Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW
Firstly, just out of curiosity, what does that final line mean? Honestly, I can't work it out.  |
It's from the game Zork, and also repopularised by the Nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot. I was listening to the track at the time (bought with real money
) It struck me as apt that the line, and basically the whole game of Zork became the basis of another work. The transference of art, you could say.
Quote:
As for the rest, frankly it's not my concern how they will enforce it. People will get around whatever they come up with anyway I grant you that. It doesn't even matter if the item is priced reasonably, those that do not want to pay, simply wont. Furthermore, as this attitude of "I can get it for free so that gives me the right to get it for free" becomes more and more accepted, it logically follows that less and less people will pay anything at all for what they want.
What interests me is why so many people seem to think artists should have no control or rights over what they create? That the audience should have total and sole rights? Why do so many people feel they have the right to enjoy the labours of artists for free but they certainly don't want to work for their own boss for free?
Why should there even be the thought of "how do we force people to respect the rights of the creator"? Why don't people simply respect those rights as a matter of course?
Cheers,
PKFFW
P.S: This is really just a philosophical musing before bed rather than any sort of argument so don't feel the need to reply if you don't want to.
|
I don't think anybody is arguing artists shouldn't have rights, but that in a very practical way, artists have very little 'control' any more in a digital world. Its not that people don't respect creative works, there are numerous studies and real-life examples where free = bigger profit in the end. Where treating your audience with respect equals a greater end benefit. Artists must adjust to the reality around them, or forge a new reality.
Copyright neither affects these outcomes or has any influence on them. Its redundant in the modern age, unworkable, and at the very practical level, unenforceable. And why do people think they should enjoy work for free? Well, because the digital world has made it so. Its a fact of digital life that anything can be reproduced and shared with little effort. You can't put that genie back in the bottle, no matter how hard you try. And you're right, those that don't want to pay, wont. They wouldn't pay for the object in real life either, so its a zero sum game, you haven't lost anything, because the payment would have never been made in the first place. Those that do want to pay, on the other hand should be given more options than the old, stagnant object=value proposition we've had for so many years (and you'd be surprised how many people do want to pay for cultural works even in this digital age. But not at the insulting price points the big Corps set, or using that old object-orientated model).
These are exciting times for creators of any kind. You now have an abundance of choice, where 'you' get to choose what culture you want to participate in. Copyright puts up an artificial barrier in the way of this process. It's a gate erected to protect not the creator, but the business owners who deal in those copyrights. At the very least it needs to be changed to reflect the times we live in. Life +70 years is ludicrous and does nothing to promote new works of culture.