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> If anything should be open and free, it's art. I'm not sure that would work with all types of art and for all types of artists. If an author spends a year w

by qw 11y ago

> If anything should be open and free, it's art. I'm not sure that would work with all types of art and for all types of artists. If an author spends a year writing a book, how is he supposed to make a living? A few authors can attend sci-fi and fantasy conferences, but most can't make much money from live performances, t-shirts etc. It's not fair to limit the ways an artist can make a living. If writing was limited to hobbyists we would lose a lot of good literature that can only come from total dedication to their work. The same can also be said for musicians. Consumers have a limited amount of time and money they can spend on concerts, donations and t-shirts. The current copyright and distribution system is broken, but art has always been a product that can be sold and controlled by the artists, so why should it be free-as-in-speech just because it can be copied digitally? The main issue with today's system is that artists no longer have enough control of the distribution and copyright is something that can be transferred and outlive the original artists. The only way art can be free-as-in-speech is to build a post scarcity world where everyone is free to do whatever they want.

derefr 11y ago
> If an author spends a year writing a book, how is he supposed to make a living? Usually, patronage: accepting donations, "pay what you want" sales, "holding works hostage", running Kickstarters, "collector's editions", selling merchandise that isn't very good but people buy it anyway to support the artist, etc. etc. Alternatively, micro-duration IP rights. I'm especially fond of the idea of releasing books as chapter-at-a-time (or with even finer granularity) serials on a subscription model, where you pay to read right away, or can read for free if you wait. (I'm working on a marketplace service to this effect, in fact.) This model works to the incentive people have to consume new media at the same time everyone else is, in order to use the presumed shared experience as a conversation topic. The work is free, but you pay for the social benefit.
- PeterWhittaker 11y ago
  I act as a hobby, I've been in several shorts and quite a few features, all produced locally. Because of this, I am exposed to quite a lot of artists in my community: Not the ones who make the front page or go to major socialite events, no, those are the ones who've made it. The artists I see, the vast majority, are the ones struggling to be artists full time. They all want to be, but they have to eat. The artists who are full time artists are really, really good at one thing: Their art. They may be good at some other things as well, but they are best at their art. Every single comment like the one above misses that point: The comment wants these artists to make t-shirts, run kickstarters, etc., etc. I'm a consultant. I market myself. I do all those things I need to do to get work. But most of my effort goes into my work, as it should - marketing is a small part of it. Those who would have artists work the way described in the comment above don't fully appreciate the economics of what they suggest. I can afford to market myself, a few hours a week/month, because I make so much on my work. Artists, for the most part, make so little on their work, that if they are to live as described above, they will spend all of their time collecting donations, running campaigns, etc., and none making art. Which is why so few of them work as described above. Most have jobs, and do what art they can when they are not working.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    But they have to have jobs despite the existence of copyright, so that's more of an argument that some people just can't live off their art.
    - PeterWhittaker 11y ago
      The vast majority cannot live off their art, and never will. Most artists know this. Even the lucky ones who happened to win the art lottery by having the right pieces, the right connections, the right showings, all at just the right time. Our view of art is badly influenced by survivor bias: We see those very few who made it and ignore the vast majority who did not. Funding the arts is very like funding basic scientific research: You don't do it expecting any return whatsoever, you do it because it is has value, non-monetary value, in and of itself, and maybe, just maybe, 1 in 10,000 projects will amount to something. I have friends who make livings, that is, are able to survive and raise families, on their art, as long as they are very, very careful with budgeting, far more careful than I've ever had to be. Almost everyone I know who hears this thinks they are raking in the dough. Nope. Mostly just above the poverty line, scraping by. Doing what they love, absolutely, but scraping by. And everyone, every single person I've ever met, has advice for them on how to do better. And every single one of those advisers has no clue, talks out of their hat (or other anatomic area). Just like all those people who offer you start up advice and have no clue.
  - derefr 11y ago
    > Every single comment like the one above misses that point: The comment wants these artists to make t-shirts, run kickstarters, etc., etc. No, I don't, actually; I think these are symptoms of patronage-seeking, not good implementations of it. The best model I've seen is the one Welcome to Night Vale uses: they just put a little blurb at the beginning of each podcast, asking people to go to sign up for their Patreon-equivalent mechanism of giving them monthly recurring donations. They also have a merch store, and go on tours, and all that, but they don't actually need to do either—their literal "patrons" give them a lot of money. They're just doing the other stuff to respond to fan demand.

by qw 11y ago

derefr 11y ago

> If an author spends a year writing a book, how is he supposed to make a living? Usually, patronage: accepting donations, "pay what you want" sales, "holding works hostage", running Kickstarters, "collector's editions", selling merchandise that isn't very good but people buy it anyway to support the artist, etc. etc. Alternatively, micro-duration IP rights. I'm especially fond of the idea of releasing books as chapter-at-a-time (or with even finer granularity) serials on a subscription model, where you pay to read right away, or can read for free if you wait. (I'm working on a marketplace service to this effect, in fact.) This model works to the incentive people have to consume new media at the same time everyone else is, in order to use the presumed shared experience as a conversation topic. The work is free, but you pay for the social benefit.

PeterWhittaker 11y ago
I act as a hobby, I've been in several shorts and quite a few features, all produced locally. Because of this, I am exposed to quite a lot of artists in my community: Not the ones who make the front page or go to major socialite events, no, those are the ones who've made it. The artists I see, the vast majority, are the ones struggling to be artists full time. They all want to be, but they have to eat. The artists who are full time artists are really, really good at one thing: Their art. They may be good at some other things as well, but they are best at their art. Every single comment like the one above misses that point: The comment wants these artists to make t-shirts, run kickstarters, etc., etc. I'm a consultant. I market myself. I do all those things I need to do to get work. But most of my effort goes into my work, as it should - marketing is a small part of it. Those who would have artists work the way described in the comment above don't fully appreciate the economics of what they suggest. I can afford to market myself, a few hours a week/month, because I make so much on my work. Artists, for the most part, make so little on their work, that if they are to live as described above, they will spend all of their time collecting donations, running campaigns, etc., and none making art. Which is why so few of them work as described above. Most have jobs, and do what art they can when they are not working.
- icebraining 11y ago
  But they have to have jobs despite the existence of copyright, so that's more of an argument that some people just can't live off their art.
  - PeterWhittaker 11y ago
    The vast majority cannot live off their art, and never will. Most artists know this. Even the lucky ones who happened to win the art lottery by having the right pieces, the right connections, the right showings, all at just the right time. Our view of art is badly influenced by survivor bias: We see those very few who made it and ignore the vast majority who did not. Funding the arts is very like funding basic scientific research: You don't do it expecting any return whatsoever, you do it because it is has value, non-monetary value, in and of itself, and maybe, just maybe, 1 in 10,000 projects will amount to something. I have friends who make livings, that is, are able to survive and raise families, on their art, as long as they are very, very careful with budgeting, far more careful than I've ever had to be. Almost everyone I know who hears this thinks they are raking in the dough. Nope. Mostly just above the poverty line, scraping by. Doing what they love, absolutely, but scraping by. And everyone, every single person I've ever met, has advice for them on how to do better. And every single one of those advisers has no clue, talks out of their hat (or other anatomic area). Just like all those people who offer you start up advice and have no clue.
- derefr 11y ago
  > Every single comment like the one above misses that point: The comment wants these artists to make t-shirts, run kickstarters, etc., etc. No, I don't, actually; I think these are symptoms of patronage-seeking, not good implementations of it. The best model I've seen is the one Welcome to Night Vale uses: they just put a little blurb at the beginning of each podcast, asking people to go to sign up for their Patreon-equivalent mechanism of giving them monthly recurring donations. They also have a merch store, and go on tours, and all that, but they don't actually need to do either—their literal "patrons" give them a lot of money. They're just doing the other stuff to respond to fan demand.