Cool. Thakns for the reminder Sam. I was hoping that you would see me talk about it and speak up. I owe you a greater thanks than is possible to convey in this sort of post. Wihtout getting too mushy, I was quite exhausted by frustration while trying to deal with Sandino in that communist thread. I recognized the frustration in yosemitebabe here and from the earlier participation in a similar thread. I remembered how much the laugh helped me (I’m still chuckling right now), and wanted to pass it on.
Please accept my profound thanks for showing me that and allowing me to pass it on to another. Thanks very much.
I’m glad you liked it. But you know, if you really want to drag the hits in to a web site, you’ve got to write about Star Trek. That post generated over 150,000 hits in a couple of days, and probably over half a million by now. The communist bear one was only good for a couple of thousand. I take that as good news - Communism is so dead people don’t even search Google on it any more. Mind you, Star Trek is kinda communist, so who knows?
Nope. I believe that information has value, or represents real value. Your claims about information not having value almost seem extreme enough that it almost didn’t seem to be an unreasonabe request. Worth a try anyhow.
C’mon, cheaper to what point? It’s certainly nowhere near zero. Sure, some great tools get cheaper; now one can put together a good music studio for tens of thousands of dollars now, not hundreds of thousands. But it’s not going to get that much significantly cheaper. Basic machine tooling has not gotten that much cheaper. You’ve got to house everything, get licenses…the cost of business has not gotten cheaper. Better tools are available for lower cost, but it’s still expensive. And I’ll say it again – the tools are worthless without the ideas to utilize them.
And you are still dancing around the issue of the HUGE time and effort spent in developing and executing ideas. This is the “fruit” of ideas, the very thing that you say should be shared for free. HOW do you think that a works creator should be rewarded? You say in a later post that “credit should be preserved and acknowledged.” Exactly by what means do you think an artist should be compensated? Especially if it’s like a song that can be copied by anyone and distributed without the artists’ permission? Is it time to stop releasing music on recordable media? Or where is the compensation?
I have read it and that is exactly why I put that example in there. I don’t see how picking up the painting is it different than taking a well-executed idea for nothing. As far as I can see, that is what you suggest. And I still don’t understand what you propose as a system. I’d almost guess that you don’t believe anyone should be paid for anything creative. That is what I’m getting from reading your posts. You’ve yet to give an example of how the artist / innovator SHOULD be paid for what they do. You dismiss my points on this and yet offer no alternatives other than waiting for the new regime, whatever that is.
OK what is it then? In one post you say that the peasant kid in the third world country has ideas that are worthless because he doesn’t have the tools to make use of them, but you tell Yosemitebabe that the use of tools is incidental, meaning not of much consequence? Tell that to the kid.
Then, please go back and re-read what I posted. We agree that implementation is the point; I was describing some of the steps and expenses for doing the implementation. You can’t separate ideas from the implementation of them. You’re right, there is nothing, or precious little, new under the sun. What is new is how we put old ideas together in new ways. The Beatles used the same notes, the same language as everyone else. What was it that made them different from everyone else? It was a new way of fitting together the same old pieces. 90% of all innovation is re-using old ideas. Putting them together in a new way, and yes, making them into a concrete work is what has value. And if people with great, high quality work can’t afford to support themselves doing it full time, many of the high quality works you’d like to see won’t exist because the artist cannot afford to put in the time to create them.
Your calling it communism which it is not. First off I don’t see where a authoritarian goverment comes in. Thats a requirement for communism you know, a authoritarian goverment. One could more acurratley call it socialism, but that would not accurate. It’s a hybred system.
People will still compete to crank out the best products, otherwise they will go broke. This is the element of capitalism that makes it great. With the goverment handling the downloads and dealing out the tax fund based on popularity one could see how that element could be socialism. However classifing something as socialism is not enough to vilify it. Otherwise the Highway system, the post office, social security, ect. would be considered evil.
So please explain why FCTS is bad, explain why, without name calling.
Here is an example, why the it’s bad to punch people in the gut.
Note I did not say
not quite. try doing that with a RIAA artist. Anyway FCTS is alot more beneficial to most then the current system.
Well if I were to assign desires to inanimate objects, I would agree it wants to be free. However if it should get what wants is a different issue entierly.
Because a plagerist is lier, to lazy to do their own work, and unable to grasp the idea of using referances and giving credit for that referance. So what does plagerism have to do with conterfiting?
Nope. It’s really that simple. The bookseller adjusts the variables under her control to gain maximal profits. If a lump-sum item changes from an external force, how will she get profits back to the previous level? She’s already adjusted the things that she can adjust.
It’s just calculus. You’re finding a maximum, so anything not attached to a variable you’re maximizing over drops out. Of course, our bookseller may not be doing the math explicitly, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t behave as if she does. Rats & pigeons do. So do undergraduates.
Hence the disconnect I mentioned earlier.
One could make the argument that a would-be sunk cost such as creative effort could affect the price. Since creative effort will presumably affect artist profits, how much creative effort an artist puts into a work will certainly play into her optimizing decision. (Of course, I’m assuming that art is strictly a business venture–whether Aaron Carter would keep rappin’ sans economic (i.e. excessive) profits is a question I can’t answer.) You would have to show, I think, that there is a cross-effect between creative effort & price vis. profit. I don’t know how one would do that.
I don’t see how fixed/sunk costs can just be amortized into the price of the good. I’d rather not do that and bank more money.
Those costs will certainly affect whether one would invest in a particular artist, etc. Since copyrights act as a sort-of subsidy, relaxing them will cause an industry contraction. But that is not necessarily bad.
I don’t understand the idea behind so-called intellectual property. If you can give to another without depriving yourself of what you give, isn’t not giving just being selfish? Why should the state subsidize selfishness?
Or, to look at it in a different way, I can sell a cup of coffee that I just purchased, why should music or movies get special consideration?
I think we’ve covered that here. If I spend hours and hours and hours working on something, just so that I will be called “selfish” if I don’t give it away, why will I spend all that time?
I can only “give away” so much time. If I can’t get compensated for the time (and effort and education required to make the thing that people want me to “share”) then I flat-out can’t afford to do it.
Correct. One of the variable under her control is whether or not to remain in business. Additionally, whn another person contemplates whether or not to open a book store, they will look at the likelyhood that they will be able to recoup the investments necessary to start the business.
If we insist that a business cannot recoup those fixed/sunk costs then they will simply not open up.
You see, I agree with your statements to a point. If you ignore sunk costs, then price tends to gravitate towards the crossover between marginal costs and percieved value. But for this formula to aply to music, we have to totaly ignore sunk costs. I would suggest that those costs are far more important than to most other forms of business. A book store which sees its rent go up beyond the point where it can stay in business can at least liquidate the capital it has ammassed. A musical artist who suddenly finds that her IP is not protected has nothing to liquidate. You have not simply stopped paying attention to the sunk costs, you have actually stolen them.
Just so you know, netscape 6, I was not calling your idea communist at all. Also I did appologize for intimating that Gyan9’s ideas were. That was all part of a hijack which had nothing to do with the reasons why your ideas are bad.
OK, so you think it is bad. But why? What principle is plagerism violating? If a plagerist is “too lazy to do their own work” does this not imply that using another’s work incurs some sort of debt? And if it does, then who decides what that debt is? Shouldn’t the debt be a result of negotiation between the worker and the user? If not, then who should be able to unilaterally decide the debt?
Look, all I am saying regarding this is that if copyrights were 14 years flat, then whatever restrictions an artist were willing to negotiate for the use of his work (during that period) seems to me the most reasonable way to compensate him. There are many reasons to argue that copyrights should be reduced to a flat 14 years. That “data should be free” is not one of them.
I see. Well except that “why your ideas are bad” part, But I try to keep myself reasonable, so I’m willing to admit they might be bad if presented with reasonable evidence. Just like I hope your open to the the possibility of them being good.
The prinple of not taking credit for somebody elses work. I’d say it’s a form of identity theft. Your claming someone else’s attribute. It just takes a few quotes and a line to give proper acknowledgement.
Yes the debt of acknowledgement.
I would agree reducing copyrights to reasonable terms would be just about as good. I would say 10 would be more reasonable but thats a minor detail.
Except that a debt of acknowledgement also exists. Yes? If that acknowledgement is a monopoly over a particular implementation of the idea for a reasonable period of years then we have an agreement.
Let me note a couple things. I am most certainly not defending the RIAA nor the Mickey Mouse extensions that have been granted to the copyright terms. My point is that the “data should be free” people are causing as much of the problem as the RIAA.
Also, I’d like to point you to the similarities between your FCTS proposal and Snag’s proposal of an encrypted tracking method. It amounts to a technological solution to the problem of enforcing plagerism. With the addition of a central license registration database proof of legal license could be grately reduced.
Snag I just had another thought. If you could produce some addittional encryption applications, you might be able to offer legitimate copying privaleges. If you could purchase a license for a particular work, you might be able to purchase a code which could be encrypted into the work identifying you as a legally licensed owener. Perhaps even the number of copies you are legally allowed to have. If the applications were easy enough, they might not amount to any sort of barrier to using the system. If it was done right, then mere possesion of a non licensed copyrighted work would be proof of copyright violation.
That part, of course, was a needle. If you are going to propose that I pay extra taxes so that you can download free music you should at least let me have fun with out discussion.
patents, I see. perhaps ideas was the wrong word. I guess facts would be a better word. Acknowledgement in the form of a referance adds nothing to cost of repeating the facts of course.
Patents are a complex issue in some cases, and different from copyright in some issues. Like should drug companies be allowed patants on drugs the US goverment subsadised a major part of the research? but that is another thread altogather.
not quite my proposed system does not require software forced in to the computer, and would be alot more agreeable to most people.
No, I don’t think we are talking about forcing any software into your computer. We are simply talking about encoding an author identification number into the data itself. The only software you’d need would be reader software. But you need that anyway. And, I’m not sure, but it may be possible to encode this sort of thing into mp3 files without changing the format. You simply encode it as unhearable data.
Yeah, something along those lines might work. It might also be possible to make some of the process automatic if the person applying has agreed to certain criteria ahead of time for certain standard licenses that people would agree to in most cases.
Moreover, it might allow the person issuing the license to allow wider privileges and greater flexibility in continued uses of their work. And better yet, it might provide additional protections for the creator of a work from being fleeced by distributors. Or to set reasonable restrictions prevent the work from being misrepresented, such as a pornography restriction, or on the web page representing a Nazi youth movement.
I think everyone who has responded wants to see IP contributions added to the world at large. I’d also like to say that I’m in some agreement that the notion of Intellectual Property is somewhat skewed. Rather than property, I think that a better way of thinking about it is as fuel for propelling innovation and other ideas.
This “fuel” should be purchased by the public to help profit the persons that acquire and ignite it. After that, eventually the work gets swallowed up by the world at large. If it has any value at all, it will still be providing some momentum by the time it is in public domain.
Not very much. I don’t think the idea is to provide perfect security. But to provide a more benign way for security to be enforced. If I have a collection of mp3 files on my hard drive and they are all encoded with verifyable licence information, then I essentially have a reciept proving I own those songs. If I have lots of mp3s on my hard drive with licenses that were granted to others (and nothing showing that the licenses were transfered) then I sould be in trouble. If might allow artists to prosecute pirates without requiring wholesale draconian measures accross the internet.
That’s cool as long as we don’t make it compulsary. If an artist does not want to participate in such a scheme, then he should be free not to do so.
I’m not sure that thinking of IP as property reduces its nature as fuel for propelling innovation. It simply acknowledges the creator of that property or fuel. And, unfortunately, I think that removing the concept of property leads to too much of the “data should be free” ideas.
Pervert, I agree it shouldn’t be compulsory, it’s just a possible tool that could be used. I’m not suggesting that the idea of Property is exactly invalid, just that it is not the best analogy. As it stands, thinking of it as Property may not always reward the producer as well and could stifle innovation.
I still think a an model that is based on some altruistic principal would be the best. A strictly technological approach is more of a brute force approach. It can certainly work, but it would have more holes in it and there would be more people trying to beat the system or exploit it. At least some altruism mixed in there helps make it easier to run since the point of it is to help the other guy so that you at stand some chance of gaining something good yourself. Sometimes the reward’s a warm fuzzy feeling or someone does you a favor, or you get a better world out of the process. Cash prizes might also help it along.
Unfortunately, I’ll be damned if I can think of a good idea as to how to get people to be willing to share on all sides of the process. What rewards a consumer to pay for something that they could take anonymously? What encourages producers to put their work out there and not worry much about being taken advantage of? What allows middlemen to add value in some respect to both sides? In the back of my mind, I assume that a network of some sort that benefits its participants would be key to making it work. Perhaps new forms of collaboration might also be better enabled, either with people contributing to actual works with others, or to form some kind of co-op model where people share common resources.
Then the main thing we’d be dependent on the technology for would be to keep track of it all and to help form the network.
Right. And whether a drop in profits causes a firm out of business is orthogonal to the issue I was trying to address: The producer’s and the consumer’s maximizing conditions lead to different places, and that disconnect is why I consider simple answers to YosemiteBabe’s questions to be illusory.
It’s neither paying inattention nor is it stealing, nor is the relative size of the sunk costs to the total costs an issue. Were I to download Hilary Duff’s latest single (Mmmm…Duff), I am not depriving her of her goods nor am I taking her property. Since the fair price for her to charge is the cost of providing an additional copy of her single, the fair price for me to pay is zilch.
Let’s apply your reasoning to another hypothetical. Let’s suppose that I need a hole dug and that I can choose between two hole-diggers. One has an off-the-rack shovel, the other has a jewel-encrusted shovel. Clearly the second hole-digger’s sunk cost is enormous. Therefore, not only will he maximize profits by charging a higher price, it is fair for me to expect to pay him a higher price.
I don’t see how that makes sense. Why should the cost of his shovel imply that I owe him a higher payment, and why wouldn’t the hole-digger with the off-the-rack shovel charge the same higher price as the fellow with the jewel-encrusted shovel?
Analogously, why should I pay more to Hilary because of the sunk costs she took on when making her latest single? Didn’t that one brother from Oasis write their whole first album pretty much overnight? Clearly his creative efforts are considerably less than the poor slob who toils full time for a year to put together an album that’s just as good. You seem to be saying that a higher sunk cost implies that it is fair to charge more, therefore a prodigy songwriter cannot fairly charge as much as the merely competent songwriter. To say that they can charge the same price for a copy of a song is to completely ignore sunk costs!
Okay. The argumentative js says that’s fine, we should expect an industry to shrink to a smaller size when a subsidy is removed. He would also suggest that some authors can put out a book with less effort. Since they have less time and effort invested in the project, doesn’t your statement imply that they require less compensation and cannot rightly charge the same price for their books?
The sincere js says that you are asking the wrong question. There are two sides to this coin and you are looking at yours. Look at the other side and tell me what is fair.
