4 ms·

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

by 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.

by nfoz 12y ago

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.