Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
The author still provides artistic value. Coming up with the stories is not trivial, and is not something that the average person can easily do with any degree of competency. That's where the author's value is (and in reality always has been).
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You say that... and you also say that the author/artist should give away his artistic product for nothing, and find a non-artistic way to make money, like selling pencils on the street. I maintain that this makes no sense for the artist who would like to make a living off of their work. They might as well give up the art, it's just dragging down their ability to make money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
What an artist may not be able to do anymore is rely on a perpetual stream of revenue coming in based on the service of printing/distributing a digital work they created. In the physical world, that service is where the money is made.
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Actually, that's where the money is
lost... those are the overhead costs that take away from the actual source of money:
Sales. An author is paid according to sales, not printing and distribution. Those are publisher's costs, and they either absorb that with sales income, or with the final amount they pay the author (or, perish the thought, both).
I'll grant that the old business model is being turned upside down by digital distribution. However, requiring the author to take on an additional (and essentially menial) job to make money is counter-productive, and will not encourage anyone to become an artist. Another method of payment needs to be found.
I've suggested elsewhere either the patronage model (rich guy looking for tax deduction finances your artistic endeavors), or the advertisers model (a company pays you to add their advertising to your work, like a TV commercial or product placement finances a TV show), to finance artists. This makes much more sense, for it encourages the artist to work on their art, not selling pencils, while the patron or advertiser supports them.
And the added value of this is that it largely removes the concern about "piracy" of works, because consumers do not have to pay for the work... they just have to see it, to satisfy the patron/advertiser (who is banking on self-promotion or product sales based on the exposure in the artist's work). This would solve many of the issues that copyright attempts to satisfy, by taking it out of the consumer's concern, and making it the patron/advertiser's concern.
E-publishing can adopt an advertising model right now... publications are already essentially operating on a combination of advertising and subscription/counter sales (and some mags and papers don't even charge at the counter... they are solely supported by ads). The removal of physical printing and distribution should allow a significant lowering of production costs that can be absorbed by a combination of advertisers and subscriptions.