Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
Gods and stars, not another recommendation to go back to the Patronage system! Patronage benefited less than a single percent of potential artists, and left all the rest without means for self-expression, forcing most of them to abandon artistic careers; in short, it was a very inefficient system.
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Not a recommendation to go back (though a modern-day equivalent via crowd-sourcing could work better) but pointing out as far as income guarantees go it's a better bet.
Quote:
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No, copyright doesn't guarantee income. But more importantly, it guarantees that if income is to be made, the creator gets first crack at it, and has protection against his creation being stolen and earning him nothing. That, plus an optimistic belief that an invention would indeed be worth something, was usually all a creator/inventor needed to blow off his day job, create, and hope for the best.
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This sounds less convincing all the time.
Your argument is that it copyright encouraged creativity because it allows people to believe ("optimistically") that they can quit the day job. In fact in many ways it's more risky to quit the day job on the basis of possible royalties than it is on either receiving a commission or performance pay - where at least if you get the gig(s) you know you'll get paid.
In reality I guess people didn't quit their jobs
until the gigs/royalties hit a certain level. You need to show that copyright made this look more likely to potential creators who were put off otherwise.