If you had a vote for copyright?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

What new safety devices were fitted to cars in 2010?

I guess this is getting a bit away from books, but, well, following Harry's lead and all:

Cars have gradually been getting safer in many ways. For example, the US mandated new stability controls requirements with the current model year. Here's a year by year rundown on EU-mandated emissions and safety improvements from 1970 to 2011:

Automotive Directives and regulations - motor vehicles

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I guess this is getting a bit away from books, but, well, following Harry's lead and all:

Cars have gradually been getting safer in many ways. For example, the US mandated new stability controls requirements with the current model year. Here's a year by year rundown on EU-mandated emissions and safety improvements from 1970 to 2011:

Automotive Directives and regulations - motor vehicles

What we would need would be a graph showing pedestrian fatality rates for each year that the "safety" devices were introduced and/or made compulsory. It's the illusion of invincibility that they instil in drivers that leads to the increase in deaths among pedestrians and others outside the vehicle.

[HarryT]

I don't know if any were, but the point is that 60% fewer pedestrians were killed in 2010 than 15 years previouslu, thus suggesting that the roads are getting safer (except, apparently, for cyclists).

But we're rather straying from the topic here. Might I suggest that this would be a suitable topic for a new thread in P&R?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

They would be affected by it though, just like the pedestrians. With every new car safety feature introduced, the pedestrian death toll has risen.

Death statistics are partially because of the continued increase in the number of vehicles on the road... it's not really a fault of safety features.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Do I want to know who Snooki is?

Hells, no.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

And fairness to the public. Do not forget that.

The existence of copyright ensures that the public has more products to buy. Can't get fairer than that.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

The existence of copyright ensures that the public has more products to buy. Can't get fairer than that.

Writers have this urge to write, to tell stories, to reach an audience. I'm not sure these would go away if there was no profit involved whatsoever. You can see how many millions of amateur writers write in blogs and literary sites and forums, without ever profitting from it. Some bloggers have so much audience indeed that see a constant source of income at least from ads...

I'd say some of these moved on to ebooks recently, because they see an oportunity for easy self-publishing today.

I have something to say, I'd rather have someone listening to it rather than it being stuck away in some shelf for years...

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

The existence of copyright ensures that the public has more products to buy. Can't get fairer than that.

Of course it can. People need to be able to re-mix and use works in other ways.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

Of course it can. People need to be able to re-mix and use works in other ways.

People should have access to the works produced, according to the wishes of the creator... that's fair. (Using it as you wish is subject to negotiation.)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

Writers have this urge to write, to tell stories, to reach an audience...

Some are willing to do this gratis, and if that's their wish, fine. But not all. Those writers who are good enough to rightfully ask a wage for their quality work deserve to be able to get that, and not be ripped off. (And there may be more of those writers than you think.)

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

The existence of copyright ensures that the public has more products to buy.

You'd think it to be basic economics. And yet this National Bureau of Economic Research document I previously linked gives quite a bit of evidence in the other direction.

What I think is that the existence of copyright gives the public not more art, but better art. My Exhibit A is Sir Walter Scott, who, after Ivanhoe, wrote too fast because lack of international copyright protection meant he had to churn out books to pay bills. Anthony Trollope, one of my favorites, genuinely liked his day job as a Royal Mail trouble-shooter, and clearly only wrote for money. Between the people who don't write, and the people who write too quickly, it may even out as a sheer question of artistic production.

My link above explains that ineffective copyright shifts artists' motives from making money to winning a stardom lottery. The link authors see this as an artistically neutral development, but I'm thinking otherwise. At best, you will see more Mark Twain types who take out a lot of time from writing to make lucrative personal appearances. And it may become impossible to be a serious writer without spending half your time teaching undergraduates.

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

Writers have this urge to write, to tell stories, to reach an audience. I'm not sure these would go away if there was no profit involved whatsoever.

I apologize if I am way out of line here, but I wonder how many biographies of great novelists, or other artists, you have read. Hardly any great nineteenth century noivelists would have written for free. Harriet Beecher Stowe would have written Uncle Tom's Cabin for free, but that's an exception.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

People should have access to the works produced, according to the wishes of the creator... that's fair. (Using it as you wish is subject to negotiation.)

That is just according to your strange politics. It is not according to the original motivation of copyright and it is not correct if you have a non-rights ethical viewpoint. From an utilitarian viewpoint what is fair is what maximises utility for example.

I see nothing fair at all with just taking into account the creator of ideas wishes. With your opinion I assume you believe copyright should not be time restricted at all.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

That is just according to your strange politics.

And this is why I rarely discuss things with you: You have a propensity for insulting those with whom you disagree.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by tompe

That is just according to your strange politics. It is not according to the original motivation of copyright and it is not correct if you have a non-rights ethical viewpoint. From an utilitarian viewpoint what is fair is what maximises utility for example.

I see nothing fair at all with just taking into account the creator of ideas wishes. With your opinion I assume you believe copyright should not be time restricted at all.

This is of course what we are discussing. The meaning of creation. What rights does the creator have once their work has been uploaded, as it were.

By merely mentioning the existence of a text, the creator has given up their rights. Although I do not like to speak of things such as rights, since rights by their very nature (fanciful dreams imagined by humans) do not exist outside of the dreamers head, although we do have collective dreaming and its effect on the construction of reality but for most times, that is usually beyond the scope of discussion, although what else is there to discuss?

What right does an author have to tease us with fanciful cover graphics and interesting titles and then not allow us to read what lies behind these things? YOU have the right to upload, WE have the right to choose to pay.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

You'd think it to be basic economics. And yet this National Bureau of Economic Research document I previously linked gives quite a bit of evidence in the other direction.

What I think is that the existence of copyright gives the public not more art, but better art. My Exhibit A is Sir Walter Scott, who, after Ivanhoe, wrote too fast because lack of international copyright protection meant he had to churn out books to pay bills.

It seems to me that taking away the ability of authors to sell, but increasing the options for readers to pay would solve this ivanhoe problem.

[latepaul]

Question for writers: would you be happy to work for a fixed (set by you) price? Think an artist receiving a commission or a technical author who produces work-for-hire (where they don't retain copyright).

I'm thinking of something like Unbound which is a form of publishing where authors set a target amount for a project, pitch it on the website and then invite people to pay towards it. You pay different levels for different "rewards" e.g the basic ebook, signed hard-copy, lunch with the author etc. There's also a time deadline and if the target is not reached by then monies are refunded.

I'm very interested to see how it turns out. Of course Unbound are working in the existing copyright regime and also will DRM the ebooks if the authors want to (though they'd prefer not to). So there is still the potential to make lots of extra cash from a bestseller. However the basic model would work - if it works - in a world without copyright. Essentially you set a bar below which you don't publish at all. Above that the site could function on a tip-jar model.

I think something like this could be the future.