And how is this going to work? As said countless times in this thread, works of art (movies, music, and yes, even books) cost money to produce. How is this new upcoming director supposed to create an amazing movie with no money? He can basically shoot a video in his parents’ basement with his Super8 camera and a couple of buddies and edit the whole thing on iMovie. Anything more professional will require a serious investment, which he won’t have since he can’t make any money until you graciously decide to fund his next project.
Same with music: how is anyone supposed to create a great album? It’s not just about his own songwriting and artistic ability.
Don’t be daft. I’m clearly discussing how certain fields can adapt to a post-copyright society right now, but I’m not going to feel obliged to fix every single business on the planet. If you can’t understand that, then we’ll leave it there.
Actually my point was that neither of us would have much effect on copyright legislation. Get your ego under control there…
Actually, there would be huge archives for photographs available to everyone for zero charge. It increases choice. Alternatively, if you want custom shots you hire a photographer. As now.
Yes, I know. It’s because they’re incapable of signing bits of paper. It’s a shame they can’t move to working to a contract. I guess they’re out of luck and will have to give up on photography entirely.
So what? Anyone who would accept those images was never going to pay for one in the first place.
Aww, poor you. I like the cheek of fake quoting me above, and then complaining when you’ve ignored the whole part of copyright I’m against to focus on an aspect I have no problem with…
For the same reason you have the right to take photographs using techniques you didn’t invent. And never paid the inventor for.
I’m not ignoring any decent questions. I might miss some by accident in which case, just ask again. It’s tough to dig them out from the accusations of being a thief (I kind of expect that on other forums, but it’s disappointing to see on the SDMB) and the moronic speculation about my motives (I want everything for free!!). The idea that someone might honestly be interested in discussing whether a law is useful, moral or even technically feasible in the Internet age, is apparently too much for some idiots.
Thanks for not being one of them.
Well, I honestly don’t understand what you’re getting at here. Take a wedding as an example. You just said you wouldn’t be able to get paid for one without copyright law. Why not? You have an agreement, you take the pictures, you get paid. What am I missing here?
Several reasons:
[ul]
[li]They haven’t considered the question before and take copyright being good for granted[/li][li]The get quite emotional about the whole issue (no doubt because it directly affects them)[/li][li]They imagine that a greater percentage of their income depends on copyright than actually does[/li][li]They want to win the “copyright lottery” of getting some work of theirs used in something that’s played continually and therefore have the royalty cheques rolling in for life[/li][li]And last, but certainly not least, I could be completely wrong![/li][/ul]
Fair enough. I’ve seen tastefully done watermarks, and I’ve seen obnoxious ones, but ultimately it’s a subjective decision. I was simply stating that options are there, even if they’re not your preferred one. And to give a quick plug to ImageMagick which is an excellent piece of software!
No, my solution would be to provide a service rather than sell photos you’ve already taken; I was simply providing some alternatives.
They’re carefully targeted so that I never get hired.
Because I believe in freedom of expression.
I meant financially. Obviously it comes into play since copyright law actually exists! If you prefer, it would actually be simpler for them without copyright law. And as soon as I write that I know you’re going to start talking about selling photos, so I now need to specify that I’m referring to this specific case.
…yes? There’s also “the first run, the authorised printing”. I’m saying taken together all these things create an advantage.
Again, you’re automatically assuming that the unauthorised edition would be more attractive than the authorised one. I think it would be the less attractive option.
I was assuming all else being equal, but I guess you’re right: it never is.
I’m not sure I buy the first. I think they’re so easily available that anyone who wanted one would take it.
That’s a fair point. I prefer actual books, but as the technology improves, that might change. I’m not sure how authors would cope if books were electronic only (and I don’t think the existence of copyright law will significantly change that!). I’ll think about it.
No, they have several advantages which means their sales will always be higher, assuming same quality at same price. That’s what will make publishing new material worth their while.
You’re talking as though they were considering it, but then thought “no, we won’t bother since we’ve got copyright law”! If they could control access to media more than they do, they would. The limitations on them are defined by what their customers will put up with and by the competition provided by the black market, not by what they think is fair or right.
I think you have this completely backwards. It’s the defenders of copyright who fail to grasp this point. Simply look at this thread. The vast majority of arguments are about how the artists will suffer without copyright. There are pitifully few mentions of consumers. And when it is mentioned that they will benefit from free access to information, they’re dismissed as “thieves” or free-loaders.
Input, output. You didn’t CREATE that information from scratch. You took some information: the entire world of light and color free for the taking in the case of photography, the entirety of human culture and the natural universe, some associated with various licenses but mostly free, in the general case. Then, like a highly proficient and well-programmed computer, you changed those inputs into a different output, based upon your tastes, talents and perceived demand. All these people who once contributed to human progress are now sitting in the way, like a million middle men all saying they created it and demanding their buck. Sure, they created some value, but the value was in the program, not the output.
Now, after taking advantage of information on the input side, you no longer wish to allow anyone else to take advantage of your information on the output side. But that is human and cultural progress! The flow of information from input to output, back to input again. Over time, these changes snowball into entire nations and cultures. They become Hollywood, or hard-boiled fiction, or the Catholic Church, or the home of the brave and the land of the free. And in the future, they’ll become something more, perhaps greater. Copyrights retard this process, and therefore the economy, culture and progress.
Sure, it isn’t the hugest problem yet, especially because most information is already free, but it’s getting worse.
In fact, I wonder if this is a possible argument against copyrights in court? As far as I know, output from a computer program takes on the same copyright as the input, in other words, the program itself isn’t credited. But isn’t that all the human brain is? We started from bare, free for the taking nature, and through programs in the human brain created all of human culture and society. But ultimately, the input was free of the encumbrance of copyrights, so the output should be too.
Yes, but it’s the photographers’ choice to put their pics there. Same with music - the fact that some musicians choose to make their music available on MySpace shouldn’t mean that everyone has to operate in the same way. If some amateurs like to do that for some recognition that’s cool, but some people actually want to make a living from those things.
There is absolutely no possible way I could have figured out that you were referring to “photographers’ choice” when you made this statement. You seemed to be saying that the pictures simply wouldn’t exist (or would have to “magically appear”).
That’s why copyright law doesn’t grant exclusive rights to ideas. It is the ideas that are reworked, reused, and inform new expression that constitute the fuel for the next round of cultural development. Requiring new authors to find new ways to express ideas actually spurs the creation of more, richer, deeper variety of output. Under the copyright regime, our culture is more diverse, varied, rich, and deep than in the past, because it incentivizes, rewards, and requires original expression.
Define “original expression”. The whole point of my last post is that you can’t, not in a way that isn’t contrived. It’s all based on what came before.
Indeed. Some people even like to be paid multiple times for one piece of work! I’ve no idea how you intend this to relate to pictures magically appearing though…
Well, that’s clearly philosophical wankery, because original expression is routinely and easily identified on a daily basis in our legal system and in our economy, and it has been for a couple of centuries now. And it is easily identified by any high school English teacher as well.
Alright, let me spell it out: if I’m a stock photographer, providing pictures of various motives for various purposes, I have no incentive to take these pictures unless I can protect how they’re being used. Sure, I can hope someone can pay me $2000 to take it, and I’m sure he’ll appreciate it a lot if subsequently everyone else can use the same picture for free. Not many people would have the amount of money to finance a shoot for their unique purpose. Wouldn’t it be a better option if, depending on the purpose of use for that picture, everyone had to pay only a little?
How am I going to get my pictures known to people without my work being taken advantage of for free?
I’m not a photographer, and not very knowledgable about how the business works, but other people have explained it very clearly in this thread - if you don’t get paid, pictures don’t get taken.
The explosion of success of all the expressive arts under copyright law would seem to counter your argument. We have more creative expression available to us as consumers than could ever have been dreamed of in human history. I really don’t see anything being inhibited. The fact that creators, industry entities, courts, and governments have relatively little trouble identifying originality on a daily basis would seem to counter the argument that there is any significant arbitrariness or contrivedness.
Yet clearly this is factually wrong. Pictures are freely available now. They clearly do get taken. It doesn’t matter how good your theory is if it’s flatly contradicted by reality!
I think you’re being obtuse about this. The point is that photographers now have the option to (1) put out images for free, either bearing the cost of production themselves or after they have already generated what they deem as sufficient return, or (2) license the use of images in order to try to generate greater return, allowing photographers without the prior ability to invest large sums a way to recoup costs in a much more efficient way.
Without the second option, it’s not true that no images will be produced, but that the breadth of quality, variety, and availability of images will be much lower. Thus, consumers will have a much narrower universe of images to choose from, and, generally speaking, those images will be of lower quality or much higher expense.
Furthermore, all the industries that are in a chain with the copyright-supported creator, including models, technicians, makeup specialists, model-builders, will be much, much smaller. Technological innovations used by creators will have much smaller markets, meaning that technology companies will have much less income. Technology will thus be developed and improved at much slower paces. There will be fewer jobs for engineers, technicians, and software developers, and fewer jobs for hardware development and manufacturing. Our entire economy is heavily dependent on the protection of intellectual property rights. Without copyrights, the audio and video technologies that consumers have access to now to become creators themselves would likely still not have been developed.
