Piracy is hurting the _____ industry

[ahi]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

It should be noted that in each of the cases you list, ultimately, a system was developed to compensate the original artists for the work that was used. If you record a piece of music under copyright, you better be willing to pay the author of it. If you play a band's music... etc.

Ultimately, the question here is, how are artists getting compensated by those who are downloading copies of their work for free?

--
Bill

Are you suggesting that artists would stop making music if sheet music printers did not adequately compensate them? I see downloading in the same category... ultimately of no meaningful impact on the majority of artists, whether or not the MAFIAA eventually decides to buy legislation to compensate them for it. (And, by the way, some countries already tax storage media, from video tapes to CDs, DVDs, and MP3 players [not sure about hard drives] in order to compensate media conglomerates for the possibility of lost sales.)

- Ahi

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by ahi

Because I'm 100% fine with that.

The world is already full of great art/literature unknown outside the artist's/author's own ethnocultural sphere. A few (or a few hundred) fewer or more potentially brilliant artists getting overlooked is, in my eyes, no significant change from the status quo.

- Ahi

We are not talking about art unknown outside a particular group, we are talking about art not created at all. How much poorer would the world have been if 90% of all the novels written in the last 200 years never been published or even ever written?

How much poorer will our culture be in 200 years than it could be if we make sure that artists continue to have a chance of making a living off of their work.

And how many other people who develop copyrighted work (Like software engineers) will not bother if they can't be compensated for their work.

In any case, regardless of how the world should be, the way it is is simple. Artists have a reasonable expectation, one assured by law, that if they produce a work and people want to use that work, that they have a right to be paid for the use of that work. File sharing is breaking that social contract.

--
Bill

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

We are not talking about art unknown outside a particular group, we are talking about art not created at all. How much poorer would the world have been if 90% of all the novels written in the last 200 years never been published or even ever written?

How much poorer will our culture be in 200 years than it could be if we make sure that artists continue to have a chance of making a living off of their work.

And how many other people who develop copyrighted work (Like software engineers) will not bother if they can't be compensated for their work.

In any case, regardless of how the world should be, the way it is is simple. Artists have a reasonable expectation, one assured by law, that if they produce a work and people want to use that work, that they have a right to be paid for the use of that work. File sharing is breaking that social contract.

--
Bill

Most of them aren't now, other than work-for-hire, like any other workingman....

[sigmax]

my two cents, from a third world country:


As we all know, usually the media creator is on one side (insert here music or book) earning a very small fraction of the cake, then you got the "middle layer" which charges and bites obscene amounts of money, and on the other side of the ecuation you got the consumer, which usually paid for the whole party.

The "middle layer", in other times, could hide behind the "distribution and promotion costs".

Both sides of the equation where successfully isolated by the "distribution / promotion" wall.

Internet changed it. Paradigm shift. Creator: meet the consumers tet a tet.

I wouldn´t mind paying 4 or 5 dollars for a book. I would be specially happy to pay it directly into the writer´s pocket.

But paying ALMOST THE SAME as a printed book, is NOT ok.

Internet, computers, piracy. Inescapable, until the paradigm shift is complete and the profit moguls that "represent" "publish" and "distribute" realign on the new reality: their niche / opportunity is kind of dead / depleted. Time to earn less / find another job.


Regards and sorry for my English,

Enrique.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

We are not talking about art unknown outside a particular group, we are talking about art not created at all. How much poorer would the world have been if 90% of all the novels written in the last 200 years never been published or even ever written?

How much poorer will our culture be in 200 years than it could be if we make sure that artists continue to have a chance of making a living off of their work.

Not measurably poorer, I would guess. Whether or not others would have taken their place. What makes you think otherwise?

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

And how many other people who develop copyrighted work (Like software engineers) will not bother if they can't be compensated for their work.

None?

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

In any case, regardless of how the world should be, the way it is is simple. Artists have a reasonable expectation, one assured by law, that if they produce a work and people want to use that work, that they have a right to be paid for the use of that work. File sharing is breaking that social contract.

The psychotic lengths to which both the law, as well as the the artists and their representation go to ensure that this--by no means natural--right is respected is entirely new and modern. I've no calms about seeing it go along with the next Hemingway, Beatles, and 200 years worth of upcoming genius artists and writers.

There's several lifetimes', if not centuries', worth of good stuff out there we are yet to discover... primarily because it was not written/made/discovered/appreciated by the rich elderly white men of olden days.

- Ahi

[fugazied]

I actually believe at this stage, piracy will help increase the uptake of e-books. More people will start using ebooks via the pirate bay than through any other source. Once those people get older, most of them will start buying the ebooks as they get jobs and looking for pirated material is no longer cost effective.

Eventually it's not worth digging around for a pirated mp3, you just get it from itunes for 0.99. So at this stage I think piracy is just useful for getting young people into the technology, they will buy more books later on.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

The fact that you disdain the corporations' interest in whatever sells the most copies suggests that you also believe that the public at large has poor tastes (after all, they are the ones buying, reading, watching and listening).

You do realise that the largest movie market in the world is the porn industry, right? And yet nobody confuses the medium with the message there (I hope).
Similarly with books (and authors): most works are not meant to educate, or to make one think; they're just meant to entertain. As such, they're fairly interchangeable, and, I dare say, will not be remembered in 10 years time, let alone 100. Books are just a container, after all.. The fact that words are contained in it says nothing about the (quality of the) content.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

The fact that you disdain the corporations' interest in whatever sells the most copies suggests that you also believe that the public at large has poor tastes (after all, they are the ones buying, reading, watching and listening).

I also believe that the public at large is also affected by the fare tendered by said corporations. A vicious cycle, if you will.

- Ahi

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by ahi

I also believe that the public at large is also affected by the fare tendered by said corporations. A vicious cycle, if you will.

- Ahi

Of course you are right. But why is that so? Because most people prefer that fare to well written books. The majority of people never will be intellectuals, so the books that tender to them will do well -- same on TV. Look at German TV. You have the subsidized government programs, which have exceeding low ratings when they feed people the "higher quality" programming and the high ratings for private stations and the "lower quality" programming of the publicly owned stations. That is just democracy at work. You sell people what people want.

And Itunes has shown that people are willing to pay for content. Clean up the DRM and regional restrictions mess and give us reasonable prices and the only ones that will turn to the darknet are the ones that wouldn't pay for it anyway. Most people have a sense of right and wrong. A lot of you keep forgetting that publishers have a very easy option with ebooks. They could plaster them with ads. The Google way of life, you might call it. To me, a much greater horror then paying a few bucks for them. And as to the other alternatives, do we really want a few government bureaucrats decide for us which authors are "worthy" and get subsidies from a central fund? There is no free lunch. Education is the key, we must pay one way or the other. If you pay directly you can decide what kind of content will get your support. Just taking what you want for free may be possible but if we all realize it is wrong the system will still work, like it does everywhere else. Then publishers will realize that DRM only hurts honest customers.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Of course you are right. But why is that so? Because most people prefer that fare to well written books. The majority of people never will be intellectuals, so the books that tender to them will do well -- same on TV. Look at German TV. You have the subsidized government programs, which have exceeding low ratings when they feed people the "higher quality" programming and the high ratings for private stations and the "lower quality" programming of the publicly owned stations. That is just democracy at work. You sell people what people want.

Well... I, personally, do not. But yes, there are plenty that will and do. You do see that this problem would also be somewhat addressed by my drastic scheme, which would so callously deprive the world of geniuses of Hemingway's and the Beatles' calibre for centuries to come.

- Ahi

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by ahi

Well... I, personally, do not. But yes, there are plenty that will and do. You do see that this problem would also be somewhat addressed by my drastic scheme, which would so callously deprive the world of geniuses of Hemingway's and the Beatles' calibre for centuries to come.

- Ahi

Just the opposite. Authors can get published much more easily these days and have access to a much wider audience by uploading to a big website. And unless you want to go back a few centuries (when great musicians and other artists had been in the pay of or recieved orders from dukes and kings) the geniuses never were the ones that rake in the big bucks. Look at the state of classical music today. Great performers, but where are the new genius composers? The price you pay for liberty and equality. It easier for new authors. But these genius authors are the few that write for the few. My guess is the majority of the population wouldn't even care if there will be no more geniuses.

[Kali Yuga]

Seems to me that there are a couple of problems with the article.

• Comparing the innovations and distributive power of the Internet / P2P system to devices like player pianos and photocopiers is patently absurd. It costs nothing and requires no special tools to share a file to millions upon millions of Internet users; it would be impossible for the best photocopier with the cheapest paper to afford such a distribution run.

• The article failed to mention that music sales in the Internet era have utterly tanked and are unlikely to recover. Sales are down nearly 50% since its peak in 1999, including the increase in digital sales. No one has any hard numbers on how much of this loss is directly attributable to piracy, but it is naïve to assume piracy is not a major contributing factor to the decline.

• There is no discussion of the significant problems associated with those who profit off of piracy, e.g. illicit music, movie or software sales in China; involvement of organized crime in illegal sales, etc.

I don't take an alarmist view of piracy, but I don't see the article as particularly balanced or even discussing the full scope of the issues. In that sense, it isn't much better than the alarmists it criticizes....

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Look at the state of classical music today. Great performers, but where are the new genius composers?

Writing for film and screenplays, or composing for relatively small online fan bases.

For example, in the 1971 Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. wrote a short atmospheric piece called "Cotton's Dream" for the sound track to the movie version of Bless The Beasts And The Children. This was rearranged for the soap opera The Young And The Restless in 1973 and used by stellar gymnast Nadia Comaneci in the 1976 Olympics. I submit it is the equal to any short piece of mood music ever written. Greensleeves included.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

And unless you want to go back a few centuries (when great musicians and other artists had been in the pay of or recieved orders from dukes and kings)

Well, I've more or less been saying I'd be happy with that... obviously in as much as it is possible in a modern context. The disincentivizing powers of file sharing may well be taking us in that direction. (And if so, I consider it a Good Thing!)

- Ahi

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Ultimately, the question here is, how are artists getting compensated by those who are downloading copies of their work for free?

--
Bill

Wrong question.

Right question:

How are artists getting compensated by digital material?

The answer:

Digital material is sold just like the physical material, or possibly in new ways. An artist gets whatever royalties they agreed to in their contract(s).