follow the spec, they are all going to be more or less interchangeable. I think a photograph is qualitatively different. If I were to ask a photographer to "take a picture of an ant", I could get radically different results that are not interchangeable. I know I'm not going to convince you, so I'm not going to keep trying, but I think abolishing copyright would provide a dire challenge to people who create visual art for a living.
- logicallee 12y ago
  I understand the opposing argument as, "Yes the guy 'needs' to be able to make a living. Just like I 'need' a private jet. He needs to make a living, but NOT at the cost of bringing bits into existence that I am not allowed to copy!! That is supremely unfair. It's better if those bits don't exist at all. I just can't stand the existence of bits that in any sense 'belong' to someone, and it's better if he doesn't create them at all. If you create some bits, and I can view them, then I REQUIRE the right to copy them. THis is my inalienable freedom. If infringing on this freedom is what allows for the economic creation of amazing bits, then that system is flawed and those bits shouldn't end up getting created." The above is honestly how people who are currently greyed-out in this thread seem to feel. (Though they don't say it as clearly.) It really is a supreme case of entitlement. - Edit: last sentence originally read supreme sense of entitlement; to be clear, the last sentence is my own personal judgment. I don't agree with these people, and I am fine with the existence of bits I am allowed to view but not to copy, i.e. that in a sense are owned by someone else who has an exclusionary right to them, that they can use to keep me from doing certain things without their permission.
  - nfoz 12y ago
    I'll agree to the jist of your "opposing argument" above, except for the uncomfortable tone, and this derogation: > It really is a supreme sense of entitlement. That doesn't follow. Why do you attribute such disrespect to people who prefer a different economic/social organization for creative works? I am a content producer. By trade, by hobby, by lifestyle. I license my works as CC0 as much as possible, and use copyleft for software so that those same works can't be held against me by the copyright system I'm trying to escape. I simply value my freedom of expression, including a philosophy of sharing works, and I also think it would lead to increased economic efficiency for the society. It's a different perspective, I don't see a reason why you must call it "a supreme sense of entitlement" when I am one of the people creating these works that I want to be shared. It's just a different way for us to structure our resources and freedoms.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
teraflop 12y ago
So you want to financially incentivize photographers to make low-quality, un-amazing photos?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- nfoz 12y ago
  You think the Law should be used to determine how to properly incentivize the commerce of photographs, at the cost of its peoples' freedom of expression? Probably you do, and that's a fine perspective. I was just offering a different point of view for the sake of discussion. Personally I think we'd be fine without that law, and anyone who wants high-quality amazing photos can pay to have them captured. Many of us would do so. But when the photo is distributed, without copyright law, people would be free to share it. That doesn't prevent someone from wanting (and paying for) the photo to exist in the first place. My appreciation for a photo is not detracted by another's simultaneous appreciation of it.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Yes? That being the whole intention of copyright law, which exists in every modern country in the world?
    - yellowapple 12y ago
      It sounds like he was describing more of a commission system - i.e. "hey, I'll give you $1000 to take this super-duper-awesome photo of this grasshopper that's sitting on my windowsill right now" or "hey, I'll give you $1000000 and cover transportation/lodging expenses if you agree to tag along with our entomological team and take photographs of this new species of dung beetle we discovered in Sudan".
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - lultimouomo 12y ago
mrkurt 12y ago
You got downvoted to oblivion, but it's worth noting that "valuable for the commons" is actually a very strong reason for good copyright protection with a reasonable term. We want as many people as possible producing IP, and it's worth the short term cost of paying them to do it because the long term payoff is much richer. This has, sadly, been subverted in many cases ... but it's still strong reasoning.
mhb 12y ago
So you paid his license fee for releasing them to the public domain? How much did that cost and how many pictures did you fund? And thanks!
scott_s 12y ago
Serious, not-glib question: how do you propose that he make a living creating the pictures? Or do you propose that he not make a living creating the pictures, and they should instead by a hobby?
anigbrowl 12y ago
Then come up with a system to incentivize that. 'Your work is so awesome that you can't be allowed to exploit it commercially' is a ridiculous argument.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  An expiry of copyright - after which a work enters the public domain - would accomplish this rather nicely without completely disincentivizing content creators. Unfortunately, while this is already the case in theory in many jurisdictions, it's not the case in certain others, where the duration of copyright is effectively set to "current year minus first appearance of Mickey Mouse plus twenty years" thanks to the interests of a particular company whose name rhymes with a "D" and ends with an "isney". :)
zeidrich 12y ago
This is a fine point of view if the commons are willing to give him comfortable living accommodations, good food, relaxing holidays, camera equipment and trips around the world to take these photographs. They could definitely do that. The government could choose to hire him as a nature photographer, give him a very nice salary and release the photographs into the public domain. Or we could pay him per work to do it. But we don't do that. We don't want to pay taxes to let him fly around the world and photograph things for the good of the commons. If society is not willing to accommodate him, why would he be willing to sacrifice himself to accommodate society?
- tptacek 12y ago
  It's almost as if the commons has fallen victim to some kind of... what's the word? Grave misfortune?
  - iaw 12y ago
    Somewhat tragic, right?
  - logicallee 12y ago
    I don't think you understood zeidrich's point in this case :) There's no tragedy of the commons for copyrights because the commons doesn't get reduced by usage. Tragedy of the commons as I understand it applies to things like air, which is free, but which people can deplete. (Externalizing pollution costs.) Things like research can end up belonging to the commons but there's no tragedy of the commons argument about it. Instead your parent in this case I think was just pointing out that this is stuff that wouldn't exist at all if it weren't commmercially protected.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      The tragedy of the commons is (among other things) a parable about market failure and inadequate property rights.
      - 12y ago
tomjen3 12y ago
This comment doesn't deserve those downvotes. You are right those pictures are much more important than those I take, but to follow that to its logical conclusion then we only get those amazing pictures in the public domain if the public is willing to pay a lot for them. In theory that could be done using e.g Patreon but in practice that probably has to be done using the, admitably broken, copyright system.
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  > You are right those pictures are much more important than those I take, but to follow that to its logical conclusion then we only get those amazing pictures in the public domain if the public is willing to pay a lot for them. That conclusion does not follow. The pictures will become public domain if and when the copyright expires on them. Assuming that happens.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  The historical way lots of content came into the public domain is death. That's why plenty of artists - plenty of nature photographers among them - died relatively penniless. http://europeansectionlgm.typepad.fr/photography_and_cinematog/2014/02/famous-polish-photographers.html http://europeansectionlgm.typepad.fr/photography_and_cinemat... That's a friend of mine who died 3 years ago, he made the most amazing pictures. 50,000 of them in a archive in his home in Suprasl, and we can't even find the funds to properly digitize them so they will likely be lost sooner or later.
  - ta0967 12y ago
    The historical way lots of content came into the public domain is death. That's why plenty of artists [...] died relatively penniless. can you expand on this? how does lifelong copyright cause artist poverty? i'm not signalling either dis- or agreement, but your claim needs to be substantiated.
kreek 12y ago
If this comment was made about music it would have been up-voted.
s73v3r 12y ago
So go ask him how much it would cost for him to sell you the rights to the photos, so you can do just that.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 12y ago
So, the nicer your car is, the more people should just take it for a ride for free?

Another point of view: the more amazing they are, the more important it is that they are in the public domain, as it would be a valuable asset for the commons.

by nfoz 12y ago

Another point of view: the more amazing they are, the more important it is that they are in the public domain, as it would be a valuable asset for the commons.

slantedview 12y ago

Commons or not, the guy still needs to make a living.

nfoz 12y ago
It seems that he is (or, used to be) making a living from a specific business model that only exists because it is upheld by copyright law. I am of the opinion that copyright law should be (slowly, responsibly) abolished. As long as people have a need for photographs, we will fund their development.
- tptacek 12y ago
  The overwhelming majority of HN users make their living in another business model that only exists because of copyright law.
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    That would've been more true 10 years ago. Now, the overwhelming majority of HN users make their living in yet another business model that exists increasingly because of the relative obsolescence of the previous business model - namely, by shifting into the $foo-as-a-service realm.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      The wages of all those people wiring up form fields to databases for cat sharing companies are propped up --- drastically propped up --- by scarcities engineered into the economy by copyright.
      - yellowapple 12y ago
        How do you figure? Nowadays, a very large majority of web devleopment primarily consists of taking some collection of open-source tools and other services in order to create a service. The entire justification for the existence of such a service is the idea that most people aren't inclined to do all this themselves. This isn't a matter of scarcities at all (other than the time of the end user), let alone engineered/artificial ones. It's a matter of "I'm too lazy to setup my own web server to share my cat GIFs, so I'm gonna just use Imgur instead, since they've already done the hard part".
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    Not really. You can't copy SAAS (assuming we disallow e.g hacking into servers, which seems fair in so far as you also can't read my diary, since it exist exclusively in my house). You can't copy a cloud system and you cannot meaningfully copy hardware.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - icebraining 12y ago
    I agree. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  As long as people have a need for photographs, we will fund their development. Fantastic! My email address is my profile. Please send me a list of your requirements with advance payment through Paypal - I'll eat the fees - as I am unable to locate any checks or money orders from you. I look forward to doing business with you!
- tomjen3 12y ago
  >As long as people have a need for photographs, we will fund their development. Please explain how.
  - nfoz 12y ago
    One obvious way is taxation. It's the same way we fund expensive photographs of space, and high-quality journalism, and world-class educational materials... all of which contribute to the common good, like these insect photos. There are many other ways. Is it hard to think them up yourself? Private foundations, crowdfunding, tangential services and showcases (he's already doing that), etc... This isn't some novel idea, it's how a great amount of our works are produced today even though we also have copyright. Without copyright, we would lubricate different models for the knowledge economy. It's not like the world could only possibly be the exact way we do things now.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  You're going to have to provide proof for that assertion. You're also going to have to provide proof that images of the same quality are going to be produced.
- URSpider94 12y ago
  I think you're making a logical error in applying the open-source software development model to the arts. First, software packages are typically collaborative works of many people, improved over time. A photograph is created by a single photographer in an instant (excluding editing time for rhetorical purposes). Second, photographers are not fungible resources, while software developers are, even controlling for skill level. The photos I take aren't the same as the ones you take, nor are those of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
  - nfoz 12y ago
    > I think you're making a logical error in applying the open-source software development model to the arts. I am not. I have not said anything about software. I think all copyright should be abolished (slowly, responsibly). I have considered the ramifications for different types of arts. Relatedly, I think the areas to which we have (by convention) chosen that copyright should or should not apply in law is arbitrary and sometimes silly (e.g. copyright of fashion). > Second, photographers are not fungible resources, while software developers are, even controlling for skill level. Software developers are not fungible resources. Two authorings of software to the same requirements will be substantially different; same for photography.
    - URSpider94 12y ago
      After thinking about this more, I believe that some of the answer is whether the copyrighted material is art or craft. I would define art as a creation where the form is more important than the function, and conversely craft as something where the function is more important than the form. Clearly, there's an analog scale between these two poles. But, take for a moment an http request library. Given a certain spec, multiple programmers (or teams of programmers) might take different approaches to meet that spec -- but the result is functionally the same, and if they faithfully follow the spec, they are all going to be more or less interchangeable. I think a photograph is qualitatively different. If I were to ask a photographer to "take a picture of an ant", I could get radically different results that are not interchangeable. I know I'm not going to convince you, so I'm not going to keep trying, but I think abolishing copyright would provide a dire challenge to people who create visual art for a living.
logicallee 12y ago
I understand the opposing argument as, "Yes the guy 'needs' to be able to make a living. Just like I 'need' a private jet. He needs to make a living, but NOT at the cost of bringing bits into existence that I am not allowed to copy!! That is supremely unfair. It's better if those bits don't exist at all. I just can't stand the existence of bits that in any sense 'belong' to someone, and it's better if he doesn't create them at all. If you create some bits, and I can view them, then I REQUIRE the right to copy them. THis is my inalienable freedom. If infringing on this freedom is what allows for the economic creation of amazing bits, then that system is flawed and those bits shouldn't end up getting created." The above is honestly how people who are currently greyed-out in this thread seem to feel. (Though they don't say it as clearly.) It really is a supreme case of entitlement. - Edit: last sentence originally read supreme sense of entitlement; to be clear, the last sentence is my own personal judgment. I don't agree with these people, and I am fine with the existence of bits I am allowed to view but not to copy, i.e. that in a sense are owned by someone else who has an exclusionary right to them, that they can use to keep me from doing certain things without their permission.
- nfoz 12y ago
  I'll agree to the jist of your "opposing argument" above, except for the uncomfortable tone, and this derogation: > It really is a supreme sense of entitlement. That doesn't follow. Why do you attribute such disrespect to people who prefer a different economic/social organization for creative works? I am a content producer. By trade, by hobby, by lifestyle. I license my works as CC0 as much as possible, and use copyleft for software so that those same works can't be held against me by the copyright system I'm trying to escape. I simply value my freedom of expression, including a philosophy of sharing works, and I also think it would lead to increased economic efficiency for the society. It's a different perspective, I don't see a reason why you must call it "a supreme sense of entitlement" when I am one of the people creating these works that I want to be shared. It's just a different way for us to structure our resources and freedoms.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

teraflop 12y ago

So you want to financially incentivize photographers to make low-quality, un-amazing photos?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nfoz 12y ago
You think the Law should be used to determine how to properly incentivize the commerce of photographs, at the cost of its peoples' freedom of expression? Probably you do, and that's a fine perspective. I was just offering a different point of view for the sake of discussion. Personally I think we'd be fine without that law, and anyone who wants high-quality amazing photos can pay to have them captured. Many of us would do so. But when the photo is distributed, without copyright law, people would be free to share it. That doesn't prevent someone from wanting (and paying for) the photo to exist in the first place. My appreciation for a photo is not detracted by another's simultaneous appreciation of it.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Yes? That being the whole intention of copyright law, which exists in every modern country in the world?
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    It sounds like he was describing more of a commission system - i.e. "hey, I'll give you $1000 to take this super-duper-awesome photo of this grasshopper that's sitting on my windowsill right now" or "hey, I'll give you $1000000 and cover transportation/lodging expenses if you agree to tag along with our entomological team and take photographs of this new species of dung beetle we discovered in Sudan".
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - lultimouomo 12y ago

mrkurt 12y ago

You got downvoted to oblivion, but it's worth noting that "valuable for the commons" is actually a very strong reason for good copyright protection with a reasonable term. We want as many people as possible producing IP, and it's worth the short term cost of paying them to do it because the long term payoff is much richer. This has, sadly, been subverted in many cases ... but it's still strong reasoning.

mhb 12y ago

So you paid his license fee for releasing them to the public domain? How much did that cost and how many pictures did you fund? And thanks!

scott_s 12y ago

Serious, not-glib question: how do you propose that he make a living creating the pictures? Or do you propose that he not make a living creating the pictures, and they should instead by a hobby?

anigbrowl 12y ago

Then come up with a system to incentivize that. 'Your work is so awesome that you can't be allowed to exploit it commercially' is a ridiculous argument.

yellowapple 12y ago
An expiry of copyright - after which a work enters the public domain - would accomplish this rather nicely without completely disincentivizing content creators. Unfortunately, while this is already the case in theory in many jurisdictions, it's not the case in certain others, where the duration of copyright is effectively set to "current year minus first appearance of Mickey Mouse plus twenty years" thanks to the interests of a particular company whose name rhymes with a "D" and ends with an "isney". :)

zeidrich 12y ago

This is a fine point of view if the commons are willing to give him comfortable living accommodations, good food, relaxing holidays, camera equipment and trips around the world to take these photographs. They could definitely do that. The government could choose to hire him as a nature photographer, give him a very nice salary and release the photographs into the public domain. Or we could pay him per work to do it. But we don't do that. We don't want to pay taxes to let him fly around the world and photograph things for the good of the commons. If society is not willing to accommodate him, why would he be willing to sacrifice himself to accommodate society?

tptacek 12y ago
It's almost as if the commons has fallen victim to some kind of... what's the word? Grave misfortune?
- iaw 12y ago
  Somewhat tragic, right?
- logicallee 12y ago
  I don't think you understood zeidrich's point in this case :) There's no tragedy of the commons for copyrights because the commons doesn't get reduced by usage. Tragedy of the commons as I understand it applies to things like air, which is free, but which people can deplete. (Externalizing pollution costs.) Things like research can end up belonging to the commons but there's no tragedy of the commons argument about it. Instead your parent in this case I think was just pointing out that this is stuff that wouldn't exist at all if it weren't commmercially protected.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The tragedy of the commons is (among other things) a parable about market failure and inadequate property rights.
    - 12y ago

tomjen3 12y ago

This comment doesn't deserve those downvotes. You are right those pictures are much more important than those I take, but to follow that to its logical conclusion then we only get those amazing pictures in the public domain if the public is willing to pay a lot for them. In theory that could be done using e.g Patreon but in practice that probably has to be done using the, admitably broken, copyright system.

vinceguidry 12y ago
> You are right those pictures are much more important than those I take, but to follow that to its logical conclusion then we only get those amazing pictures in the public domain if the public is willing to pay a lot for them. That conclusion does not follow. The pictures will become public domain if and when the copyright expires on them. Assuming that happens.
jacquesm 12y ago
The historical way lots of content came into the public domain is death. That's why plenty of artists - plenty of nature photographers among them - died relatively penniless. http://europeansectionlgm.typepad.fr/photography_and_cinematog/2014/02/famous-polish-photographers.html http://europeansectionlgm.typepad.fr/photography_and_cinemat... That's a friend of mine who died 3 years ago, he made the most amazing pictures. 50,000 of them in a archive in his home in Suprasl, and we can't even find the funds to properly digitize them so they will likely be lost sooner or later.
- ta0967 12y ago
  The historical way lots of content came into the public domain is death. That's why plenty of artists [...] died relatively penniless. can you expand on this? how does lifelong copyright cause artist poverty? i'm not signalling either dis- or agreement, but your claim needs to be substantiated.

kreek 12y ago

If this comment was made about music it would have been up-voted.

s73v3r 12y ago

So go ask him how much it would cost for him to sell you the rights to the photos, so you can do just that.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

coldtea 12y ago

So, the nicer your car is, the more people should just take it for a ride for free?