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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Primary I.P. creation pays in an entirely different model. The creators are paid a percentage on every sale of their work, up to certain legal time cutoffs. Nobody else in the working world has such a deal. This deal was based on physical limits of mass production. Now that those limits have been shattered, the deal is falling apart. DRM, ect. are simply stop gaps trying to restore the old limits. In the long term, they will fail.
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Not really: The "IP deal" was based on a given period of time that it was deemed acceptable to guarantee exclusivity of a product to a creator, to encourage that creator to create for the public. Some parties chose to use mass production figures as a guideline for writing up contracts and agreements that would either transfer rights or apply after exclusivity was lost, but those were for the profitability of the contract holders... not the actual IP agreement.
The whole point was to provide for a fair way to compensate the creator, since, as you pointed out, no other work-compensation model would provide adequate incentive for an individual creator (and at the time of its creation, there were no "invention houses" like the Edison labs in existence to provide an inventor with a place to get a regular paycheck to invent).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
For those I.P. producers who don't have a way to get paid in the unit worked, unit paid, world, the outlook is grim. The world will evolve into a straight pay, no royalty, world where the rates are low, possibly augumented by extra money coming in via advertising.
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"Grim" may be a matter of opinion. Certainly it will be different. What you suggest is essentially a more institutionalized system: Artists will work for the compensation of a third party (like an advertiser), which will probably increase the complexity of the system around them. If they cannot make such a third-party arrangement, they will not create. Organizations called "publishers" will bring artists together under one roof, and handle the arrangements with third-party advertiser/patrons, so creators can create. And third-party advertiser/patrons will likely work with houses that they have prior experience with.
Presto: We're right back where we started, with creators working under publishers, and the only thing that is different is that the publisher is no longer printing as much paper, and we're applying the word "grim" to the printing industry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Remember the world owes nobody a living, whether you are a day laborer, a computer programmer, a CEO, a Capitalist, or an I.P. creator.
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No, the world does not owe anybody
something for nothing. However, every individual owes every creator/producer something for a product/creation they willingly consume... and especially if the creator duly requested payment for that item. Whether that payment comes from per-use charges, tolls, taxes, or paychecks from institutions that support you, if you produce something people want, you are owed for whatever people take.