What would it take to restore the arts to being profitable careers?

[scrubbyfish]

I have two major ideas floating in my head in response to the thread's development, but to limit my words at a time will share just this one right now...

Scenario:
I spend 8320 hours to produce a microbusiness (e.g., book).
At $40/hr, that's $332k.
If society sees value in it, I may recover that.
However, it may take 20, 30, or 70 years, trickling in over time.

Is my work "valuable" or "valuable enough" only if it brings in $332k in the first year? By the fifth year?
What if it takes longer (32 years)?

Is my work valuable only if a mega-Corp contracts to me for $40/k per hour and pays me as I go?

Do I have a right to contract with society to pay me the amount it wishes, over a much longer period of time, and after the work is complete? Or is this an unacceptable approach to business? If so, why?

Is it acceptable if a third-party says to me, "Please produce such-and-such material—researching, interviewing, drafting, revising x 40, learning the tech, editing, proofreading—then format it for such-and-such medium, then publish it, then market it. I will pay you $40/hr to do so," but unacceptable for me to say to me, "Please produce such-and-such material, then format it for such-and-such medium, then publish it, then market it. I will pay you an unknown amount over your lifetime."

Is it only acceptable to predict and develop products that will have high profit in the short term? Or do we (humans) have a right to innovate even if we are willing to accept a 50-year payment plan of 5 cents to $50k per year?

I was thinking about this while out and about today. After, my kid's teacher handed me a book saying, "Have you read this? It's amazing. It's like 20 years old, but has just has a surge in interest." I haven't verified any of that, but I thought it was funny this happened today. If it's accurate, how cool that the author wrote this book! How cool that she saw "success" twenty years later! How cool if she innovated so far in advance, is recognized by kids now, and is (hopefully) receiving royalties.

[scrubbyfish]

It's not disingenuous to recognize that having a ton of time and resources to devote to producing a skill and product is an important factor in making a better result. Esp since many of the traditional arts and crafts were designed to recognize high level of training and time dedicated to the skill.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay for an editor? Or pay an artist to create a cover for your book? Have you taken courses in writing, college courses or tutorials that had tuition? How many books have you read? Would you like to speak to authors who have published, maybe pay to go to a seminar or book signing so you can pick their brains? I think you're underestimating the cost that you have sunk in or the potential cost to elevate your practice.

Further, depending on your field, the cost of physical supplies can be very real.

+1.

We know that some people whip off some writing, have it accepted by a mega-Corp, and everything is taken care of from there. I think that's relatively few writers, though. The rest are slogging, doing all aspects solo, and covering all costs. They are undertaking time-consuming learning curves to DIY, or paying someone who has already done that. Sometimes a publisher picks them up later (because it's relevant, quality work), and offers $1-$3 per copy. Many writers are rejecting these offers now, because the mega-Corp publishers are offering less in the way of services, offloading costs (in some cases, editing, professional author photos, etc) onto the author, and then offering such a small amount of the publisher's profit.

Many of us find it important (for the audience) to not "just use" [spell check/indexing software/a Word template/aunt Betty's eagle eye] to the end of a sloppy or so-so product, but to apply time, intense drive, and our money to create a top-notch product.

Society isn't subsidizing it. Our previous and future efforts are. For sure it's a weird business model, but that can't be sufficient reason to disallow it.

[MrDelane]

I explained that the burden of proof is on those who want to take ownership away, not those who want to keep it.  If you have ownership on something and I want to take it away from you, it seems I should have to prove my case.

No, the key word there is "If." The burden of proof is upon those who assert ownership in the first place. You can't take away something that doesn't exist.

Fair enough, that's a valid point.
I guess I just can't wrap my head around how someone would not own something they created (like a book, film, characters, etc).  I mean, if a writer writes a novel, in your view, what do they actually own?  What do they have that is sellable?  I'm asking this sincerely in an attempt to understand.

I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread is perfectly clear on why many copyright holders support infinite increases in the scope and duration of copyright -- forcing the public to pay you for doing no additional work is a pretty damn sweet gig!

I honestly don't see how or where anyone is forcing the public to pay for anything.
And this isn't about royalties (to me) as much as it is about protecting how and where creative work can be used and reproduced.

The question you need to ask yourself is this: why should you be entitled to have your privileged livelihood enforced by State violence?

Well, I would say that I definitely don't feel I am entitled to anything that other people are not.  Everyone has the ability to create and copyright original work.  Also, I guess I should clarify that I don't have a "privileged livelihood" that is enforced by State violence.  I have a regular 9 to 5 job (okay, sometimes more like 8 to 8 job) where I work in a creative field and deal with copyrighted material on a daily basis.  It's not my copyrighted material, I don't live on royalties and don't have any copyrights (save for a few small personal projects I've done that have never been profitable). But my job, and many many others in the creative field, would not exist if there were no copyrights.

This thread began by asking what can be done to make the arts profitable.
I don't see how doing away with copyright is the answer, at least not for any of the artists that i know.  The many I deal with would lose their jobs if that were the case.

[arebelspy]

This thread began by asking what can be done to make the arts profitable.
I don't see how doing away with copyright is the answer, at least not for any of the artists that i know.  The many I deal with would lose their jobs if that were the case.

Why do you need to use hyperbole? 

A reasonable length copyright.  That's what we'd like.  15, 20 years.

Not life + 70 years *.

That, if anything, will HELP artists, IMO, by allowing them to create and modify off of various ideas, instead of immediately getting cease and desist letters from giant corporations who have locked up many cultural ideas that should belong to the public by now, stifling their ability to modify and contribute with their art.

Tell me about a job that would be lost if copyright was 20 years, instead of life + 70.  To me, immediately a second idea pops up about how it helps artists: it creates more artistic jobs, as corporations can't just rest on lawsuits for their current "intellectual property"/copyrights and push that over and over.  As the copyrights expire, they need to hire artists to create new, original works for public consumption.

The stuff that's 15-20 years old expiring in copyright suddenly means more artists are needed to create new ideas.  Superman no longer under copyright to Warner Bros., so anyone can make Superman stuff?  That's great for artists creating, and it's great for artists wanting a job with Warner Bros., who have to hire artists to make new content.

It's bad for big corporations, of course.

A reasonable length copyright.  That's what 99% of us arguing for copyright reform want.  Tell me what's wrong with that.

[MrDelane]

Why do you need to use hyperbole?

Sorry, in that context I was replying directly to Jack, who I think was arguing that there shouldn't be any copyrights (maybe I'm wrong on that).  I'm aware that you're pushing for shorter terms that what is currently granted.  I wasn't trying to misrepresent your view, and I probably should have clarified when I posted that.

A reasonable length copyright.  That's what we'd like.  15, 20 years.

.....

A reasonable length copyright.  That's what 99% of us arguing for copyright reform want.  Tell me what's wrong with that.

You brought up a lot of good points.
I think we might disagree on the timeline, but your points are interesting.

The fact that corporations own and control a lot of copyrights is obviously a bone of contention with you, and honestly I've never given it much thought.  But I'm glad you've brought it up.  It seems you're coming from a place of wanting to stop corporations from exploiting copyrights.  I am pretty much always coming from a place of wanting to allow individual artists to protect their own work.

I hate the idea of complicating our laws even more - but I possibly wouldn't be against the idea of a two tiered system that gave greater copyright terms to individual creators.  Or, possibly, even disallowing corporations to own copyrights (which might alleviate one of the issues I see with many artists who do not own the rights to their early work, which someone brought up earlier in this thread).

15 to 20 years still seems too short to me, to be honest.  Just looking at Star Wars.  Lucas was, until just recently, still very much involved in growing and evolving the Star Wars universe.  His artistic work was not done.  Saying that we should all be allowed to work in his universe too (because we want to and he's made 'enough' money) just seems wrong to me.

I don't know.  You've given me some good things to think about though, Arebelspy.
So thanks for that.

[EMP]

So innovation in the arts is ok, but don't be more than 20 years ahead of your time?  Does an artist lose the right to make money off his or her work if it doesn't become popular soon enough?

How do you address both the scenarios  that an artist's work will 1. Become popular within his or her lifetime, but after the arbitrary 15-20 year limit or 2. That an artist with kids to support dies after completing an important, popular work but before receiving royalties.

To my mind, the second supposition gets us back to life + something. Probably 70 years is too long, but the copyright argument is all splitting hairs to me.

[SwordGuy]

Yep.  Although, I still have yet to hear anyone give me a good reason why extending copyright beyond the life of an artist could make any sense at all.  If the artist is dead he is statistically less likely to create further works (notwithstanding 2Pac's five posthumous albums  :P  ).

You are SO right.

All that stock and bonds you bought?  You don't need it after you are dead.

We're not talking about stock or bonds though.  That's physical property.  If I want them, I need to take them away from you.

What we're talking about doesn't work that way.  I can use part of what you created without ever having any impact on you.

All that rental or farm property you bought, restored, and maintained?  You don't need it after you are dead.

Again, you're talking about actual, physical property.  It's different than an idea.

All that cash you set aside for a rainy day?  You don't need that after you are dead either.

Cash is not an idea either.

To hell with your spouse and kids.

Let's just sell all that when someone dies and put it in the public domain to pay off the national debt or give handouts to artists whose work is so undesirable to the public that no one will pay for it.

[/sarcasm]

How about that for a reason?

It's a pretty poor reason.  This is largely due to the fact that you don't seem to understand the difference between an idea and physical property.  Arbitrarily restricting ideas for huge amounts of time in the way that current copyright laws work is damaging to society.  You've failed to provide any reason that it would be beneficial.

You also appear to have no understanding of what the public domain is, if you think that putting things in the public domain will somehow be a cash boon to the government.  It would behoove you to do a little reading on the matter before making such silly claims.

I haven't advocated giving handouts to any artists.

I meant to say sell it to the public, not sell it to the public domain.   Mistake in phrasing, that's all.  I'm well aware of the difference.

You seem to think I do not understand the difference between a physical object and an instantiated idea such as a book or play.

I do.

You have declared that because they are different in some ways, one type of creating is worthy of being called property and given special protections and the other type is not.

Just because you make such a statement does not make it true. 

It is not a lack of understanding your position that causes me to disagree with you.  I disagree with you precisely because I understand and disagree with your position.

I will continue to use the word "property" to mean something that someone can legally own.  This includes books, plays, music, etc.  I use it in that manner because it is factually true.  I can legally own the rights to those items under the law.

No property right is an absolute one for the property owner.   Our society, through our government, has authorized our government or other citizens to claim another's property under specific circumstances.  This includes land, cash, stocks, livestock, and intellectual property as well.   

Don't pay attention to your land?  Another person can claim it under adverse possession laws.

Are you the wrong racial or ethnic group with a bunch of cash in your wallet or car?  Or just someone who rubs the police officer the wrong way?   The police can legally take your cash without even bothering to charge you with a crime.   (Now, THAT's something we should all be mad as hell about!)

Did your livestock just contract a contagious disease that threatens other herds?   Your livestock will be killed.

Have you had a near monopoly over the usage of your intellectual property for "too long"?  Then it is taken from you and put into the public domain.

Don't pay your taxes?  Anything asset can be seized to pay them.  Even the whore house you run.  (Yep, the IRS actually seized and operated a whorehouse over taxes.)


Other than police legally taking your money because they want to, all of the above situations can be set up to be reasonable and fair to all parties involved, or totally unfair and totally skewed to just one side.

At the moment, the length of copyright is too far in favor of intellectual property owners.

The ability of an average person to actually enforce and collect for intellectual property theft is way too low. 

And the ability of a well heeled corporation to misbehave whilst unreasonably enforcing fake copyright "rights" is much too high.

In summary, I totally reject the false notion that someone who creates a piece of intellectual property does not deserve to own and profit from that work.    And, so should their widowed spouse and or orphaned children. 

I agree that, after a reasonable time, which would be the human author's life plus 20 years (for the benefit of their spouse and children), it would be to society's benefit to confiscate the intellectual property and make it available under the public domain.   

Corporations should have the benefit of the intellectual property for 30 years.  If ownership of a copyright switches from corporate to human ownership (or vice-versa), it moves to the public domain at the earliest of the two methods of calculating the copyright end date.

[MrDelane]

Tell me about a job that would be lost if copyright was 20 years, instead of life + 70.  To me, immediately a second idea pops up about how it helps artists: it creates more artistic jobs, as corporations can't just rest on lawsuits for their current "intellectual property"/copyrights and push that over and over.  As the copyrights expire, they need to hire artists to create new, original works for public consumption.

Just for arguments sake - I assume most studios would not make the larger budget films they make today (100 million+) if copyrights were only 15 to 20 years.  And those films employ thousands of people for a couple of years. Though you may be right, other smaller films might be made in their place (but there would have to be a lot of them to make up for the loss of one).

[arebelspy]

15 to 20 years still seems too short to me, to be honest.  Just looking at Star Wars.  Lucas was, until just recently, still very much involved in growing and evolving the Star Wars universe.  His artistic work was not done.  Saying that we should all be allowed to work in his universe too (because we want to and he's made 'enough' money) just seems wrong to me.

He'd still be able to work in his universe.  Not only that, any new things created in his universe (Darth Maul, for example), would be copyrighted.  Any new works.  Anything like that.  If he wants to keep working on it, all the new parts of it will be copyrighted.

There's nothing stopping that.

It has nothing to do with him making "enough" money, it has to do with balancing the ability for artists to make money with the public interest of cultural and artistic expression and availability.

So innovation in the arts is ok, but don't be more than 20 years ahead of your time?  Does an artist lose the right to make money off his or her work if it doesn't become popular soon enough?

If something doesn't profit after 20 years, it likely never will.  And then, in those cases, the copyright isn't renewed.  That's already the case with most copyrighted works.  It's only the massively profitable ones that have the copyright renewed, so there's not much of a worry of an artists making something and not making money on it and then later it would have become profitable, any more than in our current system (where they don't renew the copyright, because it's not profitable).

Either they make money at it, great, in which case it should become part of our cultural heritage after a few decades, or they don't, in which case it should become part of our cultural heritage after a few decades.  In the latter case, where it doesn't make money, this already happens.  It's only when it's massively profitable to corporations that it's kept from allowing us to utilize it (MLK I Have a Dream speech), or improve on it, and hurting artists who don't get the jobs to create new content cause old content can just keep being rehashed.

[scrubbyfish]

If something doesn't profit after 20 years, it likely never will.

My record so far is 16 (technically 18) years entirely unpaid (and funded the entire time by me) before it paid (quite big). I'm very glad I had copyright that long and beyond. I would have been mortified had it been deemed "highly valuable" (funder's words) a short time later on a 20 year copyright. Interestingly, the mega-business that ultimately bought it from me proved to have zero integrity, so I'm fairly confident that had I not had legal rights, it would have taken it without payment for my years of work and my financial investment. Gross.

For all I know, works created by me around that time or earlier will also yet be deemed "valuable."

Does the author I mentioned two posts back not deserve the money her book is bringing in 20+ years after it was first printed? Do we know how much she did or didn't make in the meantime? How much in relation to her hours and finances invested?

If someone admires one of her characters, can they not create an equally awesome, original one? Why does someone need to copy Superman? We have more ingenuity and creativity than that.

This thread leaves me with the impression that the way some of us work is very different to how some others work, and that this difference is not understand by everyone. I think it would take understanding of this for some of the differences in opinion to reduce.

[MrDelane]

If someone admires one of her characters, can they not create an equally awesome, original one? Why does someone need to copy Superman? We have more ingenuity and creativity than that.

My feelings exactly.

This thread leaves me with the impression that the way some of us work is very different to how some others work, and that this difference is not understand by everyone. I think it would take understanding of this for some of the differences in opinion to reduce.

That's a good point.

[Manguy888]

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay for an editor? Or pay an artist to create a cover for your book? Have you taken courses in writing, college courses or tutorials that had tuition? How many books have you read? Would you like to speak to authors who have published, maybe pay to go to a seminar or book signing so you can pick their brains? I think you're underestimating the cost that you have sunk in or the potential cost to elevate your practice.

I did pay a proofreader (internet) and did pay to have my cover designed (by a local artist in my small town). Paid with out of my $$ made freelancing. If I had the patience or luck to land a traditional publisher that company would have paid someone to do all that stuff - either freelance or in-house. While I sit somewhere in the middle on the copyright debate going on in this thread, I personally would never use someone else's work like take elements for a cover. I even went through all the bureaucratic loopholes to secure and pay for the van morrison lyrics I used at one point in the plot.

I thought your comments about outsider art's ability to physically survive were super interesting. I've very glad as a writer that this isn't an issue.

[Watchmaker]

I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread is perfectly clear on why many copyright holders support infinite increases in the scope and duration of copyright -- forcing the public to pay you for doing no additional work is a pretty damn sweet gig!

But no one is ever forced to pay for any copyright material.  They can choose to pay for it, or not watch/read/listen to it, or to break the (current) law.  The second option is, in my opinion, more virtuous than the third.

Other thoughts:

-Just because something is in the public domain, it doesn't stop the creator from being able to make money off it.  If an author I liked had a new (or new to me, anyway) book available, and I could buy a copy for $10 from a random publisher, or a copy for $12 from the author, I would choose the method that rewarded the creator.  If I was making a movie based on a popular work it could make sense to hire the original creator as a writer or consultant, to get the fans on my side.

-I worry that getting rid of copyright protections would simply fatten the profits of corporations, not cut into them like some seem to think.  Yes, Disney might suffer somewhat from having competition for selling Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader branded toys, but they would also avoid all of the future acquisition costs for the next Mickey.

[scrubbyfish]

I worry that getting rid of copyright protections would simply fatten the profits of corporations, not cut into them like some seem to think. [...] avoid all of the future acquisition costs for the next Mickey.

That's my experience.

The current laws are protecting a creator's right to accept a (very long, very slow) payment plan for hours worked. If that were not in place, the mega-Corps would wait til a new item is created, wait for its short copyright to run out, then take it—no payment to artist ever needed.

(I say "mega-Corps" vs "corporations" because lots of artists have formed a one-person corporation for their work, and the corporation is tiny, ethical, etc. When I hear the word corporation, my brain hears the legal definition, not size or ethic.)

[arebelspy]

I worry that getting rid of copyright protections would simply fatten the profits of corporations, not cut into them like some seem to think. [...] avoid all of the future acquisition costs for the next Mickey.

That's my experience.

The current laws are protecting a creator's right to accept a (very long, very slow) payment plan for hours worked. If that were not in place, the mega-Corps would wait til a new item is created, wait for its short copyright to run out, then take it—no payment to artist ever needed.

(I say "mega-Corps" vs "corporations" because lots of artists have formed a one-person corporation for their work, and the corporation is tiny, ethical, etc. When I hear the word corporation, my brain hears the legal definition, not size or ethic.)

Corporations are not going to take 20 year old material and start selling it.  They'll be making their own new stuff and marketing it, when they still hold the copyright.  They wouldn't make much money on the non-copyrighted stuff, because they wouldn't have exclusive rights.

[scrubbyfish]

Corporations are not going to take 20 year old material and start selling it.

But, they did with my 18 year old thing. Do you sense this would change specifically at years 19 and 20?

[arebelspy]

Corporations are not going to take 20 year old material and start selling it.

But, they did with my 18 year old thing. Do you sense this would change specifically at years 19 and 20?

Yes.

I think that is much, much less common than the other way around.

[SwordGuy]

Dilbert's boss is famous for saying things like, "I don't know anything about how to do this process, so it must be very easy."

Because he's ignorant of how hard the task really is, in his mind, it must be simple.  I see that in technology all the time.   

I really feel that some folks think the same thing about intellectually creative work.

It's not that hard, after all, it's just an idea, so the artists don't deserve property rights to their work like I do with my [ insert investment method of choice ] here.   

Frankly, buying a house on the cheap, fixing it up and renting it out at a profit is pretty darn simple.  Pretty much anyone who pays attention can figure out how to do it.

Buying low cost full market index funds and sitting on it until you make money is truly easy. 

Creative work is hard.   Hemingway described writing as sitting in front of a typewriter until blood came out of his forehead.

Know what a one hit wonder is?  It's someone who created a real hit - once - and never did it again.   Why don't they create more hits?  Because it's hard, that's why!

If we want to consider intellectual property differently from more tangible property, we should give it even more protections because it's harder to create a truly great idea.   As opposed to the concept articulated by others on this thread, that it should be given less protections because copying it is cheap and easy.

[arebelspy]

My beliefs have nothing to do with how hard it is.  I think it's extremely difficult to be creative, or to create something artistic (writing, music, visual art, etc.) that others want to purchase.

I also see a need for balance between benefiting the creator and benefiting the public.

I think it's extremely difficult to create a physical invention, for example.  And I think that should be protected from others copying it.  For a reasonable period.  Then I think people should be able to modify and improve on it, for the benefit of everyone.

Does it suck for the Wright Brothers' descendants that airplanes are no longer protected intellectual property (or whoever managed to patent it first)?  Sure.  But it's also allowed us to go to the moon, because of improvements and iterations.

[MrDelane]

My beliefs have nothing to do with how hard it is.  I think it's extremely difficult to be creative, or to create something artistic (writing, music, visual art, etc.) that others want to purchase.

I also see a need for balance between benefiting the creator and benefiting the public.

I think it's extremely difficult to create a physical invention, for example.  And I think that should be protected from others copying it.  For a reasonable period.  Then I think people should be able to modify and improve on it, for the benefit of everyone.

Does it suck for the Wright Brothers' descendants that airplanes are no longer protected intellectual property (or whoever managed to patent it first)?  Sure.  But it's also allowed us to go to the moon, because of improvements and iterations.

That's probably why patents last for 15 or 20 years and copyrights are life of the author plus 70 years (unless it's a work for hire).  Patents and copyrights are completely different things that protect completely different things.

The tangible benefits to society from technological innovation and iteration are clearly different than those from art (where the benefit of iterations over originality are debatable).

[VladTheImpaler]

One key point to consider on this discussion is that most budding artists WANT TO COLLABORATE with others. That is a great way to increase exposure (cross marketing) and sharpen their skills.
Many independent musicians, photographers, and artists are opting for Creative Commons licenses.
From Wikipedia:
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.
Creative Common licences allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

[arebelspy]

My beliefs have nothing to do with how hard it is.  I think it's extremely difficult to be creative, or to create something artistic (writing, music, visual art, etc.) that others want to purchase.

I also see a need for balance between benefiting the creator and benefiting the public.

I think it's extremely difficult to create a physical invention, for example.  And I think that should be protected from others copying it.  For a reasonable period.  Then I think people should be able to modify and improve on it, for the benefit of everyone.

Does it suck for the Wright Brothers' descendants that airplanes are no longer protected intellectual property (or whoever managed to patent it first)?  Sure.  But it's also allowed us to go to the moon, because of improvements and iterations.

That's probably why patents last for 15 or 20 years and copyrights are life of the author plus 70 years (unless it's a work for hire).  Patents and copyrights are completely different things that protect completely different things.

The tangible benefits to society from technological innovation and iteration are clearly different than those from art (where the benefit of iterations over originality are debatable).

I disagree. Especially with how computer patents around software work. It inhibits progress and harms society.

[MrDelane]

I disagree. Especially with how computer patents around software work. It inhibits progress and harms society.

I'm not sure I understand which part you disagreed with exactly - then again maybe I was being unclear in my original post.

My point was that all these arguments seem to be about where the point of balance is between protecting the creator and benefiting society.

When it comes to patents it seems that the term is shorter because the benefit to society through iterations of existing innovations is deemed as highly beneficial, outweighing the protection of the individual.

When it comes to copyrights the term may be longer because the benefit to society through iterations of existing artistic works may not be deemed as beneficial as originality, in which case it is seem as more beneficial to protect the individual for a longer period of time while encouraging original work.

That was just a thought - I have no idea if it has any merit, just something I've been thinking about since this thread started. 

The other point I was making was that the analogy of the Wright brothers was in relation to a patent - which is a different beast than a copyright and protects a different thing.

[Travis]

Does it suck for the Wright Brothers' descendants that airplanes are no longer protected intellectual property (or whoever managed to patent it first)?  Sure.  But it's also allowed us to go to the moon, because of improvements and iterations.

The Wrights managed to patent their concept of flight controls (surfaces on the wings which allow for steering) broadly enough that any variation on the concept created lawsuits.  It stunted aircraft innovation in the US for the first ten years after its invention.  Henry Ford had a similar problem - the very concept of the automobile was patented by insanely broad patent language. Not the shape, not the engine nor any particular piece of tech on the vehicle - the automobile as an idea was patented.  Glen Curtiss thought the patent (and the Wright's obsession over the licensing fees) had grown ridiculous to the point that if a man jumped out of a window and flapped his arms he could get sued by them.  He was only slightly exaggerating.  Turning an airplane on any axis requires something on the wing's surface to move. It's physics.  The Wrights warped the wing surfaces with cables while Curtiss helped invent the modern tail, rudder, and ailerons we still use today. The Wrights were suing anyone who came up with their own way of doing this.  Legally the Wrights could have made a case against birds if they hadn't already evolved a tail to perform the same function.

In Ford's case the organization which held the patent on the automobile pretty much just sat on it raking in fees until it ran out. They did nothing with the patent except use it as a cash cow.  Ford took his case to the US Court of Appeals and won which did a lot to soften patent law to everyone's benefit. Patents were for unique and specific inventions - not whole concepts which still held massive room for growth.  The Wrights clung to their patent war so tightly we had nothing in the air going into WWI and the Wrights themselves were no longer innovators in the industry they more or less created.  The US government pretty much told the Wrights to get over it and arranged to pool multiple aircraft patents and share the fees in order to jump start the aircraft industry. This precedent has been exercised by the US government on other matters for the public good.

[ariapluscat]

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay for an editor? Or pay an artist to create a cover for your book? Have you taken courses in writing, college courses or tutorials that had tuition? How many books have you read? Would you like to speak to authors who have published, maybe pay to go to a seminar or book signing so you can pick their brains? I think you're underestimating the cost that you have sunk in or the potential cost to elevate your practice.

Again, "wouldn't it be nice" is the wrong -- or at least, highly suggestive and therefore biased -- question to ask. Of course it would be nice! Lots of luxuries would be "nice!" And everybody has a list of "nice" things that would help them do their jobs better, even if their jobs have nothing to do with copyright.

The real question is, why do you think you should be entitled to get all those benefits at society's expense?

Maybe my tone was off in the 'wouldn't it be nice' and so i wasn't clearly understood...

My intent was to point out that the idea that 'artists will produce no matter what' is a view point that privileges artists from economically secure backgrounds bc not only will these have the leisure to produce art but also the quality of the work will be improved through services. which leads to a feedback loop of which products and artists get good reviews and are purchased. and has been regularly debunked in the professional art world and art criticism world

The spigot might be on, but the water coming out might be dirty depending what filters you can afford to buy.

 i just really dislike the mythos of 'artist gonna art' and 'i am the rational argumentor so i win'

[ariapluscat]

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay for an editor? Or pay an artist to create a cover for your book? Have you taken courses in writing, college courses or tutorials that had tuition? How many books have you read? Would you like to speak to authors who have published, maybe pay to go to a seminar or book signing so you can pick their brains? I think you're underestimating the cost that you have sunk in or the potential cost to elevate your practice.

I did pay a proofreader (internet) and did pay to have my cover designed (by a local artist in my small town). Paid with out of my $$ made freelancing. If I had the patience or luck to land a traditional publisher that company would have paid someone to do all that stuff - either freelance or in-house. While I sit somewhere in the middle on the copyright debate going on in this thread, I personally would never use someone else's work like take elements for a cover. I even went through all the bureaucratic loopholes to secure and pay for the van morrison lyrics I used at one point in the plot.

I thought your comments about outsider art's ability to physically survive were super interesting. I've very glad as a writer that this isn't an issue.

i'm glad you supported a small artist!

and don't be so sure that writers don't have to worry! there's a whole new field of digital archiving and conservation. i'm not much into it, but apparently they have new issues w computers and file types that could be bad in +50 yrs. get your book printed on archival paper!

[Jack]

I guess I just can't wrap my head around how someone would not own something they created (like a book, film, characters, etc).  I mean, if a writer writes a novel, in your view, what do they actually own?  What do they have that is sellable?  I'm asking this sincerely in an attempt to understand.

They own nothing.

If I go down to the street corner, stand on a soapbox and start shouting at passers-by, do I "own" the words they hear? Do I have a right to force them to pay me for having listened to me? Furthermore, do I have a right to stop them from going home and telling their spouse about Edit: "reciting to their spouse" all the nonsense the lunatic on the street corner was raving about? Of course not. And the same goes for any other sort of creative work.

Copyright modifies that, of course. But again, copyright is a social contract where we as a society have collectively decided to reward people for producing creative works -- not because they "own" them or "deserve" it, but because we think the compromise is advantageous for us (i.e., everybody else who is not the copyright holder).

I honestly don't see how or where anyone is forcing the public to pay for anything.
And this isn't about royalties (to me) as much as it is about protecting how and where creative work can be used and reproduced.

What do you think happens if someone infringes a copyright? They get sued or charged with a crime (depending on the circumstances), and if they lose the government enforces the judgement -- at the point of a gun, if necessary. The use of force is the defining feature of a government.

Also, what you call "protecting how and where creative work can be used," I call "censorship."

This thread began by asking what can be done to make the arts profitable.

Well, sure! But my point is that I object to the validity of the question itself because the arts have no inherent right to be profitable in the first place.

Asking that question is kind of like asking "what can I do to force people to accept my business model?" Or "what can I do to force people to give me their property for free?" Or "what can I do to force people to accept my political authority?" The answer in all cases is "you have no right to do that!"

Why do you need to use hyperbole?

Sorry, in that context I was replying directly to Jack, who I think was arguing that there shouldn't be any copyrights (maybe I'm wrong on that).  I'm aware that you're pushing for shorter terms that what is currently granted.  I wasn't trying to misrepresent your view, and I probably should have clarified when I posted that.

I've at least implied that copyright should be abolished, if not said so outright. That's mainly because I'm trying to move the Overton window, but it makes it reasonable for people to reply to that argument.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay for an editor? Or pay an artist to create a cover for your book? Have you taken courses in writing, college courses or tutorials that had tuition? How many books have you read? Would you like to speak to authors who have published, maybe pay to go to a seminar or book signing so you can pick their brains? I think you're underestimating the cost that you have sunk in or the potential cost to elevate your practice.

Again, "wouldn't it be nice" is the wrong -- or at least, highly suggestive and therefore biased -- question to ask. Of course it would be nice! Lots of luxuries would be "nice!" And everybody has a list of "nice" things that would help them do their jobs better, even if their jobs have nothing to do with copyright.

The real question is, why do you think you should be entitled to get all those benefits at society's expense?

Maybe my tone was off in the 'wouldn't it be nice' and so i wasn't clearly understood...

My intent was to point out that the idea that 'artists will produce no matter what' is a view point that privileges artists from economically secure backgrounds bc not only will these have the leisure to produce art but also the quality of the work will be improved through services. which leads to a feedback loop of which products and artists get good reviews and are purchased. and has been regularly debunked in the professional art world and art criticism world

The spigot might be on, but the water coming out might be dirty depending what filters you can afford to buy.

So what? Underprivileged people have all sorts of disadvantages. Underprivileged artists have no right to force society to subsidize their art in exactly the same way that underprivileged job-seekers have no right to force society to employ them or that underprivileged students have no right to force society to pay for their college.

If society chooses to do any of those things, it's because society has decided to do so for its own benefit -- not because the recipient of the subsidy is entitled to make claim on other people's property by inalienable natural law.

Don't get me wrong: I can totally agree with you that art with high production values is generally a "good thing" compared with art with low production values! What I disagree with is the idea that just because it's a good thing it should be enforced at gunpoint by taking rights away from everybody else.

[scrubbyfish]

ariapluscat, MrDelane, SwordGuy, Watchmaker, and others:

I just wanted to say how much I've appreciated your thoughts/posts! Despite there being some...stuff to wade through, I've found this thread profoundly clarifying, affirming, heartening, and encouraging. It also makes me see the value, and perhaps need, for me to finally get involved in a writers group and writers union. I'd been floating around solo all these decades. Several of your posts feel brain-changing for me. I'm going to print some of them out and stick them to my physical wall, next to my page of quotes by Gaiman, Stoppard, and so on.

There have only ever been two posts I've printed from the forum. I guess it makes sense that some from you guys would suddenly triple that :)

Thanks for bravely sharing!

[ariapluscat]

ariapluscat, MrDelane, SwordGuy, Watchmaker, and others:

I just wanted to say how much I've appreciated your thoughts/posts! Despite there being some...stuff to wade through, I've found this thread profoundly clarifying, affirming, heartening, and encouraging. It also makes me see the value, and perhaps need, for me to finally get involved in a writers group and writers union. I'd been floating around solo all these decades. Several of your posts feel brain-changing for me. I'm going to print some of them out and stick them to my physical wall, next to my page of quotes by Gaiman, Stoppard, and so on.

There have only ever been two posts I've printed from the forum. I guess it makes sense that some from you guys would suddenly triple that :)

Thanks for bravely sharing!

as long as you're not selling them ;)

[ariapluscat]

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay for an editor? Or pay an artist to create a cover for your book? Have you taken courses in writing, college courses or tutorials that had tuition? How many books have you read? Would you like to speak to authors who have published, maybe pay to go to a seminar or book signing so you can pick their brains? I think you're underestimating the cost that you have sunk in or the potential cost to elevate your practice.

Again, "wouldn't it be nice" is the wrong -- or at least, highly suggestive and therefore biased -- question to ask. Of course it would be nice! Lots of luxuries would be "nice!" And everybody has a list of "nice" things that would help them do their jobs better, even if their jobs have nothing to do with copyright.

The real question is, why do you think you should be entitled to get all those benefits at society's expense?

Maybe my tone was off in the 'wouldn't it be nice' and so i wasn't clearly understood...

My intent was to point out that the idea that 'artists will produce no matter what' is a view point that privileges artists from economically secure backgrounds bc not only will these have the leisure to produce art but also the quality of the work will be improved through services. which leads to a feedback loop of which products and artists get good reviews and are purchased. and has been regularly debunked in the professional art world and art criticism world

The spigot might be on, but the water coming out might be dirty depending what filters you can afford to buy.

So what? Underprivileged people have all sorts of disadvantages. Underprivileged artists have no right to force society to subsidize their art in exactly the same way that underprivileged job-seekers have no right to force society to employ them or that underprivileged students have no right to force society to pay for their college.

If society chooses to do any of those things, it's because society has decided to do so for its own benefit -- not because the recipient of the subsidy is entitled to make claim on other people's property by inalienable natural law.

Don't get me wrong: I can totally agree with you that art with high production values is generally a "good thing" compared with art with low production values! What I disagree with is the idea that just because it's a good thing it should be enforced at gunpoint by taking rights away from everybody else.

again, i'm not making an entitlement argument. i don't think i have in the thread. why do you think i am? i'm not clear...
i don't know anything about copyright...

[TheOldestYoungMan]

I agree with Jack.  Particularly with the internet available as a storefront now.  In the late 80's early 90's I can totally see where artists were between a rock and a hard place with media consolidation and capital barriers to entry into the marketplace.  Finding out how little of the purchase price for a book went to the author was one of the more horrifying facts I learned along the way.  I feel like it used to be very difficult to make it as an artist.

Compared to today at least.

Today:  If you produce quality stuff you can sell it.  You have an individual capability to let others try your stuff out and become fans and become customers like never before.  Whether it is art, music, literature, whatever creative thing you've got.  You think patronage is an old concept we don't have anymore?  You don't have to physically walk to every lord's house in the land begging for patronage anymore.  You can do it from your house.  In your underwear.  Today.  You can have a thousand patrons.  You don't have to play at the club, or rent out a theater.  You don't have to find customers with the leisure time for not just your performance, but also the travel time to get there and back.  There are millions more people who can afford to toss you some cash now vs. yesteryear.

It has never been easier to get your work out there.

And as such, there's a lot more competition.  It is good and bad, I look at some amazing stuff that's been produced in the last 15-20 years.  There's also a lot of rubbish that ordinarily would've never made it past the publisher's inbox.

And then I see the "struggling artist" talking about Hemingway like his work is at all relevant today.  Like his stuff doesn't read like absolute shit compared to the best work being produced today.

If you come out of the educational system thinking that the masturbatorial worship of "classics" entitles you to success then you are in for a shock and a reckoning.

All of the old gatekeepers that would have nodded sagely at your ramblings, the memorized tropes of yesteryear, proving you could walk the walk, are gone.  I mean, they are still there, still using their stranglehold on the physical storefront.

But that's a set of rules you just don't even need to be aware of.

If you produce quality content, you can sell it.

Claiming that the lack of buyers is somehow a flaw in the marketplace that needs to be corrected is absurd.  I would love to decorate my home with fine works of art, none of you has figured out how to sell them to me for a price I'm willing to pay...yet.

Innovators out there are getting close though.  If I was a more adventurous consumer of technology I'd probably already have 3d printed sculptures everywhere.

Oh, I'm supposed to visit your gallery in a particular city and pay ten thousand dollars for your sculpture?

Yea, keep shaking that fist at the universe that isn't "fair."

TL;DR:  You live in the absolute easiest time there has ever been to make a living as an artist.  You need to wake up to the reality of your present circumstances, take advantage of the opportunities that exist today, and if you really can't make it under these conditions: abandon "artist" as your profession.

[MrDelane]

They own nothing.

That's what I thought you might say, thanks for clarifying.
At least now we're getting to the root of our differing views.  I'm not sure how we can find much common ground, but at least I'm starting to better understand where you're coming from.

If I go down to the street corner, stand on a soapbox and start shouting at passers-by, do I "own" the words they hear?

I suppose that depends on whether or not they are your original lines of prose or if you're reading from someone else's work.

Do I have a right to force them to pay me for having listened to me? Furthermore, do I have a right to stop them from going home and telling their spouse about all the nonsense the lunatic on the street corner was raving about? Of course not.

Agreed, of course not.

And the same goes for any other sort of creative work.

Also agreed (assuming we're talking about you forcing your work on unsuspecting people as in the above example).

Copyright modifies that, of course.

I'm not sure that it does.  Copyright does not force anyone to pay for something, nor does it stop you from telling your spouse about a copyrighted work that you saw/heard or read.

I honestly don't see how or where anyone is forcing the public to pay for anything.

What do you think happens if someone infringes a copyright? They get sued or charged with a crime (depending on the circumstances), and if they lose the government enforces the judgement -- at the point of a gun, if necessary. The use of force is the defining feature of a government.

I still don't see how copyright is forcing the public to pay for anything.
Your example relies on someone infringing on a copyright.  No one is forced to infringe on a copyright.  Therefore, if someone is fined for copyright infringement it does not follow that the existence of copyrights forces the public to pay.  The infringement of copyright forces individuals to pay, but the mere existence of copyright neither forces nor deters the general public from paying for creative work.

Also, what you call "protecting how and where creative work can be used," I call "censorship."

Fair enough.  Obviously that goes back to our root disagreement about ownership.  I can clearly see how it would be viewed as censorship if you felt there was no ownership over creative work.  That makes sense - as you would expect I disagree, but I can see how you got there.  If I didn't believe a creative idea should be seen and treated as property I would feel the same way.

This thread began by asking what can be done to make the arts profitable.

Well, sure! But my point is that I object to the validity of the question itself because the arts have no inherent right to be profitable in the first place.

Fair enough, you're right.  I suppose the arts don't have a right to be profitable any more than any other career has a right to.  I may have been sloppy in my language when I said that - regardless if you go back and see my first few posts in this thread you'll see I disagree with the original question anyhow (for different reasons).  I don't think the arts have ever stopped being profitable, so there is no need to 'restore' them in some way.

I've at least implied that copyright should be abolished, if not said so outright. That's mainly because I'm trying to move the Overton window, but it makes it reasonable for people to reply to that argument.

Thanks for clarifying.  I'd never heard the term 'Overton Window' before.  Interesting concept, thanks for teaching me something new.

[MrDelane]

ariapluscat, MrDelane, SwordGuy, Watchmaker, and others:

I just wanted to say how much I've appreciated your thoughts/posts! Despite there being some...stuff to wade through, I've found this thread profoundly clarifying, affirming, heartening, and encouraging. It also makes me see the value, and perhaps need, for me to finally get involved in a writers group and writers union. I'd been floating around solo all these decades. Several of your posts feel brain-changing for me. I'm going to print some of them out and stick them to my physical wall, next to my page of quotes by Gaiman, Stoppard, and so on.

There have only ever been two posts I've printed from the forum. I guess it makes sense that some from you guys would suddenly triple that :)

Thanks for bravely sharing!

Thanks for the kind words.
But, if you print anything I said, do me a favor and stick it under your quotes from Gaiman and Stoppard.
Not sure I would feel comfortable being put on their level.

as long as you're not selling them ;)

That made my day.
:)

[Jack]

again, i'm not making an entitlement argument. i don't think i have in the thread. why do you think i am? i'm not clear...
i don't know anything about copyright...

You said that it would "be nice" for artists (including underprivileged ones) to get money to pay for services to increase the production quality of the works they create, and at least implied that you support copyright as a means to do so. Since copyright is an entitlement program -- it is a subsidy for artists funded by removing the works they create from the Public Domain -- supporting copyright means supporting entitlement programs for artists.

Copyright modifies that, of course.

I'm not sure that it does.  Copyright does not force anyone to pay for something, nor does it stop you from telling your spouse about a copyrighted work that you saw/heard or read.

Perhaps instead of "telling about" I should have used the word "reciting."

Your example relies on someone infringing on a copyright.  No one is forced to infringe on a copyright.

Then they are instead forced to be censored. There is inherently force involved either way.

The only way for there not to be force would be if anyone could make whatever speech they wanted -- including the copyrighted work, verbatim -- without suffering any consequence from the government acting on the copyright holder's behalf. In other words, if copyright were not enforced.

[MrDelane]

Then they are instead forced to be censored. There is inherently force involved either way.

Given your view that the owning of creative ideas is absurd, yes, I would agree completely with the above.
If creative ideas are not ownable property, then we can agree that copyrights are forcing censorship.

I just wanted to clarify that copyrights are not forcing the public to pay for artists' work, which seemed to be what you were saying earlier.

[Jack]

If I go down to the street corner, stand on a soapbox and start shouting at passers-by, do I "own" the words they hear?

I suppose that depends on whether or not they are your original lines of prose or if you're reading from someone else's work.

Do I have a right to force them to pay me for having listened to me? Furthermore, do I have a right to stop them from going home and telling their spouse about all the nonsense the lunatic on the street corner was raving about? Of course not.

Agreed, of course not.

And the same goes for any other sort of creative work.

Also agreed (assuming we're talking about you forcing your work on unsuspecting people as in the above example).

It's interesting that you felt the need to qualify with "forcing your work on unsuspecting people." If a person walking by stops to listen, do you think they suddenly owe the speaker compensation for having done so? What if they write down what is being said? What if they record audio or video? Since they have taken some positive action to indicate acceptance of receiving the work, they are no longer "forced..."

Then they are instead forced to be censored. There is inherently force involved either way.

Given your view that the owning of creative ideas is absurd, yes, I would agree completely with the above.
If creative ideas are not ownable property, then we can agree that copyrights are forcing censorship.

I just wanted to clarify that copyrights are not forcing the public to pay for artists' work, which seemed to be what you were saying earlier.

Copyright has a bunch of different consequences, and it's sometimes hard to account for all the different facets in the same post.

Copyright also temporarily removes works from the Public Domain (or at least, fails to add them to it when they otherwise would be), which lowers the value of the Public Domain for everyone. Is that lowering of value equivalent to the public "paying" a "cost?" I would argue that such a cost is at least as tangible as the MAFIAA's "infringement = lost sale" theory, if not more so.

Maybe that cost is an either/or choice compared to considering it censorship, or maybe the two concepts are different ways of describing the same thing -- maybe the act of being censored is itself a cost the public is forced to pay, albeit measured in something other than dollars.

[MrDelane]

It's interesting that you felt the need to qualify with "forcing your work on unsuspecting people." If a person walking by stops to listen, do you think they suddenly owe the speaker compensation for having done so? What if they write down what is being said? What if they record audio or video? Since they have taken some positive action to indicate acceptance of receiving the work, they are no longer "forced..."

My qualifier was in response to your comment about it being the same with any creative work, so I assumed we were moving out of the realm of your example of the person on the street corner.
I felt the need to qualify because in some instances, yes, people are forced to pay if they choose to listen to an artist (such as to get access into a live concert venue).
They are not forced to buy a ticket... but if they choose to go, they must buy a ticket (i.e. if you want to listen to this particular artist live at this particular venue then you are 'forced' to pay a fee).

Given that a few of my earlier comments were picked apart for sloppy language when I spoke too casually, I was just trying to cover my bases.

Copyright has a bunch of different consequences, and it's sometimes hard to account for all the different facets in the same post.

Copyright also temporarily removes works from the Public Domain (or at least, fails to add them to it when they otherwise would be), which lowers the value of the Public Domain for everyone. Is that lowering of value equivalent to the public "paying" a "cost?" I would argue that such a cost is at least as tangible as the MAFIAA's "infringement = lost sale" theory, if not more so.

Maybe that cost is an either/or choice compared to considering it censorship, or maybe the two concepts are different ways of describing the same thing -- maybe the act of being censored is itself a cost the public is forced to pay, albeit measured in something other than dollars.

Sure, I could agree with almost all of that.
As was said earlier, it is a balance of cost and benefit between society and the creator (with costs and benefits for each of them).

When you said earlier that people were forced to pay, I had assumed in that context that you were referring to dollars.
Sorry if I understood.

Of course there is a cost, as there is with everything, there is also a benefit.
We simply seem to disagree on where that balance is.

[scrubbyfish]

as long as you're not selling them ;)

:)))))

But, if you print anything I said, do me a favor and stick it under your quotes from Gaiman and Stoppard.

Duly noted ;)
Though, they might say the same thing about your guys'. I'd have to keep moving each page down a notch, in turns. Hmmm...

[GuitarStv]

Several of your posts feel brain-changing for me. I'm going to print some of them out and stick them to my physical wall, next to my page of quotes by Gaiman, Stoppard, and so on.

I'm sure that you got permission for those quotes that you've printed out.  Otherwise you'll have to wait to post those quotes until well after your death to avoid copyright infringing.

:P

[MrDelane]

Copyright also temporarily removes works from the Public Domain (or at least, fails to add them to it when they otherwise would be), which lowers the value of the Public Domain for everyone.

This is something I've been struggling with since this thread began.
It's an interesting conundrum - because while keeping ideas from the public domain may lower the value of the public domain overall (or, more accurately, fail to raise the value of the public domain), I can't help but feel that adding a creative idea to the public domain tends to lower the value of that specific creative idea (both financially and artistically).  While the value of the public domain overall may get a small bump in value, the value of the individual idea added has now been diluted.

I think the creative economy works much like our financial economy - and when we have a glut of ideas in the public domain (much like when we print new money to put into circulation), the value of each one drops.

I'm not sure I'm explaining my thoughts clearly enough (or that this is even relevant to the discussion at hand, just something I find interesting).

[MrDelane]

I respect your opinions and thank you for the fun discussion.
Cheers!

Right back at ya.
:)

[SwordGuy]

I also see a need for balance between benefiting the creator and benefiting the public.

I think it's extremely difficult to create a physical invention, for example.  And I think that should be protected from others copying it.  For a reasonable period.  Then I think people should be able to modify and improve on it, for the benefit of everyone.

Does it suck for the Wright Brothers' descendants that airplanes are no longer protected intellectual property (or whoever managed to patent it first)?  Sure.  But it's also allowed us to go to the moon, because of improvements and iterations.

So, after you've owned your rental property for 10 or so years, I should be able to come in and take it over?  After all, it would benefit the community if I made improvements to it.    An improved property would benefit everyone.

I've written 50+ conference papers, articles and stories.   I've also written a book.   A book is orders of magnitude harder.  It took a year of my off-hours time and a year of my co-author's time.

We were each paid up to $1 per copy.   Note the "up to" in that sentence.  $40 retail price, $2 for the author.

And we're stealing from society by not giving away our work just because someone else would rather profit from it instead?  What "right" do they have to profit from our work if they didn't do the work themselves or pay someone else to do it on their behalf?

I will agree that corporate held copyright has been grossly extended beyond the original intent of the law.

I'll accept that society might benefit from confiscating our work.   

Unlike confiscating land, where the government (used to) have to use it for public benefit, and (still) actually pay you something for the land, the government just takes intellectual property.  All of it.  Automatically.  No court, no payment, nothing.

But claiming someone who creates a work of art has zero property right in it is just plain wrong.  It is morally and ethically wrong, and - thankfully - still legally incorrect.   As it should be.

[arebelspy]

I also see a need for balance between benefiting the creator and benefiting the public.

But claiming someone who creates a work of art has zero property right in it is just plain wrong.

How did I claim that?  You literally quoted a sentence where I talk about balance. How is "balance" equivalent to "zero property right"?  Zero is one extreme.  In perpetuity (e.g. FOREVER, copyright never expires) is the other extreme.  I'm saying balance.

I'm not even going to bother to try and address the strawmen in your post that led up to this ridiculous claim/conclusion.  Please don't quote me and then attack things I didn't say.  It's called putting words in my mouth, and I don't appreciate it.

[GuitarStv]

I think the creative economy works much like our financial economy - and when we have a glut of ideas in the public domain (much like when we print new money to put into circulation), the value of each one drops.

I have to categorically disagree with this.

Ideas aren't a commodity like flour or iron.  They don't work the same way on the marketplace.  More ideas tend to inspire more varied works.  Look at the state of music in the 1900s.  You've got your opera, your classical music, and your ragtime.  Then look at the state of music in the 1930s where you still have opera, classical music, and ragtime . . . but all of a sudden there's this explosion of new stuff from Jazz and Blues.  Rather than devaluing music, it created more interest in it.


While there's a whole lot of hard work involved in creating, having a hit song, book, or movie often includes a large component of luck too.  When more ideas are available it means that you'll be able to hear better music on the whole.  That's the whole reason for copyright.  While some will be happy to work at music and give it away for free, copyright ensures that the large number of people who aren't willing to do that will get heard as well.

[MrDelane]

I have to categorically disagree with this.

Ideas aren't a commodity like flour or iron.  They don't work the same way on the marketplace.  More ideas tend to inspire more varied works.

You may be right - I was just thinking out loud about something that's been in the back of my mind.  Though, I guess maybe I'm off base.  I would agree that ideas aren't commodities, and that wasn't what I was trying to say (and I'm probably not being clear given that what I'm thinking about isn't exactly clear in my head).

But I will say that what you're talking about seems to be slightly different.  You're talking about ideas inspiring other new ideas, in which case it wouldn't matter if the original idea is in the public domain or not.

I was referring to the financial and artistic value of a specific individual idea in and of itself as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole (for example, the value of 'Star Wars' as a copyrighted work as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole if 'Star Wars' were added to it).  My point was that the artistic and financial value of 'Star Wars' seems greater while it is protected by copyright, and that it seems as if the value of the public domain overall would rise a fraction of that value if 'Star Wars' were added to it.

Like I said, it may not be relevant to this conversation, just thinking out loud.

[ender]

I was referring to the financial and artistic value of a specific individual idea in and of itself as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole (for example, the value of 'Star Wars' as a copyrighted work as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole if 'Star Wars' were added to it).  My point was that the artistic and financial value of 'Star Wars' seems greater while it is protected by copyright, and that it seems as if the value of the public domain overall would rise a fraction of that value if 'Star Wars' were added to it.

The flip side of this is that without copyright, there's nothing stopping people from polluting the idea.

Star Wars is a good example of this for me personally. The Expanded Universe had a lot of books in it (and I've read/own nearly all of them), but they were mostly internally consistent because they were using the Star Wars brand.

The value of those books would have been dramatically less to me if anyone could invent whatever stories they wanted within the Star Wars universe and sell them.

Whether or not this is a net benefit? Eh. But to me personally? I benefit from Star Wars not being "open to everyone to use because the overall quantity of books is considerably higher quality and more cohesive.

[MrDelane]

I was referring to the financial and artistic value of a specific individual idea in and of itself as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole (for example, the value of 'Star Wars' as a copyrighted work as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole if 'Star Wars' were added to it).  My point was that the artistic and financial value of 'Star Wars' seems greater while it is protected by copyright, and that it seems as if the value of the public domain overall would rise a fraction of that value if 'Star Wars' were added to it.

The flip side of this is that without copyright, there's nothing stopping people from polluting the idea.

Star Wars is a good example of this for me personally. The Expanded Universe had a lot of books in it (and I've read/own nearly all of them), but they were mostly internally consistent because they were using the Star Wars brand.

The value of those books would have been dramatically less to me if anyone could invent whatever stories they wanted within the Star Wars universe and sell them.

Whether or not this is a net benefit? Eh. But to me personally? I benefit from Star Wars not being "open to everyone to use because the overall quantity of books is considerably higher quality and more cohesive.

Exactly.  And while the value of the public domain as a whole might increase a bit if Star Wars were added to it, the value of Star Wars in and of itself would drop significantly as soon as it was in the public domain.

I'm starting to think that while we've been talking about this issue as a balance between society as a whole and an individual creator... it's really more an issue of a balance between creators as a whole and an individual creator, with society as a whole (the potential consumers) actually having potential benefits and costs on both sides of it.  And what complicates this even more is that every one of those groups potentially overlaps the others.

[Jack]

Copyright also temporarily removes works from the Public Domain (or at least, fails to add them to it when they otherwise would be), which lowers the value of the Public Domain for everyone.

This is something I've been struggling with since this thread began.
It's an interesting conundrum - because while keeping ideas from the public domain may lower the value of the public domain overall (or, more accurately, fail to raise the value of the public domain), I can't help but feel that adding a creative idea to the public domain tends to lower the value of that specific creative idea (both financially and artistically).  While the value of the public domain overall may get a small bump in value, the value of the individual idea added has now been diluted.

I think the creative economy works much like our financial economy - and when we have a glut of ideas in the public domain (much like when we print new money to put into circulation), the value of each one drops.

I'm not sure I'm explaining my thoughts clearly enough (or that this is even relevant to the discussion at hand, just something I find interesting).

I have to categorically disagree with this.

Ideas aren't a commodity like flour or iron.  They don't work the same way on the marketplace.  More ideas tend to inspire more varied works.  Look at the state of music in the 1900s.  You've got your opera, your classical music, and your ragtime.  Then look at the state of music in the 1930s where you still have opera, classical music, and ragtime . . . but all of a sudden there's this explosion of new stuff from Jazz and Blues.  Rather than devaluing music, it created more interest in it.

Exactly! I tried to explain this earlier (in my caveman-rock analogy), but I apparently did a poor job of it: far from being "devalued" by entering the Public Domain, an idea's value is multiplied many times over by it! This is because the value of an idea is directly proportional to the number of people who get to experience it. An idea that remains nothing more than a passing thought in somebody's head has almost zero value, while an idea that becomes a cultural cornerstone has immense value.

(That's completely independent of any a-priori notion of "artistic merit", by the way.)

I was referring to the financial and artistic value of a specific individual idea in and of itself as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole (for example, the value of 'Star Wars' as a copyrighted work as compared to the value of the public domain as a whole if 'Star Wars' were added to it).  My point was that the artistic and financial value of 'Star Wars' seems greater while it is protected by copyright, and that it seems as if the value of the public domain overall would rise a fraction of that value if 'Star Wars' were added to it.

The work's value to the copyright holder is very likely greater while the work is copyrighted, but the work's value to everyone added together is almost certainly greater when the work is Public Domain. Maybe George Lucas loses, but society wins.

The flip side of this is that without copyright, there's nothing stopping people from polluting the idea.

Star Wars is a good example of this for me personally. The Expanded Universe had a lot of books in it (and I've read/own nearly all of them), but they were mostly internally consistent because they were using the Star Wars brand.

The value of those books would have been dramatically less to me if anyone could invent whatever stories they wanted within the Star Wars universe and sell them.

So you're arguing that it's impossible for unlicensed fan-fiction to be good? (Or that all licensed works are good just because they're allegedly approved by George Lucas?) I can't see how you could possibly believe that, given the myriad counterexamples.

[ender]

So you're arguing that it's impossible for unlicensed fan-fiction to be good? (Or that all licensed works are good just because they're allegedly approved by George Lucas?) I can't see how you could possibly believe that, given the myriad counterexamples.

How is that what I said?

[Watchmaker]

So you're arguing that it's impossible for unlicensed fan-fiction to be good? (Or that all licensed works are good just because they're allegedly approved by George Lucas?) I can't see how you could possibly believe that, given the myriad counterexamples.

I don't see where he said anything like "it's impossible for" or "all works are good just because".  I find your position interesting Jack, but your hyperbole and aggressive style makes it harder for me to engage with it.  Just FYI.

And I knew exactly what that link was going to be to without looking. :)

Avoiding pollution of an idea is an interesting point, to me.  Would existing business practice laws be enough to prevent this?  If star wars was public domain, some entity (Lucas, or now Disney) could say "I'm going to create a single continuity, books that fit within the continuity can put my seal of approval on their cover and you'll know they are part of my canon".  Competitors couldn't just use the seal of approval-- that would be fraud--  so you could have your continuity and also a plethora of other books published, some of which might be as good or better than those.  Does that prevent the pollution?

What about some popular children's book series (Harry Potter).  Without copyright, the...ahem, adult versions of the stories which already exist would likely be much more readily available.  If there was 3-4 porn versions of Harry Potter for every orginal book, surely that would have damaged the series popularity with kids?  Which arguably would damage the public good.