No, I imagine there would be fewer multi-million dollar blockbusters, if any.
Do you think television and radio are improved by commercial breaks every few minutes? Are newspapers, magazines, and web pages improved by advertisements? Not really. But it lets them make money without depending on people to pay per copy, and that’s an improvement in itself.
It can work for non-fiction and poetry the same way it works for novels; just substitute “chapters” for a more appropriate division. Release a little work, ask for a little money. Release more, ask for more. If no one is willing to pay you to keep producing, then find something else you’re good at.
Works that don’t translate well to a serial format can be funded some other way - I sure wouldn’t mind flipping past ads in a book, if it meant getting the book for free or at cost.
Or maybe some of those works won’t be funded at all, and the people who would’ve made them will have to find some other way to support themselves. :shrug: Just because a person has made a living doing something in the past doesn’t mean he must be able to make a living doing it in the future. Changes in law and technology lead to changes in the job market all the time, and society keeps on going.
And you’ve supplied a non-answer, only relevant for a few kinds of work, as Princhester points out.
Ah. So a lot of creative folk wouldn’t be able to make a living if you had your way. They’d have to get a “real” job, eh? We’re back to that again, I see. Right now, people make work that other people want (and have paid for), but you want that all to end. Make it free, and make these people who used to make a living (doing something that other people felt was worth paying for) find something else to do for a living.
That is no solution, and certainly no answer to storyteller0910’s question. After all, he (she?) very well might be one of the people that you would :shrug: at being forced out of the writing business. So are you telling storyteller0910 that as far as you are concerned, :shrug:, too bad, you can’t make a living off of your work anymore? That’s your answer?
So I take it that your answer to my question namely how, without selling copyable IP, could certain existing and very popular artforms make money in your copyrightless world is: they couldn’t and would largely disappear.
Fair summary?
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By the way,
ie in Mr2001’s dreams. You’ve already pointed that this scheme has been tried and didn’t work for one of the most popular novelists alive. If it didn’t work for Stephen King, who exactly do you think it might work for?
This would still require copyright legislation, or else there would be nothing to stop someone stripping out the advertisements and re-publishing, rendering the business model unworkable. As it is, there is nothing to stop someone using this model; it’s perfectly possible to publish something for free with advertising included. However, it’s no coincidence that the model is limited to a very few areas like newspapers. If it were an economic business model, it would already be being more widely used.
As for “incorporating themes” into a work, well, I wonder at that, I really do. I thought you were against commercial pollution of artworks? Call me odd, but I’d much rather pay for a book than have to read about a Coca-Cola executive leading a one-man crusade against the mob whilst suitably caffeinated and refreshed.
So, your answer to storyteller0910’s question about how would he still be able to get paid for his work, is that, well, :shrug: maybe he wouldn’t, and he’d have to go into a new line of work.
The other point, yosemitebabe, is that when Mr2001 is pressed on this point, he always refers (and only refers) to the effects that destruction of artists and entertainers’ ability to earn a living has on them.
He concentrates on that aspect so that he can then shrug and say “so what, the world doesn’t owe them a living”.
And that may be true.
But what Mr2001 consistently ignores is that artists and entertainers have customers and customers want those artists and entertainers to produce their work.
Quite simply, Mr2001’s philosophy (or whatever he might call it) proposes the destruction of something that the greater population wants (books, movies) to achieve some “let the information be free” ideal
I am yet to hear any coherent arugment as to why Mr2001 thinks this is a worthwhile tradeoff.
Mr2001 you have often made comments along these lines. Jobs disappear all the time, businesses disappear all the time, too bad.
Problem is, you miss the point.
Jobs disappear because someone finds a way to produce a particular thing without so much manpower. Industries disappear because they are selling something people no longer want.
How do you go from that to the suggestion that there is nothing untoward about jobs and industries that are necessary to produce what people want disappearing, to be replaced by nothing except unsatisfied consumer demand?
You have a set of values that dictates that “not depending on people to pay per copy” is an improvement even if it means that arts and entertainment would be (as you yourself say) worsened as a result.
Of course as Dead Badger has already said, your model is already available. Anyone is free to stop charging for movies and instead rely on sponsorship etc right now. Books could be given away but contain advertising tomorrow.
Why does this not occur? Because it’s not what people want.
You are free to have whatever values you want, Mr2001, but I think that I am far from alone when I regard your values as dumbass.
In some cases, this might a good idea, but would still not work even remotely all the time.
Some people (hell, probably a lot of people) create stuff that they don’t want anyone to use in any way they please. I know some composers of religious music that sure don’t want their music used for other “commercial” purposes. They feel that the music was specifically meant for a religious context, and nothing else.
Also, how will this government server keep track of derivative works? Like, for instance, someone using the melody in an aforementioned religious work, re-tooling it and changing the lyrics so it is a popular tune, etc.? Even if the composer of the original (religious) work is okay with someone re-doing it, how will they get paid for the use of their melody, if the re-tooler doesn’t step forward and make sure they (the religious composer) gets credit?
How would this apply to written works, which would be relatively low-bandwidth, and easy to share on any server? And some artworks? A high fidelity version of artwork may be on the government server, but what if all someone needs is a low-res version of the artwork for a small graphic, or web graphic? They don’t need to go get the high-res version from the government server then, and they might not. Thus cheating the artist out of royalties for using a (low-res) version of their artwork.
Maybe I missed this part of your answer, but I don’t remember you offering a solution on how to control derivative versions of works, (and “derivative” in this case could be nothing more than a lower-res version of artwork or photography, resized in Photoshop). I know of no (inexpensive, at least) reliable watermarking technology that can always keep watermarks in graphics, especially if the artwork is cropped or otherwise altered in Photoshop.
In my experience, watermarks are pretty fragile. (Of course, if some new technology has come out, I’d love to hear about it.) So how would this work for graphics?
In my case which this is what i told to the lady at the MPAA, it is not hurting there profits if i download a movie that is still in theatres or thats out on dvd. it is a fact. why is it a fact? because i would and never will go see a movie in the theatres. 1. i hate the movie theatres. 2. overpriced food and drinks. 3. why the fuck would i pay 10 dollars to see a 2 hour movie? i havent been to a theatre since it was like 5 bucks. in other words a very long time! i dont go to theatres and dont buy dvds and i never will so they arent losing money from me watching a movie that someone who already paid to see it uploaded. they never would get my money either way. i told that to the bitch at the mpaa after i got a message from my internet provider about me illegally downloading a movie that is in theatres. i also told her i would download what i want and to go fuck herself. have a nice day people.
The philosophical essence of a valid ethical stance. It’s nice to know the universities are doing their job in educating a new generation to articulate moral viewpoints so eloquently. I eagerly look forward to reading his doctoral thesis.
[QUOTE=brianbertz]
In my case which this is what i told to the lady at the MPAA, it is not hurting there profits if i download a movie that is still in theatres or thats out on dvd. it is a fact. why is it a fact? because i would and never will go see a movie in the theatres. 1. i hate the movie theatres. 2. overpriced food and drinks. 3. why the fuck would i pay 10 dollars to see a 2 hour movie? i havent been to a theatre since it was like 5 bucks. in other words a very long time! i dont go to theatres and dont buy dvds and i never will so they arent losing money from me watching a movie that someone who already paid to see it uploaded. they never would get my money either way. i told that to the bitch at the mpaa after i got a message from my internet provider about me illegally downloading a movie that is in theatres. i also told her i would download what i want and to go fuck herself. have a nice day people.
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Welcome to the SDMB, Mr. Bertz. Think about this, for a second: what’s the difference between someone who downloads a film illegally because they weren’t going to pay to see it, and someone who does it and claims they weren’t going to pay to see it?
i think what offends me most is the movie following it will be about gunning people down and doing all sorts of nefarious things. It’s just a bit rich them taking the high moral ground, or having any message at all.
They’re taking a stance on getting paid for their work. What does that have to do with the content of their films? Were you offended by Metallica taking a stance on Napster because they had a song called Battery?
[QUOTE=Sean Lock]
It’s a bit like someone who’s got a nut allergy going into a nut shop. “I don’t like them! They make my head blow up 3 times its normal size. You bastard.”
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