"Free" and what it means for creative thought

[Colmarr]

From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald 15 February 2010:


Lanier is also scathing about the way in which the internet leaves many individuals with little choice but to give away their work for no payment. This effect has been heralded by many (most notably Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine, in his book Free: The Future of a Radical Price) as a positive re-casting of our economic system, but it has failed to impress Lanier.

In his analysis, this new way of doing "business" takes all value away from the efforts of the individual in order to allow a small number of companies, such as Google, to make money for themselves.

"One effect of the so-called free way of thinking is that it could eventually force anyone who wants to survive on the basis of mental activity ... to enter into some sort of legal or political fortress - or become a pet of a wealthy patron - in order to be protected from the rapacious hive mind," writes Lanier. "What free really means is that artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers will have to cloak themselves within stodgy institutions."

When You Are Not a Gadget was published, Lanier braced for a "faecal storm" - the web faithful don't take kindly to criticism - however, he says he has been pleasantly surprised by the reception the book has received, and the messages of support from many people working inside technology companies.

"I thought I was going to be pounded by people who hated what I had to say. There has been some of that and some ad hominem attacks as one would expect but there has been an extraordinarily warm reception on the whole."

And perhaps that's because, unlike other web dissenters such as British journalist Andrew Keen, Lanier's arguments are far more measured than shrill. And, while he raises as many questions as he answers - in places the book reads like a collection of loosely related ideas drawn together rather than a coherent "manifesto" - Lanier's thoughts are a welcome counterbalance to the orthodoxy that the web is an overwhelmingly positive development for humanity.

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier is published by Penguin, $32.95.

Interesting point of view, and worth considering if you're on the "illegal downloads don't hurt anyone" side of the fence.

[Yarram]

I'm worried about this thread, just because it's discussing an illegal practice, one which we on this forum certainly wouldn't partake in. :smallbiggrin:

[Texas_Ben]

I will respond to this tomorrow when I can actually think to phrase myself properly.

[Optimystik]

Creative Commons is neither illegal, nor destroying the concept of intellectual property. Did this Lanier fellow address it?

[valadil]

I think the author needs to take a look at Jonathan Coulton (http://jonathancoulton.com). JoCo publishes music his music online. Songs cost a dollar, but can often be found for free on his blog. The songs are freely distributable, DRM-free, and use a creative commons license. Coulton makes money off concert tickets and merchandise.

I think the JoCo model is closer to how music will be distributed in the not so distant future. Give away the songs, charge for the concerts.

What I'm less sure about is how this will apply to other creative works. Books and movies can be digitally copied just as easily as music, but there's no live performance option. Sure I'll pay money to go to the movies, but (to my understanding) Hollywood makes more on DVD sales than ticket stubs. I don't know how it will apply to books either, but the economics of being an author (http://rolanni.livejournal.com/529548.html) are pretty screwed up to begin with.

[Lord of Rapture]

I'm worried about this thread, just because it's discussing an illegal practice, one which we on this forum certainly wouldn't partake in. :smallbiggrin:

Of course. What sort of monster would engage in internet piracy anyway? :smallbiggrin: It boggles the mind.

[Mystic Muse]

Of course. What sort of monster would engage in internet piracy anyway? :smallbiggrin: It boggles the mind.

http://xkcd.com/488/ :smallbiggrin:

[LurkerInPlayground]

Penny Arcade and PvP got into exactly this same argument with syndicated newspaper comic artists.

This is pretty much the exact complaint that syndicated comics have made. That they don't get to make money directly off their comic. Suffice it to say, PA, PvP and probably some other webcomic artists loathe the former group because they refuse to accept that the only way to do business is by advertising.

The thing is that newspapers are acting as a publisher and advertiser that consolidates all the comics in one place. This doesn't change the fact that comic artists are not really making money purely on the comic itself but because the newspaper is bringing them exposure and vice versa.

The fact of the matter is that newspaper comic artists still have to rely on a patron and they're just deluding themselves to that fact. PA's business model differs in that they are their own sponsors. The comic and its community is merely a centerpiece for what is basically an advertising firm. They've since branched out, using their brand name to sell PAX, jump start Greenhouse and a video game. All this while still getting revenue from gaming ads.

Book publishers still need to go through a publishing house. If they have to go through some online distributor, it's just a case of trading one master for another.

Except that a lucky entrepreneur might be able to publish for himself with a minimum of overhead. He doesn't need a lot of capital to make and distribute paperbacks or DVD's when you can post a pdf or stream a video file. It's probably riskier, but so what? That's just how it is.

Such nerd figures as the Foglios (Girl Genius) and Jonathan Coulton have gone into business for themselves as self-published artists. And they get way more exposure than if they had to spend money to make and distribute physical media for their work. The Foglios themselves are amazed at how much more exposure they get online then when they tried soley using paper to get their comic out there.

In short:
Lanier is deluding himself if he thinks money is made purely on his artistic/intellectual merit. It's no good if his book is the greatest book ever if nobody reads it. And I doubt selling hard copies of his work requires any less advertising and exposure than a pdf.

[Klose_the_Sith]

Interesting point of view, and worth considering if you're on the "illegal downloads don't hurt anyone" side of the fence.

Interesting? Yes.

Worth considering? No.

"Illegal" downloads do indeed hurt people. They do, however, help out a hell of a lot more.

[Lord Seth]

http://xkcd.com/488/ :smallbiggrin:That's out of date. iTunes removed DRM over half a year ago.

[Grumman]

If he was arguing that a low-cost, low quality product was driving the competition out of the market he might have a point. If not, he's absolutely in the wrong. All else being equal, if other people are happy to sell an equivalent product to yours for cheaper it's your fault, not theirs, if you go out of business.

Edit: I am assuming he's talking about people distributing their own content and not engaging in piracy, and encourage others to do the same. No need to get the thread locked.

[Lord of Rapture]

That's out of date. iTunes removed DRM over half a year ago.

That's no excuse for the people who are stuck with DRM "enhanced" music that we bought over half a year ago. :smallmad:

[Makensha]

That's no excuse for the people who are stuck with DRM "enhanced" music that we bought over half a year ago. :smallmad:

Burn it to a disk and then put it back on to your computer.


"Illegal" downloads do indeed hurt people. They do, however, help out a hell of a lot more.

I'm curious what you mean by that.


My own opinion is that there's no reason for this dreaded future to happen. We have free content, large corporations, and indie companies all coexisting right now. If you want to share your efforts with the world for free, go ahead. If you want to make a lot of money, join a large company (assuming they'll let you), and if you want to be your own boss or work in a fairly intimate environment, start or join an indie company.
Look at Mount and Blade. The game is made by two people who have done (as far as I know) nearly no advertising. Even through a large reliance on word of mouth/text, they're doing well enough to be making an expansion. So long as you have a good product and you're smart about how you manage it, you'll get through.

Lanier is overreacting to something that I don't see as an issue at this point.

[Prime32]

I think the author needs to take a look at Jonathan Coulton (http://jonathancoulton.com). JoCo publishes music his music online. Songs cost a dollar, but can often be found for free on his blog. The songs are freely distributable, DRM-free, and use a creative commons license. Coulton makes money off concert tickets and merchandise.

I think the JoCo model is closer to how music will be distributed in the not so distant future. Give away the songs, charge for the concerts.From what I hear, this is how every artist does things in China. Wired had an article on it (Why can I not find issues of you again, Wired? :smallfrown:).

The easier it is for people to experience your stuff, the more likely they are to become fans of you.

[Hazkali]

In my experience, music available on sites like YouTube have, in two cases, have introduced me to artists whose CDs I've since asked for as gifts, and there are others that I will when I have more income. Most of these bands have their own YouTube channels, and I think it works as a model for attracting listeners.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

This guy just doesn't understand marketing and salesmanship. You don't just sell the copyrighted content, you sell the product itself. You develop brand loyalty. It's about more than selling a service for a need. Freely distributing content is a great way to not only get your name out there, but also to prepare for other content. Like the OGL.

[Seonor]

Relevant links from the side of artists on this argument:
First (http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/200582690/why-i-am-not-afraid-to-take-your-money-by-amanda) and second (http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/212321239/virtual-crowdsurfing) blog post by Amanda Palmer. Read them and understand.


Sita sings the Blues (http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/)

[snoopy13a]

Creative Commons is neither illegal, nor destroying the concept of intellectual property. Did this Lanier fellow address it?

You're right but I think his point was: Why contribute to the creative commons if one cannot make any money off of it?

I think he's wrong by the way. It is probably just as easy now, if not easier, to be a successful writer, artist, etc as it was 50 years ago. The difference is that the internet has allowed more people to distribute their product. For example, twenty years ago, people only read comic strips from the newspaper. So, in order to be a successful comic strip writer, one had to become syndicated. Now, there are two options. One can still pursue the traditional route or they can create their own webcomic. I'd wager that there are more people making a living off comic strip writing today than 20 years ago.

Musicians have taken somewhat of a hit from the internet but it also provides some benefits. While they have lost revenue through illegal sharing of IPs, the internet also allows talented musicians to spread their music nationwide easier and thus a quality "grassroots" band has an opportunity to gain fans quicker. In the music industry, most of the revenue for the artists comes from touring and shows so using the internet to build a larger fanbase can outweigh any loss of revenue from sales.

Writers have mostly avoided any negative effects from the internet until now. However, the new e-books may change this. I have no idea how popular the e-books will be but if the e-books become very popular then writers could either lose or gain revenue. If large amounts of people pirate novels via e-book then writers will lose money. However, e-books will drastically reduce the overhead of publishing which could allow customers to purchase more books. It would also make it easier for smaller niche writers to sell their products as they could distribute themselves. E-books could go off in any direction and who knows what will happen.

Film makers will survive the internet. There's a social aspect in going to the movies that I don't think can be duplicated by the internet. Where they will continue to get hurt is pirated films that lower DVD sales.

I think the big losers of the internet era will not be the artists but the industries supporting them. For example, E-books may not hurt the writers, and actually could benefit writers by allowing more to sell their products, but it'll hurt book binders and printers.

[Mystic Muse]

That's out of date. iTunes removed DRM over half a year ago.

Yes, but it's still funny.:smallbiggrin:

[JonestheSpy]

Writers have mostly avoided any negative effects from the internet until now.


I know one prominent writer who would disagree: Harlan Ellison.

Back in Ye olde Usenet days, certain "fans" were copying his short stories and posting them as soon as they were published. Lots of other writers are concerned - especially, it seems, science fiction and fantasy writers, whose readers tend to be the sort of geeks that also spend a lot of time on the web (even before Facespace consumed a generation, that is).

You can read some interesting stuff about it here (http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/kick.html).

Piracy has also hurt comic books a lot - booping boopwads scanning every page and posting them, when excellent books are limping along selling only a few thousand copies an issue.

[Yora]

I think overall the options to distribute your works for free online far outweights the limited profits of professional artists.

Yes, art may require some expensive equipment and more importantly it can take a lot of time during which you can't work for monney to cover your daily expenses.

And though there are some very entertaining and well done things out there which have been created by professionals, most good art that I know of is made by people who do it as a hobby and not for a living. And without the option to distribute their works online for free, these artists wouldn't have any way to reach out to a wider audience. So for the sake of art, free online distribution is a huge benefit.

[endoperez]

And though there are some very entertaining and well done things out there which have been created by professionals, most good art that I know of is made by people who do it as a hobby and not for a living.

If the hobbyists you're talking about made their living with their art, they'd do more of it and what they did would become better as they learned from doing it.

The free things given away legally are great. The possibilities of using free services to share whatever you have done using various free software, perhaps collaborating with other free-minded individuals... There's some absolutely amazing stuff out there. And at the same time, it may be easier to find illegal stuff than legal, and the piracy rates are mind-boggling. :smallfrown:

[PhoeKun]

I think overall the options to distribute your works for free online far outweights the limited profits of professional artists.

Yes, art may require some expensive equipment and more importantly it can take a lot of time during which you can't work for monney to cover your daily expenses.

And though there are some very entertaining and well done things out there which have been created by professionals, most good art that I know of is made by people who do it as a hobby and not for a living. And without the option to distribute their works online for free, these artists wouldn't have any way to reach out to a wider audience. So for the sake of art, free online distribution is a huge benefit.

I think that the more paths there are that are open for artists to distribute their work, the better. And while I certainly support any model that involves growing your popularity by sharing your work pro bono, the ultimate goal of the whole process really should be to make money.

No, art is not about the $$$, and it does seem like there's a relationship between not caring about being rich and producing quality work. Still, I think that any artist that is serious about what they do should want to support themselves with that work. Because, speaking from experience, the grind of day-to-day life trying to find money to eat and pay rent does terrible things to my energy and the time I have to write. I've found myself wanting to at the very least open myself up to the possibility of donations or commissions (although frankly I have no idea how to go about making this work) just to be able to squeeze in a little more breathing room and produce more than I've been able to recently.

I didn't get into writing to make a million dollars, but being able to pay my rent and buy food would be nice. So, I would support any model that would allow me to do that.

edit: rereading this post, I'm not sure it's clear what I'm responding to. To clarify, I quoted Yora specifically because I wanted raise the issue of hobbyists being greater than professionals not being a very good attitude to take - I think it's always better if someone with a passion for an art can devote as much time as they want to towards it without constraint, and that generally means making crappy things like "normal" jobs going away.

And then also to speak not on the piracy debate, but more the internet philosophy that everything should be free or it's evil. This doesn't make big publishers or labels essential, but making sure the artist has the means to support themselves is kind of important, I feel.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I won't get into the debate itself, seeing as I'm not an artist and frankly I agree with both sides of the debate (except I think big media conglomerates like RIAA are evil).

But here's what psych shows: if people who do art as a hobby made it their living, it would no longer be their hobby. What it means? Well, the most important thing it means is that they would no longer do it because they enjoy it, but rather because they feel they have to. To make a living, to make more money, et cetera.

Basically, they would become "professional" artists, with all the strings that come attached with it, such as commercializing their work to appeal to a larger audience.

[pita]

This I say as an aspiring author:
There is no intrinsic right to primarily make your living as an author. George R. R. Martin taught (I think, not sure. I know he was a chess teacher, but I'm not sure of more.). Terry Pratchett was stuck in a job he hated for a while until he started making enough money from his books to quit. Robin Hobb (Or Megan Lindholm, or whatever her name is) said that she was ready to start being a waitress, and have writing only as a supplemental job, until she was surprised by her books selling well.
Other authors, like Scott Bakker, are professors who write because it's their passion.
Even Rich Burlew doesn't make most of his money from OotS (I think. Not sure, and not even going to check).
There will always be people willing to buy stuff they can get for free, even if it's only out of decency (Or a wish to have an actual product in my hands. It's why I own the PBF Almanack). But there being enough for authors to make a living writing is only going to work if the author is absolutely amazing, or has a very large appeal.
At the end of the day, a hobby becoming a job is a fantasy, and I have no problem with it staying that way. There's a reason I'm studying psychology and not dropping out of school to focus on my writing.
This doesn't apply to artists and bands. Artists can sell prints and originals. Bands can have live concerts. They have losses that are reduced. I'm just thinking of authors because it's the easiest to steal from them. At best, an author can sell signed books for a little over their market value, or appear at book readings where they read their books worse than a professional vocal actor can.
Of course, I disagree with this being a reality. The business model has changed a lot, but it still exists. Gabe and Tycho make money with a free product, enough to be able to still run their own charity (Not one for them, as much as that totally awesome idea's been overused), their own gaming expo, and still be able to do things just to spite Jack Thompson. And they're the only ones I can think of because I'm exhausted, but I'm convinced there are more. Mookie, Jeph Jacques, and Tim Buckley, now that I think about it. Definitely more than them, as well.
EDIT- Now that I think about it, I'm exhausted, I may have been misunderstanding this entire thread. I'll recheck tomorrow. good night, folks.

[Colmarr]

"Illegal" downloads do indeed hurt people. They do, however, help out a hell of a lot more.

I assume by this you mean "Illegal downloads do indeed hurt people. But a hell of a lot more people help themselves"?

I can't really think of anyone that illegal downloads "help" unless you're referring to the people doing the stealing or receiving the stolen goods.

[warty goblin]

I have two major concerns, about the rise of free stuff.



1) The free stuff will put the professionals out of business. I think that professionals, to a statistically meaningful degree*, do better work than amateurs. I think this for two reasons, firstly that for somebody to become a fulltime artist/writer/whatever they are likely to have a fairly deep commitment and passion for their job as well as the time to devot themselves to it full time and thus gain better mastery of their chosen craft. Secondly because it is their profession and livelihood they have a real stake in reliably producing quality goods. Amatuers may have the first, but much less so the second.


*I say to a statistically meaningful degree because there is a not insignificant body of amateurs who do very good work, and I don't want to disregard them, but I suspect that the average quality of amateur vs. professional tilts strongly in the later's favor.

2) With the professionals out of business, finding quality material will be increasingly difficult.

I read a lot of books, all of which have been read by professional editors whose job it is to screen out the real dross to the best of their ability- and since they have kept their jobs it is likely they are better at it than the average person. All of the people involved in the book have a real financial stake in making sure it is of sufficient quality to make at least some money. All this ensures that what ends up in my book bag has passed a relatively vigorous vetting process. Occasionally I buy an truly horrible book, but this is the definite minority of cases.

Beyond that because I'm spending money on the book, I have a stake in making sure what I buy conforms to some degree of quality. But I have much less stake in whether a free product is actually any good. All that is really demanded of it is that it's not bad enough that I set it down for something else.

So what I'm afraid will happen is that everything is buried in a wave of astonishingly mediocre material. Because nobody has a stake in it's quality, the average will be much lower than it is now. There will of course be outliers that are good, but I suspect they will be just that; outliers. Look at user made videos on Youtube. Some of them are good, very good even. A lot are absolute crap. Also notice that through it's Partners program, Youtube gives people who produce quality material a stake in continuing to do so. I would be very surprised if that was anything but a deliberate strategy to hold onto people who produce sufficiently good media that they make Youtube money.

Now of course the lower vetting level will have some positive side effects. One negative consequence of people having major financial stakes in their products is that they tend to be somewhat risk averse. Without this to lose, I suspect that there will be a lot more room for people to try more creatively daring things than they would have otherwise. I just wonder if anybody will notice these amid the tides of mediocrity.

[JonestheSpy]

except I think big media conglomerates like RIAA are evil

This is certainly true. I think music pirating, at least, was at least partly a response to ridiculous price-gouging by the music companies. I mean, a CD actually cost LESS to produce than a record, but cost twice as much at the store. If they hadn't been so frickin greedy, I think a lot more people would have actually bought the albums.

[Solaris]

This is certainly true. I think music pirating, at least, was at least partly a response to ridiculous price-gouging by the music companies. I mean, a CD actually cost LESS to produce than a record, but cost twice as much at the store. If they hadn't been so frickin greedy, I think a lot more people would have actually bought the albums.

Capitalism is a beautiful thing. Root, hog, or die at its finest: "Provide a product that beats people getting it for free, or everyone loses out because nobody has any editors anymore."
I assume we're ignoring the possibility of internet-based editing?

[Don Julio Anejo]

I have two major concerns, about the rise of free stuff.
...(wall of text)...
Yes, but here's the thing. To begin with, you have nothing to lose if you want to read a free book. However, you have 15 bucks and shelf space to lose if you want to read a non-free book. And if you decide to stop reading after 50 pages, you lose only the time to read those 50 pages. Whereas with a paper book, you'd also lose the time to go to the store to buy the book, the time to make those 15 bucks, and worse of all, half the tree needed to make it.

This realizes itself in the form of a ranking (e.g. a top 100 list on a themed website) where the quality material is at the top, the not-as good but still decent material is in the middle and fanon crap written by 13 year olds is in the gutter, where it belongs.

In fact, a similar system works great in Russia, where it's legal (or was until very recently if I'm not mistaken) to distribute books over the internet. People read a lot of stuff online for free, and...

Great writers still sell out entire editions, despite the fact that you can read it for free online. Why? Well, because they reach a larger audience, more people become fans, more people want paper copies so they can read them over and over again as they please, people who can't get the books physically (e.g. me) can become fans and buy them later. It also encourages writers to experiment and put stuff up on the web (samizdat) to get opinions...

Some great writers in fact got publishing deals out of stuff they posted online. Oh yeah, and there's enough well-educated people online to edit your work, which actually works out better because 50 average proofreaders will still do a better job than one good one.

Crappy writers, on the other hand, mope around and complain about not making much money because of internet pirates.

Who's to blame here?

[Trazoi]

Here's a link to the original Sydney Morning Herald article: Why the web has gone sour. (http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/why-the-web-has-gone-sour-20100214-nzo5.html)

My concerns are pretty much the same as warty goblin's; a shift from professional to amateur will, in general, lead to a drop in quality. I'm also concerned about the connotations about the expectation that creative work should be as cheap as free, as there's the implication that free -> valueless -> worthless. In general though I think the benefits of being able to connect to the large on-line chunk of the world outweigh the downsides, as it's now easier for a creative individual to find enough fans who care enough about them and their work to support them. The cheapskates end up hurting themselves.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Here's a link to the original Sydney Morning Herald article: Why the web has gone sour. (http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/why-the-web-has-gone-sour-20100214-nzo5.html)

My concerns are pretty much the same as warty goblin's; a shift from professional to amateur will, in general, lead to a drop in quality. I'm also concerned about the connotations about the expectation that creative work should be as cheap as free, as there's the implication that free -> valueless -> worthless. In general though I think the benefits of being able to connect to the large on-line chunk of the world outweigh the downsides, as it's now easier for a creative individual to find enough fans who care enough about them and their work to support them. The cheapskates end up hurting themselves.
The fact of the matter is that publishers have always been bombarded with bad manuscripts that get thrown into slushpiles, possibly sorted through later by the unfortunate interns. The only difference is that the slushpile is more visible and globally accessible (e.g. fan-fiction and webcomics). You can't stop people from homebrewing their own books or whatever.

This attitude that the professionals will get put out of business or that our creativity is somehow circling the drain is an elitist attitude. It's all just so much whining.

Just go to the bookstore and look for every crappy or ho-hum title that gets published. Count all of it. Then watch the inventory change. For every good fantasy author out there, how many are merely mediocre? Or terrible? How many comics/manga are simply crap? How often do you see punditry shoved into your face?

Web publishing changes the paradigm, but it's not going to do anything that we haven't already inflicted on ourselves in the first place.

The other thing people need to get is that there are always middle men. (As Mal from Firefly once pointed out.) You're not getting rid of them. Complaining that you're giving away work for "free" ignores the simple fact that you are still probably going to be dependent on some other media broker, whatever form that takes.

Penny Arcade gives away their comic for "free." Girl Genius gives away their comic for "free." Except they're not just artists, they're marketing for themselves and others (banner ads). Newspaper comic artists complain that the internet makes them give away their work for "free." They delude themselves into thinking that they're being paid for artistic integrity. But that's not how it works. The newspaper cuts them a percentage for drawing in a crowd to their paper. It's a stable tradition, but it doesn't change the fact that they're making money off what amounts to a dead-tree version of banner ads.

Here's the big secret:
Making money purely off "artistic integrity" is a goddamn myth. It's still the same world where you either build up a following or get lucky in order to get a percentage that is satisfactory.

If Rich Burlew is going to get rich off OotS, it won't be simply because he sold the comic itself but because he actually leverages his nerd-cred to make himself rich.

[RobotPerfomance]

This is a very interesting issue. We are living in a time when our technology is changing to way media is delivered to people. I think some groups will benefit from this change and others will not. Anything that is a small market product gains the ability to reach a large audience and benefits. So things like the Order of the Stick get distributed when under the old system they most likely wouldn't. With the ability of artist to distribute themselves one group that stands to lose big is the publishers, record companies, and a like that were doing the distributing before. However, the harm that can be done by piracy is real, no where near as terrible as the movie studios and music companies would have us believe but real none the less. It really is our job to make sure that there is a way for people to make money entertaining us because entertainment has value and has for all of human history. And if we remove the ability of people to make a living from entertainment then the only people entertaining us will not be writer, singers, or artist. We will get part timers which will in general not be as good. As with anything else professionals tend to be better I am not looking to have my home built by an armature carpenter.

[Solaris]

Professional editors*... the same ones who let the Inheritance Trilogy through, right? The ones who let Twilight get published, right?
I'll take my chances with the wild untamed masses of the Internet. At least I'm not paying for that dreck. Besides, you can't tell me that I couldn't wrangle up a team on this board that could churn through editing and revising published material about as well as your standard-issue publishing house.

*: I'm being unfair and I know it.

[JonestheSpy]

Crappy writers, on the other hand, mope around and complain about not making much money because of internet pirates.


I know of many excellent writers who are very upset about their work being posted online.

You seem to be unable to differentiate between people who put up their own work for everyone to see for free, and those whose work is put on the internet without their permission.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Here's a link to the original Sydney Morning Herald article: Why the web has gone sour. (http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/why-the-web-has-gone-sour-20100214-nzo5.html)

My concerns are pretty much the same as warty goblin's; a shift from professional to amateur will, in general, lead to a drop in quality. I'm also concerned about the connotations about the expectation that creative work should be as cheap as free, as there's the implication that free -> valueless -> worthless. In general though I think the benefits of being able to connect to the large on-line chunk of the world outweigh the downsides, as it's now easier for a creative individual to find enough fans who care enough about them and their work to support them. The cheapskates end up hurting themselves.
I think that, as with YouTube and similar sites, you will see a new, evolving sort of popularity, far more focused to the niches. People are naturally selective, and when the information starts to become massive, that's when they'll need to begin discriminating. Sure, there'll be more bad stuff. But there'll always be reviewers to help us sort it all out.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I know of many excellent writers who are very upset about their work being posted online.

You seem to be unable to differentiate between people who put up their own work for everyone to see for free, and those whose work is put on the internet without their permission.
Then they should also call up all the libraries and attempt to have their books removed from it. Otherwise they're hypocrites. Also, in the case I was referring to, it was legal to have internet libraries.

If, however, an author is simply pissed that people aren't paying to see his work, well, he's no longer an artist. He's a businessman and no different from, for example, the software companies - he's marketing a product and wants to be paid for it. In my opinion (hello flak from everyone on the board, but..) this means is that he should lose the right to be called an "artist" - an artist creates something for the sake of creation, not for the sake of making money.

[snoopy13a]

If, however, an author is simply pissed that people aren't paying to see his work, well, he's no longer an artist. He's a businessman and no different from, for example, the RIAA - he's marketing a product and wants to be paid for it. In my opinion (hello flak from everyone on the board, but..) this means is that he should lose the right to be called an "artist" - an artist creates something for the sake of creation, not for the sake of making money.

I don't know, Da Vinci and Michaelanglo created for the sake of making money as they often worked on commision from patrons.

There is one interesting point about internet piracy though. Artists often assume that Person A who downloads their product illegally is costing them sales. This may not necessarily be true. That is only true if A actually would purchase that product otherwise.

For example, take the movie Wolfman. Based on the commericials, I don't believe I'd like it so I won't spend money for a ticket. However, if someone were to give me a free ticket to Wolfman, I'd probably go. Likewise, I'd never purchase a Wolfman DvD. Thus, if I were to illegally download Wolfman, I, at least in theory, wouldn't be costing the filmmakers money. Legally of course, the filmmakers could sue me for copyright infringement for a whopping total of $25 :smalltongue:

[Don Julio Anejo]

I don't know, Da Vinci and Michaelanglo created for the sake of making money as they often worked on commision from patrons.
But what many modern "artists" are trying to do would be the equivalent of Michaelangelo demanding a royalty fee for anytime someone entered the Sistine Chapel and looked up. This is what I'm against.


For example, take the movie Wolfman. Based on the commericials, I don't believe I'd like it so I won't spend money for a ticket. However, if someone were to give me a free ticket to Wolfman, I'd probably go. Likewise, I'd never purchase a Wolfman DvD. Thus, if I were to illegally download Wolfman, I, at least in theory, wouldn't be costing the filmmakers money. Legally of course, the filmmakers could sue me for copyright infringement for a whopping total of $25 :smalltongue:
Completely agreed. Everything on my computer that I want I actually paid for. Almost everything that I haven't paid for, I wouldn't have purchased anyway if I had no choice. At best, I'd simply wait for, for example, Wolfman to come out on TV. At worst, I wouldn't even care and find some other way to kill the two hours I would have spent watching it.

[Trazoi]

This attitude that the professionals will get put out of business or that our creativity is somehow circling the drain is an elitist attitude. It's all just so much whining.
I'm more worried about the perception that the professional creators will be forced to limit their business strategies to ones that support an audience that expect to receive their core creative work for free. There's methods that can support that certainly, some of which are in general practice right now, such as advertiser supported radio and live-to-air TV. I'm just not certain how well those models will have to be adapted to all creative fields over the internet. And I'm not comfortable with the notion that the main business strategies available for a creative work, no matter how good, should involve dangling it as a freebie to entice people to buy a "real" product.

I'm also trying to avoid spinning this out into a long drawn out essay on the topic, as I could probably go on for pages if I get started :smallsmile:. It's hard to condense my opinions down to a single paragraph, especially when you're dealing with a topic that covers creative works as diverse as webcomics, novels, feature films, video games, fine art, photography, journalism, etc.

[Lord Seth]

Then they should also call up all the libraries and attempt to have their books removed from it. Otherwise they're hypocrites.Not at all. Libraries still have one specific, legal copy of a book (okay, fine, they might have multiple copies, but what I'm saying applies in that case anyway). If someone checks out a book, they have that one, singular copy, which the library no longer has until it's returned. Likewise, once the library has it again, the person who checked it out no longer does. Grabbing someone's work and putting it online is making a copy and putting it online for other people to make copies of. It would be like if you went to a library and rather than checking out a book, magically made a copy and never had to return it. Your analogy would only hold true if after uploading it to the Internet you deleted your copy of it, and when someone downloaded it from the Internet, the Internet provider deleted their copy (preventing any further downloads), and so on.


Professional editors*... the same ones who let the Inheritance Trilogy through, right?The Inheritance Trilogy Cycle, through a series of lucky coincidences (well, lucky for the author anyway), actually managed to make it to publishing without having to go through the usual requirements involved in getting published.

[Solaris]

The Inheritance Trilogy Cycle, through a series of lucky coincidences (well, lucky for the author anyway), actually managed to make it to publishing without having to go through the usual requirements involved in getting published.

Oh, sure. Like I said, I was being unfair to them.
But they still have to answer for Twilight.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Not at all. Libraries still have one specific, legal copy of a book (okay, fine, they might have multiple copies, but what I'm saying applies in that case anyway). If someone checks out a book, they have that one, singular copy, which the library no longer has until it's returned.
(more text was here)
But see, it doesn't matter. It's still in public access for anyone who wants to read it. And unless it's the latest Harry Potter, when a few hundred people want to read each copy the library has, more often than not it's readily available (even if it does require actually going to the library).

Call me old fashioned (I am, even though I'm only 22), but when I buy a book, I buy a book itself as much as I buy the text that's in it. It's somewhat like buying a painting. I agree paying the artist for the painting itself, or for prints, but I don't see why I should be paying for a gif of it, especially if the only thing I want to do is check out if it's even worth buying (hard to do without seeing the painting in the first plaec, amirite?).

Also, as snoopy pointed out, just because someone can't get it for free, doesn't necessarily mean they will pay for it. More often than not, it's simply a way to kill some time. If it's available, great, go for it. It's not? Well, there's a lot of other things you can do, especially if internet is available.

[BRC]

Then they should also call up all the libraries and attempt to have their books removed from it. Otherwise they're hypocrites. Also, in the case I was referring to, it was legal to have internet libraries.

If, however, an author is simply pissed that people aren't paying to see his work, well, he's no longer an artist. He's a businessman and no different from, for example, the software companies - he's marketing a product and wants to be paid for it. In my opinion (hello flak from everyone on the board, but..) this means is that he should lose the right to be called an "artist" - an artist creates something for the sake of creation, not for the sake of making money.
So, an Artist can pour months of work into something, but if they expect to see money for it so they can pay some bills they are suddenly greedy and capricious. By that regard, farmers shouldn't charge for their food, because a true farmer works to have his crops grow and feed people. Doctors shouldn't charge for their services, because a Doctor is only motivated by their desire to help people. Architects shouldn't charge, because a true architect designs a building for the sake of designing a building. A Police Officer works to protect the innocent and bring the guilty to justice, so they shouldn't get paid either. Educating the next generation should be enough of a reward for Teachers, so lets not pay them either. Soldiers should be motivated by the desire to serve their country, no pay for them, if they request money, they're nothing more than a mercenary. If performing isn't enough for an Actor, they don't deserve to be called one, so no money for them.


My point is, there is a difference between being motivated by Money, and wanting to see some return for your effort. You don't become an Artist for the money, but that dosn't mean you enter some ascended state of existence where you don't need to pay bills or buy food. It dosn't mean your entire life is Art. It doesn't mean that it's wrong to want a nice chair and a big TV. People choose a profession because they want to, and because they need money.

Also, so what if they're a businessman, does that make their work any less great. If I learn a Novelist I like is motivated by money, his once well written characters don't become two-dimensional.

[averagejoe]

The fact of the matter is that data is no longer a product with any scarcity, and no amount of constraints are going to change that, short of a breakdown of our infrastructure. You can go and try to convince people that you should pay them for, say, air, but if you can't then maybe you shouldn't be in the air-making business.

People have always been able to get art for free. Now art is cheaper and more available then ever and this is seen as a bad thing? If people downloading your songs bothers you then you have the choice not to become a musician. However, it's worthless to deny the reality of the situation. If you can't convince people to pay you then it's you who's doing something wrong, and you need to adjust your business model to account for reality. (Unless of course making money is not what you're trying to do, which is cool, but not what I'm talking about.)

So the internet turns all artists into street performers. How is this a bad thing? I've seen some great street performers, and even given money to some. It's a tradition one finds across cultures and centuries.

Why should I pay companies to package, distribute, and record music when they're offering a service that the world no longer needs? I respect that these companies are trying to protect themselves, but there's no moral substance to these efforts.

[BRC]

The fact of the matter is that data is no longer a product with any scarcity, and no amount of constraints are going to change that, short of a breakdown of our infrastructure. You can go and try to convince people that you should pay them for, say, air, but if you can't then maybe you shouldn't be in the air-making business.

People have always been able to get art for free. Now art is cheaper and more available then ever and this is seen as a bad thing? If people downloading your songs bothers you then you have the choice not to become a musician. However, it's worthless to deny the reality of the situation. If you can't convince people to pay you then it's you who's doing something wrong, and you need to adjust your business model to account for reality. (Unless of course making money is not what you're trying to do, which is cool, but not what I'm talking about.)

So the internet turns all artists into street performers. How is this a bad thing? I've seen some great street performers, and even given money to some. It's a tradition one finds across cultures and centuries.

Why should I pay companies to package, distribute, and record music when they're offering a service that the world no longer needs? I respect that these companies are trying to protect themselves, but there's no moral substance to these efforts.
This.

I understand companies trying to stay afloat, it's all that can be expected. However, the age of the internet is here, and that means new business models will inevitably move in. Online Music distribution has shown it's advantage over buying physical CD's (In fact, if I do ever buy a CD, all I do is put it on my computer and forget about the physical disk).
Now, of course, new business models, like all business models, will be based around making money. Copying a file and sending it to you're friends is easy, hence the appearance of DRM.

My point is, as consumers, we can't shrug and say "It's inevitable when a new business type replaces an old one, but then cry foul when it tries to make money in new ways.

[Solaris]

The fact of the matter is that data is no longer a product with any scarcity, and no amount of constraints are going to change that, short of a breakdown of our infrastructure. You can go and try to convince people that you should pay them for, say, air, but if you can't then maybe you shouldn't be in the air-making business.

People have always been able to get art for free. Now art is cheaper and more available then ever and this is seen as a bad thing? If people downloading your songs bothers you then you have the choice not to become a musician. However, it's worthless to deny the reality of the situation. If you can't convince people to pay you then it's you who's doing something wrong, and you need to adjust your business model to account for reality. (Unless of course making money is not what you're trying to do, which is cool, but not what I'm talking about.)

So the internet turns all artists into street performers. How is this a bad thing? I've seen some great street performers, and even given money to some. It's a tradition one finds across cultures and centuries.

Why should I pay companies to package, distribute, and record music when they're offering a service that the world no longer needs? I respect that these companies are trying to protect themselves, but there's no moral substance to these efforts.

/thread

Revolution is now.

[JonestheSpy]

I can't help wondering how many of the folks saying copying artists' work onto the net so anybody can have it for free is just fine have any connection to artistic careers themselves.

Also, here's a hypothetical situation for you: Master Burlew, while providing fine entertainment for us all for free, is quite selective about what he offers on the web and what is available only for those who buy the books. How would you feel about folks scanning Origin of the PCs or Start of Darkness, or the bonus material from the strip collections, on some pirate site for anyone to read at a click?

[averagejoe]

I can't help wondering how many of the folks saying copying artists' work onto the net so anybody can have it for free is just fine have any connection to artistic careers themselves.

Also, here's a hypothetical situation for you: Master Burlew, while providing fine entertainment for us all for free, is quite selective about what he offers on the web and what is available only for those who buy the books. How would you feel about folks scanning Origin of the PCs or Start of Darkness, or the bonus material from the strip collections, on some pirate site for anyone to read at a click?

I see little reason why who is saying a thing should make that thing right or wrong. I could be an artist, a corporate mogul, or some average consumer who claims to be an artist simply because his opponents wouldn't recognize the validity of his claims otherwise. None of this changes the actual things I've said.

I'm not sure how what I feel about it has to do with anything. I probably wouldn't choose to download or scan such a thing, if that's what you're asking. I'd imagine it would cause Rich to put out less bonus material, and probably less comic, and I'd be opposed to that. But if enough people decide that saving a few bucks is worth potentially putting the comic they read in jeopardy then that's what will happen, and Rich will likely change his business model.

However, when I read Start of Darkness it's when I borrowed it from someone else. What bonus material I have read was when I was flipping through the books on the racks. So it's not entirely unlike file sharing.

[Trazoi]

So the internet turns all artists into street performers. How is this a bad thing?
There's a difference in how someone perceives the value of a performance that costs $X a ticket and one that costs whatever you feel like paying.


My point is, as consumers, we can't shrug and say "It's inevitable when a new business type replaces an old one, but then cry foul when it tries to make money in new ways.
Exactly. It's not just the professional artists and creators who have to accept the reality of the new situation. If someone who creates stuff for a living cannot find enough customers amongst their audience, they have to change what they're doing until they do - regardless of what their audience thinks.

[Solaris]

I can't help wondering how many of the folks saying copying artists' work onto the net so anybody can have it for free is just fine have any connection to artistic careers themselves.

Also, here's a hypothetical situation for you: Master Burlew, while providing fine entertainment for us all for free, is quite selective about what he offers on the web and what is available only for those who buy the books. How would you feel about folks scanning Origin of the PCs or Start of Darkness, or the bonus material from the strip collections, on some pirate site for anyone to read at a click?

Amateur writer, painter, sculptor, game writer, you name it. I've been told repeatedly that I should go professional (on the drawing front), but instead I decided to enter into the military as a career. I've always held the deep-seated belief that I should no more make others pay for my works than I did to receive them.
That, and darn few artists get to play with cannons, flying robot assassins, armored vehicles, and hundreds of pounds of explosives, but that didn't completely influence my decision. >>


There's a difference in how someone perceives the value of a performance that costs $X a ticket and one that costs whatever you feel like paying.

But the value of the performance itself remains unchanged. Art is different than other fields in that it is inherently possessed of no monetary value.

[averagejoe]

There's a difference in how someone perceives the value of a performance that costs $X a ticket and one that costs whatever you feel like paying.

That's actually a good point. Musicians still have live performances as a decent source of revenue. People will always pay for that.

Maybe an artist doesn't get paid enough. Maybe this means he stops producing art. Tragic, but if I think so then maybe I should have paid him more. There are artists that will produce art anyways, and that's cool. Either way, trying to regulate something which everyone has plentiful access to is futile. Artists would be better served deciding how to act in the face of what is rather than lamenting their situation and how wrong it is that people act the way they act.

It works both ways. Security on games has gotten so tight that I can't even lend/borrow a lot of new PC games without doing something illegal. I talk about these things in principle, but in practice I really don't download free stuff unless the artist willingly makes it free; however, crap like what the game industry's pulling, or buying music that you then can't put on any other computer, all this stuff makes me want to pirate just on general principle. At the very least it isn't a product I have any interest in buying or owning. Then again, I don't buy my water from the store either, so maybe I'm weird.

[Trazoi]

But the value of the performance itself remains unchanged. Art is different than other fields in that it is inherently possessed of no monetary value.
That's why Sotheby's auction house never manages to sell those old paintings for those outrageous prices they ask. :smallbiggrin:

I don't have any links to psychological studies on hand, but I'm certain the perceived price of something does have an impact on how people view it. It's why a stall selling widgets at $5 a pop isn't going to be as successful as one that sells $20 widgets but today only 75% off! And if we're talking about artistic experiences, I'm sure you'll experience a different set of emotions if you played, say, a latest console game depending on whether I lent it to you or whether you personally paid the A$110 (US$98) it costs over here (grumble stupid Aussie pricing grumble). In the latter case, you'd probably have a stronger desire to want to play it given the investment you paid, and I'd wager you'd be more inclined to plough through small lulls. And you'd almost certainly get more upset if the game turned out to be a stinker. :smallwink:


Maybe an artist doesn't get paid enough. Maybe this means he stops producing art. Tragic, but if I think so then maybe I should have paid him more. There are artists that will produce art anyways, and that's cool. Either way, trying to regulate something which everyone has plentiful access to is futile. Artists would be better served deciding how to act in the face of what is rather than lamenting their situation and how wrong it is that people act the way they act.
I'm in agreement with you here that artists need to face the reality of the nature of the internet (generally speaking I think artists/creators tend to understand it better than the management level producers/editors/what-have-you above them). It's just the simple nature of the economic exchange that gets me - much like anything else, if an artist can create something of value that benefits society and which people clearly want to have, I don't see why they shouldn't (assuming they've got the business smarts) be able to make a living off of that.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Very few published books go through serious professional editing, because books sell, well edited or not, and the market is too fragile to allow books to be delayed for editing and publishing companies don't make enough money to pay for 1 editor for every book they need to publish to stay afloat.

If you want a book to be well edited you have to get that work done before you send it off to the publisher, so professionally published books really don't have any advantage compared to self-published books.


Piracy has also hurt comic books a lot - booping boopwads scanning every page and posting them, when excellent books are limping along selling only a few thousand copies an issue.

That's just the bad taste of the mass consumer. The comic book market is actually on the up, it just looks bad because trade paper back sales aren't counted as comic book sales and some people thought the fragile 90s boom would be sustainable.

People posting scans on the internet hurts all comic books equally, good or bad. People reading scans and then deciding to pay for the book anyway favours actually good books (in theory).

If the big two stopped flooding the market with multiple batfamily/avengers/x-men books and didn't drive up production values to force the independants to make their books more expensive to compete* things might be a bit better. Maybe. I only buy short series due to continuity lockout.

Books have never sold based off their quality. Books sell because they have readers who know what to expect from them and are prepared to take a risk in buying them.

*okay, this one actually went both ways coughimagecough

[Klose_the_Sith]

{Scrubbed}

[Optimystik]

You're right but I think his point was: Why contribute to the creative commons if one cannot make any money off of it?

But you can. CC gives exposure, exposure sells concert seats.


The fact of the matter is that data is no longer a product with any scarcity, and no amount of constraints are going to change that, short of a breakdown of our infrastructure. You can go and try to convince people that you should pay them for, say, air, but if you can't then maybe you shouldn't be in the air-making business.

People have always been able to get art for free. Now art is cheaper and more available then ever and this is seen as a bad thing? If people downloading your songs bothers you then you have the choice not to become a musician. However, it's worthless to deny the reality of the situation. If you can't convince people to pay you then it's you who's doing something wrong, and you need to adjust your business model to account for reality. (Unless of course making money is not what you're trying to do, which is cool, but not what I'm talking about.)

So the internet turns all artists into street performers. How is this a bad thing? I've seen some great street performers, and even given money to some. It's a tradition one finds across cultures and centuries.

Why should I pay companies to package, distribute, and record music when they're offering a service that the world no longer needs? I respect that these companies are trying to protect themselves, but there's no moral substance to these efforts.

This,


But what many modern "artists" are trying to do would be the equivalent of Michaelangelo demanding a royalty fee for anytime someone entered the Sistine Chapel and looked up. This is what I'm against.

and also this.

[Closet_Skeleton]

{Scrubbed}

[Klose_the_Sith]

{Scrubbed}

Of course my post was terrible, were I to actually go into depth and explain then two things happen

1) I get ranted at by people who don't understand the economics of the situation

2) Thread gets locked due to CoC violation.

Which I'm cool with, tbh.

All I'm saying is - Pirates don't cost artists any revenue. Least not people who actually believe in the ideals of free information transfer. They all pay just as much as you do, quite possibly more.

Internet piracy will only cost you money if you make a bad product. Course, quality control is surely evil ...

[BRC]

Of course my post was terrible, were I to actually go into depth and explain then two things happen

1) I get ranted at by people who don't understand the economics of the situation

2) Thread gets locked due to CoC violation.

Which I'm cool with, tbh.

All I'm saying is - Pirates don't cost artists any revenue. Least not people who actually believe in the ideals of free information transfer. They all pay just as much as you do, quite possibly more.

Internet piracy will only cost you money if you make a bad product. Course, quality control is surely evil ...
Wait, so you don't elaborate your position because you feel people can't understand your position? Why don't you try explaining the economics of the situation. You're holding up an envelope saying "The documents in here support my position, but you couldn't understand them, so I win". If you want to make an argument, you must actually make it, not just say you could.
Also, how do Pirates not cost artists revenue, unless they pirate a CD, then go to the artist's house and slip the money under their door. Even if they pirate a CD, which gets them to like the artist and go to their concerts/buy their merchandise, they still cost the artist the money they would have made from that CD sale.

Also, every pirate isn't an enlightened being trying to usher in a new age of free information and art, most of them just want free stuff. You claim that Pirates who believe in the ideals of free information transfer don't cost artists anything. I don't understand that, but assuming you're right, what about pirates that don't believe in those ideals, and simply like getting things without paying for it.

Also, how does Piracy only cost you if you make a bad product? If a good artist would have sold 500,000 CD's or paid digital equivalent, but 100,000 people who would have bought the music pirate it, how does that only cost the artist money if they are bad?

[Douglas]

In my personal opinion, backed up by some experience, piracy is a concern that can be largely negated simply by changing how you offer your product so that acquiring it is essentially a matter of "piracy's method + paying a fee". For a great many people, the primary attraction of piracy as a means of acquiring things is the convenience more than the price. Offer your product for easy download and a small fee, and piracy disappears.

I once bought a popular third-party D&D source book through electronic download and, just to see, checked certain pirate sources for it. It just plain wasn't there on the pirate networks I am aware of despite being significantly popular and well known and already in a DRM-free pdf format. I also seem to recall something about a certain popular online music store going DRM-free and cheap and suddenly getting a huge boost in sales.:smallwink:

Alternatively, depending on the specifics of what you're doing, recognize that you're not really selling your main work but using it to advertise for related products. Both business models have been proven to work, and neither is significantly bothered by piracy.

[Solaris]

That's why Sotheby's auction house never manages to sell those old paintings for those outrageous prices they ask. :smallbiggrin:

But those paintings don't have any inherent value. At the least, not nearly so much as people pay for them. They have a perceived value of thousands/millions/metric butt-tons of money, but all they are is just old paint on old canvas. You understand what I mean?

[zeratul]

Of course my post was terrible, were I to actually go into depth and explain then two things happen

1) I get ranted at by people who don't understand the economics of the situation

2) Thread gets locked due to CoC violation.

Which I'm cool with, tbh.

All I'm saying is - Pirates don't cost artists any revenue. Least not people who actually believe in the ideals of free information transfer. They all pay just as much as you do, quite possibly more.

Internet piracy will only cost you money if you make a bad product. Course, quality control is surely evil ...

While it is true that the vast majority of the money which artists makes is not made from CDs and is in fact made from performing gigs and selling merch, the sale of CDs is still important. This is because record labels decide what bands to help out and promote by seeing what bands have the best record sales. Therefor, while it does not directly hurt the artists revenue much, it definitely does indirectly especially if done on a large scale. This is especially true in the case of new or relatively underground artists.

[Solaris]

While it is true that the vast majority of the money which artists makes is not made from CDs and is in fact made from performing gigs and selling merch, the sale of CDs is still important. This is because record labels decide what bands to help out and promote by seeing what bands have the best record sales. Therefor, while it does not directly hurt the artists revenue much, it definitely does indirectly especially if done on a large scale. This is especially true in the case of new or relatively underground artists.

Yes, but now they can look at things like MySpace and Youtube. It's a paradigm shift.

[BRC]

Yes, but now they can look at things like MySpace and Youtube. It's a paradigm shift.
Except that Myspace and Youtube aren't nearly as reliable for determining the popularity of a Band for several reasons.

1. It's harder to tell how much people actually like those videos (As many people who don't probably won't bother to vote). If 10 CD's are bought, it's a good bet that at least 8 of them were by people who know they like the band. If there are 10 views on Youtube, some of them may be people who want to hear the band's new song, some may be people who merely checked the band out, and some may be people who accidentally clicked on the link and clicked out a second later. If we went by Youtube views, Rick Astley would be back on tour.
Facebook is slightly better, you can see how many people have declared themselves a Fan of the band in question, but once again, it's tricky. While people actively hunt down the music of a band they like, they are less likely to hunt down a band's Facebook page so they can become a fan of it, meaning alot of people who do love a band may not be Fans of it because the "Become a Fan" link never got to them and they are too lazy to find the page themselves. For example, I love the band Rise Against, but I'm not a Facebook fan of theirs. Also, clicking "Become a Fan" has no investment, so it may artificially inflate the numbers. Alot of people may become Fans of a band because their friends are, or they like one song. It's not nearly as reliable a metric as CD sales.


Now, online polls are an option, if Record companies advertised them enough, and in the right places, and assuming nobody hacks the poll/ Anonymous dosn't intentionally screw with it by having the faceless hordes of 4chan all vote for some horrible band, it could work to accurately collect data.


Or, maybe, here is an Idea, working under the assumption that the only way artists benefit from CD sales is because it helps record companies know how popular they are so they can organize concerts and tours (Not necessarily a correct assumption mind you).
An umbrella organization of concert organizers and musicians teams up with established free music distributors. Artists allow some or all of their music to be distributed legally for free via some free distribution system, let's call in Intermusic (For lack of a better name right now).

The way Intermusic works is that people who use it get free, legal music from participating artists, but in exchange users answer a quick poll, or let the program collect data concerning their listening habits. Concert organizers and promoters working independently of record companies (Which are vanishing rapidly) then take this data and use it to judge which bands are the most popular with what age groups and in what areas.

Now, the main problems with the Intermusic idea are 1: That it will contribute to the collapse of the recording industry as it is now, and 2: that good musicians will have trouble being discovered. Because CD sales are no longer a way to make money, it's alot less profitable for people to find good new talent and help them go pro and publicize them. If there are no standards for getting onto Intermusic, any new bands will either need to raise a massive amount of money for advertising, or will be subsumed into massive groups of three guys who played Guitar Hero on hard mode and decided they were now a band.

[Indon]

Capitalism is a beautiful thing. Root, hog, or die at its finest: "Provide a product that beats people getting it for free, or everyone loses out because nobody has any editors anymore."
I assume we're ignoring the possibility of internet-based editing?

I've built up a fairly large library of (legitimately) free independent music, and I can honestly say, indy musicians can produce high-quality music for, presumably, way less than what I imagine label musicians are getting charged.

I think that even if every single music label dies, music will still exist. In fact, I think that when the radio-wave-controlling music labels die, the music industry will comparatively thrive, as independent artists will finally gain access to an infrastructure for promotion and distribution that is currently run by an oligopoly.

I haven't encountered much low-quality independent music, either, as there are plenty of people who are afficionados of the medium who tell people like me where to find the good stuff. You can find the same thing going on in the Webcomics subforum of this very website. Most webcomics, simply through preponderance of numbers, are bad. But you will be able to easily find many good webcomics simply by talking to people who read a lot of webcomics. The better-polished webcomics naturally rise to the top, allowing people to easily learn about and access them.

As such, markets are clearly not required to select choice media.


That, and darn few artists get to play with cannons, flying robot assassins, armored vehicles, and hundreds of pounds of explosives, but that didn't completely influence my decision. >>

...you don't happen to write (or, overwhelmingly more likely, read) Air Force Blues (http://www.afblues.com/), do you?


While it is true that the vast majority of the money which artists makes is not made from CDs and is in fact made from performing gigs and selling merch, the sale of CDs is still important. This is because record labels decide what bands to help out and promote by seeing what bands have the best record sales. Therefor, while it does not directly hurt the artists revenue much, it definitely does indirectly especially if done on a large scale. This is especially true in the case of new or relatively underground artists.

This is not an example of how capitalism is helping the music industry.

This is an example of how capitalism is hurting it - by giving a small group of businesses wildly disproportionate power over what music we as a populace hear.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Not much time but:


"One effect of the so-called free way of thinking is that it could eventually force anyone who wants to survive on the basis of mental activity ... to enter into some sort of legal or political fortress - or become a pet of a wealthy patron - in order to be protected from the rapacious hive mind," writes Lanier. "What free really means is that artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers will have to cloak themselves within stodgy institutions."

I'm not certain what fairy world the originator of this quote is living in where this wasn't how music, art, and general intellectual pursuit got started in the first place. I think even in the best of times the notion that there is money in artistic pursuits versus say getting a business job was dubious at best.

Though I'm being a bit harsh.

[Telonius]

"Free" is a matter of perspective.

Let's say I release my book online through a Creative Commons license, at no cost to the audience. I put a couple ads on the site. From the reader's point of view, I've provided a good to them for free. But from my point of view, the audience is giving something valuable to me: web traffic. I trade that web traffic to an advertiser, who writes a check payable to me, in return. To the reader, it's free; to me, it is (or could contribute to) a living.

Is it really worth the bother to pirate what I've provided? As long as the ads aren't annoying, probably not. Why go through the trouble? If the audience wants "free," work with that. Get them to give you something that hurts less than taking a $10 bill out of their wallet, but in sufficient numbers can let you do things like eat and pay the mortgage. And make sure you give them a great experience in return.

[Trazoi]

But those paintings don't have any inherent value. At the least, not nearly so much as people pay for them. They have a perceived value of thousands/millions/metric butt-tons of money, but all they are is just old paint on old canvas. You understand what I mean?
It's true that a original painting by an old master is roughly as aesthetically pleasing as a poster print (although it loses the texture of the paint). One goes at auction for millions of dollars, the other you can pick up for a few bucks at the gallery gift shop. The difference is the value the buyers put on the painting being the original, painted by the artist's own hands. That's why Blue Poles at the Australian National Gallery is valued at a couple of million, rather than whatever it cost Pollock to pay for the paint. :smallwink:

The problem, which I think was the point Lanier was making in the original article, is that the arguments tend to focus on the abstract nature of the internet rather than the individuals involved. Instead of arguing about the value artists provide and what is a fair method and level of payment, the starting axiom tends to be "copying data is free, so why should we have to pay anything?" My concern is with that attitude, digital information becomes a cheap, almost disposable commodity - and I also don't think it accurately reflects the actual worth they place on the content.

[Soras Teva Gee]

It's true that a original painting by an old master is roughly as aesthetically pleasing as a poster print (although it loses the texture of the paint). One goes at auction for millions of dollars, the other you can pick up for a few bucks at the gallery gift shop. The difference is the value the buyers put on the painting being the original, painted by the artist's own hands. That's why Blue Poles at the Australian National Gallery is valued at a couple of million, rather than whatever it cost Pollock to pay for the paint. :smallwink:

Amusingly having more time I found I'd seen this Lanier guy before on my favorite news program (PBS Newshour btw which everyone should watch for their personal enrichment) and thought he was getting way out of whack there. Also seeing a book hocking at the bottom of the article raises my cynicism as I don't want to pay $32.95+tax for it, which touches on the incidental point (I originally formulated for anime) that the a lot of media affected by the web is overpriced for what people get.

Back on the quoted post though. The art analogy here is rather false. A Picasso has value not for its image or medium but for being the original of which there can be by definition only one of that piece. The analogy for a book would be the original proposal sent to the publisher maybe, or their collected notes with disorganized rough drafts. Something I'd bet exists only in even more limited numbers these days of word processors and e-mail by the choice of the creators.

Artwork doesn't generally have value, it has collectors value which is almost incomparable to an offered product. But its also something that simply cannot be mass produced.


The problem, which I think was the point Lanier was making in the original article, is that the arguments tend to focus on the abstract nature of the internet rather than the individuals involved. Instead of arguing about the value artists provide and what is a fair method and level of payment, the starting axiom tends to be "copying data is free, so why should we have to pay anything?" My concern is with that attitude, digital information becomes a cheap, almost disposable commodity - and I also don't think it accurately reflects the actual worth they place on the content.

Information was always a cheap disposable commodity though. The digital format is more an expansion of our own minds and memories ability to retain it. Its not like people didn't have favorite movies before there was home video, you saw it in the theater and remembered it. That was the information, the recollection of that awesome western. If a theater near you put it back onscreen for awhile, you maybe went and saw it again to refresh. If you didn't you could still remember it for awhile, or maybe you forgot it. Cheap and disposable. Go back far enough and you get oral traditions only passed valueless from person to person.

For the last bit, who places what worth on the content the audience or the creator. Neither's personal value of the content is really quantifiable in monetary terms. I have a favorite manga, but I don't buy every single piece of merch I've come across from it. So what relevance does it have a monetary debate?

[Don Julio Anejo]

What I find interesting is that people keep saying artists deserve compensation for their work, whether people actually want to pay for it or not.

But here's the question: what about those in other jobs? What about, for example, a carpenter who does home improvement? Or a doctor? Or a financial adviser? Somehow if they don't make enough money, it's considered their fault, yet if artists can't make a living, it's the fault of everyone else.

For one, there's such a thing as supply and demand. If no-one wants to do home improvement where the carpenter is at, then he should move somewhere else, offer his services to a different segment of the market (e.g. build pools for the rich instead). Or maybe even consider a change of career.

Or a doctor (especially specialists in smaller settings).. or a financial adviser... same story. And for many jobs (such as the above mentioned financial adviser), their work is information and has no intrinsic value either, just like art. You can find out what you need to know about investing or debt management from a thousand different sites on the web, most of it perfectly valid, you just need to put in a little of your time.

So why do artists deserve special consideration when compared to everyone else? They provide a good (or a service, depending on which way you put it) that people are either willing or unwilling to pay for. Except, anyone can call themselves an artist, because art has no intrinsic value. You don't need to go to school, pass exams, or even know anything about what you're doing to draw or write. Doesn't mean this will get you anywhere, but it does mean there's an overabundance of art, whether the art is good or bad.

The good ones get compensated whatever the current dynamic is. The bad ones have no more a right to compensation than anyone else who provides a good or a service.

[BRC]

Snip
That's because here it isn't the artist not working hard enough, it's that the nature of their work makes it very easy to steal. "Stealing" treatment from a doctor would likely require some sort of complex scam where you steal somebodies identity and use their insurance. Stealing a song only requires you to download the song on bittorrent or something.
You make it sound like the Artists are demanding money simply for being Artists. No, they are providing a service just like a carpenter or doctor, and expecting payment for that service.
People are Willing or unwilling to pay for the service yes, but in the case, of say, a carpenter, if you're not willing to pay for the service, you don't get it. That's WHY people pay for carpenters. If you could get the services of professional carpenter for free, would everybody who wants some work done on their house pay for a carpenter? Or would they simply use the free option.


Edit: Now, normally that's just part of how things work, if there is a free service offered, you have to compete against it by being better. But in the case of Artists, they can't compete against the free service, because it's THEM.

Business is about seeing how much you can charge for your services or product. That's the way things work. If you charge too much, people won't buy it. If you don't charge enough, you make less money than you could.
The point is, it's people benefiting from the work without paying for it and without permission. That's Theft.

[warty goblin]

What I find interesting is that people keep saying artists deserve compensation for their work, whether people actually want to pay for it or not.

I think you are subtly missing the point of the argument here. I don't think anybody has claimed that a priori because it is art, an artist deserves to be able to make a living from their art. I at least have not ever put forth that argument.

What I have argued is that people who experience an artist's work should pay for that is the artist is demanding payment for said experience. If the creator of a work chooses to disemenate it for free, they have every right to do so. If they choose to charge for it, they also have every right to do so. If they choose to sell the distribution rights for their work, that also is their right.

Whatever they choose or are forced to choose by the economic realities of their particular situation the work is theirs, and I firmly believe that they should control it's distribution.


But here's the question: what about those in other jobs? What about, for example, a carpenter who does home improvement? Or a doctor? Or a financial adviser? Somehow if they don't make enough money, it's considered their fault, yet if artists can't make a living, it's the fault of everyone else.
It's the fault of everyone else to the extent that everyone else is destroying the ability of the artist to make a living by comprimising their ability to control the distribution of their work. If a carpenter can't make a living because there isn't demand, or because they do shoddy work that's a completely different thing than people refusing to pay said carpenter for their work.

[Colmarr]

But those paintings don't have any inherent value. At the least, not nearly so much as people pay for them. They have a perceived value of thousands/millions/metric butt-tons of money, but all they are is just old paint on old canvas. You understand what I mean?

Not really.

Society has recognised for a long time that a person is entitled to make a living from their intellectual property just as much as they would be entitled to make a living making chairs, computers or cars.

None of those things have any inherent value either.

For some reason, a new generation has grown up thinking that it's ok to obtain intellectual property without the owner's permission (ie. steal it), often justifying the act by saying "I wouldn't have bought it anyway so no one got hurt", which completely ignores:


the theoretical issue surrounding why the individual is entitled to the IP if the owner did not consent to that access; and
the practical issue that downloading pirated material is no more or less wrong than receiving stolen goods. Receiving stolen goods doesn't deprive the original owner of the goods (they'd already been stolen), but I hope we all agree that it's wrong.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Stealing work from a carpenter is as simple as reading a how-to guide and doing it yourself if you apply the same standard. After all, you don't pay the carpenter, yet you still get the work done.

Stealing a song only requires you to download the song on bittorrent or something.
The problem is that the same thing happens to everyone. For every Garage Band XYZ's song someone downloads, a thousand Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins or Jay-Z songs are downloaded. Yet Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins and Jay-Z manage to make good money - people buy their CDs and concert tickets.

If Garage Band XYZ can't sell CDs and concert tickets but Metallica and Jay-Z can, I'm sorry, but who's to blame? Kids downloading music, or maybe the band itself? Here's a hint: kids download their music, listen to it and realize it's not worth their money. And since music is mostly subjective, that's fair - you can't judge from reputation whether a band is good or not, like you can with a doctor or a carpenter.

Instead of moping around how illegal downloads are killing bands, perhaps making better music, the kind people are willing to pay for, is the solution? This is social Darwinism at its finest.

[BRC]

Stealing work from a carpenter is as simple as reading a how-to guide and doing it yourself if you apply the same standard. After all, you don't pay the carpenter, yet you still get it done. Maybe
The difference is that its' you with a how-to guide spending hours working instead of the work of professional carpenter with years of experience doing it for you. There is a considerable difference between the two. Not only do you have to put in considerable effort, but the final product is not as professional.
If you download a song, it's the exact same song you'd get if you bought it, with about the same amount of effort expended.

Edit: It's not that people arn't willing to pay for music, it's that the option of NOT paying for it is available. People don't pirate songs because they are bad, they pirate songs because its' free.

[zeratul]

Stealing work from a carpenter is as simple as reading a how-to guide and doing it yourself if you apply the same standard. After all, you don't pay the carpenter, yet you still get the work done.



That's a pretty flawed comparison. The musical equivalent to buying a how to guide and making your own furniture instead of hiring a carpenter would be writing your own songs instead of paying to listen to songs written by other peopl, it would not be illegally downloading music.

[Douglas]

Edit: It's not that people arn't willing to pay for music, it's that the option of NOT paying for it is available. People don't pirate songs because they are bad, they pirate songs because its' free.
Some people do. Others pirate songs because it's easier and more convenient than any legal source. Offer the exact same ease and convenience for a reasonable price and, as iTunes discovered, you get a lot of happy paying customers despite the availability of free pirated copies. Heck, if you do it right off the bat it may never even get to the pirate networks in the first place, as I mentioned earlier with a certain 3rd party D&D sourcebook (Untapped Potential, specifically). No, really, after I bought it for direct download I searched for a pirated copy just out of curiosity and it just plain wasn't there.

[warty goblin]

Stealing work from a carpenter is as simple as reading a how-to guide and doing it yourself if you apply the same standard. After all, you don't pay the carpenter, yet you still get the work done.

This argument is basically irrevant to anything being discussed. Moving on.


The problem is that the same thing happens to everyone. For every Garage Band XYZ's song someone downloads, a thousand Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins or Jay-Z songs are downloaded. Yet Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins and Jay-Z manage to make good money - people buy their CDs and concert tickets.
And a lot of people download their CDs without paying for them as well.


If Garage Band XYZ can't sell CDs and concert tickets but Metallica and Jay-Z can, I'm sorry, but who's to blame? Kids downloading music, or maybe the band itself? Here's a hint: kids download their music, listen to it and realize it's not worth their money. And since music is mostly subjective, that's fair - you can't judge from reputation whether a band is good or not, like you can with a doctor or a carpenter.
And what about the 'kids*' who download their music, like it, and don't buy it? Garage band or mega act, that's still taking their right to distribute their work.

Next I expect somebody to trot out the argument that the 'real' pirates only download to see if it's worth buying, and promptly delete any music/games/movies not worth owning.

I would really like to visit the planet where this occurs, because it looks nothing like mine. My former roommate had 14 gigabytes of music he openly admitted to having downloaded illegally. My hallmate next door has twenty-four hours of music, I bet perhaps a tenth of which she actually owns. One of my former RAs e-mailed out links to virus free download sights. My ex-girlfriend used to get all huffy with me because I refused to listen to, contribute to, or accept her collection of illegally obtained music. There may be people who illegally download something, and then pay for it if it's good enough, but I bet they are a substantial minority.

*I find the use of 'kids' here fascinating. It seems like a sort of linguistic effort to whitewash the activity, as in 'it's just kids being kids.'


Instead of moping around how illegal downloads are killing bands, perhaps making better music, the kind people are willing to pay for, is the solution? This is social Darwinism at its finest.
Way to blame the victim here.

Also, a general note folks. TANSTAAFL, so stop asking for one.

[Folytopo]

Warty Goblin is correct. The problem is that people can experience a service for free and why would they pay for that service if they can obtain easy access to it for free. I think that douglas also has an interesting point in that when things are easy to get and at a reasonable price they tend to be downloaded less Both explicit and implicit. College students who have very little disposable income would be the most likely to pirate music. People generally don't mind small costs when they are not living hand to mouth.

I would also like to introduce to this discussion the ted talk by Clay Shirky on instututions versus collaborations. It talks about the 80/20 divide and how 20 percent users produce 80% of content. It is relevant because in many of these cases the institutions that produced the media had the only access to most content. They only needed a small percentage of the people that actually create content to sell and the people that produce the most are the ones that they hire. Now people have to compete with a whole host of other people that can reach audiences by the internet and that threatens the oligopoly and their chosen few more then the vast majority of artists.

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.h tml

One final thing I would like to address is that art has a strong element of self expression. People do it to enjoy themselves and would do it regardless of income. It is the chosen few who can profit off their self expression. Now people are posting their art for free because it lets them share their self expression. If they make a little money on the side that is okay but people are motivated to simply do it without monetary reward. Now the problem is that money lets people pursue their art that they would otherwise be unable to. It takes a lot of work to be a concert soloist. I think this is also the reason that we see far fewer people put out feature length films on the internet. People do produce many shorts but long films require an amount of money and prep that most cannot afford.

[Soras Teva Gee]

What I find interesting is that people keep saying artists deserve compensation for their work, whether people actually want to pay for it or not.

Personally I don't think they have any right to compensation in the universal sense. They do have the right to sell their work and services either themselves or via intermediaries. Thus the question properly is what constitutes an infringement on that right.

For me personally, if you are the creator of some media information you have the exclusive right to charge for it, not to make money from the spread of it.


I would really like to visit the planet where this occurs, because it looks nothing like mine. My former roommate had 14 gigabytes of music he openly admitted to having downloaded illegally. My hallmate next door has twenty-four hours of music, I bet perhaps a tenth of which she actually owns. One of my former RAs e-mailed out links to virus free download sights. My ex-girlfriend used to get all huffy with me because I refused to listen to, contribute to, or accept her collection of illegally obtained music. There may be people who illegally download something, and then pay for it if it's good enough, but I bet they are a substantial minority.

If they didn't obtain it for free would they still have such a quantity however? I'd bet the majority of people that pirate media still spend substantial amounts on entertainment in some form. How much music is illegal and how much got bought cheap on iTunes. Simply eliminating piracy might not 'save' record sales for example. I listen to most music on youtube for example for example and I can often find purely legit artist channels. Radio is strictly speaking free for the listener with their only sacrifice being their time.

At some level purchasing media has always been a show of personal favor.

[Solaris]

Not really.

Society has recognised for a long time that a person is entitled to make a living from their intellectual property just as much as they would be entitled to make a living making chairs, computers or cars.

None of those things have any inherent value either.

For some reason, a new generation has grown up thinking that it's ok to obtain intellectual property without the owner's permission (ie. steal it), often justifying the act by saying "I wouldn't have bought it anyway so no one got hurt", which completely ignores:


the theoretical issue surrounding why the individual is entitled to the IP if the owner did not consent to that access; and
the practical issue that downloading pirated material is no more or less wrong than receiving stolen goods. Receiving stolen goods doesn't deprive the original owner of the goods (they'd already been stolen), but I hope we all agree that it's wrong.

Right. They lack an inherent value, but that's not to say people won't pay huge amounts of money for them. I just hold the (apparently unusual) viewpoint that just because someone else says it's worth thousands of dollars doesn't mean it's worth thousands of dollars.

Well, I never said it was okay to steal someone's property. I'm personally against pirating material, a position I haven't represented nearly so well as I should have. With that said, kindly don't lump me in with those louts.
I'm just saying that the value of artwork is fiat. It's for entertainment. It neither feeds nor shelters, and I'm of the opinion as an artist that I shouldn't take someone else's money for my product. The joy, after all, is not in the having but in the making. Once money gets involved, the art gets... tainted. It stops being art for the sake of art.

[warty goblin]

If they didn't obtain it for free would they still have such a quantity however? I'd bet the majority of people that pirate media still spend substantial amounts on entertainment in some form. How much music is illegal and how much got bought cheap on iTunes. Simply eliminating piracy might not 'save' record sales for example. I listen to most music on youtube for example for example and I can often find purely legit artist channels. Radio is strictly speaking free for the listener with their only sacrifice being their time.

At some level purchasing media has always been a show of personal favor.

No, they probably would not have so much of it if they hadn't gotten it for free. This might be economically relevant, but that doesn't mystically make it OK.

And again, if an artist/distributer chooses to put their music on Youtube or other channels for free, they have every right to do that, and people have every right to listen to it through those channels. I'm not arguing that every time you listen to a song you pay somebody five cents or anything like that. I am arguing that intellectual property is all and all a good thing, and that people should respect that.

So if your favorite band releases a bunch of free tracks, by all means take advantage of that. If they decide to charge $20 for them, either buy it or not, whatever you can afford. But because they charge more than the worth you attach to their product does not give you the right to take it for free.

[Trazoi]

What I have argued is that people who experience an artist's work should pay for that is the artist is demanding payment for said experience. If the creator of a work chooses to disemenate it for free, they have every right to do so. If they choose to charge for it, they also have every right to do so. If they choose to sell the distribution rights for their work, that also is their right.

Whatever they choose or are forced to choose by the economic realities of their particular situation the work is theirs, and I firmly believe that they should control it's distribution.
This is what I believe as well.


Also, a general note folks. TANSTAAFL, so stop asking for one.
And TANSTAAFL pretty accurately sums up where I think "everything should be free" will end up, too. You've got a knack for summing things up. :smallbiggrin:

The thing that bemuses me is that most of the people I've seen advocating the "free lunch" approach seem to be more into the sort of multi-million dollar blockbusters that would be the least likely to be supported by the models they propose.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Lanier isn't talking about theft or piracy. That has always existed and that isn't what he's complaining about. Of course "theft is bad." If that's all he had to say, I'd want to punch him in the face.

To quote:

"One effect of the so-called free way of thinking is that it could eventually force anyone who wants to survive on the basis of mental activity ... to enter into some sort of legal or political fortress - or become a pet of a wealthy patron - in order to be protected from the rapacious hive mind," writes Lanier. "What free really means is that artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers will have to cloak themselves within stodgy institutions."

Right, he's talking about encroaching modernity. Like how cities have corralled humans into larger and more impersonal institutions when compared to a pre-industrial life. (He does go into that at some length elsewhere.)

Except now it's the internet. And he's complaining that artists have to give up the fruits of their labor at the behest of The Man.

No matter how you look at it, it's a farmboy complaining about the unhealthy godlessness of cities. It's completely out of touch with reality. Maybe there's a legitimate concern, but the farmboy doesn't have a good grasp of the anatomy of the situation.

"Stodgy institutions" have always existed and always will exist. Sorry but book publishers throw crap into the slushpile, while other forms of crap are being mass-marketed to a targeted demographic. And mediocre newspaper comics only survive because there's a newspaper. Artists have always survived because they could find somebody they could work with. If that somebody is a so-called "legal or political fortress," so be it. (And wayyyy before that, you had churches and nobles being patron to the arts.)

Nobody is forcing said artist to "give away his stuff for free." The artist made a deliberate choice to enter into a deal with a power broker who could distribute his goods and set the terms on how much they would get paid for it. If he chose bad terms, tough luck.

But that isn't something you can blame on corporations. Corporations aren't obligated to feed every would-be artist that comes to their doorstep. And there are probably plenty of "pay-per-view" systems out there to try your luck at.

Honestly, it's only to be expected that online distribution isn't as stable as time-honored traditions of publishers, newspapers or record labels. Stuff like that needs time to equilibrate.

Lanier just strikes me as hipster.

[PhoeKun]

Well, I never said it was okay to steal someone's property. I'm personally against pirating material, a position I haven't represented nearly so well as I should have. With that said, kindly don't lump me in with those louts.
I'm just saying that the value of artwork is fiat. It's for entertainment. It neither feeds nor shelters, and I'm of the opinion as an artist that I shouldn't take someone else's money for my product. The joy, after all, is not in the having but in the making. Once money gets involved, the art gets... tainted. It stops being art for the sake of art.

Tainted how? Money and art are not enemies.

Well, if you'd said that art created to make the artist rich is generally missing the point, then I would agree. But art does enrich our lives, and the unfortunate truth of the matter is that art requires a lot of time and dedication in order for it to be good, and the sheer amount of time society demands of people to get the stuff they need to live is not generally conducive to working on that art. At least from my experience, it's very difficult to write well and on a consistent basis with the work I need to do to put food on the table getting in the way and demanding all of my brainpower. An opportunity to parley my works into something resembling a stable existence would be much more useful to me in my hopes to create something that will better the lives of those who see it.

Art and money have always been intertwined, and I think the "starving artists" were and are missing the point. I don't, and shouldn't, have to suffer for my devotion to the craft. So far as the legitimacy of art for money is concerned, Shakespeare was primarily worried about selling tickets to the Globe. And Charles Dickens was a serial novelist - his number one goal when setting hands to typewriter was the sale of books to pay his bills. And yet here we have two authors touted with the creation of transcendent works of genius.

People with a passion for the arts will have a passion for the arts whether or not money is on the line. I'm more than a little bothered by just how much money J.K. Rowling was able to pull in as a result of her books, but she's not a typical case, and I'm happy for her all the same. That's not what most artists dream about when they create, but they shouldn't have to worry about the eviction notice sitting on the table or the dwindling food in the fridge or whether or not the electricity is going to stay on.

For the record, I don't feel a sense of entitlement, either. I don't deserve money for the simple fact that I've written things, but I certainly ought to have the chance to try for some. Which is why I'm such a proponent of the internet - the days when artists got picked up by wealthy nobles to sit around in mansions and create art all day are gone. But here in its stead is a place for me to carve out my own niche without having to worry about pleasing a giant company not interested in taking risks on something that might not appeal to the masses. We're now seeing the middle ground between "making it" and "breaking it". And I'm pretty happy about that.

[LurkerInPlayground]

The things is that there is the expectation that skill should immediately bring in money on its own virtue.

The problem is that those two things often involve different skill sets. It's one thing to make something. But you've still got to go the length to negotiate the finished product in trade.

If you're lucky then the good you've produced is a known quantity that people need and will immediately buy as a commodity (say, you're a doctor).

But art isn't a commodity until it is proven.

[Indon]

Edit: Now, normally that's just part of how things work, if there is a free service offered, you have to compete against it by being better. But in the case of Artists, they can't compete against the free service, because it's THEM.
There are artists who support themselves on work that they offer for free.

That, ultimately, is the model for-pay artists are competing with and slowly losing to.

Even if it was somehow physically impossible to pirate things, there is still an immense amount of perfectly free, high-quality artistic content out there, and the internet gives almost everyone in the world the means to access it. For-pay artists would still be getting outcompeted, just from a different, value-equivalent, source.

There is indeed no such thing as a free lunch - but water, despite being the most precious substance on the Earth, is still extremely inexpensive. For-pay artists can not hope to defy the laws of supply and demand indefinitely (not without skewing the market unethically, anyway - looking at you, bottled water companies).

[The Big Dice]

Art and money have always been intertwined, and I think the "starving artists" were and are missing the point.

HIstorically, most art has been created on commission for a wealthy patron who wanted a means to express that wealth. Both physical art, in the form of portraits and so on and ephemeral art such as music were made to order for the most part. That's how artists survived. Musicians were paid by the performance, composers by the composition and other types of artist by the single instance of the media they worked in.

Then came the advent of recorded media. Which is fairly new, only a century or so old. Monopolies grew up to control access to those media, and everything changed. The problem is, the internet has allowed a challenge to those monopolies and in many ways is forcing a return to the older methods that lasted for literally hundreds of years without any significant changes since the invention of the printing press.

It's only since the 50s that the current method of control and distribution has been around. Literally in the life time of our parents, the way music is made, distributed and sold has completely changed. And what we're seeing is another paradigm shift in the way things are done.

[Colmarr]

Right. They lack an inherent value, but that's not to say people won't pay huge amounts of money for them. I just hold the (apparently unusual) viewpoint that just because someone else says it's worth thousands of dollars doesn't mean it's worth thousands of dollars.

I'm still not sure I follow what you're getting at. Inherent value is meaningless in a capitalist society (and I'm not sure it exists in any other type of society either). If things are bought/sold/traded, then their value is determined by the amount that someone is willing to buy/sell/trade them for.

There's no difference between physical "goods" and purely mental "goods".


Well, I never said it was okay to steal someone's property. I'm personally against pirating material, a position I haven't represented nearly so well as I should have. With that said, kindly don't lump me in with those louts.

I didn't mean to, and I probably didn't sufficiently separate the portion of my post that was directed at you (the first half) from the portion that was a general comment (the latter half). My apologies.


I'm just saying that the value of artwork is fiat. It's for entertainment. It neither feeds nor shelters, and I'm of the opinion as an artist that I shouldn't take someone else's money for my product. The joy, after all, is not in the having but in the making. Once money gets involved, the art gets... tainted. It stops being art for the sake of art.

That's your decision to make. I respect your decision, but believe that others should have the right to decide the other way (I suspect you agree, so this comment isn't really directed at you).

[Don Julio Anejo]

I'm still not sure I follow what you're getting at. Inherent value is meaningless in a capitalist society (and I'm not sure it exists in any other type of society either). If things are bought/sold/traded, then their value is determined by the amount that someone is willing to buy/sell/trade them for.

There's no difference between physical "goods" and purely mental "goods".
No.

If you're not willing to pay for something (because you either already have it or you don't need it at the moment) does not mean something doesn't have value. For example, you may already have a house and hence, unwilling to pay even $1 for a second one. However, this doesn't mean a house doesn't have value - a shelter is a basic need, and if your original house were to be taken away somehow, you would now be willing to buy the second one.

With art, the value is purely what you are willing to pay. If the first painting you had were to disappear with the house, it doesn't mean you'd be willing to buy a different one unless you liked it. Art doesn't serve a need. A house does.

[BRC]

No.

If you're not willing to pay for something (because you either already have it or you don't need it at the moment) does not mean something doesn't have value. For example, you may already have a house and hence, unwilling to pay even $1 for a second one. However, this doesn't mean a house doesn't have value - a shelter is a basic need, and if your original house were to be taken away somehow, you would now be willing to buy the second one.

With art, the value is purely what you are willing to pay. If the first painting you had were to disappear with the house, it doesn't mean you'd be willing to buy a different one unless you liked it. Art doesn't serve a need. A house does.
Well thats one way of looking at it, and it's certainly a valid way of looking at it, but let me play devil's advocate here.

The value of Art is that it makes life more enjoyable, correct? Having a nice painting hanging on your wall makes you feel good. Now, besides that, the Art has no inherent value, you can't eat it, if you were desperate and it was big enough you could burn it for fuel or use it for shelter (Maybe). It dosn't cure diseases, protect you from things that want to hurt you, ect.
Clothing has Value in that regard, I think we can agree on that. A good think sweater can protect you from the cold, shoes can protect your feet. A pair of jeans can stop you from cutting yourself on a sharp rock, ect.

Now, picture two equally warm sweaters. One is itchy, bulky, ugly, and uncomfortable. The other is thin and made of some fancy new superfabric, it can be worn under a stylish t-shirt and it's very comfortable.
I have a feeling you wouldn't be surprised to see the first sweater for five bucks, and the second for upwards of twenty. However, in terms of fulfilling basic needs, the two sweaters are perfectly equal, they keep you just as warm.

Now, does the second sweater inherently have more value, or, since the only reason for it's higher price is that it looks and feels better, is that additional value artificial.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Now, picture two equally warm sweaters. One is itchy, bulky, ugly, and uncomfortable. The other is thin and made of some fancy new superfabric, it can be worn under a stylish t-shirt and it's very comfortable.
I have a feeling you wouldn't be surprised to see the first sweater for five bucks, and the second for upwards of twenty. However, in terms of fulfilling basic needs, the two sweaters are perfectly equal, they keep you just as warm.

The difference between sweaters and art is that both sweaters still serve a need they're supposed to serve. If you were cold and someone offered you a sweater, you probably won't pick and choose. On the other hand, were you to be presented with a good painting and a bad painting, you are more likely than not to refuse the bad one. You wouldn't enjoy looking at it, and hence, to you it would have no value.

[BRC]

The difference between sweaters and art is that both sweaters still serve a need they're supposed to serve. If you were cold and someone offered you a sweater, you probably won't pick and choose. On the other hand, were you to be presented with a good painting and a bad painting, you are more likely than not to refuse the bad one. You wouldn't enjoy looking at it, and hence, to you it would have no value.
I wasn't asking if the sweaters had value, I was asking if the second sweater had MORE value than the first.

[SharpWolf]

Alright, I'll bite.

Let me start with an example: Stardock. For those who don't know, Stardock are a games developer who sell their games on a strict "no DRM, no copy-protection, no nonsense, ignore-the-pirates" policy. And you know what? *It works*. So here then lies the question: how do they make money if it's so damn easy to get their games for free?

It's pretty simple really: they don't really sell just games. Of course, having a quality product is important but, in this age of free digital information, it isn't necessarily enough. So what do they sell?

Convenience. Time. An experience. Technical support. Satisfaction. Reciprocation (buying their product will encourage others to buy mine). A feeling of belonging. And so on and so forth.

It's pretty much marketing 101. When I buy a Stardock game -- or really, any other product sold under the same paradigm -- I'm not buying just a game, but a package which *can't* be replicated by any pirated product. Downloading a game on BitTorrent is slow. I might get a virus. I won't get the latest patches. I won't have access to technical support if something goes wrong. I won't have the satisfaction that I've supported people who make quality products. But for 20-30$ (a very reasonable price, considering the time I've spent playing their games), I get all the nice things in addition to a game: a quick, dedicated connection. Patches and mods. A nice community. The guarantee that if something goes wrong there is someone out there who can fix my problem. If I lose my harddrive or need to format it, as long as I keep the registration keys, I can download back the game in a few clicks. And on top of it all, I get a nice, fuzzy feeling because I'm encouraging them to develop more and better games! :smallbiggrin:

I didn't buy so much a game than a whole experience and *that*, you can't replicate.

So what's the problem, then? The problem is that, with the advent of broadband Internet, social networking and user-contributed content, many old business models have been made completely obsolete, and few businesses seem to be willing to adapt to the new realities of our age.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not in favor of pirating or anything like that. I'm a professional programmer, I'm currently working on my own game project and, like many others, wish very much that I'll be able to make a living out of it. But reality is what it is and it's pointless to try to adapt the whole world to oneself -- either you adapt, or you fail. It's just that I see all that doomsday-talk about free content and pirating as a non-issue. Free content is not destroying the artistic or the business world. It's just changing it. The problem, IMHO, lies not in the fact that we must now compete with free products, but rather in the fact that some people think that they're entitled to making a living off an obsolete business model without any competition. They have a right to try -- they don't have a right to succeed.

Most big businesses reek of this attitude. Look at Hollywood, or the music, or the game industries. How much of what they sell is the same overpriced, over-hyped trash with a shiny new name? I'm not willing to pay 60$ for the same game I already have three times on my shelves, but with different textures. They spend millions to make DRM, which not only doesn't help them any (most games are cracked within a few days of their release, if not before), but forces customers to jump through endless hoops just to buy and use the damn product they've paid for. And yet, when a game doesn't sell as much as they would like, they all cry that's it's because of the free/open-source/pirated stuff. Am I the only one who sees a problem there?

If anything, the open-source and pirate communities are a relief: they provide the competition that is sorely needed for the rest of the industry to change. Evolution and change of paradigms implies a part of chaos. Despite the doom-and-gloom predictions, many businesses and many people are still able to make a living off their trade -- artistic or not, big business or not --, and maybe we should learn a thing or two from them rather than look for scapegoats.

[Douglas]

Ah yes, Stardock. If I ever get my personal game project to a market-ready state they will be my first choice for publisher. Of course, that's a rather big "if" that is, at the very least, several years off and might never actually happen, but Stardock is the only company I know of that I think is doing it right in this regard, and I'd stand by that position even from the developer side of the business.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I wasn't asking if the sweaters had value, I was asking if the second sweater had MORE value than the first.
Depends on the specifics, but under most circumstances, the answer would be "yes."

For one thing, to look good is a need that falls under self-esteem, especially if one is likely to be judged by others. In this case, the more expensive sweater does have more value. Or, the itch could be unbearable for a lot of people. Again, the more expensive sweater has more value. But if the wearer doesn't care about the itch and only wants a sweater to be worn in the garage or around the house, where no-one is likely to see them, both sweaters are equal.

This contrasts with art - it either has value (someone likes it), or it has no value (someone doesn't like it at all). Yes, there's different degrees of "like," you could like one book better than another, but you still like both. But if you don't like a book, it has no value to you. While in the case of sweaters, even if you don't like the cheaper sweater, it will still keep you warm and in many cases you just won't care that it's ugly. Being out in -20 is one such case. Which means a sweater still has certain base value even if you don't like it.

[Frozen_Feet]

First, I think Jeff Vogel (http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/) of Spiderweb Software has relevant things to say, at least about the game designer side of things. I recommend reading few of his posts for gaining perspective.

Second, I find it funny that people speak of post-scarcity anything when there are so many people outside the network... electricity network, that is. It's a shame any in-depth discussion violates rules of these boards.

Anyway, my two cents: What does producing art require? Time. And as we all know, time is money. Getting ideas out of your head also requires tools and training if you want the end result to be good. So art always costs to someone, at minimum the author. If market is pushing down the prices of your service, in this case to frellin' nill, there isn't as much incentive to spend all that time and money to being creative. Many people here say that it can be circumvented by advertizing, part-time jobs and what not... and they're right.

Thing is, those other things take away time from creative thought, and if the time spend doing other things is more lucrative than time spend doing the actual art, it inevitably results in drop of both quality and quantity of art. This is true whatever the motivation behind art is - the baret hippie who does art for art's sake needs to eat as much as everyone else.

So, my opinion and answer to the guestion posited by the tittle is this: while the business is changing and many people, many artists, have yet to adapt to it, what's underlined above happens. Profiting from art is dodgy in the best times, and as long as methods of doing so are in turmoil, doing art sucks, to put it bluntly. New business models will rise and creativity will bloom again, some time, but in the interim creative people get shafted.

[JonestheSpy]

What does producing art require? Time. And as we all know, time is money. Getting ideas out of your head also requires tools and training if you want the end result to be good. So art always costs to someone, at minimum the author. If market is pushing down the prices of your service, in this case to frellin' nill, there isn't as much incentive to spend all that time and money to being creative. Many people here say that it can be circumvented by advertizing, part-time jobs and what not... and they're right.

Thing is, those other things take away time from creative thought, and if the time spend doing other things is more lucrative than time spend doing the actual art, it inevitably results in drop of both quality and quantity of art.

Excellently put.

Also, I want to bring up a little anecdote I was just reading about. Before he converted, St Augustine taught rhetoric to young noble types who wanted to learn how to win arguments (don't worry, this doesn't involve religion at all). Apparently, it was the custom for students to pay after a certain amount of lessons, and it common practice for students to quit their teacher just when the bill came due, so common that Augustine gave up teaching. Now according to the logic of some folks here, there's nothing wrong with that - if the students had really thought the lessons were worth it, they would have paid up. So what seems more likely: that lessons from one of the greatest philosophers and debaters of his day - so much so that one of his opponents renounced his old beliefs and converted on the spot while debating him - were without value, or that there were too many people who just wanted something for nothing and took advantage of the system to get it?

[Colmarr]

If you're not willing to pay for something (because you either already have it or you don't need it at the moment) does not mean something doesn't have value. For example, you may already have a house and hence, unwilling to pay even $1 for a second one. However, this doesn't mean a house doesn't have value - a shelter is a basic need, and if your original house were to be taken away somehow, you would now be willing to buy the second one.

With art, the value is purely what you are willing to pay. If the first painting you had were to disappear with the house, it doesn't mean you'd be willing to buy a different one unless you liked it. Art doesn't serve a need. A house does.

None of which proves your point, and all of which in fact proves mine. An item's value is only commercially measurable in terms of an individual's desire to own or posess it.

The fact that something is a "need" rather than a "want" is immaterial.

The problem is that you are using your "art is without intrinsic value" position to justify not paying for it.

[Indon]

Thing is, those other things take away time from creative thought, and if the time spend doing other things is more lucrative than time spend doing the actual art, it inevitably results in drop of both quality and quantity of art. This is true whatever the motivation behind art is - the baret hippie who does art for art's sake needs to eat as much as everyone else.

Time spent, however, is not the only factor.

A couple other factors affecting artistic quality and quantity of note:

-Exposure to art: As I'm sure many writers will tell you, reading is important. For drawing, observation. Presumably for music, listening. And so on. Artists consume large amounts of media - and as the cost of media decreases, this factor increases, which would improve the quality (and possibly also quantity, depending on if exposure to art can inspire new artists) of artwork.

-Barriers to entry: While there is prospective profit to be made with creating art, it's generally difficult to reach the position to have the opportunity for profit. Artists working in many media have, until recently, needed to deal with powerful middlemen in order to facilitate that possibility, often at heavy cost. The same technology that is making copyright infringement easier is also allowing artists to bypass those barriers by utilizing the new technology to gain exposure and popularity, rather than having to deal with middlemen in order to get published, or to get radio airtime, or the like. This factor can be expected to ultimately increase the quantity (and, depending on your opinion of media middlemen devoted to profit generation, quality as well) of artwork.

[Oslecamo]

Thing is, those other things take away time from creative thought, and if the time spend doing other things is more lucrative than time spend doing the actual art, it inevitably results in drop of both quality and quantity of art. This is true whatever the motivation behind art is - the baret hippie who does art for art's sake needs to eat as much as everyone else.
Van Gogh would like to have a word with you. Never sold a painting, but left behind quite a lot of wonderfull work.

Money is a good motivation, but love is an even better motivation. If a person truly loves art, they'll do it whetever they profit from it or not. Many great artists weren't recognized untill they died, many times poor and abandoned, but that didn't stop them from producing wonderfull work.



So, my opinion and answer to the guestion posited by the tittle is this: while the business is changing and many people, many artists, have yet to adapt to it, what's underlined above happens. Profiting from art is dodgy in the best times, and as long as methods of doing so are in turmoil, doing art sucks, to put it bluntly. New business models will rise and creativity will bloom again, some time, but in the interim creative people get shafted.

Creativity is already blooming. We're probably living in one of the most, if not the most creative moments of the History of Mankind. And that's mostly thanks to the easy passage of information. If you remove it, then creativity will stagnate.

Because creativity demands stimulation. Like Indon pointed out, the net as it is allows you to contact a lot of other people's toughts much more easily, and it's from combination of those toughts that great ideas emerge.

[Frozen_Feet]

Van Gogh would like to have a word with you. Never sold a painting, but left behind quite a lot of wonderfull work.

Money is a good motivation, but love is an even better motivation. If a person truly loves art, they'll do it whetever they profit from it or not. Many great artists weren't recognized untill they died, many times poor and abandoned, but that didn't stop them from producing wonderfull work.
This one of those "on average" things. Yes, there are expections to the general rule and the "starving artist" is an old archetype, but I still hold most potential artist like to have enough food and a good apartment and are less likely to make art when they have to spend their time doing other things to provide basic commodities.

[Oslecamo]

Well, you had said inevitably.

Plus, one could argue that hardships can be a great inspiration. J.K Rowlings struggled to write the first book of Harry Potter in quite hard conditions.

She's rich now yes, but before publishing she had no way of knowing if her writing would pay off anything. And yet she struggled with part-times and raising her children while writing.

[Dervag]

Now, picture two equally warm sweaters. One is itchy, bulky, ugly, and uncomfortable. The other is thin and made of some fancy new superfabric, it can be worn under a stylish t-shirt and it's very comfortable.
I have a feeling you wouldn't be surprised to see the first sweater for five bucks, and the second for upwards of twenty. However, in terms of fulfilling basic needs, the two sweaters are perfectly equal, they keep you just as warm.On the contrary, the second sweater fulfills my basic needs much better than the first. For example, not only does it keep me warm, but it also fulfills my need to not be itching all the time- which is fairly important; I'd almost rather be cold than itchy, even though itching can't kill me and cold can, in principle. Moreover, it helps fulfill a social need: to not look like a clown. And since humans are social animals, needs like that matter.

By being way better at "not looking stupid" and "not being itchy," the second sweater beats the first sweater. The added value is real, not artificial. So this may not be as good an example as we'd like.

[JonestheSpy]

Van Gogh would like to have a word with you. Never sold a painting, but left behind quite a lot of wonderfull work.

Van Gogh was able to produce art full-time because he was supported by his brother Theo. I he'd have had to have a day job, humanity's cultural heritage would be far poorer.

[PhoeKun]

Well, you had said inevitably.

Plus, one could argue that hardships can be a great inspiration. J.K Rowlings struggled to write the first book of Harry Potter in quite hard conditions.

She's rich now yes, but before publishing she had no way of knowing if her writing would pay off anything. And yet she struggled with part-times and raising her children while writing.

Rowling didn't write because she was poor, nor did struggling conditions motivate her to complete her story. She's a great case for how artists can be motivated and create wonderful things despite less than stellar financial situations, but credit for the Harry Potter series goes to a colossal flash of insight/inspiration (on a subway, if I remember correctly), and not to poverty.

I think that your point was that authors et al don't need to be financially well off to produce works of quality, and if that's true than you're right and Rowling is a stellar example. But even though some artists might desire to and draw inspiration from starving for the sake of creation, the vast majority would really prefer to eat and not freeze to death in the winter, and commentary to the effect of "be happy that your poor so you can be inspired" is a teensy bit on the insulting side.

Besides which, Rowling's series was only partially written in the midst of her meager beginnings. The rest was penned while she accumulated her mega wealth, and I don't think you can really point to one of those books and say she was worse off for her millions.

[Oslecamo]

I think that your point was that authors et al don't need to be financially well off to produce works of quality, and if that's true than you're right and Rowling is a stellar example.

Yes, that's probably more acurate.

[Frozen_Feet]

Well, you had said inevitably.
I don't think "inevitably" and "on average" are mutually exclusive, or more accurately, they aren't when you look at the bigger picture. I agree invidual expections exists, but few strange birds won't tip the scale to the other side. It's a matter of scale - what holds true of a group of humans might not be as hard and fast when it comes to inviduals.

[Indon]

I don't think "inevitably" and "on average" are mutually exclusive, or more accurately, they aren't when you look at the bigger picture. I agree invidual expections exists, but few strange birds won't tip the scale to the other side. It's a matter of scale - what holds true of a group of humans might not be as hard and fast when it comes to inviduals.

That is to say, you're talking about trends, and the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. A fine point.

I, too, am talking about trends.

[Frozen_Feet]

I actually agree with what you said - I just think that there's a point in the transformation process where unstability of the market inhibits or removes benefits of exposure and ease of access. All things together, one could make a complex grid out of it - what we really disagree on is where we currently stand in that grid. I think we're at or approaching the point where artistic effort takes a temporary plunge - just like currently I can't find a job for myself because people delay renovations due to perceived economic unfeasibility.

[Indon]

I actually agree with what you said - I just think that there's a point in the transformation process where unstability of the market inhibits or removes benefits of exposure and ease of access. All things together, one could make a complex grid out of it - what we really disagree on is where we currently stand in that grid. I think we're at or approaching the point where artistic effort takes a temporary plunge - just like currently I can't find a job for myself because people delay renovations due to perceived economic unfeasibility.

It's entirely possible that there could be a dip as a result of a transition period. With the first factor in particular, it will probably take years of exposure to plentiful and inexpensive media to enrich our society to the point where we start to benefit - as today's kids become tomorrow's artists.

The second factor, however, we have reason to believe is already having an impact on media. While certainly, that factor will contribute to media being less profitable, profitability per artist isn't what I'm talking about, but total artistic product.

And I have not seen convincing evidence that our culture is producing less art of late, nor do I think that the (hopefully) impending collapse of industry-dominating middlemen will meaningfully damage the production of art - Indeed, I feel the opposite will be the case, that such industry domination inhibits art more than it cultivates it.

[Lord Seth]

Excellently put.

Also, I want to bring up a little anecdote I was just reading about. Before he converted, St Augustine taught rhetoric to young noble types who wanted to learn how to win arguments (don't worry, this doesn't involve religion at all). Apparently, it was the custom for students to pay after a certain amount of lessons, and it common practice for students to quit their teacher just when the bill came due, so common that Augustine gave up teaching. Now according to the logic of some folks here, there's nothing wrong with that - if the students had really thought the lessons were worth it, they would have paid up. So what seems more likely: that lessons from one of the greatest philosophers and debaters of his day - so much so that one of his opponents renounced his old beliefs and converted on the spot while debating him - were without value, or that there were too many people who just wanted something for nothing and took advantage of the system to get it?As a completely random tangent, who was the opponent who midway through the debate changed his mind and agreed with Augustine?