Arrrrrrrrrr! Internet Piracy and YOU

[Tages]

All other things being equal, people will acquire things for the lowest possible expense.

If the amount people are willing to pay for something is zero, its actual value as a commodity is zero, no matter how much hard work went into it.

All the moralizing in the universe will not change this.

Best to figure out a new way to profit and thrive than cling to a sinking ship. Because the technology is sinking the ship, and fast.

[CutterMike]

All other things being equal, people will acquire things for the lowest possible expense.

If the amount people are willing to pay for something is zero, its actual value as a commodity is zero, no matter how much hard work went into it.

All the moralizing in the universe will not change this.

Best to figure out a new way to profit and thrive than cling to a sinking ship. Because the technology is sinking the ship, and fast.

So, what IS the difference between cherry pie and cherry sludge? I never did get an answer.

[Black Atom]

Fact is: scarcity matters. When that metric changes, so does the nature of the issue itself.

Fact is: downloading free shit in and of itself doesn't actually hurt the producer of the art, because it doesn't actually reduce the amount of the item in question, or deprive the artist of anything. Ignoring this rests upon the unsupported assumption that if the downloader didn't make the download the s/he would be spending money, instead of just not using it at all. It's the same sort of logical fallacy as "A vote for the Green Party is a vote for the REPUBLICANS!", it reaches an artificial conclusion by arbitrarily excluding all other possibilities.

Fact is: the way things are, musicians, filmmakers and artists already get only a tiny percentage of the money people spend on their work, so that is massively inflating the price and restricting access to consumers, all to make a very few people at the tippy top rich.

Fact is: technology as it is going, you have absolutely no way to enforce your point of view. Change or die.

I'm missing something. Scarcity only matters when talking about tangible goods. Intangible sellable assets have been around since before iTunes. If someone steals, say, a company's patented manufacturing process, that company can still sell the process but its value is effectively decreased. I think that's the same idea at work with this whole piracy thing.

I mean, not that I disagree in general with the whole piracy thing. I think, ideally, a situation where artists can sell their intellectual property directly to consumers would be the best thing. But this idea doesn't go away.

[40footwolf]

There's a point mentioned earlier that I think is a good one: If it was something I wasn't going to buy in the first place than who cares? Nothing physical was "stolen" and I wouldn't have paid money for it anyway, PLUS there's a really good chance that if I like it I'll go and buy more things like it in the future.

It's honestly not a completely black and white issue and I don't get why people have to treat it that way.

[Crowforge]

They should just give away the single and that'd cut downloads by a lot I think. Also there should be more game demos.

[Gail Simone]

1) Who said speech wasn't work?
2) Who said people won't be paid for their work?

Haven't you noticed? There are people giving their stuff away online who are still making a living off it.

That ought to tell you something.

The real issue here -- and not with you, obviously; you've got skin in the game -- is a lot of fans who dream of making Springsteen bucks with their imaginary projects.

Well, Springsteen bucks are probably as over as making a million from sub-prime mortgages.

The entire economy is shifting from the logic of late capitalism to... well, something else. I'm not dumb enough to pull a Fukuyama on it. But something's happening, and it's up to us to make a go of it.

And we'd better, because Marvel and DC could easily be out of business soon, because LCS's will be out of business soon, just like small bookstores. There will still be a market for unique art objects like limited editions, but everyone will be going digital soon enough.

And the issue of people sharing files isn't going to go away any time soon either; in fact, ever. And why should it? That's how every kid in the world has gotten their musical education since the invention of the cassette player. And the sky didn't fall then, either.

So what I'm saying is, if we want the audience to put its money where its greedy little mouth is, the carrot is going to be better than the stick.

But at the end of the day, where I really want us to be going -- and partially as a consequence of this -- is moving to a more equitable society that isn't based around the almighty dollar, where people in your situation don't have to be so scared of not bringing in the case.

It's hard to see getting there from here, but not impossible.


Blah blah fucking bullshit blah.

[Gail Simone]

All other things being equal, people will acquire things for the lowest possible expense.

If the amount people are willing to pay for something is zero, its actual value as a commodity is zero, no matter how much hard work went into it.

All the moralizing in the universe will not change this.

Best to figure out a new way to profit and thrive than cling to a sinking ship. Because the technology is sinking the ship, and fast.

Thieves and the massively entitled are sinking the ship. The technology to kill everyone you know has existed since the invention of the pointed stick, and most people don't kill.

For christ's sake, just admit you have no problem stealing from artists and move on with it. Everything else is making me want to throw up from the smell of bullshit.

[Crowforge]

Good thing you aren't a farmer then.

[Reverend Smooth]

Might get taken seriously if she was by some of the posters in this topic, since it's not like she's got a real job.

[Crowforge]

Might get taken seriously if she was by some of the posters in this topic, since it's not like she's got a real job.
That could have been worded better. Man if only we had a writer...

[Gail Simone]

Good thing you aren't a farmer then.

I was raised on a farm.

I'm used to bad smells.

I'm just sick of these same dumbass excuses. Just say it, "I like to steal from artists."

Everything else is a crock of shit.

[Reverend Smooth]

That could have been worded better. Man if only we had a writer...
I'm just the colorist, mans.

[Crowforge]

I'm just the colorist, mans.
Hey, that's cool I suck at that.

***
You know what I miss guys? Going to a little record shop where the guy could tell you what you were looking for just from you sounding out a poorly remembered riff (no man it's na nu nu nu nunu na nuuuuu! I got that in the back). I'd hang out all day and walk out with two cd only one any good and a labyrinth sound track bought as a lark for my friend, who turned out to really like it. You couldn't steal that.

[Ghost]

Personally, I think this is a great thread. Both sides are making really good points and I honestly can't decide which one I agree with more.

Stimulating stuff, in other words.

[Tages]

So, what IS the difference between cherry pie and cherry sludge? I never did get an answer.
That's because it's an irrelevant distraction.

All that effects the commodity value of a thing is what people are willing to give up/trade to get it. The amount of work put into it is an incidental detail. It's one we put a lot of emotional attachment into as producers but it doesn't actually effect the discussed metric.

(Yes, I said "we." I'm a filmmaker. The first person to imply that I have no idea what it means to work hard on creating art will earn a hearty middle finger raised in his or her general direction. Not directed at you, Mike. Just heading that nasty one off at the pass.)

Again, if I take a peach and work hard to render it inedible it doesn't make it more valuable because I put more work in than if I'd just picked it and handed it to you.

And a song, or a story, isn't a scarce object, like a peach or a cherry pie is.

I'm missing something. Scarcity only matters when talking about tangible goods. Intangible sellable assets have been around since before iTunes. If someone steals, say, a company's patented manufacturing process, that company can still sell the process but its value is effectively decreased. I think that's the same idea at work with this whole piracy thing.

Good point about the patent.

The value of the process itself is still determined by how it effects peoples' ability to accumulate the most while giving up the least.

[Tages]

For christ's sake, just admit you have no problem stealing from artists and move on with it. Everything else is making me want to throw up from the smell of bullshit.

Funny, I can recall mentioning earlier in the thread that I don't actually download free crap I could pay money for.

Given that I'm an artist, I think I would have a problem with people stealing from me.

It must be that I have a good reason for saying that the way you're putting it is wrongheaded, then.

[Tages]

Blah blah fucking bullshit blah.

You realize that if anyone else typed what you just did they'd be called out for trolling, right?

Abuse makes a poor foundation for a discussion.

[Laurence]

I enjoy stealing from artists.

[Crowforge]

I enjoy stealing from artists.
Hehehe, I knew someone would say it. I've been up all night waiting though.

[Corrina]

You realize that if anyone else typed what you just did they'd be called out for trolling, right?


Well, see, Gail sold her intangible commodity that is perhaps worth zero, depending on who decides, and thus gained enough readers to have her own message board......

[Crowforge]

Well, see, Gail sold her intangible commodity that is perhaps worth zero, depending on who decides, and thus gained enough readers to have her own message board......
That doesn't explain half the other boards I've been on.

[Tages]

Well, see, Gail sold her intangible commodity that is perhaps worth zero, depending on who decides, and thus gained enough readers to have her own message board......

Clever.

I prefer clever to abusive.

[CutterMike]

That's because it's an irrelevant distraction.

All that effects the commodity value of a thing is what people are willing to give up/trade to get it. The amount of work put into it is an incidental detail. It's one we put a lot of emotional attachment into as producers but it doesn't actually effect the discussed metric.
(...)

So are people willing to pay more for your film stock before you've exposed it or afterwards?

If they are willing to pay more for it after it has been exposed and edited, then why?

It's still the same stock. The only difference is that labor has been added in the act of providing content.

Saying that the labor added -- and specifically, the quality of the labor in terms of making a desirable product -- is irrelevant seems to be ignoring blatant fact in favor of the circularity you used the las time this was mentioned: "People will pay more for it because it's more valuable because people will pay more for it because..."

You completely ignore WHY it is valuable (that is, why it is able to be valued) the VALUE is in the arrangement of the parts into a desirable whole. Labor, per se, is -- I will agree, here, and have said so elsewhere in this thread -- is not enough to add value. Labor which makes something fit for purpose DOES, and to ignore that in calculating why something is valuable is just ignoring simple fact.

Ignoring the arrangement of the materials, and the labor that went into making that arrangement desirable should mean that your final film should be worth LESS than the raw film stock since, by exposing it, you've rendered it unfit for anyone else to use.

[Cam63]

Clever.

I prefer clever to abusive.

Gail understandably has strong views on the matter, so I'm not surprised she's getting irritated.

[LewisH]

when if fell like listening to a certain song i can just go to YouTube and play it from there. I don't even own an iPod.

On the comic book side. I bought those 40 years of X-Men, Fantastic Four,
and Avengers legitimately for about 40 bucks each when they were originally released. It saves me space and let's me read a specific story arc without
having to dig through stacks of old comics. I don't think DC has done anything like that so I've bought Showcase volumes for that

Dan Didio said at Bristol that he hated the idea of waiting for the trade because he felt it meant the stories weren't good enough to read now. My feeling is if the story isn't worth waiting for the trade than that means it isn't a very good story.
If the only thing it has going for it is some big mystery or shock than there is no reason to buy it at all.

[Gail Simone]

Funny, I can recall mentioning earlier in the thread that I don't actually download free crap I could pay money for.

Given that I'm an artist, I think I would have a problem with people stealing from me.

It must be that I have a good reason for saying that the way you're putting it is wrongheaded, then.

It must be?

What a weird conclusion. Someone finds your position odious and so of COURSE it must be that you're right.

Please.

[Gail Simone]

Clever.

I prefer clever to abusive.


Oh, for the love of Christ.

Regarding your email, Tages?

THIS is why.

So now you know.

[Rev. Calibos]

And there is where we're not talking about the same thing.

The start of the thread was about freely downloading media files, not purchasing retail packages.

If we both purchased a retail package for $20 we both have paid (some pittance) to the people whose labor produced the item that we desired. There is some semblance of balance -- we all received some value from our exchange.

However, in the case that started the thread, the creator has provided labor which produced something that you desired -- the experience of utilizing the result of that labor when, where, and how you wish -- but that creator has received no equivalent value from you.

Who determines that value though?


Let's take a look at it from the framework of the op.

You and I both download a song for dollar.

I'm thrilled with my purchase and, being honest, I would have easily paid $5 for it.

It's that good.

So to me, the value of that song is more than $1.

You.....not so much, lol.

You spent a dollar and you are just not happy with your purchase. For whatever reason you feel that it wasn't worth a dollar. The enjoyment, the pleasure you received from your purchase was decidedly less than $1.


So in this situation, I've robbed the artist because I found much more than one dollar's worth in the song, you, on the other hand, got screwed because you got back less than you put in.

In your situation, sadly, many would say 'Tough s**t....you get what you pay for....' but that's not what we're considering here now.

The artist was not fairly compensated for the value of his work in our example. You overpaid him and I underpaid him.

Would it be fair to receive your money back and for me to mail him a check for the remaining $4?

Now, in THAT case -- as I've mentioned previously -- the full retail price of the package is immaterial, since you are not utilizing the services of packers, drivers, etc., nor are you paying to support a bunch of corporate drones and thugs, so any further comments on whether one of us felt that that was a fair price and the other doesn't is immaterial and will be ignored.

HOWEVER, if we had each downloaded that Muppet album and you feel that you enjoyed listening to it as much as you say, then paying the artists the whole $20 would be a really nice gesture. I might only appreciate the value $5s' worth. But that's just me.

The point is that, if BOTH parties to a transaction (supplier/recipient) find sufficient value (compensation/enjoyment) then the transaction is a (reasonably) balanced one. If one party feels that the exchange is unbalanced then that party will be less inclined to engage in a transaction with the other party in future.

But the thing is at this point it sounds like 'well, at least he got paid SOMETHING....' which isn't the underlying theme of the discussion.

The issue, at least to me that is, is that Artist Joe produces work that consumers find value in.

Artist Joe sells his creative output for $X and makes a comfortable living off of it.

Yet if I download his work (paying nothing) or if I enjoy his work so much that, in a way, spending $X is a ripoff (as I'd spend far more than that for his work) in both instances Artist Joe is getting screwed.

It's just the severity of the screwing that's up in the air really.


Again, it's just my impression mind you, but the debate really isn't about 'paying Joe fairly' it's more about 'paying Joe something...', and of course there's a world of difference between 'something' and 'fairly'.

The problem, as I see it, comes when one party forces what the other party considers an inequitable deal and refuses to allow the other NOT to participate in it.

This is the classic "offer that you cannot refuse."

This, IMO, is the case when someone downloads a file that the creator has not intentionally made available for free downloading. That person effectively says "I want the use of the result of your labor under any conditions I choose, you will receive no compensation for that use and you have no option but to accept it or never do business again."

Or, let's say that Artist Joe's new album is out in stores nationwide for $20.

You buy it immediately because you really like his work and spend the full $20, the price that Artist Joe and the studio feels is the appropriate price for his work.

Me? I wait. I wait and wait and wait and wait and (and it goes on like this!) until I can find it at the used CD store down the block.

That's actually how I get most of my music, used.

So I end up spending $5 for the CD, a quarter of the 'actual' worth, the worth determined by Artist Joe and the record label.

So you and I have the exact same product. Mine's used but it still plays brilliantly.

You paid full price, I paid 1/4 of that full price, the price determined as 'fair' by the artist and the label.

The artist intended that CD to be purchased for $20, I paid $5. Did I rip him off?

Barring the lack of broken kneecaps, this smacks of a Vito Corleone deal, to me.

Yes, the used CD store is chock full of 'offers we can't refuse', lol.


Now, some may say that they are not setting those conditions, but let's break it up into its parts and maybe you can tell me where I'm misunderstanding.
"I want the use of the result of your labor under any conditions I choose,"
If you download a file that contains an instance of the result of someone's creative labor and retain it on your computer, music player, ebook reader, whatever -- do you have use of the output of that person's work present and available for your use or redistribution at your convenience?

Yes.


The CD you bought at full price at FYE and the CD I bought for 1/4 of that price used, they still operate the same, yes?

We can both burn the CD's into our computers and then put it onto to our MP3 players for our convenience, present and available whenever we want.

Yet we found different value for his labor, so, again, it just breaks down to 'well, at least he got paid something...' which is a far cry from being paid 'fairly'.

I think that the obvious answer is yes; that person's labor is now represented, at least in part, by the instance that you have available do do whatever you want with, for as long as you want it.
"...you will receive no compensation for that use..."
Well, if you have not paid the creator for the download that you have of his work, then it seems that -- pretty much by definition -- he has received no compensation from you. And promises of "but I might be able to turn somebody else on to your work," is functionally equivalent to "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today," just without even the promise of payment on Tuesday, but only of possible recompense of some sort, someday, maybe.

Yet there is no 'someday' or 'maybe'.

Without downloading that song from Dimmu Borgir I never would have gone out and picked up all of their albums.

Was Dimmu Borgir helped by this or were they hurt by this?

No one (I'm pretty sure) is saying that downloading helps every artist, but we do have to acknowledge that there are some instances where downloading has actually helped the aritst as it helped Dimmu Borgir in this example.


"...and you have no option but to accept it or never do business again."
Well, the only options that creators appear to have in the current environment are:
Accept that they will be giving the result of their labor away for free, since they have no control over what people do with it once it leaves the vault in their studio;

Hope that enough users will decide that the creator's labor provides them sufficient value (as defined in previous posts -- enjoyment, appreciation, etc.) that they will choose to pay some amount for their use of that labor or will buy physical manifestations of that labor (CDs, DVDs, books, etc.) at a later date -- in which latter case, unless the creator is copying, packaging and shipping his own merchandise, he's heading back in the general direction of the media conglomerate environment that we already agreed was a less than perfect arrangement for him, or;

He never produces anything for public consumption again, since ANY public release of his output puts him back in the situations noted above.

To me, and to the person whose labor produced something that you apparently feel had sufficient value to you that you would not accept NOT having it, this seems like a pretty shitty transaction.


But again, this falls back into 'well, at least he's getting paid something....'

He's either getting ripped off or he isn't. If I find that a CD is worth $20 yet am only willing to spend a quarter of that at the used CD store have I not just ripped him off?

I don't accept NOT having it but I'm not willing to pay the price that accurately reflects what they consider the value of the output to be.

I don't accept NOT having the result of his labor but I'm not willing to accept the pre-determined price either.

Instead, I pay 1/4 of that pre-determined price.

Whether I go to the CD store or I download, either way I'm screwing the artist really, it's just a question of paying him peanuts or nothing.

[Rev. Calibos]

(I know that I said that I was going to ignore the 'retail package" issue that you used in your post, but I'm too tired/lazy to edit down the text, so lets just pretend that you're talking about downloaded music.)

This is what I've been saying all along -- if you download something that has emotional/entertainment/whatever value to YOU sufficient that you want to keep it around for you use -- Yeah... send the guy a check for what it's worth TO YOU, or PayPal™ him if he's set up for it (although I hear that THAT's something of a rip-off, too...) but compensate him SOMETHING until you feel that the scales are balanced.

If enough people do that, the creator can afford the time and energy to produce more work and a viable exchange cycle is established. If not enough people do that, the guy goes off to find a way to pay his bills and the users never see any more of the stuff that they claim to like.

...and several years later, somebody starts a thread asking "What ever happened to 'X'? Funny that he never put out a second album...!"*

If you don't feel that the downloaded item has any value to you, then hit that "Delete" key and owe nothing. You are not obligated to pay for something that has no value to you, but if it has sufficient value TO YOU that you want to keep it around, then it seems to me that the polite thing -- and, in the long run, the thing that works to YOUR advantage, because it encourages the creator that you already know you like to make more stuff -- is to participate in an exchange of value with the person who created it.


I wish the world was more polite, sadly that isn't the case, lol.

The thing is though, let's say that you've changed my mind and I resolve to NEVER download anything ever again......but instead I go to that used CD place down the block to buy all of my CD's.

Am I not just doing the same thing that I was doing when I was downloading?

Whether I'm spending:

1) Nothing for the product

or

2) A fraction of what the product is actually worth

am I not screwing the artist by not giving him fair compensation for the result of his labor, the labor that has sufficient value to me that I want to keep around?


I mean, if I like Artist Joe and am a fan of his work, if Artist Joe and Artist Joe Records (a a division of the Tokasagi Corporation!) decide that his album is worth $20 and I go to that used CD store and pick it up for $5 am I not completely ripping him off?

I think it's totally worth $20 but I picked it up for $5. It that that much better than $0?




__________
* I'm sorry -- I seem to recall being accused of "guilt-tripping" or some such on this thread, but if we are going to admit that all of the options for seeing that the creator of value is compensated for his work lie with the consumer, and that many of those consumers don't believe that they have any reason to compensate that creator (while enjoying the benefits of his labor), then we really have to accept that the result of those two facts is likely to be the disappearance of all but the most mainstream acts. This is not "guilt-tripping"; this is a likely extrapolation of current facts.

I don't think you were guilt tripping, lol, but as far as the 'disappearance' of all but the mainstream acts that really isn't going to happen.

When radio debuted folks could listen to music in their homes.

When television debuted folks didin't have to go to the theater to see a movie.

When technology changes there's always going to be that fear that 'it's going to cause things to disappear!) but that isn't always the case.

Since the debut of television the movie industry had done pretty well, no?

I'm actually kind of suprised that theaters didn't vanish because, really, what person in their right mind would sit in a room with dozens of strangers and pay outrageous prices for food when they can sit in the comfort of their own homes and do the same thing for free, right?

But they're still around, doing well and will do so for some time.

Same thing with music. Folks will be introduced to the new technology, adapt, thrive and move on to the next rotation.

Recall that image I found from the the UK about piracy in the 80's:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bc/Home_taping_is_killing_music.png/180px-Home_taping_is_killing_music.png


Were they right? Was music in any real danger?

Or did music survive?

[Typo Lad]

'Music" in that case is the "Music Industry" and no, it's still alive. Because for everyone who taped, there were hundreds who went out and bought actual tapes with better quality recordings.

The music industry will survive, but it does have to change to reflect reality. iTunes & Amazon are a nice start.

[snarkbunny]

Interestingly Rev. Calibos, you seem to keep avoiding the primary issue.

If the owner of the IP in question (song, comic, banana) has decided that the property in question is only available if you pay for it, what gives a third party the right to make it available for free? What gives you the right to take it for free?

You don't have the right to borrow my car without permission (thanks to Kurt Busiek for the awesome analogy in the DCU forum version of this thread) in fact we call that theft even if you return it with a full tank of gas. What makes downloading a copy without the owner's permission any different? And if you don't know whether it's stolen or not? Well like DVDs, etc most people go to legitimate places to purchase stuff to avoid the issue. If you are getting your downloads from the internet equivalent of a back of a van, then common sense should tell you something is funky.

I mean malware Bots are just using your computer to send out viruses and spam, why should you object to them doing it without your permission and installing software on your computer without permission?

Whether or not downloading is a better business model or not is irrelevant to this discussion.

The real issue, is do you have the right to override the owner's rights to how he/she wants his/her property to be distributed.

[Rev. Calibos]

Interestingly Rev. Calibos, you seem to keep avoiding the primary issue.

If the owner of the IP in question (song, comic, banana) has decided that the property in question is only available if you pay for it, what gives a third party the right to make it available for free? What gives you the right to take it for free?

You don't have the right to borrow my car without permission (thanks to Kurt Busiek for the awesome analogy in the DCU forum version of this thread) in fact we call that theft even if you return it with a full tank of gas. What makes downloading a copy without the owner's permission any different? And if you don't know whether it's stolen or not? Well like DVDs, etc most people go to legitimate places to purchase stuff to avoid the issue. If you are getting your downloads from the internet equivalent of a back of a van, then common sense should tell you something is funky.

I mean malware Bots are just using your computer to send out viruses and spam, why should you object to them doing it without your permission and installing software on your computer without permission?

Whether or not downloading is a better business model or not is irrelevant to this discussion.

The real issue, is do you have the right to override the owner's rights to how he/she wants his/her property to be distributed.


Good point, and that was something I was trying to touch upon in an earlier post.

The property being sold in CD stores is the physical recording of the music created by the artist. The artist and the record company set a fixed price for that item, let's say it was $20.

Instead of purchasing the CD at the price established by the artist and the record company I decide to, instead, circumvent that and go to my local used CD shop and buy it for $5, only 1/4 of the value that they believe it to be worth.

So in essence I'm getting a full $20 worth of value from the product yet have only payed a portion of what they deemed was the 'fair' price.

If I'm satisfied with the product and I feel that, hey, I would have definitely paid the full amount were that the only option, am I ripping the artist off by not giving him an amount that truly reflects the value I find in his output?

This is of course a bit different from downloading the digital reproduction of the album but the theme is similar: I'm not giving the artist A) the amount that he feels his work is worth and 2) if I feel the output is actually worth the full price I'm not paying him the amount that I, too, feel the work is worth more than what I'm shelling out.

If I'm not compensating the artist for the full value of what his output is worth is that any different from just downloading it?

In other words, is it better to just pay him 'something' rather than 'nothing' if the price he established for the output of his time and effort isn't met.

Whether I download Joe Artist's CD for free or I pay a fraction of the established price for it at a used CD store I'm not compensating Joe for what he thinks his work is worth.



In all honesty I'm not sure what the correct answer is, that's why I created the thread.

And I'm not that much of a downloading pirate (arrrrr!), I've downloaded a few songs in the past few years but the end result was that I turned around and bought the full album because I enjoyed the songs I had.

Going back to the op my friend offered me copies of the Marvel comic reprint collections as a going away present as my fiancee and I moved out here to State College.

I declined because 1) Having full runs of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, etc. would mean that I would never get any work done and 2) it's still a moral grey area for me.

That's what I wanted to explore in this thread, is it stealing or not? I'm not 100% sold either way but I'm grateful for everyone's input thus far on both sides of the issue.

[Stressfactor]

Also, the case of the "Used CD" does NOT work either -- because, in reality, that CD is actually being bought and sold TWICE.

You are forgetting the fact that, in order for the CD to be 'used' someone had to buy it. They either bought it at full price or perhaps they bought it off the sale rack or something but someone bought it FIRST. That CD was SOLD and likely sold at full price at one point.

The person who bought said CD turned out not to like it or (as I do sometimes) got tired of it or their musical tastes changed or they got hard up for cash or WHATEVER but for some reason they GAVE THE CD UP. They sold it to the used CD store for either store credit or cash for a fraction of what they paid for it.

Now you come along and this is a CD you want and like and hey, look, it's a fraction of its retail cover price. So you buy the CD at the used CD store. But you are NOT the first owner and you are not the person who once paid full price for that. Ergo, the cost of the CD has ALREADY been passed along to the creator of said CD.

[Rev. Calibos]

Also, the case of the "Used CD" does NOT work either -- because, in reality, that CD is actually being bought and sold TWICE.

You are forgetting the fact that, in order for the CD to be 'used' someone had to buy it. They either bought it at full price or perhaps they bought it off the sale rack or something but someone bought it FIRST. That CD was SOLD and likely sold at full price at one point.

The person who bought said CD turned out not to like it or (as I do sometimes) got tired of it or their musical tastes changed or they got hard up for cash or WHATEVER but for some reason they GAVE THE CD UP. They sold it to the used CD store for either store credit or cash for a fraction of what they paid for it.

Now you come along and this is a CD you want and like and hey, look, it's a fraction of its retail cover price. So you buy the CD at the used CD store. But you are NOT the first owner and you are not the person who once paid full price for that.


This is true, but for me as Consumer Rev it will be the first time I've had the chance to purchase the album.

Joe Artist may have sold a million copies of his CD prior to my interest in it but I've yet to chip in and buy his album bringing the total to one million and one sold.

So instead, I'll buy a used copy for a fraction of what Joe Artist feels it's worth at the used place.

So really, one CD could float around a dozen times or even more meaning that instead of selling one million and twelve copies of his CD he only sells a million and those dozen or so people just purchase the CD, burn it, grow tired of it and sell it to that used CD place enabling someone else to do the same.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

What I was getting at was even though Joe Artist is being compensated, he's not being paid the full amount of what he feels his output is worth.

That's what I was trying to determine, is getting 'something' better than 'nothing' and if so, how does that change our views on what we feel the value of Joe's output is?

[Paul McEnery]

Also, the case of the "Used CD" does NOT work either -- because, in reality, that CD is actually being bought and sold TWICE.

You are forgetting the fact that, in order for the CD to be 'used' someone had to buy it. They either bought it at full price or perhaps they bought it off the sale rack or something but someone bought it FIRST. That CD was SOLD and likely sold at full price at one point.

The person who bought said CD turned out not to like it or (as I do sometimes) got tired of it or their musical tastes changed or they got hard up for cash or WHATEVER but for some reason they GAVE THE CD UP. They sold it to the used CD store for either store credit or cash for a fraction of what they paid for it.

Now you come along and this is a CD you want and like and hey, look, it's a fraction of its retail cover price. So you buy the CD at the used CD store. But you are NOT the first owner and you are not the person who once paid full price for that. Ergo, the cost of the CD has ALREADY been passed along to the creator of said CD.

Break it down.

In order for a file to be shared, someone has to have bought the CD once.

In order for the CD to be in the used store, someone has to have bought the CD once.

In the second case, the costs are shared between at least two people, and the service provider (the store) makes money both times. In fact, new and used dealers make more money just new dealers, and they'll be in business after the other brick and mortar stores have closed.

In the first case, the costs are borne solely by the torrent originator (or whatever).

That, and the scale, are the only two differences.

[Typo Lad]

In order for the store to have the CD, two people need to buy it. The original purchaser, and the store.

[Stressfactor]

Break it down.

In order for a file to be shared, someone has to have bought the CD once.

In order for the CD to be in the used store, someone has to have bought the CD once.

In the second case, the costs are shared between at least two people, and the service provider (the store) makes money both times. In fact, new and used dealers make more money just new dealers, and they'll be in business after the other brick and mortar stores have closed.

In the first case, the costs are borne solely by the torrent originator (or whatever).

That, and the scale, are the only two differences.

But the scale is quite large. With ONE physical item - such as a CD - only one person can "own" it at a time. It can be borrowed and lent on a long-term or short term basis or it can be given as a gift but only one person can hold that item at a time.

One person who buys a CD, rips the album to his/her computer then puts the contents of the album on a file sharing site can disseminate that content to millions.




Yes, yes, yes, the recording industry is EVIL. It's an "industry" after all. However, just opening the floodgates and saying everything free to everyone won't get people very far since there will be too many people who WON'T donate.

Most web comic sites I know of rely on ad supported revenue to keep going. The advertisers are not going to pay if they don't feel they get value from the site.

I've seen far too many really good creators and artists go under and disappear off the map because the ad revenue isn't enough to keep them going and too many people enjoy the site without adding to the "tip jar".

TV and music can work on a "pay as you download" basis because people want to own this stuff in a digital format and be able to listen to it again and again and again but the same just does NOT seem to be true of the comic book industry.

[snarkbunny]

That's what I was trying to determine, is getting 'something' better than 'nothing' and if so, how does that change our views on what we feel the value of Joe's output is?

It's irrelevant. The value of Joe's output has NOTHING to do with this. It is not Something better than nothing.

Joe consented to have his output published on a single physical CD that was purchased for a set amount of money to Joe, with the implicit contract this will in possession of a single entity (let's call him Bob). After that initial contract is complete, the CD can be loaned, bought, sold, traded, fried in a microwave, whatever. It is still the original amount of IP that Joe handed off. Bob did not get permission from Joe to make 20 copies and give them out to his buddies. That is a violation of the contract. Burning a copy and then selling the other off is in violation of the contract.

[Paul McEnery]

I was raised on a farm.

I'm used to bad smells.

I'm just sick of these same dumbass excuses. Just say it, "I like to steal from artists."

Everything else is a crock of shit.

1) No, I don't like to steal from artists. Never have, never will.
2) When I've got the cash, I put most of my discretionary income into supporting artists. Including you.
3) When I don't have the cash, I borrow books; or sell old ones for trade.
4) I invariably buy the music I find for download.

According to the research, for people who download music, I'm typical..

Now it may well be true -- especially judging by the sound of entitlement one here's from the "fans" on this board -- that people who buy superhero comics are actually downloading instead of spending.

However, by the logic of "the freeloaders are taking food out of the mouths of creators", the volume of sales ought to be going down; when the volume in the industry -- at least until the crunch -- has actually gone up. But the bulk of the money has shifted to trades, because trades have exchange value, whereas single issues lose all their exchange value the moment you drive them off the lot.

The comics industry used to live by advertising, just like any other magazine publisher. The pass along rate of seven readers for every sale was taken for granted.

Then the comics publishers decided instead to exploit the rise of the LCS, and switch to niche-publishing -- high price, lower volume. Surprise! Fewer sales of individual issues! No pass along value -- because it's all in mylar -- so bye-bye advertising money. At which point it's the inevitable spiral towards five dollar comics selling to audiences of ten thousand if you're lucky.

Past the fact that everyone's either unemployed or shit-scared of being unemployed, that's the real economics of it.

Not this bullshit excuse that it's people "stealing". Of course they're scanning! Who drops five dollars on a comic on spec? Who drops five dollars on a comic if they're waiting for the trade?

But of course, people want to stay current, so they can be part of the conversation. They can either drop the five dollars they don't have on product they don't want in that format (which isn't going to happen), or they can leaf through copies in the store (ruining the comics for sale), or they can download the comics and buy the trade when it comes out (the model Warren has successfully exploited for Freakangels).

Sure, the publishers are too dumb to realize that single issue sales are meaningless indicators for trade sales, so something like Captain Britain dies an early death. But that's on the publishers, not on the purchasers.

The comics aren't being sold at a reasonable price, nor in the form that suits the modern consumer.

The price of zero is available.

It's not hard to see how that works out. Just as it wasn't hard to see how it would work out for the music industry -- who, it should be remembered, lost the class action suit against them manipulating prices.

But by then, they'd already lost their market to online distribution, and online distribution for free. The moment emusic, and thereafter iTunes, and thereafter MySpace + SNOCAP came up, a new market established itself that's doing well. Because the customers don't feel like they're being gouged any more.

The publishing industry has been slow to adapt, and of course it's going to lose sales by comparison -- especially the laughably overpriced comic book market. You can't ask people for those prices and expect loyalty -- not when you can buy a 3000 page novel for the Kindle for the price of one and a half comic books that will take you fifteen minutes to read.

You want to complain to someone? Complain to publishers for pricing themselves out of the market.

[Rev. Calibos]

It's irrelevant. The value of Joe's output has NOTHING to do with this. It is not Something better than nothing.

Joe consented to have his output published on a single physical CD that was purchased for a set amount of money to Joe, with the implicit contract this will in possession of a single entity (let's call him Bob). After that initial contract is complete, the CD can be loaned, bought, sold, traded, fried in a microwave, whatever. It is still the original amount of IP that Joe handed off. Bob did not get permission from Joe to make 20 copies and give them out to his buddies. That is a violation of the contract. Burning a copy and then selling the other off is in violation of the contract.

The thing is though, when I buy that used CD I'm violating that offer made by Joe by buying the same product at a much lower price.

Consider this, Joe puts out an album and there are 10 customers who are just utterly psyched by it and can't wait to snag it.

Ideally, for Joe that is, all ten will go out and pick up the album in a store for $20 a pop.

So, again, ideally, Joe's made $200 for his work.

Now let's say that initially only Bob is willing to fork over the $20 for the album. He takes it home, enjoys it, makes his one backup of the CD (just in case his CD ever becomes damaged or stolen) and he's happy.

So Joe has made $20.

After some time Bob grows weary of the CD and learns that 'Hey, turns out I really don't like Joe's music at all.' He then takes the CD down to his local used place and trades it in for more product or takes the cash.

Consumer #2 of our ten decides that, yep, this is the week that he's going to buy that album. He's waited long enough and this week he's going to snag it up.

He heads to the used CD shop first, just in case, to see if the album is there.

Hey, if you had a choice between spending $20 on an item or <$20 which would you pick?

He enters the store and finds Bob's old copy priced at $5. He picks it up, thrilled that he has found the album at a lower price and heads home.

So right off the bat we see that Joe's s.o.l. The consumer who was perfectly willing to shell out $20 for his output instead has only spent $5.

Buying used definitely makes an impact on Joe's bottom line because consumers who are willing to spend the money on a new copy instead go the used route and only spend a fraction of that to get the exact same product.

[bfrank]

I'm sure Robin Thicke would rather have the $95.00 I have to spend to see him live vs the $1.00 he might get if were I to pick up his CD.......

[Paul McEnery]

It's irrelevant. The value of Joe's output has NOTHING to do with this. It is not Something better than nothing.

Joe consented to have his output published on a single physical CD that was purchased for a set amount of money to Joe, with the implicit contract this will in possession of a single entity (let's call him Bob). After that initial contract is complete, the CD can be loaned, bought, sold, traded, fried in a microwave, whatever. It is still the original amount of IP that Joe handed off. Bob did not get permission from Joe to make 20 copies and give them out to his buddies. That is a violation of the contract. Burning a copy and then selling the other off is in violation of the contract.

What contract?

I haven't contracted with Joe to do anything.

[snarkbunny]

The thing is though, when I buy that used CD I'm violating that offer made by Joe by buying the same product at a much lower price..

No, you are not. Because the legitimate CD was already previously purchased. If you bought a pirated copy out of the back of a van, then you would be violating that offer.

Think of it this way. Your fiancee asks you if she could use your toothbrush and you say sure. The she comes in and goes oh by the way, I also let 20 people off the street use your toothbrush after I did. She just violated the implicit agreement that the two of you had that it would be just her using the toothbrush. You may or may not forgive her, but don't you think she should have gotten permission from you before doing that?


What contract?

I haven't contracted with Joe to do anything.

Ever read the legal notes/EULA? By the way, I don't disagree with downloading as a new business model. I just firmly believe that doing it without the owner's consent (whether it be RIAA, creators, publisher, whoever) is unethical. If you want that sort of model, there are plenty of creators who willing put their work out there for that model. Reward the willing, but do not trample of the rights of those who don't want to do it your way.

[Rev. Calibos]

No, you are not. Because the legitimate CD was already previously purchased. If you bought a pirated copy out of the back of a van, then you would be violating that offer.

But in this example I'm not buying a pirated version out of the back of a van.

I want the CD, I find value in it and in my mind at least the value is most definitely worth the $20 it's priced at in most stores in my area.

Joe Artist's output is worth the full price of what's being sold in those stores.

Yet down the road I can buy the CD for a fraction of the actual cost by buying used.

Instead of giving Joe the full amount of what we both feel his output is worth, the $20, and by buying a CD that was already purchased (and more than likely ripped before selling or trading it to the used CD store) I'm depriving Joe of a fair payment for the services rendered.


There may be differences between buying it used and buying a bootleg from the back of a van but the end result is exactly the same.

Joe is selling his CD for $20, I find value in his work and wish to own it but instead of giving him the full amount that he deems is fair I'm shorting him.

The CD I buy used has already been purchased by someone else but that's the catch: Only ONE CD was purchased at the fixed price Joe deemed was fair for his output.

As a consumer I felt the CD was a worthwhile purchase, but instead of giving him full compensation for his work I instead paid a fraction of that and got the same thing.



Think of it this way. Your fiancee asks you if she could use your toothbrush and you say sure. The she comes in and goes oh by the way, I also let 20 people off the street use your toothbrush after I did. She just violated the implicit agreement that the two of you had that it would be just her using the toothbrush. You may or may not forgive her, but don't you think she should have gotten permission from you before doing that?

But if she buys the toothbrush from you, then it is hers to do with as she pleases and if she wants to share it with 20 people, all is good.



Well, I think that's less a piracy issue and more of a hygeine issue, lol.

Jk, it's a good point.

The thing is, Joe Artist has a deal for us consumers. You like his music? Great. He sells his CD's for $20 and you can purchase them at Best Buy, FYE or any number of other places.


I'm digging this offer. I think that $20 is a fair price for what Joe's selling, but I catch wind that my local used CD store is selling a previously owned copy for $5.

Now Joe already received compensation for that first CD from whoever bought it, but that individual has sold it.

I get to swoop in and pick it up for a fraction of what Joe wants at those other places I mentioned.

So, instead of the ideal result (two consumers who want his CD and each drop $20 for it) he sells one CD for full price and that CD is passed along to me for 1/4 of what I would have to spend elsewhere.

I mean, I can't speak for every artist obviously, but I would think that most certainly goes against the agreement Joe was looking for when he pitched that offer of 'Hey, you like my music? I'll give you 18 songs for $20.'

Me? I want the songs and I'm getting the album but instead of giving Joe what he deemed was a fair price I've gone elsewhere.

[Slam_Bradley]

The great masters were compensated for their work. Many of them advanced not only art, but science. That was their day jobs. Many artists, for hundreds if not thousands of years, did nothing but produce art. Marble sculptures, paintings, woodblock prints, engravings, scientific watercolors, all of those were made by artists for profit. Telling them to 'get a day job' would have robbed the world of these achievements.

Art takes a big investment in time, skill, and effort. It's pretty rare to be able to achieve a pro level of competence by devoting an amateur's time to it. Not to mention that the tools of the trade are pretty damn expensive. Do you understand how much recording equipment, musical instruments, computers and computer programs, even paint and canvas, cost?

I've noticed a serious tendency to devalue artists' work, though, by some of the folks in this topic (and therefore plenty of others) who are intent on consuming it. 'Get a real job' is the attitude I've gotten from a lot of jerks, though, because of course doing something like retail or office work is somehow more inherently legit?

What about the folks who can't get a day job besides art? Why do folks treat art differently, anyway? Manufacturing chewing gum serves no purpose other than to create some ephemeral experience (you don't get anything out of the end product but feeling good), but we don't say those laborers don't deserve to be paid.

There are a lot of creators on this board. I wonder how they feel about it. Way to slag your fellow posters.


Using the Great Masters (and by this I'm assuming you're meaning the Italian and Flemish masters) as an example is pretty useless in this case. The great masters were supported by wealthy patrons who were paying them to produce art for the patron's pleasure. There was no copyright at the time. Whatever the great masters produced was subject to being reproduced the moment it was finished. Admittedly the state of the technology at the time didn't allow for easy reproduction, but, it was still subject to reproduction with whatever was at hand.

More telling than art was music. Once a piece of music was performed it was out there. George I held Handel's "Water Music" under tight wraps to keep it from being out in the public.

The main impetus for copyright was the creation of movable type, which meant that books and plays could be easily reproduced. The Statute of Anne of 1709 was the first copyright law. Prior to that time all art was public it just wasn't that easily reproducable.

[Reverend Smooth]

My point was that art was their day jobs. Copyrights weren't in force, but reproduction wasn't much of an issue at that point.

The point is that they didn't need to, as Paul said, to get a day job to support themselves whilst unrealistically expecting to just do art for shits and giggles. People have been commoditizing art for a very long time, and the selling of their artistic services has resulted in some very important work.

[Slam_Bradley]

My point was that art was their day jobs. Copyrights weren't in force, but reproduction wasn't much of an issue at that point.

The point is that they didn't need to, as Paul said, to get a day job to support themselves whilst unrealistically expecting to just do art for shits and giggles. People have been commoditizing art for a very long time, and the selling of their artistic services has resulted in some very important work.


Sure it has. And nothing is keeping current artists from finding wealthy patrons to pay them to create art. Just like in the good old days.

Artists need to keep in mind that copyright is strictly a creature of statute. It did not exist at common law and has many times been found not to be a natural right. Congress could, if the will were there, limit copyright to...say...five years. Obviously the will wouldn't be there because there are big corporations that donate heavily to political campaigns to stop such things.

And there comes the crux of another problem, one that I think tends to really rile up Paul. Copyright, in action, does very little to protect artists. It does everything to protect the bottom line of a very few corporations. Both of the most recent copyright extensions (and they've come very close on the heels of each other) have been pushed by less than a dozen corporations to protect their bottom line. Disney, Sony and Time-Warner are the prime motivatiors. I frankly have a hard time feeling bad about Disney losing a few bucks.

[Paul McEnery]

My point was that art was their day jobs. Copyrights weren't in force, but reproduction wasn't much of an issue at that point.

The point is that they didn't need to, as Paul said, to get a day job to support themselves whilst unrealistically expecting to just do art for shits and giggles. People have been commoditizing art for a very long time, and the selling of their artistic services has resulted in some very important work.

Yes and no.

You've got your William Blake, whose work as an artist didn't get a lot of sales, and whose work as a writer didn't get a lot of sales, but he did put together a number of unique objects that could just about keep a roof over his head. But the reason he was able to do so was that the cost of living was a helluva lot lower.

So that's one concern.

Then you've got your Van Gogh, who made exactly one sale in his life, and that was to his brother.

Now we can either clap our hands and believe in socialism -- and I think we should! -- or we need to rectify that for the new market. And it seems to me that the digital market does allow for the new model of popular patronage.

To go back to the example of Something Positive, that's exactly they way Randy makes his living. There are a gazillion freeloaders who go to the site, but enough people fork over cash when he needs it that he could quit his day job.

The bottom line is that, in a digital marketplace, all content is effectively free. Even if someone erects a gate, people figure out a way to climb over the walls in about five seconds flat.

At which point, the artist has to appeal to the audience for the patronage.

As things stand, Eliseu comes here, mentions there's a book out, so I dutifully go and buy it to support the work. That's 50% to Brian (which I'm happy to pay; Brian provides me with someone to cool my heels of a Sunday; aside from his many other virtues); a futher god knows how much to Diamond (which Brian is happy to pay, because they make his life easier; but I'm not so happy about); more to the printers and the shipping (I'm fourth generation print, and work for FedEx, so I should shut up); and then finally a dribble to the artists.

Or, the artist can appeal directly to popular patronage through the web, and make just as much money. Bad luck for the middlemen, but it's not as if that whole economy isn't on its last legs anyway.

[Paul McEnery]

And there comes the crux of another problem, one that I think tends to really rile up Paul. Copyright, in action, does very little to protect artists. It does everything to protect the bottom line of a very few corporations. Both of the most recent copyright extensions (and they've come very close on the heels of each other) have been pushed by less than a dozen corporations to protect their bottom line. Disney, Sony and Time-Warner are the prime motivatiors. I frankly have a hard time feeling bad about Disney losing a few bucks.

Which should come as no surprise, since copyright was invented not for the sake of the artist, but for the publisher. Copyright means that the publisher has the sole right to exploit the work -- and that includes excluding the author! And of course allows that publisher to keep making exclusive money long after the artist's death. See Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix for details.

[Corrina]

Paul, I've done a lot of research on how to make money via web creative effort and the conclusion is that the only people making money on web-based creative work are those doing something porn-related.

No lie.

No one's making money off web-based comics. They might make some money on selling items (mugs, other stuff) on the site but popular patronage isn't making them money.

Ebooks are, by and large, making no money. You'd make more in a week of working at McDonalds. The exception is, of course, erotica, which if you can write it, boy can you make a living at it.

People are making money by using web promotions to eventually go through the traditional publishing route in books, and that's where the money is made.

Right now, I think the problem is that we don't have this new business model to support artists. Popular patronage, as you term it, doesn't work for squat at the moment. Ask Karen. Or as the Rev. how much money she thinks she'd make putting up Hollow on the web.

What I would really love is for the really smart people on this thread to come up with a model that actually does work--especially those decrying the old business model.

Because (as I said earlier in the thread), I may be a bitch, but I ain't anyone else's bitch.

[Paul McEnery]

The thing is, Joe Artist has a deal for us consumers. You like his music? Great. He sells his CD's for $20 and you can purchase them at Best Buy, FYE or any number of other places.


I'm digging this offer. I think that $20 is a fair price for what Joe's selling, but I catch wind that my local used CD store is selling a previously owned copy for $5.

Now Joe already received compensation for that first CD from whoever bought it, but that individual has sold it.

I get to swoop in and pick it up for a fraction of what Joe wants at those other places I mentioned.

Not to mention the fact that Joe isn't getting 20 bucks. If he's lucky, he's getting one. And if he's with a major, chances are they're going to try to cheat him out of that one, too.

But say Joe is selling his songs through MySpace + SNOCAP. The song sells for a dollar, SNOCAP take 39 cents, so Joe gets 61 cents. The customer has more incentive to pony up. Joe gets 61% of the take instead of 5%. If Joe sells two songs out of the 18 to that customer, he's already ahead of the game.

Me, I'm not convinced by the $1 price tag for songs -- I think 25 cents is the more viable price point, and that's what I pay through eMusic. But I'd also be happier if the artist made more of the take than they get through eMusic.

[Reverend Smooth]

And there comes the crux of another problem, one that I think tends to really rile up Paul.
Who also believes that artists need to stop being part of the professional class and go back to having day jobs, and has had no problem pointing out repeatedly how artists' work and skills are not comparable to any other laborer's.

I really don't think he cares all that much, honestly. If he did, he wouldn't be outraged on one hand and dismissive of everything we do with the other.

'But those poor artists...' Yes, well, us poor artists think that's a bunch of bupkis.

'Oh, you just don't know what's good for you.'

Wrong. Under the current imperfect model, we still get advanced a few grand a month. That helps keep a roof over our heads. The rate's not great and I'm not thrilled with the publisher, but the alternative is that we get very little money and no roof over our heads, because 'art shouldn't be commoditized' and we need to get day jobs (like there are so many of those lying around).

'Oh, but I'm a pro, I'm...' Clearly, if one's supporting these kinds of views, one is NOT a pro. Music acts who make it big via file-sharing are ALREADY big. Very few of them achieve commercial success, though I have a fair amount of music by bands who gave away their catalogue online for free... after they simply did not make enough money to support their music via online OR traditional models.

I understand that file-sharing does promote bands and comics-- but it's like the underpants gnomes the way some folks treat it. 'Oh, I'm sharing these bands! It's great publicity!' 'Do you actually buy the albums?' '...Well, no, but...' 'Are your friends?' '...Well, no, but... art should be free! I can't judge what things are worth!' 'Then you're not doing anyone a favor.' 'But... profit!'

However, something that a big chunk of the manga community does right is that they buy the translated titles that they've read once those titles come out. In that case, online exposure does drive sales, because the fans are loyal to the creators and want that comic to succeed. (Hint: they don't sit there and bullshit about how said creators should give up being pros and go do some regular job. And they don't talk about how the creator should be grateful that they're even being seen at all.)

[Reverend Smooth]

Or, the artist can appeal directly to popular patronage through the web, and make just as much money.
False. A tiny minority make as much money. For every big webcomic, there are thousands (and I'm under-representing here) of very good ones who don't.

You are flat-out wrong. The internet is not some magic financial bullet, and you'd know that if you'd actually bothered trying to break into the market yourself.

These seems to be this attitude that artists are simpletons, poor little victims who must be liberated -- against their will if necessary -- from the tyranny of labels... even when artists get into these contracts knowing full well how the situation is, because they know that the odds of getting rich on their own are even slimmer. We are actually aware of the situation, you know. Yes, we are actually, freeloaders that we are, cognizant of the publishing situation offline and online. We actually know what we're getting into. There ain't much choice because we've got bills to pay, too.

[Paul McEnery]

But the scale is quite large. With ONE physical item - such as a CD - only one person can "own" it at a time. It can be borrowed and lent on a long-term or short term basis or it can be given as a gift but only one person can hold that item at a time.

One person who buys a CD, rips the album to his/her computer then puts the contents of the album on a file sharing site can disseminate that content to millions.


Not can, will. It's a stone cold certainty.

Therefore all digital content is free.

Therefore the business models I've spoken of are pretty much the only way to get the artists paid.


Yes, yes, yes, the recording industry is EVIL. It's an "industry" after all. However, just opening the floodgates and saying everything free to everyone won't get people very far since there will be too many people who WON'T donate.

Most web comic sites I know of rely on ad supported revenue to keep going. The advertisers are not going to pay if they don't feel they get value from the site.

I've seen far too many really good creators and artists go under and disappear off the map because the ad revenue isn't enough to keep them going and too many people enjoy the site without adding to the "tip jar".

TV and music can work on a "pay as you download" basis because people want to own this stuff in a digital format and be able to listen to it again and again and again but the same just does NOT seem to be true of the comic book industry.

You act as though that "wastage" is unusual. It certainly isn't. Most talent gets a shot and doesn't make it. A small percentage is successful enough to make a living.

And exactly the same is true in the print world. Look at Warriors of IO. Beautiful little book. Not selling enough for issue 2 to be carried by Diamond.

This is going to be more and more true for indy work -- hell, it's close enough to true for Big Two work -- so again, the push towards digital distribution has become inevitable.

[Reverend Smooth]

Right now, I think the problem is that we don't have this new business model to support artists. Popular patronage, as you term it, doesn't work for squat at the moment. Ask Karen. Or as the Rev. how much money she thinks she'd make putting up Hollow on the web.
None. (In fact, we can't afford to renew Hollow's website, though Hollow wasn't the work put online.)

Paul's answer is to then flog the shit out of that product. Well, how does flogging the shit out of that product square with a 9-5 job AND producing the art in the first place? There's this magical mystical number of hours in a day that seems to double or triple in this argument. Maybe the underpants gnomes leave them when they liberate our superman underoos.

[Reverend Smooth]

Not can, will. It's a stone cold certainty.

Therefore all digital content is free.

Therefore the business models I've spoken of are pretty much the only way to get the artists paid.
Correlation does not equal causation. I shouldn't have to tell you this. You have no idea how real-world economics apply to the internet, as evidenced by your ignoring of the vastly overwhelming majority of webcomics which are not profitable at all. Webcomics are a labor of love and should not be expected to be profitable, because hardly any of them are, even very popular ones.

Though I know some folks who, having had previous publishing deals, had their webcomics collected and published and THEN made a profit... off the old model only. Because they had a previous record of sales and the work was already completed, so why not publish. They made almost nothing off having it on the web.

I also know what it's like to be an indie musician looking to the web for distro. For every Dido, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of folks who did not make it. Including our band. You can eke out a living backing that up with tour after tour after tour, but that a) doesn't work with a day job and b) requires one to be able to tour.

In fact, we had to twice sell off our music equipment in order to afford groceries-- and this was while Larime had a day job. Sorry, not interested in doing that again, not even so Paul and Calybos can feel self-righteous about how they've liberated us... especially since I really doubt they comprehend the heartbreak of a musician having to pawn their very expensive instruments (shit on resale, though) just to afford shitty food.

'But I don't like paying the publisher...'

The publisher is who makes it the most affordable for folks to be able to put out their work. I don't like how much they take in comparison to us, but until a viable internet model comes out -- and at present there isn't one for indies -- that's who we have to deal with. If you want to actually support the artists whose work you're consuming, deal with it. We have to.

[Typo Lad]

Not can, will. It's a stone cold certainty.

Therefore all digital content is free.

Well that's some piss poor logic.

Just because something isn't paid for doesn't mean it's very nature is to be free. If I have something and you want it, you need to exchange money or goods or services for it. Plain and simple. If you go and look for an alternative way that does not involve an exchange, then frankly, you're stealing.

I say this as someone who downloads television shows. I justify it by only downloading shows that I've already paid for with my cable subscription, but realistically I know what I am doing is theft. It's wrong. I'm working on it.

None. (In fact, we can't afford to renew Hollow's website, though Hollow wasn't the work put online.)

When I get WWTT back up and running, I'd be more than willing to see about setting aside some space for your work, if you need it.

[Typo Lad]

Oh and for the record...

The creator/owner of an object is the one who gets to set the value. Period. If that person makes an arrangment with another body (recod label, comic company, etc) where they set the value and then pay them, that's their call.

The only say a consumer/fan has on the price is if they are willing to pay it. If they're not willing to make the exchange needed, then they have no "right" to the item. They can still get it, but can isn't the same as should.

And when I say "they" , I mean "me". And again, I'm working on it.

[Paul McEnery]

False. A tiny minority make as much money. For every big webcomic, there are thousands (and I'm under-representing here) of very good ones who don't.

I don't know why you think they'd be making money anyway, because they wouldn't.

You are flat-out wrong. The internet is not some magic financial bullet, and you'd know that if you'd actually bothered trying to break into the market yourself.

Oh, excuse me. It's not like I haven't published digital comics online. Or had my work paid for online.

Oh look. I have. And got paid. And got my artists paid.

These seems to be this attitude that artists are simpletons, poor little victims who must be liberated -- against their will if necessary -- from the tyranny of labels... even when artists get into these contracts knowing full well how the situation is, because they know that the odds of getting rich on their own are even slimmer.

Bingo.

"getting rich".

But the odds of making a sustainable living are, strangely enough, much better. Most bands last, tops, three albums, and then vanish. Indy artists have sustainable careers if they want them.


We are actually aware of the situation, you know. Yes, we are actually, freeloaders that we are, cognizant of the publishing situation offline and online. We actually know what we're getting into. There ain't much choice because we've got bills to pay, too.

Well, we've all got bills to pay.

You've got higher bills to pay because this country does healthcare on the property-and-commodity model. Which I trust we'd all like to see switched to the service model, and the "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" model.

That's what digital distribution has to offer. And since Big Print won't work with artists without preexisting markets who won't sell outright rights to the work, and since Small Print is either scammers, fly-by-nights, or professionals struggling with Diamonds numbers, digital distribution is the only available option for many creators.

That it is an option is a new development. Before that, if you were lucky, you'd get a one-page strip in a Last Gasp anthology, and get paid peanuts for it if anything. That's the reality of the market. The digital media presents a lot of risks -- not least that digital reproductions are functionally free, and you have to build a loyal enough fanbase that you can convince theym to pay up -- but since the alternative is even worse, what are you going to do?

[Reverend Smooth]

When I get WWTT back up and running, I'd be more than willing to see about setting aside some space for your work, if you need it.That's very kind of you! But we should be able to spare something once we get the first royalty check. Most of it will be punted at back rent and trying to make this house livable, but I think there was money set aside for hosting the site.

I personally don't have an issue with downloading material you've already bought. It's not like I can read things offline, the only way I can read books and comics or watch tv or movies is via scans displayed on UV-shielded screens.

I really wish networks would get off their ass and start providing digital subscriptions to their channels. I'd kill to have the edutainment channels streaming to my desktop (if it wasn't too hideously expensive, anyway).

[DoctorDoom]

The thing is though, when I buy that used CD I'm violating that offer made by Joe by buying the same product at a much lower price.


Do you feel this way about used books, comics, video games, etc?

[Paul McEnery]

Oh and for the record...

The creator/owner of an object is the one who gets to set the value. Period.

That's simply false economics.

It's false even in the property-and-commodity model. The price is set in negotiation between buyer and seller. Sure, the seller has the option not to sell a commodity until they get the price they want; but that risks not getting a sale at all. And after that, the seller has no control over the price in the secondary market, which will drastically effect the price in the primary market.

Ask any fine artist, and look at the way in which dealers, artists and collectors collude to force the price up (which in any other commodity market would be criminal price manipulation).

But once we leave the property-and-commodity model, it's a completely different matter. We consumers all become Lady Gregory, and we artists all become Yeats sucking up to her ladyship to get her cash.

It might not be pretty, it might not be desirable, but it is the reality.

And in truth, it always was.

[Reverend Smooth]

But the odds of making a sustainable living are, strangely enough, much better. Most bands last, tops, three albums, and then vanish. Indy artists have sustainable careers if they want them.You've clearly never had an indy band.



You've got higher bills to pay because this country does healthcare on the property-and-commodity model. Which I trust we'd all like to see switched to the service model, and the "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" model.Dude, a) I wouldn't qualify, b) I can't get to a hospital to get the paperwork and reams of new tests that the system would require, and c) they would not cover all of my expenses anyway. Not only that, but I would like to do more than subsist on welfare (not that I do now, but I have in the past), as it's not a living wage.

The advance we're getting for each issue of hollow is roughly ten times what I received on welfare, and five times what I received in disability. It would be about three times what I would make on disability in the US were I eligible, which I'm not. Larime IS on disability, and that doesn't even cover our rent. Even with two disability incomes, it wouldn't cover our living expenses.


That's what digital distribution has to offer. And since Big Print won't work with artists without preexisting markets who won't sell outright rights to the work, and since Small Print is either scammers, fly-by-nights, or professionals struggling with Diamonds numbers, digital distribution is the only available option for many creators.That's not true, but thanks for oversimplifying it.

That it is an option is a new development. Before that, if you were lucky, you'd get a one-page strip in a Last Gasp anthology, and get paid peanuts for it if anything. That's the reality of the market. The digital media presents a lot of risks -- not least that digital reproductions are functionally free, and you have to build a loyal enough fanbase that you can convince theym to pay up -- but since the alternative is even worse, what are you going to do?The alternative is not worse at this moment. You have more of a chance at having a living wage as a published artist than a web artist.

[Typo Lad]

That's very kind of you! But we should be able to spare something once we get the first royalty check. Most of it will be punted at back rent and trying to make this house livable, but I think there was money set aside for hosting the site.

Well, keep me in mind.


I personally don't have an issue with downloading material you've already bought. It's not like I can read things offline, the only way I can read books and comics or watch tv or movies is via scans displayed on UV-shielded screens.

Have you considered a Kindle-like device?

I really wish networks would get off their ass and start providing digital subscriptions to their channels. I'd kill to have the edutainment channels streaming to my desktop (if it wasn't too hideously expensive, anyway).

Well, Hulu works that way and it's free. Plus there are solutions to do what you're talking about. Right now I'm working on turning a PC in my basement into a home-built DVR, to "tape" my shows in iPod-compatible format.

[Reverend Smooth]

Ask any fine artist, and look at the way in which dealers, artists and collectors collude to force the price up
Shit, dude, fine artists get fucked over financially even more than commercial artists do. Not only is the amount of time promoting your stuff to galleries and distributors so time-consuming that it's an unpaid second job (on top of the day job you're supposed to have), folks tend to just not buy it except for very few and generally works that are very cheap.

We've run a gallery. I've sold art online, through online and meatspace shops, in shows, at conventions, even at swap-meets. If I was lucky, we'd eat that night. Almost no fine artists can even afford to make that their day job.

The decently fortunate get deals where they sell prints through stores, or sell reproductions.

The rarified few sell their work for big bucks. Almost no fine artist will ever achieve that kind of income. And if you're a digital fine artist, you're pretty SOL, most galleries will just not display your work.

[Reverend Smooth]

Have you considered a Kindle-like device?Nope. Kindles require ambient lighting. I'm not sure that there IS much ambient lighting that is bright enough to read without frying me, and what I could try to get is pretty expensive and hard to obtain. Besides, Kindles are a third of my rent. (And the -like devices, a fourth.)

Well, Hulu works that way and it's free. Plus there are solutions to do what you're talking about. Right now I'm working on turning a PC in my basement into a home-built DVR, to "tape" my shows in iPod-compatible format.
Yeah, but I'm talking 'turn it on 'discovery' and leave it on all day in the background, not hunting for individual shows, not all of which are online. I do have some stuff on ipod, but I need to get a shield for the screens.

[Typo Lad]

That's simply false economics.

It's false even in the property-and-commodity model. The price is set in negotiation between buyer and seller. Sure, the seller has the option not to sell a commodity until they get the price they want; but that risks not getting a sale at all. And after that, the seller has no control over the price in the secondary market, which will drastically effect the price in the primary market.

Ask any fine artist, and look at the way in which dealers, artists and collectors collude to force the price up (which in any other commodity market would be criminal price manipulation).

But once we leave the property-and-commodity model, it's a completely different matter. We consumers all become Lady Gregory, and we artists all become Yeats sucking up to her ladyship to get her cash.

It might not be pretty, it might not be desirable, but it is the reality.

And in truth, it always was.
You're wrong Paul. You just are. It's sad because you want to badly to be right, but it's also sad that you ignore reality.

Prices can vary and be negotiated, but they're there.

Example:

Dude writes a comic book script. He gets an offer to buy it. He wants more. He declines. He gets another offer. He accepts. The company lists the book with Diamond. A Realtor decided if the price after Diamond and the company's takes are worth it. He buys some. I come in the store. The price is 2.99. I offer him a buck. He says "no, the price is 2.99." I decide if I want to pay the 2.99. If I don't, that doesn't mean I get to go home and go on Bittorrent. It just means I wait for the trade.

Because the item has a price.

Everything has value. One can do what Jill Sobule did and cut out all those middle steps and have the fans pay for your album and then sell it to them, with free copies that donate. One can do what I did with WWTT and have content on a donation-basis. But what one cannot do is set the price if they are not the seller. You don't get to tell me what my art is worth. Period. My art is worth what it is worth. If you want to negotiate, fine. I'll even take barter.

If you want it for free... well, then sorry, you're stealing. period. It may or may not be harmful theft, but it is theft.

Things have value.

[Paul McEnery]

I really wish networks would get off their ass and start providing digital subscriptions to their channels. I'd kill to have the edutainment channels streaming to my desktop (if it wasn't too hideously expensive, anyway).

They kind of are, through Hulu or, I believe, Amazon.

Which is only because they've been forced to do so through free digital reproduction. The model that might work for them is providing content on a pay-per-play basis, but only if they price it reasonably, and make it convenient and reliable.

The economies of scale for a show like, say, House make production difficult without studio backing; such shows will either find a paying audience through online distribution or DVD, or they'll die back.

Personally, I'd rather see independent production houses creating their own content without studio interference; and having a decent pay-per-play digital distribution model available for them.

Because at the moment, I'm either ganking stuff online, or I'm off down J-town for VCDs for a lot of the content I want to see -- it simply isn't commercially available; and I'd rather be in a position to pay.

The alternative model is the BBC, where everything is available for a week online, but only if you're in the UK, where membership of the BBC (which is what the licence fee really is) is compulsary. Which is a good deal -- three quid a week for more quality content than you can reasonably watch or listen to is something I'd happily stump up for. But of course you can't subscribe outside of the country, because of stupid copyright laws.

[MacQuarrie]

Ever read the legal notes/EULA? By the way, I don't disagree with downloading as a new business model. I just firmly believe that doing it without the owner's consent (whether it be RIAA, creators, publisher, whoever) is unethical. If you want that sort of model, there are plenty of creators who willing put their work out there for that model. Reward the willing, but do not trample of the rights of those who don't want to do it your way.
You're right, it is unethical.

(For the record, however, note that the discussion is entirely academic on my side; I don't download anything except the very occasional iTunes purchase, like three songs a year. I don't use Limewire or whatever the current method is; don't do torrents or anything like that, don't read scanned comics. It's the principle I'm discussing.)

I have a sliding scale regarding my concern for the ethics of it. When it's the artist, I'm very concerned. The publishers, a little less so.

The RIAA? Screw 'em. They're currently trying to invent the fiction that listening to music on the radio is stealing. I would illegally download every track ever recorded if it would utterly destroy that pack of fascists. Music and musicians will be better off when those rapacious bastards are dead and buried in the Earth.

When iTunes pays 90% of the revenue to the artist instead of the label, I'll be a lot more concerned about illegal downloading of music.

[Typo Lad]

Nope. Kindles require ambient lighting. I'm not sure that there IS much ambient lighting that is bright enough to read without frying me, and what I could try to get is pretty expensive and hard to obtain. Besides, Kindles are a third of my rent. (And the -like devices, a fourth.)

Ah.

Yeah, but I'm talking 'turn it on 'discovery' and leave it on all day in the background, not hunting for individual shows, not all of which are online. I do have some stuff on ipod, but I need to get a shield for the screens.

You can do that with a DVR, but you'd need an insane amount of HD space.

[Reverend Smooth]

They kind of are, through Hulu or, I believe, Amazon.

Which is only because they've been forced to do so through free digital reproduction. Note the lack of profitability for indie film and tv-makers and the absolute lack of profitable indie programming. Note that they could afford to make the switch despite piracy because their revenue was based on ads.

(Most indie comic sites can't support themselves with ad revenue, by the way.)

It's not comparable to point to that relative success and then say that's how it is for indie comics. That can MAYBE be compared to folks with major publisher success, but the comic industry makes a fraction of what the TV industry does.

[Reverend Smooth]

You can do that with a DVR, but you'd need an insane amount of HD space.
Currently taken up by comic pages. Can't afford the equipment and the cable subscription anyway. It's just not an option right now, I've gotten over it, no big deal.

[Reverend Smooth]

When iTunes pays 90% of the revenue to the artist instead of the label, I'll be a lot more concerned about illegal downloading of music.You should be more concerned about it now, since you're telling folks who are already getting underpaid to just get over huge numbers of people refusing to pay them at all.

[Typo Lad]

You should be more concerned about it now, since you're telling folks who are already getting underpaid to just get over huge numbers of people refusing to pay them at all.
I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying *he's* personally less concerned for that reason.

Jim is a freelance artist. He's directly impacted by this discussion, like yourself. He's just saying that he's concerned with the *legal* theft from the artist first.

Which is an opinion he's entitled to.

[Paul McEnery]

You're wrong Paul. You just are. It's sad because you want to badly to be right,

Nope.

I'm just plain right. You can argue till you're blue in the face about it, but reality says different.

You're just talking about social convention; I'm talking about brute economic realities.

Dude writes a comic book script. He gets an offer to buy it. He wants more. He declines. He gets another offer. He accepts. The company lists the book with Diamond. A Realtor decided if the price after Diamond and the company's takes are worth it. He buys some. I come in the store. The price is 2.99. I offer him a buck. He says "no, the price is 2.99." I decide if I want to pay the 2.99. If I don't, that doesn't mean I get to go home and go on Bittorrent. It just means I wait for the trade.

Of course it means you get to go on bittorrent. We all get to go home on bittorrent.

What you mean is, you disapprove of it. Which has never stopped anyone doing anything, has it.

You're stuck in the past, continuing to use a property-and-commodity model that has simply ceased to pertain.

What you're frantically refusing to recognize is that commodities have exchange value precisely to the degree that demand outstrips supply. Digital reproduction means that supply infinitely outstrips demand. That is a brute economic reality.

Now sure, there are people who've made money bottling tap water and selling it to gullible chumps. But I'm buggered if I'm going to buy it. What I'm going to do is continue to pay for my water service.

Service economy, not commodity economy. They operate on completely different principles. And with digital reproduction, we no longer buy a commodity, we buy a service.


Things have value.

If nobody is in the forest, does the falling tree make a sound?

If a commodity cannot fetch an asking price, does it still have exchange value?

The real problem here is that everyone is conflating value-in-itself, use value, and exchange value.

And no matter how much everyone tuts about it, it is still the case that the exchange value of digital reproductions is zero.

[Reverend Smooth]

I never said he wasn't. o.O

It's not like I like the RIAA either. And a lot of their tactics are flat-out douchery. But unless one is a major act, they're the only folks who're willing to pay people a consistent wage for their work.

The 'liberators' presently aren't.

[Reverend Smooth]

Nope.

I'm just plain right. You can argue till you're blue in the face about it, but reality says different.

You're just talking about social convention; I'm talking about brute economic realities.
Brute economics flat-out insure that most artists who bypass a traditional publisher will never be able to sustain their ability to produce more work, whilst the traditional model insures that somewhat more artists can.

In conjunction with some kind of internet sales and distro, that can work. But ebooks themselves don't. And e-music itself, with no label, doesn't.

That's brute economic reality. If you don't like that, start giving artists what the label would give them. In fact, give them more than the pittance the label gives them. If every 'liberator' did that, or even most did, artists probably wouldn't need labels.

But they don't. They make excuses like 'art has no value', 'they should get a day job', 'I can't determine the value', or 'they should be grateful'.

[Paul McEnery]

You should be more concerned about it now, since you're telling folks who are already getting underpaid to just get over huge numbers of people refusing to pay them at all.

Me, I'm telling people to go see the show, buy the merch, and pay the artist as directly as possible.

I mean, this is why smalltime creators show up at cons, isn't it?

[Typo Lad]

See, this is just what I was saying in PM to someone this morning: These discussions always turn into how things are vs how someone wants them to be. In this case, you, Paul, want this to be about a service economy, so you put on your all-knowing wizard's hat and talk so much smoke that the DEA comes sniffing around.

Falling trees make sounds in the forest. This isn't philosophy 101 or a college bar with slightly tipsy liberal arts majors who's knickers you want to get in. It's people's livelyhood. Yes, a commodity still has value. That's the point of a deal. If I pay less than the agreed upon value for something, that's a deal. That's awesome. If I go and take it, without the creator's conscent, that's theft.

You blather on about digital reality, forgetting that I work in technology. There are new business models out there, and yes, digital format is a game changer, but it doesn't change reality; people need to eat. That's why there are so many dead internet startups, and the ones that exist found a way to make money. Reality.

I'm entitled to offer my work for whatever price I like. You're entitled to suggest alternate business models.

You're not allowed to take it. It's theft. Period.

In this digital age, I could even stop someone from reading my free web site if I wanted, just by blocking their IP. Why? Because by whatever social bargin I make, they're not paying me.

So go download, thinking you're doing this amazing thing and recreating reality in your own image. You're not. You're just stealing. Harm is irrelivent to that fact.

[Typo Lad]

Me, I'm telling people to go see the show, buy the merch, and pay the artist as directly as possible.

And also screw them out of sales that will cause their labels to sponsor more shows while you're doing it. Nice of you, mate.

I mean, this is why smalltime creators show up at cons, isn't it?

It's to chat up publishers and get free drinks off fans, actually.

[Slam_Bradley]

I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying *he's* personally less concerned for that reason.

Jim is a freelance artist. He's directly impacted by this discussion, like yourself. He's just saying that he's concerned with the *legal* theft from the artist first.

Which is an opinion he's entitled to.


Morts makes a good point here. You can hold an opinion without acting on it. It's the action (downloading) that is arguably the problem. Holding the opinion that downloading is inevitable or not a big deal isn't.

I couldn't figure out how to download a comic if I wanted to. And while I don't necessarily agree with Paul in all respects, I understand where he's coming from.

If copyright were actually for a reasonable amount of time and in fact protected artists, I'd be a lot more likely to jump on the downloaders. But I have a real problem feeling bad about Time-Warner not making money off the work that Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese and Carl Stalling did 50 years ago. Or Time-Warner being denied another pound of flesh from the work that Bill Finger did 70 years ago. Or the RIAA making sure the corporate copyright holders get the money from work Ike Turner did 60 years ago.

[Reverend Smooth]

Most smalltime creators lose money going to cons. It's pretty easy to lose money touring, too. We've lost money every time we've sent Larime to represent, and that came directly out of rent and food money.

I can personally guarantee you that you'll never meet me at a con booth, fwiw. You might meet Larime if he can afford to be sent there. But if you decide you like Hollow, but wait all year to actually pay us for something whilst downloading our comic for free, and if many other people do the same, then we might not have our contract renewed.

Most webcomic folks can't afford to go to cons anyway. You seem to assume that people have a lot more time and money than they do.

[Reverend Smooth]

But I have a real problem feeling bad about Time-Warner not making money off the work that Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese and Carl Stalling did 50 years ago. Or Time-Warner being denied another pound of flesh from the work that Bill Finger did 70 years ago. Or the RIAA making sure the corporate copyright holders get the money from work Ike Turner did 60 years ago.At that point, I'm inclined to agree, but at that point it's a lot closer to archiving history than taking away sales from a currently active artist.

[Paul McEnery]

Brute economics flat-out insure that most artists who bypass a traditional publisher will never be able to sustain their ability to produce more work, whilst the traditional model insures that somewhat more artists can.

That's obviously not true.

In the first place, Van Gogh.

In the second place, traditional publishers only sell the work they feel like selling. Marvel gives you, god help us, Red Hulk; digital publishing gives us Something Positive.

And in the third place, it doesn't matter anyway, because the traditional publishing model is a dinosaur. It's a model for the age of mechanical reproduction, and it simply doesn't work in the age of digital reproduction, any more than poets who could memorize Beowulf were a going concern once books arrived.


In conjunction with some kind of internet sales and distro, that can work. But ebooks themselves don't. And e-music itself, with no label, doesn't.

Of course they do. There's a massive market over at Amazon. And the example of the Arctic Monkeys shows that it's quite possible to make it without a label.

Of course, labels are still useful, when they're curators of talent who act as agents for the artists -- because who needs the tsuris. But when they act as employers of the talent, to hell with them.

That's brute economic reality. If you don't like that, start giving artists what the label would give them.

Buy two songs from Joe on Myspace, you've already given him at least 38% more than the label would give him for the whole album. And that's assuming they haven't saddled him with concealed debt for studio time, marketing costs, etc.


But they don't. .

Except they do.

[Slam_Bradley]

At that point, I'm inclined to agree, but at that point it's a lot closer to archiving history than taking away sales from a currently active artist.


I agree with you 100% there. I'll admit that I haven't really got much of a horse in this race. At least as it pertains to current art/music/etc. I just don't have that much interest in those new works generally.

What I have a huge interest in, however, is what I view as the corporate appropriation of our cultural history.

So I'll tend to just chim in with legal analysis and historical issues. Anyone can feel free to ignore them.

[Paul McEnery]

Or the RIAA making sure the corporate copyright holders get the money from work Ike Turner did 60 years ago.

Which in any case, they frequently don't. RIAA doesn't pay out to a helluva lot of people they supposedly collect for.

[Village Idiot]

You're wrong Paul. You just are.


QFT!

And he's not the only one. All these anti-creator arguments are simply the arguments of con men. 3-Card Monty, anyone?

[Reverend Smooth]

In the first place, Van Gogh.Oh, come on, Paul. Is that the best you can do? I'm not going to go mad, cut off my ear, and live in poverty just to feel some sort of artistic vindication because you have a hard-on for a currently-nonviable system.

In the second place, traditional publishers only sell the work they feel like selling. Marvel gives you, god help us, Red Hulk; digital publishing gives us Something Positive.And there are more folks making a reasonable wage via the traditional model than the current digital one. You keep NOT coming up with a viable alternative.

And in the third place, it doesn't matter anyway, because the traditional publishing model is a dinosaur. Which pays people.


Of course they do. There's a massive market over at Amazon. And the example of the Arctic Monkeys shows that it's quite possible to make it without a label.Amazon currently penalises small publishers.

Buy two songs from Joe on Myspace, Who is competing with Joe and Joe and Joe and Joe, so odds are his song will not get bought by anyone. And it usually isn't.

[Village Idiot]

I was raised on a farm.

I'm used to bad smells.

I'm just sick of these same dumbass excuses. Just say it, "I like to steal from artists."

Everything else is a crock of shit.

And that's why these discussions never go anywhere in the end. All manure, no substance.

People who like to steal will always be thieves. The rest of us try to be honorable human beings.

[Paul McEnery]

Note the lack of profitability for indie film and tv-makers and the absolute lack of profitable indie programming. Note that they could afford to make the switch despite piracy because their revenue was based on ads..

And that's hopeless in this market, of course.

Mind, their revenue was based on ads in the first place. So nothing's changed there.

What has changed is that the audience has gotten used to pay-per-play as a model; whether through on-demand or NetFlix (or the poor sad old video store; use NetFlix and you're stealing from your local video store!).

The research -- hell, the market -- shows that people are willing to pay to receive content for their devices; and in sufficient amounts to at least match the prior receipts of creators. Which is surely the only thing that matters.

If one is making at least as good a living, who cares if the number of freeloaders is high?

Except, of course, the Metallicas who think that ten million isn't enough; and the majors who face having a much smaller trough for them. And the poor bastard retail clerks, of course.

[Tages]

It must be?

What a weird conclusion. Someone finds your position odious and so of COURSE it must be that you're right.

Please.
"You just want to feel better about stealing from artists" is a strange position to ascribe to an artist.

Didn't originally want to pull that card but since the wagons are circling there it is.

You find my position odious because you're presuming a motive for something that isn't actually there.
Oh, for the love of Christ.

Regarding your email, Tages?

THIS is why.

So now you know.

Yeah. I wrote that after.

Regarding the other part of your response, the other time was about Townsend.

[Paul McEnery]

And that's why these discussions never go anywhere in the end. All manure, no substance.
.

The irony is killing.

[Village Idiot]

The irony is killing.

Then you must be a zombie.

[snarkbunny]

In the second place, traditional publishers only sell the work they feel like selling. Marvel gives you, god help us, Red Hulk; digital publishing gives us Something Positive.

Except Randy has willingly chosen that model and happily he is successful at it. If Marvel chooses not to follow that model, what right does Bob have to override Marvel's decision and make it digitally available without Marvel's consent?

A new business model is all well and good, but you are complaining about the RIAA's ethics, and building a new business model on the ethics of ignoring the owner's rights is EVEN worse.

Corrina and the Rev. had interesting points about the viability of the business, but nobody is forced to join a major music label, or write for Marvel or DC (okay it's a matter of bad or worse choices for a living wage but that is beside the point.) Therefore why should DC/Marvel or the Rev or Corrina, be forced against their consent by a third party with no rights to their property into a distribution model they do not want to participate in?

[Reverend Smooth]

What's really frustrating is that I've been a professional artist since I was 16. I'm 34. I went digital in the last 90s. Musically we were on MP3.com and garageband before the phenomenon even took off, and participated when it did.

I've sold work in galleries, to shopowners, at swapmeets. I've done work for small publishers, been shafted by big ones, been scammed. I've done work for digital download and royalties and flat fees.

I actually do know, Paul et al, how the system works, as an artist who's been working in all of these various systems at various points in time. And I am saying, it is the very rare exception who can make a successful and entirely digital career. It's not even a matter of talent, because there are good comics and bands out there which just don't get the exposure and so never make it. (And no, I'm not even talking about myself.) Just like with the regular industry, but worse.

Like TL said, people need to eat. The current internet model, combined with the insistence of you and others who state that they don't feel they should pay folks for their work, is why it doesn't work.

You can't just point at the internets and have a successful business model. That is why countless internet businesses have failed, including innumerable comics and bands.

The RIAA is a piece of shit. Most publishers reject very good material and won't pay folks what they should. I am not disputing this. But there is currently no system that is better. You're certainly not offering one, you're telling us to get day jobs and that our work has no value and, oh, you're doing us a favor. Well, your 'favors' don't feed me, house me, cover the electric bill, or pay for my meds.

It's easy for you to act like the victim and claim some kind of philosophical oppression, oh, the plebes don't understand. But what YOU don't understand is that you expect people to starve just so you can have an hour's fun.

[Paul McEnery]

Oh, come on, Paul. Is that the best you can do? I'm not going to go mad, cut off my ear, and live in poverty just to feel some sort of artistic vindication because you have a hard-on for a currently-nonviable system.

It's all I have to do. It's patently untrue that artists can't make work unless they've got a paying audience.

And there are more folks making a reasonable wage via the traditional model than the current digital one. You keep NOT coming up with a viable alternative.

Of course. Because the digital market hasn't been fully developed yet.

In five years time, the traditional model will have practically ceased to exist as we know it. And the digital market will dominate.


Which pays people.

Not for very much longer.

Amazon currently penalises small publishers.

It does, doesn't it. I wonder wonder wonder what to do about that.

Who is competing with Joe and Joe and Joe and Joe, so odds are his song will not get bought by anyone. And it usually isn't.

Which is in what way different from the previous situation?

Except that MySpace and Facebook (and Twitter) now provide massive peer-to-peer social marketing tools; the manufacturing and distribution costs are cheaper by at least half; and the profit margin is at least 10 times the size it used to be.

I'm not seeing the down side.

[Reverend Smooth]

It's all I have to do. It's patently untrue that artists can't make work unless they've got a paying audience.Van Gogh worked a day job for most of his life, though that paid pretty crappy and his artistic output was pretty much nil.

His output was in about the last ten years of his life, during which he was financially and generously supported by his brother. MOST of the stuff that's acclaimed as good was done after he went batshit, in the last two years of his life, in which he was also supported.

Most people do not have well-off relatives who are willing to fund their art fugues. And disability checks don't cover the expense of art materials.

So, no. Your example fails. Van Gogh was able to work on art because somebody was paying his bills. He only started getting much acclaim after he died, so his brother was probably buying his art supplies, too. In any case, he didn't need folks to buy his things because someone was subsidizing his lifestyle.

(Edit: he was, incidentally, incapable of financially supporting a family as an artist, even with his family sending him money-- and yeah, his brother was buying his supplies. Maybe you should read up on him. Eating seemed to have to be optional, too, as he was the typical starving artist.)

I studied him in art classes, but I'm gonna quote the wiki for you:

In November 1885 he moved to Antwerp and rented a little room above a paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images (Lange Beeldekensstraat). He had little money and ate poorly, preferring to spend what money his brother Theo sent to him on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee, and tobacco were his staple intake. In February 1886 he wrote to Theo saying that he could only remember eating six hot meals since May of the previous year. His teeth became loose and caused him much pain.

This is midway through his career. I'm sorry, but you expect us artists to live like that? And this was WITH his working expenses subsidized. Because I've been there quite often, half the time I'm still there, and I'd really rather NOT live like that anymore.

[Paul McEnery]

QFT!

And he's not the only one. All these anti-creator arguments are simply the arguments of con men. 3-Card Monty, anyone?

So tell me, what exactly is it that you've ever created? Or published? Or promoted.

Because I'm thinking it's exactly fuck all. Which puts you a long way behind me and the people I've worked with, and continue to work with, with the intention of creating work and putting food on artist's tables.

[Reverend Smooth]

Except that MySpace and Facebook (and Twitter) now provide massive peer-to-peer social marketing toolsYou pay for ads that reach a lot of people, just like everyone else, and a fraction of those folks ever bother to click.

Or you put up a page, and you, if you are one of the lucky few, get attention.

Look, people have been saying and doing this kind of thing for a decade, and there STILL isn't a viable industry or a revolution, and it's not for lack of folks trying.

[Reverend Smooth]

Which puts you a long way behind meYeah, I wondered when you'd start outright putting yourself on a pedestal.

[Ghost]

And that's why these discussions never go anywhere in the end. All manure, no substance.

Oh, come on. This discussion kicks ass. It's actually gotten me to re-evaluate my opinion on illegal downloads (favoring your side, mind you) simply because the arguments have been so damn good.

People who like to steal will always be thieves. The rest of us try to be honorable human beings.

Well, some of them, anyway.

[Village Idiot]

So tell me, what exactly is it that you've ever created? Or published? Or promoted.

I admitted earlier that I am not a creative person. I am the one who buys creative stuff. Which is why I'm not in support of stealing.

[Paul McEnery]

Van Gogh worked a day job for most of his life, though that paid pretty crappy and his artistic output was pretty much nil.

Then who made all those paintings in the big fat double volume book of his art?


His output was in about the last ten years of his life, during which he was financially and generously supported by his brother. MOST of the stuff that's acclaimed as good was done after he went batshit, in the last two years of his life, in which he was also supported.

If he were still alive, that would be very very very libellous.

Most people do not have well-off relatives who are willing to fund their art fugues. And disability checks don't cover the expense of art materials.

So they don't.

So what? Artist's aren't entitled to any money more than what they can hustle. That digital reproduction changes the nature of the hustle doesn't mean artists are going to go unpaid. Which has already been demonstrated.

So, no. Your example fails. Van Gogh was able to work on art because somebody was paying his bills. He only started getting much acclaim after he died, so his brother was probably buying his art supplies, too. In any case, he didn't need folks to buy his things because someone was subsidizing his lifestyle.
And you think that's different for any working artist?

The fine arts market is entirely based around patronage; whether it's Saatchi buying your work so as to speculate and manipulate the market; or someone who takes a personal interest in your work; or getting a day job teaching at a university.

But the reality is that it's still exactly the same at every level. Mechanical reprodution meant you could have many cheap copies, and therefore many smaller patrons, so the number of professional artists increased massively. Digital reproduction means you have an infinite number of free copies, and therefore all the patrons in the world. But it's still up to you to sell them on giving you money.

[Village Idiot]

Yeah, I wondered when you'd start outright putting yourself on a pedestal.

Well, Rev, I'm seen that in his attitude throughout this whole thread. People who think themselves above the Common Man frequently just don't get it. You know, like Ayn Rand.

[bringthenoise]

In the second place, traditional publishers only sell the work they feel like selling. Marvel gives you, god help us, Red Hulk; digital publishing gives us Something Positive..

Or Marvel gives us Brubaker's Cap and digital publishing gives us Shredded Moose. There's shit everywhere. And good stuff everywhere.

[MacQuarrie]

I never said he wasn't. o.O

It's not like I like the RIAA either. And a lot of their tactics are flat-out douchery. But unless one is a major act, they're the only folks who're willing to pay people a consistent wage for their work.

The 'liberators' presently aren't.

The reality is almost all working musicians make their income from selling CDs and t-shirts at concert venues. Whether anybody illegally downloads or legally buys from the label, their share of the money is eaten up by creative bookkeeping and they will never see a dime unless they become famous enough to demand payment. Most unknown artists understand that the exposure from illegal downloads benefits them far more than anything they get from the label. The ones that aren't signed sell through Orchard or CD Baby or Tunecore and the money from iTunes goes right to them, and the amount of illegal downloading going on is so little as to be negligible to their income.

I know, because I sell music on iTunes. Search for Train to Sligo.

[Paul McEnery]

I admitted earlier that I am not a creative person. I am the one who buys creative stuff. Which is why I'm not in support of stealing.

And I'm speaking as someone who's been a retailer, a writer, an editor, and a publisher.

And I'm telling you that you're talking bollocks.

[Village Idiot]

And I'm speaking as someone who's been a retailer, a writer, an editor, and a publisher.

Yet you are now my equal, an online poster. Except you promote not paying the creator.

[Paul McEnery]

Yeah, I wondered when you'd start outright putting yourself on a pedestal.

ooOOoo.

So sorry to have put my money where my mouth is. I'll try to just snipe ignorantly from the sidelines in future.

[Reverend Smooth]

The reality is almost all working musicians make their income from selling CDs and t-shirts at concert venues. Whether anybody illegally downloads or legally buys from the label, their share of the money is eaten up by creative bookkeeping and they will never see a dime unless they become famous enough to demand payment. Most unknown artists understand that the exposure from illegal downloads benefits them far more than anything they get from the label. The ones that aren't signed sell through Orchard or CD Baby or Tunecore and the money from iTunes goes right to them, and the amount of illegal downloading going on is so little as to be negligible to their income.

I know, because I sell music on iTunes. Search for Train to Sligo.Most unknown artists have to quit because they can't afford to keep doing it.

[Rev. Calibos]

Do you feel this way about used books, comics, video games, etc?

I'm not sure honestly. It's a different product and instead of one producer (a singer or a band) comics and video games are a result of many, many more indivduals.

The connection is see is the purchase of used, whether it's comics, music or video games.

Since I graduated High School I've never purchased a new game, not once. Anything I buy is bought for cheap at Game Stop or some other place.

Let's look at the Madden series. I have most of them up to '07 and then I stopped. I can't go out and spend $20 on a video game. I can afford it, sure, but if I wait a year or two I can pick up the same game for a mere fraction of the cost.

So when Madden comes out it's usually, what, $40, $45?

That's the price EA determines is fair for the game. By charging that amount they can make a tidy profit and still pay the designers/artists/etc. who worked dilligently to make the game as awesome as it is.

But I'm not paying $45 on a game. Ever. That's not to say that I don't value the end product of the hard work that goes into it, far from it. I just know that the exact same product will be available to me in a year or two for a much, much lower price.

If Game Stop didn't exist? If I couldn't find a used copy anywhere for $10 or less?
Sure, I'd buy the game new.$40 is, at least for me, a price that is within the realm of reason for a video game.


Looking at comic books it's sort of the same way. My pull list is about 25 books or so.

Those 25 books are worth the $3 every month ($2.70 with discount, cha-ching) and I spend it gladly.

Back issues at my LCS? Pfft, forget that. It's tempting sometimes, I flip through them on occasion but I'm not spending $2 on JLA back issues when I know that if I drive to Pittsburgh (which I do about twice a year to visit family) I can buy any number of JLA back issues for a quarter a piece.

I'm a fan of the quarter bins, lol.

In fact, I just got back from my LCS here at State College. I picked up the entire Deathmate crossover for 40 cents a piece.

This came out when I was a freshman in HS and I can't tell you how heartbroken when I couldn't get it. It was too much for my meager allowance and I hadn't joined the work world yet......so $3 for the prologue / epilogue and $5 for Gold/Black/Red/Yellow, etc. were way too much for me to handle.

Back then those prices, although insurmountable for my wallet, definitely reflected the value I found in those books.

If I had the money I would have spent it gladly on what I thought was going to be 'the greatest cross-over ever.'

Whew, boy was I wrong, lol.

But now, years later, I find them for cheap and in a bit of nostalgia I pick them up for a fraction of what they cost.



A lot of hard work went in to creating Deathmate and a lot of hard work goes into bringing us Madden every year, but I can't spend that much money on a product when I know that if I wait long enough, it's going to be available for a much lower cost used.

[Paul McEnery]

Yet you are now my equal, an online poster. Except you promote not paying the creator.

Please, learn to read.

[Reverend Smooth]

I'll try to just snipe ignorantly from the sidelines in future.

You are presently doing just that.

[Tages]

And that's why these discussions never go anywhere in the end. All manure, no substance.

People who like to steal will always be thieves. The rest of us try to be honorable human beings.

Honor just doesn't give the same thrill as self-righteous indignation.

Better still would be actually trying to think up solutions to the problem rather than petty sniping from the peanut gallery.

[Paul McEnery]

You are presently doing just that.

With the idiot? Yeah, I am, and I should know better.

With the rest of it? Nope.

[Village Idiot]

I now retire from this thread before I resort to actions that might cause a banning, something I want no part of. As I noted very early in the "discussion", all these arguments against paying the creators have been made at numerous sites over the past few years, Nothing new has been offered here.

[Reverend Smooth]

Paul, you can't even come up with a decent example of an artist.

Van Fucking Gogh? The guy who starved just about his entire career while his brother bought his art supplies, and whose best output only happened after he was taken care of in an asylum? Who produced nothing until he was subsidized? The man couldn't even have made art if he wasn't being paid to do so, and in fact, he didn't when that was the case.

The guy who couldn't get married or even hang on to a live-in hooker because he couldn't even feed himself, let alone a family? The guy who could barely pay rent?

[Tages]

arguments against paying the creators

Absolutely no one is saying anything like that.

[Corrina]

Absolutely no one is saying anything like that.

But you're not coming up with a valid way to pay creators either.

[Tages]

But you're not coming up with a valid way to pay creators either.

A fair point.

Alternatives have been offered elsewhere on the thread.

And I always do pay creators.

[Rev. Calibos]

But you're not coming up with a valid way to pay creators either.

But how much of my money goes to the creator when I buy used though?

Going back to that earlier example, if a new CD comes out and two folks really want it if one buys it on the day of release and the second one waits a few weeks until it hit his used CD store, how much does the artist get?

Let's assume that the first individual is the one selling the CD back.

He's bought it on the day of release, he listened to it, enjoyed it and a week later he's done.

He thought he'd like it more but meh, he can live without it.

So he got his enjoyment out of it, he got his $20 worth out of the purchase.

He sells it to the used shop after having it for a week when consumer #2 walks in.

He planned to buy the CD new but wanted to shop around to see if he could find a better deal. $20 stretches his budget mayhap and if he can he'd like to find a cheaper copy before he sinks that much on it.

Luckily, he gets in there and finds consumer #1's copy for $5.

He snags it up, takes it home and gets $20 worth of enjoyment from the music that he was willing, if pressed, to spend the full amount on.


The artist gets gypped in this situation. Instead of selling two CD's to two consumers who wanted the product and were willing to spend the money on it he instead only has the one purchase.

So in that case, the artist still got paid (the initial CD had to be purchased in the first place in order to get to the used store) but because consumer #2 wanted to save a buck he's going to miss out on that additional purchase.

[Paul McEnery]

And I am saying, it is the very rare exception who can make a successful and entirely digital career.

That's not really rarer than it was thirty years ago, when there was no indy market at all, and very few slots in the factory.

And that's because the market is in a transitional state. Given that brick-and-mortar is a thing of the past; and given that brick-and-mortar is the only way to make single issues of comics a viable proposition; (and in any case given that brick-and-mortar never supported indies all that much anyway); then digital continues to offer opportunities that where absolutely no opportunity existed before.


It's not even a matter of talent, because there are good comics and bands out there which just don't get the exposure and so never make it. (And no, I'm not even talking about myself.) Just like with the regular industry, but worse.

Well, no. It isn't worse. It's better. It's a lot easier to be exposed to talent than it was thirty years ago, when talent couldn't get any exposure at all.

Like TL said, people need to eat. The current internet model, combined with the insistence of you and others who state that they don't feel they should pay folks for their work, is why it doesn't work.


Looks around for strawman. Finds him to be as invisible as he was ten pages back.

You can't just point at the internets and have a successful business model. That is why countless internet businesses have failed, including innumerable comics and bands.

As opposed to all the other businesses, comics and bands, all of which were guaranteed success in the material world.

You're certainly not offering one, you're telling us to get day jobs and that our work has no value and, oh, you're doing us a favor.

Am I? Am I really?

But here's a clue. The vast majority of artists have ALWAYS had to keep a day job. During the writing of The Waste Land, T.S. freaking Eliot had a day job. Shocker!

Also, saying that a commodity has no exchange value is not the same as saying something has no value-in-itself, or use value. Is it.

I consider that a signed Rob Liefeld print has no value-in-itself, and for the use value, a dollar sixty nine at Walgreens is money better spent. But that's just my opnion; as for exchange value -- sure, it's got plenty of that.

But a digital reproduction of that same print has zero exchange value, regardless of my opinion.

So please, complain to me next about how gravity makes everything heavy.


Well, your 'favors' don't feed me, house me, cover the electric bill, or pay for my meds.

Not if you can't put work I care about where I can pay you for it, no.

And I can assure you that if I went into any of my LCSs a week after your comic's publication, I wouldn't find it; even if I could find it the first week. And I live in a city with three of the best comic stores in the country, if not the world, two of them within walking distance. It's a rubbish system for indy creators, and most unlikely to keep a roof over your head.

That's why Brubaker's writing Captain America instead of something personal.

It's easy for you to act like the victim

I'm not. But you certainly are.

But what YOU don't understand is that you expect people to starve just so you can have an hour's fun.
It is the most fun I get every day, watching people starve. Hell, I do it for six hours a day if I can.

But what a bastard I am for explaining to you the facts of the marketplace so you might actually be able to earn a living in it. Please, carry on the way you have, and see how you like it.

[Paul McEnery]

Paul, you can't even come up with a decent example of an artist.

Van Fucking Gogh? The guy who starved just about his entire career while his brother bought his art supplies, and whose best output only happened after he was taken care of in an asylum? Who produced nothing until he was subsidized? The man couldn't even have made art if he wasn't being paid to do so, and in fact, he didn't when that was the case.

The guy who couldn't get married or even hang on to a live-in hooker because he couldn't even feed himself, let alone a family? The guy who could barely pay rent?

Way to ignore both points:

1) Van Gogh created unique commodities for a market that paid highly for the like, with a talent far greater than that of most of his contemporaries, indeed, than most of the human race ever. So how come he didn't make tons of money? According to you, that ought to be guaranteed!

2) And yet, not ever making a real sale in his life, he still created a larger and greater body of work than that of most of his contemporaries, indeed, than most of the human race ever. According to you, that ought to be impossible!

But let's expand upon that point.

Sadie Harrison, composer. Doesn't make a living from record sales, like 100% of modern composers. She requires the patronage of universities, governments, etc. So there's that.

Also, if I'd seen her record, for a prohibitive twenty bucks, sitting there in the store, I wouldn't even look at it. No idea what it is. No way of finding out. Get something I've heard of instead. That's how people shop who don't have access to digital media. Hell, the store wouldn't even have bought it in. My local store - Amoeba, greatest indy record store in the world -- hasn't bought it in.

And if I hadn't happened to listen to the one Saturday night that the BBC broadcasted her work -- which I couldn't do anyway without digital media; let alone be at home at the time the BBC broadcasts obscure music -- then I'd never have heard of her.

But because of digital distribution, I got a chance to listen to her work without paying for it -- prohibitive disincentive -- and was able to find out that she's a great composer, and slapped down the cash for her work. At a very reasonable price.

[Reverend Smooth]

I'm not. But you certainly are.Oh, really, now? 'I know you are but what am I?'

I'm a working professional and still have a roof over my head and usually eat when I need to, nowadays. I state that the current system is still better as things stand now, because the other system doesn't offer financial support to folks trying to earn an actual living, and somehow I'm playing the victim card? You're the one butthurt because artists are telling you that they don't appreciate your view that their work has no value, that they should stick to their day jobs, and that your grasp of e-book and e-comic economics is solidly within the realm of your own dreams and not within the actual reality that requires folks to eat?

Hmm, I think that's full of shit, Paul. Just like your insistence that Van Gogh is a viable example of someone who didn't need to sell his work to produce art.

[Reverend Smooth]

Way to ignore both points:

1) Van Gogh created unique commodities for a market that paid highly for the like, with a talent far greater than that of most of his contemporaries, indeed, than most of the human race ever. So how come he didn't make tons of money? According to you, that ought to be guaranteed!Uh, no, when the fuck did I say that. I've said that if you like someone's work, pay them the price of the work. Most people in his day and age hated his work, which you'd know if you read up on him. There are even letters between him and his brother of them bitching at each other about how his stuff isn't selling because it's not what people want to buy.

2) And yet, not ever making a real sale in his life, he still created a larger and greater body of work than that of most of his contemporaries, indeed, than most of the human race ever. According to you, that ought to be impossible!

Let me use small but very large type words.

HE WAS SUBSIDIZED BY HIS BROTHER AND A MENTAL HOSPITAL. HE DID NOT EVEN HAVE TO BUY HIS OWN ART MATERIALS. HE WENT WITHOUT FOOD, IN SOME CASES LODGING. HE COULD NOT GET MARRIED BECAUSE HE COULD NOT SUPPORT A FAMILY ON AN ARTIST'S SALARY.

HE ONLY PRODUCED WORK AT ALL BECAUSE SOMEONE COULD AFFORD TO BUY HIM ART MATERIALS THAT HE HIMSELF COULD NOT BUY ON HIS ARTIST BUDGET. HAD SOMEONE NOT PAID FOR HIS OUTPUT, HE WOULD NEVER HAVE CREATED SHIT, BECAUSE HE COULDN'T EVEN HAVE BOUGHT HIS OWN MATERIALS, OR EVEN SURVIVED WITHOUT FOOD OR SHELTER LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE PAINTED.

HE DID NOT NEED TO SELL SHIT BECAUSE HE WAS BEING PAID BY HIS BROTHER AND THE STATE, AND EVEN WITH THEIR FUNDING, HE EKED OUT AN EXISTENCE UNTIL HE WAS INSTITUTIONALIZED AND DIED A YEAR OR TWO LATER.

I REPEAT. THE ONLY REASON HE WAS ABLE TO PRODUCE ART WAS BECAUSE HE WAS BEING PAID TO DO SO FOR MOST OF HIS CAREER, 10 WHOLE YEARS, AND HIS GREATEST OUTPUT WAS DURING THE LAST TWO WHEN HE WAS IN A PLACE WHERE HE NO LONGER HAD TO WORRY ABOUT FOOD OR RENT.

THAT IS NOT A VIABLE SOLUTION FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF ARTISTS, ESPECIALLY TODAY. VAN GOGH DID NOT NEED TO MAKE SALES -- THOUGH LATER YOU SAY HE DOES, WHICH HE DID NOT -- TO BE A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST BECAUSE IN HIS VERY SPECIFIC CASE, HE HAD A PATRON. MOST ARTISTS, ESPECIALLY TODAY, HAVE NO PATRONS, SO PUBLISHERS HAVE SET THEMSELVES UP AS SUCH.

And if you were arguing this from a position of honesty, you'd back the fuck off of Gogh as an example, a particularly shitty example, of an artist who can make output without funding. He DID have funding. It's the only way he was able to produce work. You can't make art if you can't afford the materials. He only could because he took his rent and grocery money and dumped it into paint and canvas and the amount of work he did escalated when he was put in the nice hospital and really didn't have to worry about his expenses. That's the same choice artists make today, except most of them don't have brothers who'll pay their bills while they fuck off being artsy.

That's not playing the victim card, Paul. That's flat-out saying the internet model doesn't pay the bills and that I am going through publishers because I feel that I have a right to be paid for my work. My family has serious expenses and in my case it's the responsible thing to do. I certainly don't pull a Gogh and leech off my blood relatives, like you seem to think is a viable way of going about things.

[jesse_custer]

Hahaha, that was embarrassing.

[thespianphryne]

Which serves to highlight the idea that the notion of art as commodity has a fatal flaw and that one of the only safe models for recompensing artists is that of patronage.

[Reverend Smooth]

Well, I'd like to see the internet and self-publishing become the highly-successful model that I'm told it already is.

I think the problem of art being a commodity (or not) is that folks insist it isn't.

Chewing gum is a commodity. But it serves no purpose other than to make folks feel good. You don't get nutrition. You don't get much of anything, except mindless chewing. I can't see that as much different than reading, say, 'twilight' or listening to Britney Spears, and yet folks don't argue that chewing gum needs to be free or that it needs patronage.

Plenty of useless things get sold for their aesthetic purposes that have absolutely no practical use. But art is somehow different to a lot of people.

But it's a picture! It's words!

It's still something someone made. Tangible or intangible, someone made it. And someone else is consuming it.

But it's not real!

Of course it's real, you're reading it. This insistence that you must hold some object in your hands for it to be real is stupid. I remember folks bitching about having to digitally color comics, that it was less 'pure'. Or publishers refusing to take digital submissions -- even on hardcopy -- because no digitally-created work could be genuine art. There are still people who insist that it's only truly written from the heart if it's done with a pen, because type -- let alone computers -- is not genuine enough.

[Tages]

No one on this thread has said that an artist's work has no value.

That's a misrepresentation and a lie.

Again, for the hard of reading:

Commodity value NOT equals use value NOT equals artistic value

[Reverend Smooth]

I suggest you go back and reread the thread, Tages. :) It was pointed out several times that you can't put a value on art because it's all sooooo subjective.

[thespianphryne]

Erm... there are different kinds value.

Oh shit, Coke to Tages.

[Sabrinaset]

I can put a value on Liefeld's art.

Quick question: Rhapsody. Harmful to creators, or ...?

[Reverend Smooth]

I don't see why if the creator's being compensated. :3

[Rattlehead]

Bullshit.



Sales can greatly impact an artist's future beyond "what am I getting paid right NOW"...a band that doesn't sell records is a band that gets dropped from the label, is a band that doesn't make as much money.

And that's the beauty of the digital age, you don't NEED a stuffy old, money-stealing record label to get your stuff heard. You can make and produce your own stuff, hell if you have the right computer and recording equipment, you don't even need a recording studio anymore. I haven't bought an album from a major label in years. For one the major labels have no music that interests me, and two, smaller labels are thriving in the internet age. If bands really became millionaires off of record sales, why did Led Zeppelin tour constantly back in the 70's when there was no internet? Because they made more money off of touring than record sales. The only people who became millionaires off of LZ's record sales were Atlantic Records. Same with Metallica, they toured damn near non-stop from 81-93, and sued their own record lable because they weren't making very much from album sales. The old big time label system is broken, and any new artist knows this, and they also know that they don't NEED them anymore.

[Tages]

I suggest you go back and reread the thread, Tages. :) It was pointed out several times that you can't put a value on art because it's all sooooo subjective.

Not subjective. Negotiable.

There are different types of value.

I'm going to keep repeating this until you recognize it.

[Paul McEnery]

Well, I'd like to see the internet and self-publishing become the highly-successful model that I'm told it already is.

I think the problem of art being a commodity (or not) is that folks insist it isn't.

Chewing gum is a commodity. But it serves no purpose other than to make folks feel good. You don't get nutrition. You don't get much of anything, except mindless chewing. I can't see that as much different than reading, say, 'twilight' or listening to Britney Spears, and yet folks don't argue that chewing gum needs to be free or that it needs patronage.

Plenty of useless things get sold for their aesthetic purposes that have absolutely no practical use. But art is somehow different to a lot of people.

But it's a picture! It's words!

It's still something someone made. Tangible or intangible, someone made it. And someone else is consuming it.

But it's not real!

Of course it's real, you're reading it. This insistence that you must hold some object in your hands for it to be real is stupid. I remember folks bitching about having to digitally color comics, that it was less 'pure'. Or publishers refusing to take digital submissions -- even on hardcopy -- because no digitally-created work could be genuine art. There are still people who insist that it's only truly written from the heart if it's done with a pen, because type -- let alone computers -- is not genuine enough.

The world is full of stupids. And adapting to new media and new models takes time.

But the key important point here is that digital reproductions DO NOT FUNCTION in the marketplace as commodities because they have zero exchange value because the reproduction/material costs are near as dammit zero.

Now it's certainly true that some digital reproductions -- I more than hesitate to call them digital goods or products, because it's dangerously misleading -- have been marketed as commodities: The mp3 download, the e-book, etc. The mp3 marketplace is now very well established; the e-book marketplace is about to boom (not least because everyone is broke and wants cheap entertainment; but also because some big players are making it happen).

What's also important to remember is McLuhan's axiom: the content of a new medium is the form of the previous medium.

The mechanical reproduction of music reproduced the form of the live performance. Then that changed.

Digital reproduction reproduces the form of mechanical reproduction. In the short term, that means selling copies as if they were goods (which they are not). That model will shift -- and probably already is shifting. And what I'm saying is that it shifts from property-and-commodity to service-and-patronage.

If your business model is linked to the former, you'll do fine for a little while yet, but not for too much longer. Better to prepare yourself for the latter.

[Reverend Smooth]

If your business model is linked to the former, you'll do fine for a little while yet, but not for too much longer. Better to prepare yourself for the latter.
I've been active in selling stuff over the internets since 1999 or so (for a while quite lucratively before the market for the product changed). When a viable comic model shows up, I'm pretty sure I'll be happy to make the switch. That's never been in question.

The point is that there is not one now. You haven't even offered one, despite saying that there is.

digital reproductions DO NOT FUNCTION in the marketplace as commoditiesWhen I was selling digital textures through an online publisher, I made roughly 40-50k total, of which I got half. Not bad for a week's work. I got this via royalties over a few years, but the publisher had the built-in audience and the distro setup that I needed to sell at that volume. Did I like giving them half my work for very little of their effort? No, but:

When I had to switch to an indie seller, and tried to sell on my own? I made about, oh, 150 bucks.

Digital reproductions do actually work in the marketplace as commodities. The problem is that, especially for comics, there still isn't a really good way to get that content and work to folks, especially not in a portable way. Kindle's still way too expensive.

[Paul McEnery]

I don't see why if the creator's being compensated. :3

The label is, anyway.

I use Rhapsody to listen to things first and see if I want them. Because eMusic only gives you 30 second snippets, and sometimes that doesn't clinch the deal. And sometimes, like with classical composers, there's no MySpace page.

But Rhapsody only charges 12 bucks a month, so there's not a lot of money there, and if I listen to Rhapsody instead of buying music, then that's a big drop in earning power for the work.

OTOH, I drop 75 bucks a month to eMusic, and then there's more money to go round. And more than I would ever think of spending if I had to just buy a new CD at the store and keep it.

The same is true of trade paperbacks. I buy more of them, because they have resale/trade value, so I can more afford to take the chance. Floppies? At five bucks a throw, and no resale value? Forget it.

[Paul McEnery]

I've been active in selling stuff over the internets since 1999 or so (for a while quite lucratively before the market for the product changed). When a viable comic model shows up, I'm pretty sure I'll be happy to make the switch. That's never been in question.

The point is that there is not one now. You haven't even offered one, despite saying that there is.
Well, some people are making it, but it's true the the market is currently weak and underdeveloped.

I'd say that will have changed by this time next year.

When I was selling digital textures through an online publisher, I made roughly 40-50k total, of which I got half. Not bad for a week's work. I got this via royalties over a few years, but the publisher had the built-in audience and the distro setup that I needed to sell at that volume. Did I like giving them half my work for very little of their effort? No, but:

When I had to switch to an indie seller, and tried to sell on my own? I made about, oh, 150 bucks.

Fair enough. It's certainly the case that a trusted middleman can make a big difference. But what you're talking about is different from a commodity in any case: you were providing a service for commercial use to add value to their product/service. Everyone makes more money that way. Most I've ever made was by "writing" assets for marketing, and it was a nice chunk of change, but I'm not going to fool myself that I was selling a thing. I was selling perceived value enhancement (or some such jargony bollocks).

Digital reproductions do actually work in the marketplace as commodities. The problem is that, especially for comics, there still isn't a really good way to get that content and work to folks, especially not in a portable way. Kindle's still way too expensive.

Again, give it a year, and there'll be a sufficiently installed customer base just for handhelds.

But it will still be the case that the product is the service, and not the content. The content will still have zero exchange value. The motivation for handing over money for something of zero exchange value is very different, and has to be sold differently.

[Reverend Smooth]

Well, some people are making it, but it's true the the market is currently weak and underdeveloped.

I'd say that will have changed by this time next year.Folks have said THAT since 1990. Ebook readers are still too expensive, and they still don't do great with color. One year won't change that price point to where most folks can afford it. Kindle's been out how long now?

The content will still have zero exchange value.
That's also not true.

[DoctorDoom]

I'm not sure honestly. It's a different product and instead of one producer (a singer or a band) comics and video games are a result of many, many more indivduals.

I appreciate you answering this.

But to me it's still all the same. Someone paid full. Then they gave it up for less. Be it games, DVDs, comics, or music.

Mind you, I'm not against the sale of used goods,(I only recently found out that there's a sect of people against the sale of used games) nor would I buy a used CD.

[Rev. Calibos]

I appreciate you answering this.

But to me it's still all the same. Someone paid full. Then they gave it up for less. Be it games, DVDs, comics, or music.

No worries, I appreciated the question.

That's significant though, someone paid for it initially but after?

When I buy used I could be just the latest link of a long chain of buying/selling for that particular product.

That chain could go back through dozens of customers, only one of which paid the full price, the initial price set by the label.



Mind you, I'm not against the sale of used goods,(I only recently found out that there's a sect of people against the sale of used games) nor would I buy a used CD.


If you found that you wanted to find something that was out of print what would you do though? For instance, you discovered an obscure band that released something ages ago that was out of circulation,if you couldn't find it new at all would you just resign yourself to the fact that you couldn't get it?

[DoctorDoom]

If you found that you wanted to find something that was out of print what would you do though? For instance, you discovered an obscure band that released something ages ago that was out of circulation,if you couldn't find it new at all would you just resign yourself to the fact that you couldn't get it?

Oh, I meant I wouldn't buy a used CD because of the uncertain quality. They tend to be scratched from what I've seen. If I had to (which wouldn't happen), I would do it.

I have no problem buying most used stuff.

[Rev. Calibos]

Oh, I meant I wouldn't buy a used CD because of the uncertain quality. They tend to be scratched from what I've seen. If I had to (which wouldn't happen), I would do it.

I have no problem buying most used stuff.

That's happened to me a few times with my games which on one hand is frustrating to no end but on the other hand.....it's a dollar, lol, I think I'll be ok.

Some of the older EA sports titles I picked up for a dollar at Gamestop, stuff like NBA Live '01, '02, Madden '02, '03, Rugby '05, most of them work great but then you'll have a clunker (disk read error) and then wham, right back to gamestop we'll go.


What's funny is that we went to Walmart for some shopping and I checked out their discount games bin and I saw a copy of NCCA March Madness '02 for the low, low price of......$20.

Jeebus. I feel a bit sorry for the poor sod who gets that game thinking he's scoring a bargain.....:smile:

[CutterMike]

Who determines that value though?
(...)
Whether I go to the CD store or I download, either way I'm screwing the artist really, it's just a question of paying him peanuts or nothing.

Cal --

I'm going to try to summarize what I've been trying to say or imply over the course of this thread and then may step out of it -- it's taking up too much of my time and Time Is Money, y'know? :wink:

You started the thread saying "If I'm downloading music, I haven't stolen something physical like a CD from the store, so it's not theft, right?" (Yeah; I'm paraphrasing; bear with me...)

Now, based on that starting point your current direction of "Well, if I buy a used CD, the artist is getting ripped off anyway," causes me to infer -- and I will admit that it IS an inference and I could be wrong -- that there is is an underlying though process of "Well if he's getting ripped off whatever happens, then HOW it happens makes no difference."

As I said; could be wrong, probably am, but based on your starting point, it IS a logical inference.

Now.

As Paul has pointed out and I have agreed; in the current environment the artist has no choice about getting ripped off (my term; I don't think that he used that precise characterization). Once his original goes anywhere outside of the triply-locked, laser-guarded, neutronium vault in his studio, he has lost control of it and has to rely on the kindness of strangers not to steal (by his POV) the results of his labor from him.

Unless he can, as Paul again has pointed out, come up with a completely new business model that does not depend on humanity being nice enough not to take anything it can get for free (...And, once you stop laughing at the likelihood of THAT happening; I gotta tell ya that most of the creatives I know are just not that GOOD at reinventing economic systems...), he HAS NO CHOICE but to hope that enough people will pay him for his work that he can avoid spending his days asking the eternal question, "Can I Super-Size that for you?"

Read that again: He. Has. No. Choice.

The absolute best that he can reasonably hope for at this stage of the game (and discounting knock-on items like t-shirt sales, licensing, and so on) is that ENOUGH people will volunteer to chip in ENOUGH that it ends up aggregating to a living wage to hold him until the next project is done.

At which point the cycle starts again, and he keeps running the Red Queen's race until the cycle DOESN'T start again and he's living on his savings and any residual sales to people willing to pay him for his back-catalogue.

As I said -- this is the way it is. If he wants to make a living at his chosen work, he can invent a new business model, do whatever he considers his REAL work as a loss-leader so that he can sell t-shirts*, or rely on others valuing his work enough to CHOOSE to pay him for it.

If he doesn't want to get ripped off, his one choice is never unlocking that vault.

Now. let's assume that the artist has settled, as he must if he wants to make money from his work, on relying on people dropping cash into the can to pay for using it. Not only has he no control over who owns a copy of his work or what they do with it, we've already established that he has no control over HOW MUCH or even WHETHER they pay him for it.

That being the case he might put the word out that he considers "X" to be a fair Suggested Retail Price or -- let's be honest -- Requested Donation in exchange for the use of the result of his labor, since it's pretty much all that he CAN do.

Even that, of course, can be safely ignored by anyone who wants to.

He could offer to include POF liner notes, case card, and such with his music as an added bonus for people who purchase from him but, of course, after those are downloaded and uploaded elsewhere once by someone who feels so inclined, there goes any value as an incentive to pay that that add-on might have had.

And should he be so crassly commercial as to actually DARE to put the SRP in little tiny print on the case card, five seconds with MSPaint undoes that!

(Note: I am NOT saying anything here about how OFTEN such things happen, or how many "legitimate" sales are gained or lost from all of this, so RIAA me no RIAAs. As far as I've been able to tell, no one -- and I mean NO. ONE. -- has any numbers that can be relied on for valid answers so that's a rathole and we're not going there. I think we can all agree, however, that the situation as I've described it -- no more and no less -- describes the situation as it is.)

In short -- not to put too fine point on it -- as things are at this moment, it appears to me that the creator has no rights and the consumer has no responsibilities.

So, to answer the question that you asked: The creator pretty much has to be contented with anything he gets if he wants to put his work out to the public. He's always had the issue that, while he received no income from any secondary sales (your used-record store and such-like), and that such sell-on cannibalized some percentage of his primary sales, he still had SOME primary sales generating income for him. With the ease of duplication and transmission (the same thing, really) today, he can count on ONE primary sale -- assuming, of course, that the contents aren't leaked to the web before release by someone at the studio, pressing plant, or any newspaper, magazine, or broadcaster that gets a review copy...

(...is it any wonder that people get... um... vehement... about this situation...?)

So, yeah... the artist's SRP might seem absurdly low to one of us and absurdly high to the other relative to the value that we put on the artist's output. With luck on his part, if both of us ignore his SRP and pay what we consider fair exchange for the value that we receive, then maybe he breaks even and can register two normal sales. (Of course, it requires the equivalent of someone valuing his work at TWICE SRP to counter one free download, but them's the breaks.)

The one plus side that I can see to this all-digital-all-the-time brave new world of ours is that, if someone DOES pay the artist more than his SRP, it DOES cover part of the "loss" on a lower-than-SRP sale or a non-paying download. In a corporate-controlled CD world, since he only gets amount N of the price of the CD and nothing more or less, he has no way of recovering any income he loses to downloaders not buying CDs.

(Even More) Blatant Editorializing
The problem many of us are having is that, when discussing economics, one is not allowed to insert ethical considerations into the equation, which is what I was doing when I said things like "people who use the result of someone else's labor SHOULD be expected to pay", etc. That's what MY personal ethics say, but that's not looking at the world AS IT IS.

The state of the world as it is, IMO, is that if you cannot enforce an obligation on another party, that party HAS no obligation. Should you choose not to pay that ubiquitous plumber for his work, for example, he knows where to find you and knows that you own some property that you wouldn't want to lose to legal fees. He has some leverage when it come to enforcing an obligation to pay him for his labor.

OTOH, the creator of a work that can be duplicated and delivered digitally has no way of knowing which of the myriad people he meets going about his business in a given week owns a copy of his work for which he's seen no compensation. (For some, of course, that's been the case since the invention of the office Xerox and the tape recorder but -- as has been noted -- duplication tech has become ubiquitous so even if the percentage of bootleggers hasn't gone up, the numbers have. If one obsessed about such things, it would probably be nearly impossible to watch the Superbowl on TV without seeing little dollar signs and question marks flashing over the heads of everybody in the stadium... And unless he has made the Faustian deal with some lawyer-heavy deep-pockets group like the RIAA he has no way of finding out and enforcing any right that he might believe that he had to be paid for use of the output of his labor. (Not that he generally gets paid if RIAA wins, either; just an example.)

And if you can't enforce it, it doesn't exist.

Strictly speaking, of course, the downloader has taken on no obligation to pay for the use of the artist's work UNLESS HE CHOOSES TO BELIEVE THAT HE HAS. If his ethic doesn't extend to compensating the creator of an item that he can take for free, then he has not taken on the obligation to exchange value for value, so no obligation exists.

QED.

My sense of fair play says that that sucks off dead hyenas 'til the heads cave in, and that not including ethical factors in economic calculations is what brought us Enron and Bernie Madoff, but that's just my opinion and has no bearing on the facts.

--------------------
* I exaggerate (somewhat) for effect. In comics, for example, Phil Foglio publishes web comics for free, as loss-leaders to entice people to buy the dead-tree volumes when they are collected and published. He also (has to) keep a PayPal button up on all of his pages and offer special "donation gifts" to people who shovel a few bucks to him that way. While these are usually something in the way of digital-download desktop pictures and thus liable to the already-discussed risks of ALL digital art, I'm guessing that unless someone wanders in from outside, chooses to donate once to get the digital swag then "frees it for the good of all mankind", the people downloading it have already self-selected as being people who want his business model to survive because they want to CONTINUE reading his work.

For him it works, BUT he has built a fanbase for the last 30-something-years; a luxury that not every artist has.

...of course, I think he sells T-shirts, too...

[Reverend Smooth]

it's just a question of paying him peanuts or nothing.So pay him peanuts, because enough of those peanuts will allow him to keep making art, while nothing doesn't.

As an artist, I can quite assuredly state that those peanuts actually are of help.

And Cutter, it's fair to talk about your opinion. People justify their refusal to pay with quotes like what I cited above. Not, 'I chose to pay nothing,' but, 'it's a question of' in an attempt to make it impersonal.

If you give a damn about the artist, send them your dime when you've got the money. The end result of not doing so is an artist who can't keep making the stuff you enjoy.

If that doesn't matter to you -- whoever -- then just say so honestly instead of trying to turn it into a philosophical exercise. It's easy. Just say, 'I don't care if they don't make more stuff. I don't feel like paying for it.'

[MacQuarrie]

Most unknown artists have to quit because they can't afford to keep doing it.

That's true for most arts, and always has been.

Music is a special case now because even the moderately-successful ones usually don't make much money. The labels do.

But now music has been largely democratized by the changing technology and delivery systems, and an independent artist can be more successful and make more money than a comparable artist signed to a big label. They can take their product directly to the people without the middle man. O

ther arts, such as film and comics, haven't gotten there yet. Comics in particular is a difficult transition.

Then again, when the comic in question is work-for-hire from one of the majors, downloading doesn't hurt the artist at all; he got paid by the page. It hurts the publisher. Which is a legitimate concern, but it lacks the emotional appeal of "oh the poor artist is being robbed."

Not to mention the sheer hypocrisy of publishers crying crocodile tears over the plight of the very artists they themselves are actively screwing.

[Paul McEnery]

If you give a damn about the artist, send them your dime when you've got the money. The end result of not doing so is an artist who can't keep making the stuff you enjoy.

At the end of the day, that's the whole of the matter, isn't it.

If that doesn't matter to you -- whoever -- then just say so honestly instead of trying to turn it into a philosophical exercise. It's easy. Just say, 'I don't care if they don't make more stuff. I don't feel like paying for it.'
I think that's exactly the criteria I use for spending my entertainment budget.

The first issue is whether I care if the project survives or not. Back in the 70s, you could actually see this in the audited sales figures of comics, once a year. Dipping below a certain figure meant cancellation. Buy copies quick! (Which is how WFMU survives; once a year, they do the begathon and people pony up, and then they don't have to deal with ads or corporate interference; which is the added value that encourages payment there.)

The second issue is how much the artist needs the money relative to everyone else. If it comes down to who gets the cash, I would figure you would be more of a priority than Stephen King, say. If I read his books in the library, I think he'll cope.

The third issue is who else benefits. If I have no way to give you cash without giving Murdoch cash, I'm going to have to think very long and hard about that.

The fourth issue, of course, being that the landlord and the pharmacy and the ISP and the phone line and the grocers and the public transport and the power company get first dibs. If there's nothing left after that, I'm down to freeloading in the short term until things pick up.

[Rev. Calibos]

Cal --

I'm going to try to summarize what I've been trying to say or imply over the course of this thread and then may step out of it -- it's taking up too much of my time and Time Is Money, y'know? :wink:

You started the thread saying "If I'm downloading music, I haven't stolen something physical like a CD from the store, so it's not theft, right?" (Yeah; I'm paraphrasing; bear with me...)

Now, based on that starting point your current direction of "Well, if I buy a used CD, the artist is getting ripped off anyway," causes me to infer -- and I will admit that it IS an inference and I could be wrong -- that there is is an underlying though process of "Well if he's getting ripped off whatever happens, then HOW it happens makes no difference."

As I said; could be wrong, probably am, but based on your starting point, it IS a logical inference.


This is an understandable mistake and I'm responsible for that as, as the thread's wore on, I've gone off on an entirely different tangent.

I don't think that the artist is going to be ripped off no matter what......I just feel that if the thought is 'Output worth is determined by artist/label' then anytime I head to the used shop I'm totally skipping out on paying the artist/label what they feel the output is worth and perhaps what I feel the output is worth as well.

I may feel that $20 is a fair price but if I were to buy it used for a fraction of that I get what I would consider the full value of the CD for less money than I was perfectly willing to shell out.

End result, as far as I can tell, is that as a consumer I'm shorting him because I find value in his work yet have gone an entirely different route to get his product.



They might not have been completely ripped off as they received something for the initial purchase, but my own relationship with the artist is one dictated by me. Artist sets price for goods, I want goods, go entirely different route to procure goods.



Now.

As Paul has pointed out and I have agreed; in the current environment the artist has no choice about getting ripped off (my term; I don't think that he used that precise characterization). Once his original goes anywhere outside of the triply-locked, laser-guarded, neutronium vault in his studio, he has lost control of it and has to rely on the kindness of strangers not to steal (by his POV) the results of his labor from him.

Unless he can, as Paul again has pointed out, come up with a completely new business model that does not depend on humanity being nice enough not to take anything it can get for free (...And, once you stop laughing at the likelihood of THAT happening; I gotta tell ya that most of the creatives I know are just not that GOOD at reinventing economic systems...), he HAS NO CHOICE but to hope that enough people will pay him for his work that he can avoid spending his days asking the eternal question, "Can I Super-Size that for you?"

Read that again: He. Has. No. Choice.

The absolute best that he can reasonably hope for at this stage of the game (and discounting knock-on items like t-shirt sales, licensing, and so on) is that ENOUGH people will volunteer to chip in ENOUGH that it ends up aggregating to a living wage to hold him until the next project is done.

At which point the cycle starts again, and he keeps running the Red Queen's race until the cycle DOESN'T start again and he's living on his savings and any residual sales to people willing to pay him for his back-catalogue.

But that's assuming of course that once the original is released from the triply locked, monkeys armed with laser rifle guarded safe and then downloaded it's the end of it.

I'm not so certain of this. In my case (and others in this thread) the downloading was a catalyst to making legitmate purchases of the items of interest.

This of course tells us that humanity isn't QUITE as bad as some would think, lol, but I thnk it's less about being nice than it is about 1) looking for quality and 2) brand loyalty, to a certain extent, which assures continued output.

I could very easily buy most of my comics online for a lot less money than I could by dropping 30-40 dollars a week at my LCS. I don't do that for a number of reasons though.

I enjoy my LCS and I like the fact that I have an actual shop I can go into to find my books on the shelf. Buying online, although cheaper, can't replace the LCS.

I know that my continued business keeps THEM in business. If the patrons all at once decided to go the cheaper route online we'd have a comic-book-shop-less State College which is NEVER a good thing.

But on occasion I do buy books online and not at my LCS. I buy new there (and occasionally raid the quarter bins) but any back issues I get online because the volume I get warrants going for the lower price.

With music I feel similarly. I'm loathe to buy new music, but if I find something that I enjoy and I support I'm perfectly willing so support them with my hard earned dollars.

In return? I get the highest quality recording available and I do my part in 'chipping in' as it were to encourage them to continue making the music I love.

As a fan I have a vested interest in how well they do. Not quite as warm-n-fuzzy as 'humanity being nice' but there it is.

As I said -- this is the way it is. If he wants to make a living at his chosen work, he can invent a new business model, do whatever he considers his REAL work as a loss-leader so that he can sell t-shirts*, or rely on others valuing his work enough to CHOOSE to pay him for it.

If he doesn't want to get ripped off, his one choice is never unlocking that vault.

Now. let's assume that the artist has settled, as he must if he wants to make money from his work, on relying on people dropping cash into the can to pay for using it. Not only has he no control over who owns a copy of his work or what they do with it, we've already established that he has no control over HOW MUCH or even WHETHER they pay him for it.

That being the case he might put the word out that he considers "X" to be a fair Suggested Retail Price or -- let's be honest -- Requested Donation in exchange for the use of the result of his labor, since it's pretty much all that he CAN do.

Even that, of course, can be safely ignored by anyone who wants to.

He could offer to include POF liner notes, case card, and such with his music as an added bonus for people who purchase from him but, of course, after those are downloaded and uploaded elsewhere once by someone who feels so inclined, there goes any value as an incentive to pay that that add-on might have had.

And should he be so crassly commercial as to actually DARE to put the SRP in little tiny print on the case card, five seconds with MSPaint undoes that!

(Note: I am NOT saying anything here about how OFTEN such things happen, or how many "legitimate" sales are gained or lost from all of this, so RIAA me no RIAAs. As far as I've been able to tell, no one -- and I mean NO. ONE. -- has any numbers that can be relied on for valid answers so that's a rathole and we're not going there. I think we can all agree, however, that the situation as I've described it -- no more and no less -- describes the situation as it is.)


This is part of the reason why I went off on that tangent earlier.

If we assume that the product has a set value, a value determined by the artist/label and that to circumvent that value by downloading it free of charge without the consent of the artist, is that so different than from going the used route?

I only ask this because that's how I buy most of my music.

I enjoy Fear Factory and feel that their music has worth. I can go to Best Buy and pick up their CD the traditional route for the established price or I can go the used route and circumvent that.

The CD has been paid for but I wasn't a part of that equation. Me? I want the album, an album found in stores for that established price and instead of paying that I go and do what I want robbing the artist of another sale.


That's why I kind of focused so heavily on my 'used' scenario because, in my mind at least, following the logic of a lot of the posts I've read thus far buying used is akin to downloading.

It's something along the lines of CutterMike putting out a CD entitled 'CutterMike's Sea Shantys and Shindigs.....A Pirate Perspective.'

I think that album is dynamite and I think that at $20 at Bestbuy it's a steal, but I find it for $5 at my local used shop.

So I'm still paying for the album (the one with all sorts of foul language) and the album was paid for at the established price, but our relationship as producer/consumer I'm sort of cutting you out a bit and going a cheaper route.

You're getting 'something' which is better than 'nothing' but it's far less then what you were expected for your labor.

[Rev. Calibos]

In short -- not to put too fine point on it -- as things are at this moment, it appears to me that the creator has no rights and the consumer has no responsibilities.

So, to answer the question that you asked: The creator pretty much has to be contented with anything he gets if he wants to put his work out to the public. He's always had the issue that, while he received no income from any secondary sales (your used-record store and such-like), and that such sell-on cannibalized some percentage of his primary sales, he still had SOME primary sales generating income for him. With the ease of duplication and transmission (the same thing, really) today, he can count on ONE primary sale -- assuming, of course, that the contents aren't leaked to the web before release by someone at the studio, pressing plant, or any newspaper, magazine, or broadcaster that gets a review copy...

(...is it any wonder that people get... um... vehement... about this situation...?)

True, people get really, really pissed about this, lol, but it's understandable.

And that's part of the reason I started the thread. I have notions about what's fair and what's theft or not, but I wanted to see the perspectives of other posters, producers and consumers alike, and get their input.



So, yeah... the artist's SRP might seem absurdly low to one of us and absurdly high to the other relative to the value that we put on the artist's output. With luck on his part, if both of us ignore his SRP and pay what we consider fair exchange for the value that we receive, then maybe he breaks even and can register two normal sales. (Of course, it requires the equivalent of someone valuing his work at TWICE SRP to counter one free download, but them's the breaks.)

Or volume for that matter.

Once I downloaded that Dimmu Borgir song I went out and bought the album. Once I heard that I was hooked and have since purchased everything they've done.


And, as was stated, there's no way to tell what balance there is, if any, between folks who have used the downloading as a catalyst to make those types of purchases and those who are just content to download everything.



The one plus side that I can see to this all digital-all-the-time brave new world of ours is that, if someone DOES pay the artist more than his SRP, it DOES cover part of the "loss" on a lower-than-SRP sale or a non-paying download. In a corporate-controlled CD world, since he only gets amount N of the price of the CD and nothing more or less, he has no way of recovering any income he loses to downloaders not buying CDs.

(Even More) Blatant Editorializing
The problem many of us are having is that, when discussing economics, one is not allowed to insert ethical considerations into the equation, which is what I was doing when I said things like "people who use the result of someone else's labor SHOULD be expected to pay", etc. That's what MY personal ethics say, but that's not looking at the world AS IT IS.

The state of the world as it is, IMO, is that if you cannot enforce an obligation on another party, that party HAS no obligation. Should you choose not to pay that ubiquitous plumber for his work, for example, he knows where to find you and knows that you own some property that you wouldn't want to lose to legal fees. He has some leverage when it come to enforcing an obligation to pay him for his labor.

OTOH, the creator of a work that can be duplicated and delivered digitally has no way of knowing which of the myriad people he meets going about his business in a given week owns a copy of his work for which he's seen no compensation. (For some, of course, that's been the case since the invention of the office Xerox and the tape recorder but -- as has been noted -- duplication tech has become ubiquitous so even if the percentage of bootleggers hasn't gone up, the numbers have. If one obsessed about such things, it would probably be nearly impossible to watch the Superbowl on TV without seeing little dollar signs and question marks flashing over the heads of everybody in the stadium... And unless he has made the Faustian deal with some lawyer-heavy deep-pockets group like the RIAA he has no way of finding out and enforcing any right that he might believe that he had to be paid for use of the output of his labor. (Not that he generally gets paid if RIAA wins, either; just an example.)

And if you can't enforce it, it doesn't exist.

And that's another thing to consider. Even though I mentioned earlier something to the effect of 'I can't hold it, can't sell it back.....it's not theft' that doesn't take into consideration the ethical side of it.

I don't have to hold the door open for a lady overburdened with packages, I don't have to tip a bartender but as a citizen in this crazy mixed up nation of ours common sense and civilty tell me that yeah, it's the right thing to do.

Legallly, downloading is a grey area but does that give any of us free reign to do whatever we please? Just because I feel that no harm has been done doesn't mean that I haven't hurt anyone. It's an interesting question.

Strictly speaking, of course, the downloader has taken on no obligation to pay for the use of the artist's work UNLESS HE CHOOSES TO BELIEVE THAT HE HAS. If his ethic doesn't extend to compensating the creator of an item that he can take for free, then he has not taken on the obligation to exchange value for value, so no obligation exists.

QED.

Again, that's why I hammered away so with my example of the used shop. I find value with the product sold for X dollars but I choose not to compensate the artist for that full value by buying new instead opting for buying used.

My sense of fair play says that that sucks off dead hyenas 'til the heads cave in, and that not including ethical factors in economic calculations is what brought us Enron and Bernie Madoff, but that's just my opinion and has no bearing on the facts.

Ethics do play a part to a certain extent. As much as we're capable of some pretty vile stuff I like to labor under the notion that deep down human beings aren't all bad.



--------------------
* I exaggerate (somewhat) for effect. In comics, for example, Phil Foglio publishes web comics for free, as loss-leaders to entice people to buy the dead-tree volumes when they are collected and published. He also (has to) keep a PayPal button up on all of his pages and offer special "donation gifts" to people who shovel a few bucks to him that way. While these are usually something in the way of digital-download desktop pictures and thus liable to the already-discussed risks of ALL digital art, I'm guessing that unless someone wanders in from outside, chooses to donate once to get the digital swag then "frees it for the good of all mankind", the people downloading it have already self-selected as being people who want his business model to survive because they want to CONTINUE reading his work.

For him it works, BUT he has built a fanbase for the last 30-something-years; a luxury that not every artist has.

...of course, I think he sells T-shirts, too...

And he's brilliant. I was introduced to him in the pages of Wizard, Toyfare and Inquest little realizing the sheer scope and variety of his work.


Jeebus that was long! I thank you for your input though, it's appreciated and you've given me quite a bit to consider.

[Paul McEnery]

Another thing to think about is that customer or brand loyalty isn't just a phrase.

Something magazine editors know is that they sell as the voice of a community. People do relate to Teenbeat (or whatever) as something that is part of their identity -- because identity is fundamentally tribal, rather than individual.

The key to getting people to act personally/ethically towards you is to make them think of you as part of their tribe (hence all the bloody American flags on product). When one's work becomes accepted as part of a tribe, or as something that people can gather round -- when you are part of people's lives --that's when it becomes more secure.

That's why Something Positive earns, why Warren Ellis thrives, why people have bulletin boards at all.

It seems to me that Smooth's book, in particular, has a strong chance of connecting with that kind of a market -- but first, that market has to find the book.

But my sense is that being part of people's lives these days entails having a large non-paying hinterland -- and probably always did.

[CutterMike]

No one on this thread has said that an artist's work has no value.

That's a misrepresentation and a lie.

Again, for the hard of reading:

Commodity value NOT equals use value NOT equals artistic value

The problem is that most people defending free downloading are saying "If I'm not stealing a commodity (a CD), I'm not stealing anything.

The rest of us are saying that "If you're getting use value (you enjoy listening to the music) but don't pay the person whose labor created that use value, then you ARE stealing that value."

The only way that someone is NOT saying that an artist's work has no value, it seems to me, is if they admit that that use value (the ability to listen to that music) implies an obligation to pay the creator. Otherwise they are stating implicitly that either the music has no use value to them (in which case why keep it and listen to it?) or the artist's labor that created that use value has, itself, NO value.

Now, I understand that you don't accept that labor generates value, but if not for the artist's labor, then where does the use value of a downloaded song come from?

[Paul McEnery]

The problem is that most people defending free downloading are saying "If I'm not stealing a commodity (a CD), I'm not stealing anything.

The rest of us are saying that "If you're getting use value (you enjoy listening to the music) but don't pay the person whose labor created that use value, then you ARE stealing that value."

The only way that someone is NOT saying that an artist's work has no value, it seems to me, is if they admit that that use value (the ability to listen to that music) implies an obligation to pay the creator. Otherwise they are stating implicitly that either the music has no use value to them (in which case why keep it and listen to it?) or the artist's labor that created that use value has, itself, NO value.

Now, I understand that you don't accept that labor generates value, but if not for the artist's labor, then where does the use value of a downloaded song come from?

Technically, I think the use value actually derives from me using it. I create the use value.

Now of course we do have to explain to people that it took someone's work to make the thing, and that they won't be able to keep making the thing if they don't get enough money back from the payloaders, and then they'll have to make their own entertainment and turn into Victorians. See how they like that!

But that's an appeal to someone's enlightened self-interest. The other thing, as I say, that works, is an appeal to someone's emotional identification.

What seems to me sure not to work is to appeal to someone's guilt. That's just going to coat the pleasure gained from the use value with negative reinforcement.

Not to mention making the kids think "catch up with the times, granddad; don't you know information wants to be free?"

[Rev. Calibos]

Not to mention the sheer hypocrisy of publishers crying crocodile tears over the plight of the very artists they themselves are actively screwing.

This is a good point. Every time I see one of those 'You wouldn't steal a CAR now WOULD you?' ads before a DVD menu pops up I get this image of a publisher or an excutive looming over an artist with a stick leering at us saying 'Every time you DO that I'm going to hit them with this stick....you don't want me to hit them with the stick, DO you?'

'Umm....no, of course not.....but you're hitting them with the stick, not me.'

THWACK.

'There's ONE. You want to keep hitting them or do you want to stop?'

'Huh? You're controlling the 'thwacking', not me.'

THWACK.

[CutterMike]

It's something along the lines of CutterMike putting out a CD entitled 'CutterMike's Sea Shantys and Shindigs.....A Pirate Perspective.'

I think that album is dynamite and I think that at $20 at Bestbuy it's a steal, but I find it for $5 at my local used shop.

So I'm still paying for the album (the one with all sorts of foul language) and the album was paid for at the established price, but our relationship as producer/consumer I'm sort of cutting you out a bit and going a cheaper route.

You're getting 'something' which is better than 'nothing' but it's far less then what you were expected for your labor.

Well, if you WANT to send me that other $15 I'll PM you my address!:biggrin:

[CutterMike]

(...)
Or volume for that matter.
(...)

The problem with that is that it reminds me of a VERY old ad parody: "Sure, we lose on every deal, but we make it up in VOLUME!"


Jeebus that was long! I thank you for your input though, it's appreciated and you've given me quite a bit to consider.
Believe me -- it took a few tries to get it under the 10,000 character limit!

I DO tend to get long-winded, sometimes.

(Shaddup, you in the back!)

[CutterMike]

Not to mention making the kids think "catch up with the times, granddad; don't you know information wants to be free?"

I'll believe that THEY believe information wants to be free when they give me their social security number and banking info. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that they just mean everyone ELSE'S information! :biggrin:

[Tobias March]

I'll believe that THEY believe information wants to be free when they give me their social security number and banking info. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that they just mean everyone ELSE'S information! :biggrin:

Exactly, there's a egregious sense of entitlement in some of the 'free to d/l' statements.

Which is not to say that it shouldn't ideally be the case. It's just that in this instance, the specific 'information', just happens to be copyrighted material that folks are partial to.

Go beyond that and suddenly the hackles are raised.

[snarkbunny]

And that's part of the reason I started the thread. I have notions about what's fair and what's theft or not, but I wanted to see the perspectives of other posters, producers and consumers alike, and get their input.


See I find it quite simple, if the owner of the intellectual property has not agreed to distribute via free digital downloading, it's theft.

All of business model around downloading is fascinating but if the business model is not based on the owner's willing participation (and have a way to enforce the owner's desire not to participate) then it should not be acceptable.

[CutterMike]

Technically, I think the use value actually derives from me using it. I create the use value.

Right -- it's what value the user puts on his use of a thing.

I was trying to say that if you (the generic "you", of course) perceive value in using this thing and haven't considered what mechanism created the thing that you value, you might be missing something important!

As I sorta said earlier: without assuming that that value you derive from something comes from somewhere else -- that is, if you enjoy listening to that music without considering that it written and performed by someone (who needs to eat, just like you) to get to you so you could enjoy it -- you're sort of assuming that it's possible to defeat entropy...

(...Of course, if you DO believe that, I've got plans for a perpetual motion machine that'll revolutionize the world an I just need a few investors to get the business off the ground...!)

(Hey... it's as good a business plan as some!)

[Paul McEnery]

Right -- it's what value the user puts on his use of a thing.

I was trying to say that if you (the generic "you", of course) perceive value in using this thing and haven't considered what mechanism created the thing that you value, you might be missing something important!

As I sorta said earlier: without assuming that that value you derive from something comes from somewhere else -- that is, if you enjoy listening to that music without considering that it written and performed by someone (who needs to eat, just like you) to get to you so you could enjoy it -- you're sort of assuming that it's possible to defeat entropy...

(...Of course, if you DO believe that, I've got plans for a perpetual motion machine that'll revolutionize the world an I just need a few investors to get the business off the ground...!)

(Hey... it's as good a business plan as some!)

For all everyone's complaints about me waxing philosophical -- and hell, I've kept it brass tacks for once! -- there is an important philosophical problem here.

Your American market mindset is entirely that of consumer capitalism. You sit on your arse and do nothing, and pay for nothing if you don't have to.

As opposed to what I grew up with, where you scam everything in sight, and do everything you can think of. I are so punk rock. Maaaan.

So yeah, it is about trying to change hearts and minds, and shift people into a more creativity centered culture. Again, there's a downside to that -- people will make more of their own shit instead of buying someone else's, which is already faddy with freak folk, and DIY clothes that look like something out of the Altman movie Quintet.

Which I think is hella cool, but translating that into a gift economy where artists get paid may be tricky. We'll see.

[Paul McEnery]

See I find it quite simple, if the owner of the intellectual property has not agreed to distribute via free digital downloading, it's theft.

All of business model around downloading is fascinating but if the business model is not based on the owner's willing participation (and have a way to enforce the owner's desire not to participate) then it should not be acceptable.

Right. But as a creator, I take issue with the idea of intellectual property. Because it ain't property. And for that matter, I'm still pissed off about the economic foundation of the idea of property, the land enclosure.

Property is not the model for creativity. Information exchange and communication do the job much better. And the economic model is very different then.

[Reverend Smooth]

It seems to me that Smooth's book, in particular, has a strong chance of connecting with that kind of a market -- but first, that market has to find the book.
We'll see. I hear the company's distro is good. Whether people connect with it is another story.

[MacQuarrie]

I'll believe that THEY believe information wants to be free when they give me their social security number and banking info. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that they just mean everyone ELSE'S information! :biggrin:

The downloadin community's use of the phrase "information wants to be free" is one of the most egregious examples of twisting and misrepresenting what somebody said.

The phrase does not mean "information should be free." It means "secrets are hard to keep." It has nothing to do with intellectual property rights, and everything to do with the suppression of information that ought to be public. The latest single from the pop star du jour is not that kind of information.

Usually when people say "information wants to be free", they mean "I want information to be free."

But as Bob Dylan said, if you want to live outside the law, you must first be honest.

[Paul McEnery]

The downloadin community's use of the phrase "information wants to be free" is one of the most egregious examples of twisting and misrepresenting what somebody said.

The phrase does not mean "information should be free." It means "secrets are hard to keep." It has nothing to do with intellectual property rights, and everything to do with the suppression of information that ought to be public. The latest single from the pop star du jour is not that kind of information.

Usually when people say "information wants to be free", they mean "I want information to be free."

But as Bob Dylan said, if you want to live outside the law, you must first be honest.

Or not. We could always bug Noah to be sure.

The expression is first recorded as pronounced by Stewart Brand at the first Hackers' Conference in 1984, in the following context:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.[1]

Brand's conference remarks are transcribed in the Whole Earth Review (May 1985, p. 49) and a later form appears in 'The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT', Viking Penguin, 1987 (ISBN 0-14-009701-5), p.202:

Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. ... That tension will not go away.[1

And here's John Dvorak:

According to a study done by the BBI Norwegian School of Management, those who freely download music from file-sharing sites and elsewhere buy ten times more music (yes, they actually pay for it) than people who do not participate in file-sharing systems. In fact, the figure that the report cites for the amount spent by the file-sharing subculture is so high that the record industry doesn't believe it. Well, I sure do, mainly because of an observation I made back in the late 1990s. And I've harped on this observation ever since. This research just confirms my suspicions.

The simple fact is that during the Napster era—a period in which there was no significant musical movement that would trigger any excitement in the business—CD sales increased. As Napster got bigger, sales continued to increase. As Napster was shut down, you could see CD sales decline, and once they put the lid on open file-sharing, the industry went into a tailspin. I never believed this to be a coincidence.

The RIAA and the music industry in general blamed the tailspin on Napster and piracy, harping on the concept of "stealing." The overlooked fact in all this was that with the advent of national radio syndicates and the niche programming that began to flourish in the '90s, people were not easily introduced to new music. There were fewer ways to discover bands and music you liked so that you could go buy those CDs in the first place. This coincided with the demise of the disc jockey (a music nut who kept tabs on trends). The record industry was essentially doomed at this moment of change.

With its ability to show and share collections of music, Napster became the ersatz virtual DJ, letting you self-select bands and singers who appealed to your individual taste. You did this by looking at the collections of like-minded individuals using the system. And in many ways, except for the downloading time, it was more efficient than radio since you didn't have to slog through commercials and could skip a track not to your liking.

No wonder CD sales increased and business was on the upswing. But apparently not a single person working at the decision-making levels of the recording industry understood the sociology or the mechanism—and that's still the case

And that study:

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars

[berk]

From a personal perspective, it's certainly true for me that freely available material of any sort makes me more likely to actually spend money on something. I'm going to buy a cd by a singer I never would have been interested in otherwise, Lynda Lemay, next time I see the one I want, because I heard some songs on her website. I've bought books because I was able to read a few pages in the bookstore without being hasseled or made to feel guilty. And I've bought cds because I downloaded songs first to see if I liked them, cds from artists I never would have heard otherwise.

The old music industry paradigm doesn't work anymore, if it ever did (I don't think so, personally). I haven't got the time or the patience to listen to a lot of crap music on the radio in the hopes of eventually hearing something I like. I'd much rather try things out on my own. If I can't experiment with new music for free in order to discover who I like before spending money on them, then I won't be spending any money on new music. Just the way it is. Not only for me, I suspect, but for a lot of people.

[Cam63]

It's about respect for creators as far as I'm concerned.

If someone takes the time and cost to produce the goods, punters should pay the asking price.

[snarkbunny]

Right. But as a creator, I take issue with the idea of intellectual property. Because it ain't property. And for that matter, I'm still pissed off about the economic foundation of the idea of property, the land enclosure.

Property is not the model for creativity. Information exchange and communication do the job much better. And the economic model is very different then.

I don't completely disagree with you on your economic model. The removal of scarity does impact the economic model and there needs to be a new model to work in this age.

I like free stuff, and I read, enjoy and support willing participants in the "free" model. I regularly read Something Positive, Girl Genius, and I hit the donation buttons, buy the books, buy GG original art, I have a subscription to GraphicsSmash, but the key requirement for me is WILLING participation. Colleen Doran didn't agree to have "A Distant Soil" on Pirate Bay, she has what pages she has chosen to make available on her site. That is her decision and hers alone. I don't think anyone should be allowed to make that decision on her behalf without her consent.

If DC and/or Marvel decide not to make their comics available online for free, then Joe Blow has NO RIGHT to do it against their wishes, just like I have no right to borrow my neighbour's car without permission. It's unethical and wrong. Same with music, TV shows, etc.

If I want it online, and it's not available? Then I shrug and find something else, there is lots and lots of stuff online put there by people who want to do it that way. Like stores that open on Sunday, if the market is there people will supply that market.

If you believe that free downloading model is the right way to go, then support the people who are doing it willingly. If, like the Foglios, it improves their sales etc. you can bet that other creators will notice and move to that market. I haven't met anyone who is against making a living.

I do support legal action against people who do not uphold that ethical standard. Civil society needs to have a foundation of respecting other people's decisions. So even if I think its stupid that you only have a store that is open between 1-4 TWT (real example, btw), that is your choice and I do not have the right to override it for my convenience or preference.

[Sound Silence]

If the government made it legal to download works that originated in other countries, would that make it "internet privateering"?

[Paul McEnery]

If DC and/or Marvel decide not to make their comics available online for free, then Joe Blow has NO RIGHT to do it against their wishes,.

No, that strikes me as simply untrue.

I have every right to sell a comic used. I have every right to buy a comic used. I have every right to borrow someone else's comic. I have every right to give that comic away.

So if we're arguing that a digital reproduction is a commodity, then I'm free to treat that commodity as I like in the marketplace once I've bought it.

If we're arguing that the digital reproduction isn't a commodity, then we're back to the fact that it has zero exchange value, and I'm still free to treat it as I like, so long as I'm not economically exploiting it.

That's aside from the fact that downloading something is of the same ethical order as choosing to watch an episode of a TV show on standard network TV instead of buying the DVD, or borrowing a book from the library.

In each of those cases, someone has paid for the content once, and has then made it available to multiple consumers for zero cost. In the first case, the network is using it for economic exploitation, so there are paid rights involved. In the second case, there aren't.

Personal use is not the same category as economic exploitation as far as rights are concerned. Which brings us back to Creative Commons, which makes that explicit.

There's a lot of talk about the ethical obligations of the consumer to the producer. For some reason, we overlook the ethical obligations of the producer to the consumer here.

It seems to me that culture is not a commodity at all. The age of mechanical reproduction made it possible to sell units of culture as a commodity, which got artists paid some, but built large empires of middle men that it paid a whole helluva lot more.

This has concealed the fact that what the middle men are doing is NOT selling commodities but providing a service (and frequently doing a lousy job of it, not least because they manipulate the market to the disservice of artists and culture in general).

Digital reproduction means that their services are no longer required. For the consumer, it's now possible to experience all digital reproductions without payment. For the artist, it's now possible to put the shill out directly in the marketplace, or treat publisher-analogues as the hired help they are (and I speak as both).

It now the artist's job to package the fruits of their labour in such a way that it appeals directly to the consumer, rather than to the publisher. To the extent that a publisher is required, it's their job to broker a relationship between the artist and the consumer. It's now the consumer's job to find the money to support the artist, and find the most direct route to make that payment.

For that matter, it is OBVIOUSLY not simply the artist-and-publisher's role to set the price; price is an implicit contract between both parties in the negotiation. If the party of the first part sets the price too high at the point of sale, the party of the second part has every right to seek a better price elsewhere -- be that your father's bookshelf, a used store, a library, google books, or a bittorrent.

A consumer's primary ethical concern in this negotiation is NOT for the artist. The consumer's primary ethical concern is to get what they consider to be the right price.

So basically it comes down to a slightly more complex version of the prisoner's dilemma, where the consumer has strong incentives to defect in the short term (the content is already free, after all), but at the long term risk of losing access to more of the same.

The artist-and-publisher are used to being able to manipulate the scarcity model to ensure the payment they want. "You want the Neil Stephenson book hot off the press? You'll have to pay the premium price."

This is no longer the case.

But it never was if you were a canny consumer who knew how to game the negotiation. Me, I'd go to the used store for a copy, or realize I didn't really need another 1000 page book on my creaking shelves just at the moment, or remember that Julie has a copy, and wants to make use of my yard of Dick (and she'll want Moorcock later on, I bet!).

The seller never really had primacy over the sales price (which was in any case a price set based on what you could actually get, and the knowledge that Borders and Amazon would discount the fucker, thus penalizing anyone who didn't take the corporate sales route, thus shutting down independent bookstores across the world, thus guaranteeing the rise of digital sales).

There used to be a thing in the UK called the Net Book Agreement, according to which, no bookstore was allowed to provide deep discounts, and therefore publishers were able to keep prices lower across the board, and independent bookstores could survive.

The big publishers defaulted, did deals with bookstores, the market shifted to supporting primarily the best sellers, the mid-list died, first-time writers were reduced to one shot, indy bookstores died, prices shot up for non-best-sellers.

Same as the music biz. Greedy fuckers manipulating the prices, and ruining things for creators and consumers alike. I like books, just like I liked the big-arsed art packaging of vinyl, and even of good CD box sets. And all of that is a loss.

But it's a loss occasioned by the unethical behaviour of the middle men, who have soured the relationship between creator and consumer by commoditizing culture.

Ooh, alliteration!

[Typo Lad]

You again attempt to flim flam.

You're allowed to resell your physical copy of the comic, yes. You are not however, allowed to go to a Kinkos and xerox off a bunch, and then sell them, or even give them away. That's the analogy that fits better.

You're not making one copy, you're making limiotless copies of a product you do not own.

You are, by law, stealing. Period. You may wish it were not so and you may try to conflate reasons why it isn't or design a perfect world where you don't have to pay. but that's not the case.

It's a violation of the creator's rights.

Which leads to the other argument abour the RIAA and MPAA and how you're really screwing them and blah blah blah, which is a piss-poor argument as well. If those jackanapes already have their hands in the artist's pockets, how does your swiping his wallet as well help him?

All of what you're saying is just bourgeoisie babbling.

[Paul McEnery]

bourgeois babbling.

If you haven't noticed, exagerrated concern for property rights in an intellectually incoherent manner is the mark of the bourgeois.

BTW, how much are you paying creators to take the piss out of them in WWTT?

You again attempt to flim flam.

An honourable man wouldn't accuse another of bad faith without evidence.

You're allowed to resell your physical copy of the comic, yes. You are not however, allowed to go to a Kinkos and xerox off a bunch, and then sell them, or even give them away. That's the analogy that fits better.

It's a shit analogy. And in any case, who cares what you're allowed?

When the law is written by property holders which property itself is the result of theft, nobody should feel obliged to respect it. And that's the case for all property law. See: Land Enclosure Act. That law is simply an act of force against me; I have an ethical DUTY to resist that force when it acts against me.


You're not making one copy, you're making limiotless copies of a product you do not own.

If I bought a copy, I own it.

What part of this is hard to understand?

And if I don't own it, then it's not a commodity. In which case none of this applies.


You are, by law, stealing. Period.

I'm sorry. At what point does the fact that the RIAA have corrupted enough Congressmen, up to and including the Vice President, so that they got a law passed enforcing their interests, affect me as an ethical person?


You may wish it were not so and you may try to conflate reasons why it isn't or design a perfect world where you don't have to pay. but that's not the case.

Yes. It. Is.

Stop being disingenuous. No consumer of culture is under any obligation to pay any more for culture than they want to; there are a great many ways to pay nothing at all for culture, many of them not as yet banned.

Though of course publishers have tried to ban used stores, and libraries.

Please, feel free to stand alongside them in this matter. But it will make your moral outrage look bloody silly.

It's a violation of the creator's rights.

No it isn't.

The creator has no right to extract money from the end user. Period.

Or I wouldn't be allowed to borrow a book, would I?

The creator maintains all rights over the economic exploitation of their labour; lamentably, the law allows the creator to sell that right; which is one more reason why nobody should regard the law in this matter as anything but shit on their shoe.


Which leads to the other argument abour the RIAA and MPAA and how you're really screwing them and blah blah blah, which is a piss-poor argument as well. If those jackanapes already have their hands in the artist's pockets, how does your swiping his wallet as well help him?
.

I'll let you know when I swipe his wallet, instead of trying to put money into it.

BTW, how much of your cut from selling collectible comics as a speculator do you send to the creator?

[Typo Lad]

I find my ideas quite coherent, thank you. And as several people agree with me, I'll just stick my tongue out at you.

I don't give jack crap about "property rights". I care about creative rights. I own my creations. I decide who gets to distribute my creation and how much, if any, I charge. Me. Not you. Not Full_Scans_Daily Not some guy in DCP. Me.

As for WWTT, parody is very much covered under law, is is review. I use a minimal amount of a page (I even trim covers), generally credit it within the comments at the very least, and actually purchase the trades I use (with the exception of some comics, which I use a friend's massive collection for). I will cop, on more than one occasion, to using scans. I try not to and I only use scans of out-of-print books. It's still wrong, but hey, I admit it.

And if a creator came to me tomorrow and asked me to not feature his/her work, I would do just that. In fact, I've been in touch (via relay) with Elliot S. Maggin & Roy Thomas about my treatment of their work. They were fine with it, thanks.

Still, nice to see you concerned.

And in closing, the rights of those creators is exactly why I wouldn't feel comfortable putting out a WWTT book, even though it would be covered as parody.

[Typo Lad]

Oh, and just to get even more defensive, I try not to use anything published recently (I confess that I did with FF, Thor, and the Spidey books, but I owned them anyway and the DeFalco runs are so WWTT worthy).

Now you have me wondering how Mr. DeFalco would react to my site.

Ooo. Or John Byrne.

[Paul McEnery]

Oh, and just to get even more defensive, I try not to use anything published recently (I confess that I did with FF, Thor, and the Spidey books, but I owned them anyway and the DeFalco runs are so WWTT worthy).

Now you have me wondering how Mr. DeFalco would react to my site.

Ooo. Or John Byrne.

Yeah, but you understand that that has no legal standing, and that the publishers would be within their rights to send you a cease and desist, and then to bully you further through your ISP.

By my logic, you're just doing culture, and you're ethically in the clear because culture isn't a commodity.

By your logic, you're way more of a thief than any freeloader. You haven't just stolen "property", you've stolen many creators' reputations. What do you think that's worth?

If you've made any money through that site, the publishers could nab every penny of it. And I think they'd be able to claim massive punitive damages even if you haven't, simply on the basis of defamation.

Which is not, I think, the culture we want to live in.

[Typo Lad]

Yeah, but you understand that that has no legal standing, and that the publishers would be within their rights to send you a cease and desist, and then to bully you further through your ISP.

By my logic, you're just doing culture, and you're ethically in the clear because culture isn't a commodity.

By your logic, you're way more of a thief than any freeloader. You haven't just stolen "property", you've stolen many creators' reputations. What do you think that's worth?

If you've made any money through that site, the publishers could nab every penny of it. And I think they'd be able to claim massive punitive damages even if you haven't, simply on the basis of defamation.

Which is not, I think, the culture we want to live in.
Your logic is completely flawed, because it starts with a false premise.

publishers would be within their rights to send you a cease and desist, and then to bully you further through your ISP.

No they wouldn't. No more than they can send a cease and desist to The Onion or any other parody site. I'm well within my legal rights, and have checked with actual lawyers to make sure. Thanks for playing though.

[Paul McEnery]

I find my ideas quite coherent, thank you. And as several people agree with me, I'll just stick my tongue out at you.

I don't give jack crap about "property rights". I care about creative rights. I own my creations. I decide who gets to distribute my creation and how much, if any, I charge. Me. Not you. Not Full_Scans_Daily Not some guy in DCP. Me.


Wrong.

You're able to control the primary sales -- and even then, that's massively subject to negotiation. But you have no control whatsoever over the secondary market.

Again -- and I really can't believe I have to labour this point to anyone over 30 -- publisher's used to actually leverage the pass along rate for the sake of advertising revenue. Magazine and newspaper publishers still do.

Digital reproductions are simply the pass along.

And, as John Dvorak points out so elegantly, far from costing the industry or creators sales, the pass along actually increases sales.

So you're not only completely wrong at all the real world levels, you're also taking the food out of creators' mouths.

While shouting at me and saying that's what I'm doing.

As for WWTT, parody is very much covered under law, is is review.

And that will matter how much when the publisher sends a cease and desist to your ISP?

It's funny how you've suddenly shifted your arguments away from the ethical considerations to the legal.

In your consideration, this is fair use. But suddenly we're in the use-value world, where the culture is free for you to manipulate.

For some reason, that's not the same thing at all, and you're free to make your own ethical decisions.


And in closing, the rights of those creators is exactly why I wouldn't feel comfortable putting out a WWTT book, even though it would be covered as parody.

Make that argument in front of a judge.

As you know, that's a crap shoot.

And the crap shoot of judicial stupidity has no bearing on my ethical decisions.

[Paul McEnery]

Your logic is completely flawed, because it starts with a false premise.



No they wouldn't. No more than they can send a cease and desist to The Onion or any other parody site. I'm well within my legal rights, and have checked with actual lawyers to make sure. Thanks for playing though.

Don't care. Your lawyers are wrong.

The publishers certainly could bully the ISP, and that's usually successful, because it ain't worth the trouble to the ISP.

You might be able to get the EFF to back you up; you might get a sympathetic judge. But cases like this can fall either way.

None of which has any bearing on whether you consider it ethical to do what you do.

I think it is.

But your logic says it isn't.

So I'm saying your principles are inconsistent.

[Typo Lad]

You're able to control the primary sales -- and even then, that's massively subject to negotiation. But you have no control whatsoever over the secondary market.

But I do. No I can't control how much you charge, but I have a legal right to stop you infringing my copyright if you copy my work verbatim and give it away. And you have a moral right not to.


Digital reproductions are simply the pass along.

Oh bull. They're a "pass along" in the same sense that shoplifting is.


And, as John Dvorak points out so elegantly, far from costing the industry or creators sales, the pass along actually increases sales.

You're qouting Dvorak at a technologist? The man who has been wrong in just about every prediction he's made in the last ten years? Hah.

So you're not only completely wrong at all the real world levels, you're also taking the food out of creators' mouths.

That's a pretty nonsensical claim. I post one panel, out of a larger work, crediting the work it came from, and post a mocking review. If I take money out of a creator's mouth, then so does any site that posts reviews.

While shouting at me and saying that's what I'm doing.

No-one is shouting. Snarking, maybe. Mainly because I'm tired of your Samurai-esque pontificating. And I'm using a general "you to decry it. No-one is saying you do this, but you're advocating theft. Not sharing, not reviewing, not parodying, but theft. Repoducing an entire issue, digitally, without consent of the creator, harms his or her sales. I'm hardly harming Fox Features sales when I post a panel from Rallura The Jungle Girl.

And that will matter how much when the publisher sends a cease and desist to your ISP?

Then I'll get another ISP, assuming mine doesn't laugh it off.

It's funny how you've suddenly shifted your arguments away from the ethical considerations to the legal.

We were discussing both aspects earlier. Don't be a binary fool. Plus, when you started using my own site as an example (and to take personal shots), that came to mind.

In your consideration, this is fair use. But suddenly we're in the use-value world, where the culture is free for you to manipulate.

For some reason, that's not the same thing at all, and you're free to make your own ethical decisions.

No, we're not. I'm discussing actual law and ethics. What I do at WWTT, or at any other humor site, is legal and fair.

Make that argument in front of a judge.

As you know, that's a crap shoot.

Really? Because there's a hell of a lot of actual president in my favor, and I have three excellent family lawyers.

Parody is protected by law. Anyone suing me would have to prove I wasn't parody, and it's kinda hard.

And the crap shoot of judicial stupidity has no bearing on my ethical decisions.

Yeah, but your "ethics" are questionable at best, anyway.

Sorry, but you made it personal first.

Anyway, off for the weekend. Try not to violate too many people's rights over the weekend.

[Michael P]

Anyway, off for the weekend. Try not to violate too many people's rights over the weekend.
Well, there go my plans.

[Paul McEnery]

Yeah, but your "ethics" are questionable at best, anyway.

Sorry, but you made it personal first.

You've been up in my face -- bourgeois blathering, flimflam, thief -- with your phony moral outrage from the gitgo, and you've made it personal every step of the way.

I didn't make it personal at all. I just pointed out that your behaviour and your stated principles don't match. But hey, a lawyer said it was okay, so it must be ethical!

Here, you're just another hypocrite accusing others of bad faith so you don't have to face the cognitive dissonance inherent in your defence of property-and-commodity.

There's no greater proof that an argument is bankrupt than when it relies purely on emotive language and the phrase "but it's the law!"

And you know who else does that.

[Briareos]

Is pirating anything produced by The Asylum wrong?

http://www.theasylum.cc

[Chris Hansbrough]

Is pirating anything produced by The Asylum wrong?

http://www.theasylum.cc

since they are brillinatly terrible movies......no....they will sic a megashark on your ass....maybe even a mark decascos

[Rev. Calibos]

You again attempt to flim flam.

You're allowed to resell your physical copy of the comic, yes. You are not however, allowed to go to a Kinkos and xerox off a bunch, and then sell them, or even give them away. That's the analogy that fits better.

You're not making one copy, you're making limiotless copies of a product you do not own.

You are, by law, stealing. Period. You may wish it were not so and you may try to conflate reasons why it isn't or design a perfect world where you don't have to pay. but that's not the case.

It's a violation of the creator's rights.





Yet so is purchasing that item used. If I want a copy of Typo Lad's monthly comic what should I do?

I could buy right off the shelf new for $4 or, if I'm patient and willing to dig through a few back issue bins, I can find your comic for the much better price of 50 cents.

Now on one hand you've already been paid for that, otherwise it wouldn't have ended up in the used bins......but what does that have to do with me, the NEW consumer?

I want the product, the product you sell for $4. Yet I find it used for 1/8th of that and decided to buy that instead.

Have I shorted you? It's the exact same issue, the issue that you felt was worth $4 and the issue that I, as a fan , had enough interest in and found enough value in it to desire a copy of it.

Despite your perfectly fair offer of $4 I went elsewhere.

Did I rip you off by not giving you what you felt your work was worth?




Someone did already, but again, that has nothing to do with me. I'm the new guy who hasn't paid you yet.

[CutterMike]

No, that strikes me as simply untrue.

I have every right to sell a comic used. I have every right to buy a comic used. I have every right to borrow someone else's comic. I have every right to give that comic away.

For my point of view, the key phrase there is "that comic" There are only so many times that I can give away "that bicycle", "that television", "that piece of pie" (...ewww!).

My gut says that, if you bought one, you have ONE that you can give away/sell/burn/hoist to the top of the mizzen .

Now, I understand that, with the book, you are divorcing the content from the package but, again, my ethical-sense is tingling at the idea that buying one of something has bought you the right to give it away an unlimited number of times. The CAPABILITY, yes, but the RIGHT...?

Does capability automatically confer right? Certainly Bush/Cheney, among others, thought so, but -- speaking solely for myself -- I'm just not sure that that's the moral compass that I personally want to be using.

If we're arguing that the digital reproduction isn't a commodity, then we're back to the fact that it has zero exchange value, and I'm still free to treat it as I like, so long as I'm not economically exploiting it.

Well, that sort of depends, it seems to me, on your definition of "economically exploiting".

For instance, in our earlier exchange, you mentioned that monetary transactions are fictional (not the term you used, but I'm too lazy to go hunting back) because money is a symbol representing exchange value and there are other ways to exchange value. You also suggested that one could "pay" the artist by creating one's own work, paying another artist, patting a puppy, etc.

Now -- the obvious followup to the second point, is that ANYTHING that one chooses to do that makes someone else happy is "paying the artist". Unless one is setting up some hierarchy where being polite to a panhandler counts and not kicking kittens doesn't, then it seems that pretty much ANYTHING could be claimed as "paying the artist". Hell, someone could claim that giving money to the American Nazi Party was "paying" Howard Chaykin for downloading the American Flagg TPBs.

I'm pretty sure that Howard wouldn't find that adequate payment, but you see my point...

Given THAT, then copying his work and giving it away infinitely, making a great many people happy, counts as "paying the artist".

Now, you haven't taken any money for scanning and uploading so you aren't "economically exploiting" it and are thus on ethically clear ground.

As long as no one posts a "Thanks for the great post" message, somewhere...

Because at that point you have been paid for it. By the terms of "non-monetary payment is still payment", you HAVE been paid. You have received recompense, in the form of public props.

You performed an act (uploading a book) have received non-monetary but nonetheless real payment ("Thanks, Dood!") which you have argued is functionally equivalent to cash (since both can be used to "pay the artist").

So how have you not economically exploited that original creator's work?

What am I missing?

A consumer's primary ethical concern in this negotiation is NOT for the artist. The consumer's primary ethical concern is to get what they consider to be the right price.

The problem that I have here is that this last section reduces ethics to convenience which, to my mind becomes no ethical framework at all.

This is the ethics of the mugger: "I want something and I want it for the least effort (lowest cost) possible -- That guy looks easy!"

It strikes ME as shady, but maybe that's just my peculiar ethics.

... price is an implicit contract between both parties in the negotiation. If the party of the first part sets the price too high at the point of sale, the party of the second part has every right to seek a better price elsewhere -- be that your father's bookshelf, a used store, a library, google books, or a bittorrent.

If that is the case -- and I agree with you up to a point -- then the reverse is also true: if the would-be buyer sets the price too low, the seller has every right to refuse to sell to him.

The problem that I have is that you seem to be saying that anything that the consumer can do to bring his cost down to zero is ethical.

At this point the seller effectively LOSES the right to refuse to sell to the buyer without (as we have noted earlier) losing the right to sell to everyone else.

Thus the "implicit contract" is no contract at all, since one party can change the terms unilaterally to the other's disadvantage. (If I recall, this is actually going through the courts right now regarding credit card companies and the like doing exactly that. ...could be interesting...)

But it's a loss occasioned by the unethical behaviour of the middle men, who have soured the relationship between creator and consumer by commoditizing culture.

Of course, by the definition above of "gaining the greatest value for the lowest cost to myself", it seems that one would have to consider them as paragons of ethical behavior. :eek:

[Crowforge]

So you think of consumers as muggers?

[snarkbunny]

Someone did already, but again, that has nothing to do with me. I'm the new guy who hasn't paid you yet.

Your analogy is not equivalent to Internet piracy and it's an unfair comparison. Typo produced a copy of his comic book, that comic book was bought and paid for. The original purchaser (i.e. the LCS or whoever) either discounts it and resells it. You are still dealing with 1 copy. When the original purchaser sold it he gave up his usage of it. Likewise with a library, they purchase a copy or copies and then there is sequential use for the library patrons.

If the original purchaser scans and uploads Typo's comic book and sticks it on a download site, he is making multiple copies available WITHOUT Typo's permission.

Do you really not see the difference between those two scenarios?

[CutterMike]

Yet so is purchasing that item used. If I want a copy of Typo Lad's monthly comic what should I do?

I could buy right off the shelf new for $4 or, if I'm patient and willing to dig through a few back issue bins, I can find your comic for the much better price of 50 cents.

(much snippage)

Did I rip you off by not giving you what you felt your work was worth?

Someone did already, but again, that has nothing to do with me. I'm the new guy who hasn't paid you yet.

Cal -- I don't want to seem unpleasant, but are you planning to ask that same question with everyone who thinks the artists has some right to set a desirable price (or, more to the point, a tolerable fraction of the price, from which the cover price is derived)?

People have already given you numerous answers -- are you waiting for someone to actually say, "YES! It's theft and I want the 12¢ you owe me RIGHT NOW!!!"...? Because that's about the only one you haven't gotten back, yet.

[Rev. Calibos]

Your analogy is not equivalent to Internet piracy and it's an unfair comparison. Typo produced a copy of his comic book, that comic book was bought and paid for. The original purchaser (i.e. the LCS or whoever) either discounts it and resells it. You are still dealing with 1 copy. When the original purchaser sold it he gave up his usage of it. Likewise with a library, they purchase a copy or copies and then there is sequential use for the library patrons.

If the original purchaser scans and uploads Typo's comic book and sticks it on a download site, he is making multiple copies available WITHOUT Typo's permission.

Do you really not see the difference between those two scenarios?



Of course.

What I'm investigating is the 'fair' trade between producer and consumer.

When the comic or CD is released it's set a fixed price, the price determined by the artist/publisher/label/etc.

If we have two consumers that both find value in the product, the end result of the artist's time and labor, ideally, those consumers will go out and pick it up at that predetermined price.

But in the used scenario the actual product has only been bought once.

The intial purchase was made by somebody who, upon seeing the predetermined price, felt that it was a fair proposal. They plunk their money down and walk away a satisfied customer.

Now should that same product bought by the first consumer wind it's way to a used store every consumer thereafter is now presented with a choice.

1) Pay the predetermined price set forth by the producer
2) Pay a fraction of that

The end result of either choice is the same: The subsequent consumers will receive the fruits of the artist's labors.

Consider Typo Lad's Comic Book.

I'm not the most computer savvy individual so downloading a scanned copy is just out of the question......so in this scenario I'm not going to download a copy of Typo's book. (Which, of course, is an entirely different animal from what's being sold on comic shelves but that's already been established.)

So what's a comic fan to do?

His book sells at $5 but I see that my LCS has a decent copy used in the quarter bins.

The point is whether I buy used or whether I find a way to download it I have not in any way given Typo the amount he determined for his output.

Hey, somebody already bought it.....that's the only way it could end up being sold as used but that previous purchase has nothing to do with me as a used customer.

I'm the new guy.


I'm a potential customer who sees value in Typo's book and I want to get it. So I can either pay the predetermined price set forth by Typo and get the book or I can get the book and not pay that price whether by downloading or digging through used bins.


Downloading and buying used aren't the same really but the end results are similar. When he put the book out he made a proposal.

'Hey kids, comics. You'll dig this one, it costs five bucks.'

I found a way to get the same book without paying the established price. He got something initially from that first purchase but has lost that additional $5 if I nab it for a quarter.

[Rev. Calibos]

Cal -- I don't want to seem unpleasant, but are you planning to ask that same question with everyone who thinks the artists has some right to set a desirable price (or, more to the point, a tolerable fraction of the price, from which the cover price is derived)?

People have already given you numerous answers -- are you waiting for someone to actually say, "YES! It's theft and I want the 12¢ you owe me RIGHT NOW!!!"...? Because that's about the only one you haven't gotten back, yet.

Of course not.

What I'm trying to get across here (clumsily I'll admit....it's late after all, lol) is that whether I download or whether I buy used I'm not paying the established price set forth by the producer for the fruits of their labor.

I'm just curious to see if some would find buying used morally ambiguous considering that, while legal, it only obeys the letter of the law if not the spirit of what we would consider fair compensation.

[CutterMike]

A consumer's primary ethical concern in this negotiation is NOT for the artist. The consumer's primary ethical concern is to get what they consider to be the right price.

The problem that I have here is that this last section reduces ethics to convenience which, to my mind becomes no ethical framework at all.

This is the ethics of the mugger: "I want something and I want it for the least effort (lowest cost) possible -- That guy looks easy!"

So you think of consumers as muggers?

If:

1 -- "The consumer's primary ethical concern is to get what they consider to be the right price.";

and if:

2 -- The "right price" for that consumer is $0;

and therefore:

3 -- His ethical structure says that anything that gets him to $0 (something for nothing -- his "ethical sweet spot") is justified, including not paying the artist for his labor in creating that thing that he desires;

then:

4 -- It sure sounds like THAT consumer has the heart of a mugger.

Does that mean that I am equating ALL consumers with muggers...? Only in the disordered brain of someone who can't read fairly simple declarative sentences.

...Unlike you, who were clearly using the structure of the Socratic Dialogue in order to allow me to expand on my previous statement.

Thank you.

[Crowforge]

I didn't take debate class or nothin' but you're grouping all the consumers in like everyone just wants it free and none just don't wanting to be taken for all they're worth. somethin wrong with that word grouping there

[CutterMike]

Basically, Crow, my point was that someone whose ETHICS say that they should get something for nothing and screw any other consideration has the heart of a mugger.

MOST consumers, it seems to me, take "getting the most for the least" as a concern, of course, but not necessarily as THE primary one, and not to the point where ANYTHING that they do to get the most for the least is ethically acceptable.

Most consumers don't shoplift, for instance. If getting what you want for the least cost is your primary goal -- and it's hard to beat "free" as lowest cost -- and anything that gets you there is ethically defensible, then shoplifting is a no-brainer: It gets you what you want and it costs you nothing. If that's your idea of ethics, then you ARE saying "screw the rest of you".

Add to that that many consumers support local small merchants and local farmer's markets -- even though they know that it may mean that they're paying more than if they went to Wal-Mart or Costco -- or go out of their way to buy "Fair Trade" goods -- where the prices are often higher, because the sales chain starts with buyers who pay the growers or makers an actual living wage, rather than the "just enough that they don't starve.... maybe" price that other buyers offer.

So in the case Fair Trade products, consumers all the way up the line from the buyer in the field to the consumer in the grocery store voluntarily pay MORE than they might need to because they believe that treating the producers fairly is a higher ethical choice than going for "the most for the least and screw everybody else."

So, okay. To recap:

"Consumers who believe that anything they do to get as close to something for nothing and screw anybody else is ethical behavior" : functionally equivalent to muggers.

"Consumers who value economy but would rather not screw other people over to get it" : NOT muggers.

Clear now?

[Paul McEnery]

If:

1 -- "The consumer's primary ethical concern is to get what they consider to be the right price.";

and if:

2 -- The "right price" for that consumer is $0;

and therefore:

3 -- His ethical structure says that anything that gets him to $0 (something for nothing -- his "ethical sweet spot") is justified, including not paying the artist for his labor in creating that thing that he desires;

then:

4 -- It sure sounds like THAT consumer has the heart of a mugger..

I don't think so.

In fact, it still sounds like the voice of property.

Let's go back to the land enclosure.

Somebody sure got something for nothing and had the heart of a mugger. It was the people who took all the land, cast everyone off it who was earning a living from the land, and of course in the case of colonialism, killed anyone who got in the way of taking the land; but either way enslaved them to the needs of property.

Anyone who ignores that this is the root of ALL property-based economics hasn't been paying attention. Which is rather pointed up by the way that the last two economic collapses have been precisely about people living from property at the expense of people living from labour.

And that's one of the things that really gets my back up when people cry "theft" against anyone who rebels against property-based economics. That's not theft; it's the precise opposite of theft.

To get back to a model where we reward people for their labour rather than for their labour-on-behalf-of-property takes breaking people of the habit of thinking in the language of property.

And it should be remembered that one of the big features of the language of property is false commoditization.

[Paul McEnery]

Your analogy is not equivalent to Internet piracy and it's an unfair comparison. Typo produced a copy of his comic book, that comic book was bought and paid for. The original purchaser (i.e. the LCS or whoever) either discounts it and resells it. You are still dealing with 1 copy. When the original purchaser sold it he gave up his usage of it. Likewise with a library, they purchase a copy or copies and then there is sequential use for the library patrons.

If the original purchaser scans and uploads Typo's comic book and sticks it on a download site, he is making multiple copies available WITHOUT Typo's permission.

Do you really not see the difference between those two scenarios?

There really isn't a difference between serial use and parallel use. Or perhaps you'd like to explain why you think that's a difference that makes a difference.

Also, I don't give a damn if a publisher wishes to withhold permission for me to sell on a commodity I've bought, or lend it out to as many people as I feel like. If they're insisting on the false commoditization of culture, then I have every right to treat it as a real commodity -- something I own outright and have complete control over.

[Reverend Smooth]

'There really isn't a difference between serial use and...'

I'm sure that argument works on girlfriends, too.

[Rev. Calibos]

'There really isn't a difference between serial use and...'

I'm sure that argument works on girlfriends, too.

Yet it doesn't.

What are your reasons for supposing it does?

[Paul McEnery]

For my point of view, the key phrase there is "that comic" There are only so many times that I can give away "that bicycle", "that television", "that piece of pie" (...ewww!).

My gut says that, if you bought one, you have ONE that you can give away/sell/burn/hoist to the top of the mizzen .

Now, I understand that, with the book, you are divorcing the content from the package but, again, my ethical-sense is tingling at the idea that buying one of something has bought you the right to give it away an unlimited number of times. The CAPABILITY, yes, but the RIGHT...?

Does capability automatically confer right? Certainly Bush/Cheney, among others, thought so, but -- speaking solely for myself -- I'm just not sure that that's the moral compass that I personally want to be using.

Yes. If I'm buying a commodity, capability equals right.

If I buy Van Gogh's Sunflowers, I have the right to feed it to my pigs, if I feel like it. I certainly have the right to sell or give away reproductions of it. Because it's a commodity, I have bought absolute control of the object.

Which leads us back again to the contradiction involved in regarding digital reproductions with zero exchange value as commodities.



Well, that sort of depends, it seems to me, on your definition of "economically exploiting".

For instance, in our earlier exchange, you mentioned that monetary transactions are fictional (not the term you used, but I'm too lazy to go hunting back) because money is a symbol representing exchange value and there are other ways to exchange value. You also suggested that one could "pay" the artist by creating one's own work, paying another artist, patting a puppy, etc.

Well, not fictional; but certainly not normative, either.

The key issue is trade and restriction.

Now -- the obvious followup to the second point, is that ANYTHING that one chooses to do that makes someone else happy is "paying the artist". Unless one is setting up some hierarchy where being polite to a panhandler counts and not kicking kittens doesn't, then it seems that pretty much ANYTHING could be claimed as "paying the artist".


Since a digital reproduction isn't a commodity, there's no reason to pay the artist at all. Do you pay someone for the privilege of walking through a public park?

With a commodity, the issue is the possession of a unique object, and restricting the use rights of that object. I give you money, you transfer the use rights to me, I'm now free to take that object with me and do what I like with it.

Digital reproductions aren't unique objects, by definition; and there is no real capability of restricting use rights over them. They simply aren't commodities and more than air is a solid.

THAT is the first stop any discussion of these issues has to make. And it's usually about the nine thousand and fiftieth, and few people get there. It interferes with their need to resort to moral outrage when social convention is challenged.


Hell, someone could claim that giving money to the American Nazi Party was "paying" Howard Chaykin for downloading the American Flagg TPBs.

Not reasonably.

The point is that, with non-commodities, the issue moves on from paying back to paying forward. It's no longer a matter of a one-to-one exchange or trade, but rather something like a karmic economy (using the genuine universal sense in which karma should be taken, rather than the tellingly popular one which reverts to a one-to-one exchange or trade).


Given THAT, then copying his work and giving it away infinitely, making a great many people happy, counts as "paying the artist".

You know what? It does. It really does. That's the idea Cory promotes with Creative Commons.

And it happens to also work. As demonstrated by the research, downloaders turn into payloaders at a higher rate than non-downloaders. Non-downloaders tend not to be loaders at all -- they're off down the ball game instead.

To put it in vieux jeu terms, downloaders ARE the customer base. Can't see that telling them that they're a bunch of fucking thieves who should rot in hell is the best marketing strategy, myself. Especially not since, in the digital age, you're going to have to be cap in hand to them.

To return to karma again, what's really being promoted within the digital economy is goodwill. Randy gives away Something Positive; this creates goodwill; some people pay Randy enough to keep going; some other people follow his links and pay, say, http://www.smbc-comics.com/ some money instead. What goes around comes around.

Which is rather what we mean by economy, I think.

Now, you haven't taken any money for scanning and uploading so you aren't "economically exploiting" it and are thus on ethically clear ground.

As long as no one posts a "Thanks for the great post" message, somewhere...

Because at that point you have been paid for it. By the terms of "non-monetary payment is still payment", you HAVE been paid. You have received recompense, in the form of public props.

You performed an act (uploading a book) have received non-monetary but nonetheless real payment ("Thanks, Dood!") which you have argued is functionally equivalent to cash (since both can be used to "pay the artist").

So how have you not economically exploited that original creator's work?

What am I missing?

Not a thing, because that's exactly the model I advocate.

Props should supplant dollars, for the most part. Hell, it would be nice if we could move entirely to the props economy -- this is the idea behind Cory's novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

Perhaps we will get there. I doubt it myself. Money is too convenient a way to account for the value we ascribe to goods and services. But we can start thinking of money as what it is, a receipt for labour, and a gift whereby we express our appreciation, as we do with the tip jar.

Therefore we will continue to make the distinction, for the time being, between making money off something that you're not entitled to and being thanked for a gift.

Because money, as things stand, is not simply reified labour, it's reified power. Which is the whole meaning of property-based economics.


The problem that I have here is that this last section reduces ethics to convenience which, to my mind becomes no ethical framework at all.

Because it isn't about convenience. It's about honesty.

A genuine ethics begins with caring for oneself.

As opposed to morality, which always begins and ends with submitting oneself to the dominant power structure, and the social conventions with which it sustains itself.

[Paul McEnery]

'There really isn't a difference between serial use and...'

I'm sure that argument works on girlfriends, too.

I also find that making a cherry pie out of chicken liver doesn't work very well.

Your point?

I mean, if the video store doesn't have Pirates of the Caribbean in, I rent something else. I don't decide instead to go drop sixty bucks so I can see the movie, do I?

A book I get out of the library is by definition a book I can't or don't want to own or pay for. Nevertheless, I have quite a large number of books I have decided to own, partly on the basis that I might never find them again, as in the dark ages we are now thankfully leaving, and partly on the basis that I can trade them for other books if I want because they don't have zero exchange value.

That's one reason people have shifted from floppies to trades, btw; perceived exchange value.

[Rev. Calibos]

So, okay. To recap:

"Consumers who believe that anything they do to get as close to something for nothing and screw anybody else is ethical behavior" : functionally equivalent to muggers.

"Consumers who value economy but would rather not screw other people over to get it" : NOT muggers.

Clear now?


So consumers that buy used, buying the product for close to nothing are muggers.

But those brave souls that head to Best Buy aren't muggers.

Well crap in a hat......I was laboring under the misconception that I was getting a good deal, now it seems I could be considered a mugger.

[MacQuarrie]

Yeah, but you understand that that has no legal standing, and that the publishers would be within their rights to send you a cease and desist, and then to bully you further through your ISP.
That's bullshit. Editorial and journalistic review and parody are two categories specifically and explicitly covered under the Fair Use clause of US Copyright law. Also, when I was mocking superhero comics in The Fourth Wall, I showed my strips to Paul Levitz, and he said "Editorial commentary is fine; just don't go to the same well too often." Morts is well within the bounds of legality with WWTT, and neither DC nor Marvel should have the slightest problem with it.

By my logic, you're just doing culture, and you're ethically in the clear because culture isn't a commodity.

By your logic, you're way more of a thief than any freeloader. You haven't just stolen "property", you've stolen many creators' reputations. What do you think that's worth?
90% of the stuff he's used, the (mostly anonymous at the time) creators' reputations have already been trashed by Wertham and Kefauver far beyond his ability to further harm them. But have you read WWTT? Morts' critiques are pretty mild, mostly fairly gentle ribbing, and mostly regarding changes in the culture since they were published. No creators' reputations are being "stolen." You're grasping at straws.

If you've made any money through that site, the publishers could nab every penny of it. And I think they'd be able to claim massive punitive damages even if you haven't, simply on the basis of defamation.
Rubbish. The law is abundantly clear and there is over a hundred years of case precedent on the books to support it. The same law that allowed Hustler magazine to run a satirical piece alleging that Jerry Fallwell was an alcoholic who had sex with his mother in an outhouse certainly allows Morts to make fun of William Marston's fondness for bondage.

Which is not, I think, the culture we want to live in.
Good thing we don't.

[MacQuarrie]

Digital reproductions are simply the pass along.
No, they are not, unless you delete your copy as soon as you give it to one other person. If you create a new copy, you've violated the creator's copyright. You know, the right to copy. You don't have that right.

Read the user agreement on any piece of software. You're only allowed to put it on one computer at a time, and when you load it on one, you have to delete it from the other. If you sell the discs to somebody, you're supposed to delete the copy from your system. The agreement allows you to make a copy for backup in case the original disc is damaged, but you can't sell it or give it away. If you give away or sell the computer, the discs go with it or the software has to be deleted.

A digital reproduction is a reproduction is a copy is prohibited.

[Paul McEnery]

That's bullshit. Editorial and journalistic review and parody are two categories specifically and explicitly covered under the Fair Use clause of US Copyright law. Also, when I was mocking superhero comics in The Fourth Wall, I showed my strips to Paul Levitz, and he said "Editorial commentary is fine; just don't go to the same well too often." Morts is well within the bounds of legality with WWTT, and neither DC nor Marvel should have the slightest problem with it.

Well he won't, more than likely.

But that doesn't mean he couldn't. Like I say, Fair Use has been rolled back dramatically, to the point where citing as much as a single song lyric as an epigraph has to get sent to permissions.

And big corporations have sat on people for less. And litigious nitwits have caused people grief for less. And how it turns out is very much down to the judge, isn't it.

But that wasn't the point anyway.

The point is:

Either ganking is theft and evil, or it's fair use and ethical. You can't have it both ways.

And, to follow up on Cutter Mike's point, it's obvious that Morts is trading off the prior work. For my money, that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do in this circumstance. But hypocritical if you're yelling theft about digital reproductions.

[MacQuarrie]

And that will matter how much when the publisher sends a cease and desist to your ISP?
I'm his ISP, and I'd back him up. But it's not gonna happen. Paul Levitz said so.

It's funny how you've suddenly shifted your arguments away from the ethical considerations to the legal.

In your consideration, this is fair use. But suddenly we're in the use-value world, where the culture is free for you to manipulate.

For some reason, that's not the same thing at all, and you're free to make your own ethical decisions.
It's not the same thing at all. There is a profound and fundamental difference between clipping a couple of panels from a 30-page comic and surrounding them with commentary, and reproducing an entire comic book and distributing it for free to the whole world against the wishes of the rights-holder. One is protected by law, the other is prohibited. So they can't be the same thing.


Make that argument in front of a judge.
Many already have. Successfully.

As you know, that's a crap shoot.

And the crap shoot of judicial stupidity has no bearing on my ethical decisions.
IT's really only a crap shoot in trademark law. Copyright law is pretty open-and-shut in this area. IF DC wanted to go after Morts for defaming their trademarks, that would be a crap shoot, but on the copyright front he's well in the clear. Even on the trademark front, he's on pretty solid ground, since he's not misusing or misrepresenting the trademarks for commercial purposes, and there have been a significant number of trademark cases where the judges ruled in favor of the defendant on the basis of First Amendment issues. It's all a matter of what and how much original content is being added and the proportion and context in which the sampled art is being used.

[Paul McEnery]

No, they are not, unless you delete your copy as soon as you give it to one other person. If you create a new copy, you've violated the creator's copyright. You know, the right to copy. You don't have that right.

Copyright, as you well know, is the right to exploit the property for cash.

Ethically, the pass along of digital reproduction isn't the same thing at all.

And functionally, it works better than a pass along. A pass along only allows a publisher to leverage your attention as advertising dollars, and doesn't particularly increase sales, or at least not very quickly.

Whereas freeloading demonstrably leads to payloading.

But you're falling into exactly the trap Morts wants you to: equating the law with ethics.


Read the user agreement on any piece of software. You're only allowed to put it on one computer at a time, and when you load it on one, you have to delete it from the other.

As you well know again, this isn't a copyright issue, it's a licence agreement issue. And one that people hate so much, they created the open source movement, and whole countries stopped using Microsoft software because they considered it an unreasonable imposition.


A digital reproduction is a reproduction is a copy is prohibited.

So's marriage equality in Alaska. Doesn't make it unethical. And it doesn't make a gay couple any different from a straight couple.

We might well point out that prohibiting free digital reproduction -- and trying to enforce it with copyguard -- not only drove ethical people towards freeloading, but also cost corporations in the courts. Closing Napster down cost the industry sales, too. So it's not just logical rubbish, it's practical rubbish.

And people continued to routinely ignore the excessive licensing conditions anyway, just as they ignored the "home taping is killing music" campaign.

You're absolutely right that property owners will continue to use force against people who dispute their claims; but I'm absolutely right that their claims are both nonsense and economically not in anyone's best interest except that of the rich, and ultimately not even theirs.

As is demonstrated by Isan putting their music up on MySpace -- where I have the opportunity to listen to it for nothing -- and putting it up at eMusic, where I'm about to hand over some money because it's at a price that seems reasonable to me for the use I'll get out of it.

They made me feel good. They left me free to do what I want. And what I want to do is reward them. Surprise! The model works. (Not to mention the fact that, if the biz had its way, I'd never have heard of them at all, and they'd never have been able to make the first album, let alone the fourth one I'm giving them money for.)

The argument as to whether or not it's right to download digital reproductions is not an ethical one, because the ethics are clear. The argument is a moral one of doing what you're told; or the childlike resentment from people who do what they're told, and are angry that other people get a reward for not doing so. Which leads to the incredibly unethical choice to force a moral stance on people who have a perfectly justifiable ethical stance.

Which I take to be typically moral.

[MacQuarrie]

Well he won't, more than likely.

But that doesn't mean he couldn't. Like I say, Fair Use has been rolled back dramatically, to the point where citing as much as a single song lyric as an epigraph has to get sent to permissions.

And big corporations have sat on people for less. And litigious nitwits have caused people grief for less. And how it turns out is very much down to the judge, isn't it.

But that wasn't the point anyway.

The point is:

Either ganking is theft and evil, or it's fair use and ethical. You can't have it both ways.

And, to follow up on Cutter Mike's point, it's obvious that Morts is trading off the prior work. For my money, that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do in this circumstance. But hypocritical if you're yelling theft about digital reproductions.
Quoting a portion of a protected work for purposes of commentary, review, education or parody is legally protected, provided you don't use any more than is necessary to make your point. Quoting a song lyric without commentary is a different matter. Neither is comparable to duplicating a work in toto and distributing it.

Morts is "trading off the prior work" exactly the same way that Roger Ebert is trading off movies. Neither is theft, and neither is comparable to scanning and distributing somebody else's property without consent.

[Rev. Calibos]

Quoting a portion of a protected work for purposes of commentary, review, education or parody is legally protected, provided you don't use any more than is necessary to make your point. Quoting a song lyric without commentary is a different matter. Neither is comparable to duplicating a work in toto and distributing it.

Morts is "trading off the prior work" exactly the same way that Roger Ebert is trading off movies. Neither is theft, and neither is comparable to scanning and distributing somebody else's property without consent.

The trouble is who deems what is 'necessary'


If there's a standard that's all well and good, but if we're just dealing in guesstimates that's another matter entirely.

[MacQuarrie]

Of course not.

What I'm trying to get across here (clumsily I'll admit....it's late after all, lol) is that whether I download or whether I buy used I'm not paying the established price set forth by the producer for the fruits of their labor.

I'm just curious to see if some would find buying used morally ambiguous considering that, while legal, it only obeys the letter of the law if not the spirit of what we would consider fair compensation.

You really can't see the difference?

If you buy used, the seller no longer has the item. When you sell it, you will no longer have it. One copy is being passed along sequentially.

When you download, the other guy still has it, and when you upload it to someone else, you will also still have it. You're not passing it along, you're generating new copies of it.

It's not the same.

Now, I'm sure the RIAA would like to patrol the flea markets and demand a cut of all re-sold CDs, but they'd also like to charge people for humming and whistling songs they heard on the radio, so we can ignore their absurd claims.

The fact is, the artist has been paid for the sale of the one item, and regardless how many times it gets passed along, it remains one copy owned by one person. A digital file that's passed along becomes two digital files, then three, then hundreds, all copied without compensation to the artist.

[MacQuarrie]

The trouble is who deems what is 'necessary'


If there's a standard that's all well and good, but if we're just dealing in guesstimates that's another matter entirely.
Most reasonable people can tell the difference between showing some examples and reproducing a work.

[MacQuarrie]

I don't think so.

In fact, it still sounds like the voice of property.

Let's go back to the land enclosure.

Somebody sure got something for nothing and had the heart of a mugger. It was the people who took all the land, cast everyone off it who was earning a living from the land, and of course in the case of colonialism, killed anyone who got in the way of taking the land; but either way enslaved them to the needs of property.

Anyone who ignores that this is the root of ALL property-based economics hasn't been paying attention. Which is rather pointed up by the way that the last two economic collapses have been precisely about people living from property at the expense of people living from labour.

And that's one of the things that really gets my back up when people cry "theft" against anyone who rebels against property-based economics. That's not theft; it's the precise opposite of theft.

To get back to a model where we reward people for their labour rather than for their labour-on-behalf-of-property takes breaking people of the habit of thinking in the language of property.

And it should be remembered that one of the big features of the language of property is false commoditization.
There are some false premises here. The assumption that all land was acquired through theft, for one. Lots of places were once empty until somebody settled there. Those people killed nobody and stole from nobody. Later, other people came along and bought the land from them. No killing or stealing.

Sure, killing and stealing did happen a lot, but not always, and saying that all private property is the result of stealing and killing is just a flat-out lie.

I happen to agree with Rose Wilder Lane, that the right to private property is the right that makes all other rights possible; it is the mainspring of civilization. Democracy began with the right to private property and it dies with the loss of that right.

Going a bit further, the existence of money in a culture is prima facie evidence of freedom in that culture. In a tyrannical system, all goods are the property of the king and he distributes them to the people as he chooses; no money is needed because no commerce takes place; everything comes from the state. When people are free to produce what they want and sell it to buy other things they want, money becomes necessary as a medium of exchange (barter is clumsy and inconvenient).

The system you're advocating leads inexorably to oppression.

[Rev. Calibos]

You really can't see the difference?


Is there a difference for a new consumer?

I have options now, full price or less than full price.

Where the item originated from makes little difference for the Used buyer I fear, ultimately it's all about scoring the product for a lower price.



If you buy used, the seller no longer has the item. When you sell it, you will no longer have it. One copy is being passed along sequentially.


I know. It's a chain but as far as I'm concerned I'm the first link between consumer A (me!) and Producer A (Artist!)


It's after the show. Joe Artist is selling CD's for $10 a pop outside the theater.

Consumer A feels that, crap, he got ripped off and, on a whim,.decides mere moments after he bought the CD from Joe Artist and his people he's done with it.

Me? I'm all about it. I loved the show and I'm looking forward to buying the CD after the show.

Problem is, Joe Artist is selling it for $10 and disgruntled fan #1 is selling it for $5.

If I buy it from Disgruntled Fan #1 for $5 I've purchased the album but I've robbed Joe Artist of the full worth of the album, the worth determined well before any of us stepped into the theater to enjoy the show.

End result?

I pick it up for $5 and Joe Artist is out another sale.





When you download, the other guy still has it, and when you upload it to someone else, you will also still have it. You're not passing it along, you're generating new copies of it.

It's not the same.

Never said it was but it is similar.


The product, as determined by artist and lable is X dollars and I buy used for less than X dollars.

Regardless of where it came from, I'm the 'new guy', the new consumer who's yet to enter into that agreement between artist and consumer.

By buying used I'm picking up the remains of the product already purchased by somebody else.


Can you see the difference?


If Mcquarrie puts out a CD and one fellow buys it for the full price and I buy that same CD a week later for a fraction of that how much did you lose?

Answer?

You lost the full price of the CD I felt was worthy enough to purchase.

Now, I'm sure the RIAA would like to patrol the flea markets and demand a cut of all re-sold CDs, but they'd also like to charge people for humming and whistling songs they heard on the radio, so we can ignore their absurd claims.

Agreed.

The fact is, the artist has been paid for the sale of the one item, and regardless how many times it gets passed along, it remains one copy owned by one person. A digital file that's passed along becomes two digital files, then three, then hundreds, all copied without compensation to the artist.

But you have to acknowledge that in that long line of purchases from new to used to used to used to used to etc to etc. to etc. only ONE purchase has been made.

So we have some options here. Joe Artist has been fairly compensated for his work or he has not.

If not he's received 'nothing' due to downloading or he's received 'something' through the used route.

However, neither through 'downloaded' or 'used' does Joe Artist get the full value of what his work is worth.

[Rev. Calibos]

Most reasonable people can tell the difference between showing some examples and reproducing a work.

Right, most 'reasonable' people.


Which suggests, to me at least, that there's a standard.

Who determines that standard and just what does it entail?

[Paul McEnery]

Quoting a portion of a protected work for purposes of commentary, review, education or parody is legally protected, provided you don't use any more than is necessary to make your point. Quoting a song lyric without commentary is a different matter. Neither is comparable to duplicating a work in toto and distributing it.

And as far as corporations are concerned, they want to roll that right back as far as humanly possible. Public Enemy's use of samples was fair use right until the corporations decided that it wasn't. Same with epigraphs -- once they were culture, now they're enclosed with a fence.

And the reason companies are doing this is that they recognize that this is precisely the same thing. As other writers and creators at the time of sampling realized that it was precisely the same thing. The free use of cultural elements is completely opposed to the commoditization of culture.

Information wants to be free; information wants to be expensive. These two principles are in tension. And it shouldn't even be an issue, is the point. If it were, we wouldn't even have the works of Shakespeare, or any classical music at all, or Joyce, or John Dos Passos, or who knows what else.


Morts is "trading off the prior work" exactly the same way that Roger Ebert is trading off movies. Neither is theft, and neither is comparable to scanning and distributing somebody else's property without consent.

Well no, no he isn't. Ebert's performing a function that falls within the accepted marketing of the product. He's publicising the work. Exactly as the uploaders are doing. And if he stepped over certain lines, his privileges would be revoked in short order so that he wouldn't be able to do it any more, like the reviewer who commented on the pre-release of the Wolverine movie.

What Morts is doing is completely different. He's using the images as an opportunity to write and claim attention for his writing and for himself. Nothing wrong with that. I'm glad to read his writing. But it still depends on treating the digital reproductions not as commodities but as elements of culture.

In fact, it's exactly treating them as elements of culture, and the opposite of treating them as commodities!

Which is my point.

It's standard property-is-theft. The interests of property are opposed to the interests of culture. Also opposed to a sustainable economy and a sustainable ecology, as we now know. Property-and-commodity did lead to massive economic growth, and that was valuable -- if we accept this model, we also accept the theft implicit in the land enclosure, though.

That model's had its day, and the new model involves reversing the value system.

[Paul McEnery]

There are some false premises here. The assumption that all land was acquired through theft, for one. Lots of places were once empty until somebody settled there. Those people killed nobody and stole from nobody. Later, other people came along and bought the land from them. No killing or stealing.

Name one place outside of the primitive world that that's true. Hell, even most of it inside the primitive world.

The entire property model we work with today -- and the copyright law that came with it -- dates precisely to the Land Enclosure Act, which was an act of violence exactly as the settling of America was an act of violence.

Sure, land was empty until someone settled. Then the property-owning class took it from them.

Sure, killing and stealing did happen a lot, but not always, and saying that all private property is the result of stealing and killing is just a flat-out lie.

Private property doesn't even exist until the Land Enclosure. Which kind of sinks your point.

I happen to agree with Rose Wilder Lane, that the right to private property is the right that makes all other rights possible

I'm sure the people who've been treated as private property throughout history feel very comforted by that thought.

Democracy began with the right to private property

Really? Tell me which moment in history it was that cemented the two. Because it wasn't the English Revolution, or the French Revolution, or Greek Civilization either, for that matter.


Going a bit further, the existence of money in a culture is prima facie evidence of freedom in that culture.

Do you really want me to Godwin up the place?

In a tyrannical system, all goods are the property of the king and he distributes them to the people as he chooses; no money is needed because no commerce takes place; everything comes from the state.

Oh please. That's utter nonsense. The rise of the state is precisely the rise of private property. Private property is exactly the tyranny of the king, then down to the lords, then down to their agents, but not, please God no, down to the common people.

Who are quite happy doing without all this property stuff -- farming the land as if it were their natural right -- until some bastard kicked them off the land and called it property.

English Democracy precedes the invention of private property as we know it; and it's there because people didn't accept the King's idea of private property; and such improvements in democracy as there have been in England have ALWAYS been in revolt against the propertied class.

When people are free to produce what they want and sell it to buy other things they want, money becomes necessary as a medium of exchange (barter is clumsy and inconvenient).

It's worked pretty well for me. It would work even better if I didn't have property laws getting in my way.

Of course money potentiates trade, up to a point. But I'd recommend listening to Douglas Rushkoff's first Media Squat show at WFMU to get a clearer picture of what money does and is -- a medium like all the other media.

The system you're advocating leads inexorably to oppression.
What, as opposed to the property-based economics that led to Colonialism, WWI and II, the extermination of the Native Americans, the enslavement of millions, and the rural working classes being pressed into factory labour under the threat of starvation.

Or the RIAA taking people to court and ruining their lives, for that matter.

The move away from that seems self-evidently liberatory to me -- as it is self-evidently liberatory in net culture.

[Tages]

There are some false premises here. The assumption that all land was acquired through theft, for one. Lots of places were once empty until somebody settled there. Those people killed nobody and stole from nobody. Later, other people came along and bought the land from them. No killing or stealing.

Sure, killing and stealing did happen a lot, but not always, and saying that all private property is the result of stealing and killing is just a flat-out lie.

I happen to agree with Rose Wilder Lane, that the right to private property is the right that makes all other rights possible; it is the mainspring of civilization. Democracy began with the right to private property and it dies with the loss of that right.

Going a bit further, the existence of money in a culture is prima facie evidence of freedom in that culture. In a tyrannical system, all goods are the property of the king and he distributes them to the people as he chooses; no money is needed because no commerce takes place; everything comes from the state. When people are free to produce what they want and sell it to buy other things they want, money becomes necessary as a medium of exchange (barter is clumsy and inconvenient).

The system you're advocating leads inexorably to oppression.

I'm pretty sure a system as you're describing it has never existed in the history of mankind on any kind of national scale. Even Cuba has commerce apart from the state.

Also, correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but are you saying that the only possible alternative to a society based on a foundation of private property is feudalism?

[Paul McEnery]

I'm pretty sure a system as you're describing it has never existed in the history of mankind on any kind of national scale. Even Cuba has commerce apart from the state.

Also, correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but are you saying that the only possible alternative to a society based on a foundation of private property is feudalism?

And if it were, how would that be different from America's property-and-commodity model? Except that not as many people wouldn't be being kicked out of their houses because of Land Foreclosure?

Meanwhile -- and it raised an eyebrow from me, so I'm wondering if a historian can confirm this -- Rushkoff claimed that the majority of people in the Dark Ages had it better than they did in the Industrial Age -- taller, healthier, lived longer, had more personal time.

[CutterMike]

So consumers that buy used, buying the product for close to nothing are muggers.

But those brave souls that head to Best Buy aren't muggers.

Well crap in a hat......I was laboring under the misconception that I was getting a good deal, now it seems I could be considered a mugger.

Did you shoplift the disk from the used-CD store...?

No...?

Then you choose to pay the shop owner to get something that: A -- you wanted, and; B -- he had paid to acquire in his turn, implying that getting your cost down to zero without concern for anybody else's good really isn't your ultimate ethical base, is it?

Please read the bolded text there, because I have used equivalents to that phrase in EVERY FRICKIN' POST that I have made on this particular aspect of this thread.

It, frankly, looks like you're TRYING to misread what I'm saying.

I'll try it one more time:

IF someone believes that they have, as their PRIMARY ETHICAL GOOD, the right to have anything they want at the lowest possible price (zero cost), and feel that ANYTHING that they choose do to WITHOUT REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S RIGHTS is therefore ETHICALLY JUSTIFIED, he has the heart of a mugger. I say this because he sees other people as NOTHING but means to attain what he wants: "You have it. I want it. I will take it. End of story."

Presumably you, and anyone who purchases at a second-hand store does NOT, in that instance, feel that ANYTHING that they choose do to WITHOUT REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S RIGHTS is justified by their ethics, since they choose to pay SOMETHING, rather than NOTHING: "You have it. I want it. I will come to an accommodation with you whereby we BOTH get something that we want."

There is a significant difference between those two scenarios that, as I said, you appear to be intentionally ignoring.

[Rev. Calibos]

Did you shoplift the disk from the used-CD store...?

No...?

Then you choose to pay the shop owner to get something that: A -- you wanted, and; B -- he had paid to acquire in his turn, implying that getting your cost down to zero without concern for anybody else's good really isn't your ultimate ethical base, is it?

Please read the bolded text there, because I have used equivalents to that phrase in EVERY FRICKIN' POST that I have made on this particular aspect of this thread.

It, frankly, looks like you're TRYING to misread what I'm saying.

I'll try it one more time:

IF someone believes that they have, as their PRIMARY ETHICAL GOOD, the right to have anything they want at the lowest possible price (zero cost), and feel that ANYTHING that they choose do to WITHOUT REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S RIGHTS is therefore ETHICALLY JUSTIFIED, he has the heart of a mugger. I say this because he sees other people as NOTHING but means to attain what he wants: "You have it. I want it. I will take it. End of story."

Presumably you, and anyone who purchases at a second-hand store does NOT, in that instance, feel that ANYTHING that they choose do to WITHOUT REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S RIGHTS is justified by their ethics, since they choose to pay SOMETHING, rather than NOTHING: "You have it. I want it. I will come to an accommodation with you whereby we BOTH get something that we want."

There is a significant difference between those two scenarios that, as I said, you appear to be intentionally ignoring.

Oh no, there's a difference and it's a difference already mentioned twice in two of my older posts.



What I'm trying to get across here is that if Cutter Mike makes that fabulous Pirate Shanty CD and puts it out there, ideally, how would he prefer that I find it?

Full price at a store, purchasing it at the amount that you deemed your output is worth?

Or at a used store, picking up a copy for cheap 'stealing' another sale from you?

You got 'something' to be sure which is always better than 'nothing' but it's nowhere near what you deemed your work to be worth.

[CutterMike]

Hell, someone could claim that giving money to the American Nazi Party was "paying" Howard Chaykin for downloading the American Flagg TPBs.
Not reasonably.

Not reasonably by your or my standards, perhaps, and presumably not by Howard's, but if we take your argument that ONLY the consumer gets to set the terms of payment ("payment" here being defined as anything from doing nothing, through prop-ware, to handing over a gazillion bucks), then your, or my, or Howard's opinions are immaterial. If the consumer believes that sending money to the American Nazi Party is suitable recompense then, by definition, it IS.

To put it in vieux jeu terms, downloaders ARE the customer base. Can't see that telling them that they're a bunch of fucking thieves who should rot in hell is the best marketing strategy, myself. Especially not since, in the digital age, you're going to have to be cap in hand to them.

Again, I see that that is the reality. The issue that I have is that, under those conditions, labor is being told that, if they want to profit FROM their labor at all, they must be willing to give it away to capital (the consumer) and accept whatever capital is willing to grant them in exchange. They have no right to negotiate with capital, since they have no capability to enforce negotiation (capability = right) and, until the prop-ware economy (dare I say it?) trickles down to the point that EVERYONE is on it, capital has no incentive to change since -- for them -- things are pretty good!

Somehow, I'm missing how labor is supposed to see this as any sort of a situational improvement.

And if labor "demonizing" capital is unlikely to improve capital's feelings of goodwill towards labor, then telling labor to "suck it up -- things will be better someday; in the meantime, take two "Attaboys" out of petty cash..." can't be reasonably expected to improve THEIR views of the deal.

A genuine ethics begins with caring for oneself.

Perhaps. The problem is that, for too many it also ENDS with that as well which -- IMO -- brings us Bernie Madoffs and downloaders who value the use of labor's output but feel no need to meet labor's needs in return.

[Corrina]

So consumers that buy used, buying the product for close to nothing are muggers.

But those brave souls that head to Best Buy aren't muggers.

Well crap in a hat......I was laboring under the misconception that I was getting a good deal, now it seems I could be considered a mugger.

you keep deliberately going back to 'buy it used' constantly when, clearly, those talking in this thread have ALREADY gone past talking about that--allowing for libraries, used bookstores, used record stores, etc---and are talking about something else.

Yet you keep going back to same thing.

This would no doubt tend to annoy people trying to have a constructive discussion with you.

[Rev. Calibos]

you keep deliberately going back to 'buy it used' constantly when, clearly, those talking in this thread have ALREADY gone past talking about that--allowing for libraries, used bookstores, used record stores, etc---and are talking about something else.

Yet you keep going back to same thing.

This would no doubt tend to annoy people trying to have a constructive discussion with you.


The reason it keeps coming back is because of the similarity to downloading.

If the outcome of this discussion is someone would change their mind about downloading and consider it theft, consider it ripping off the artist it's then not outside the realm of reason to go that extra step and determine that used stores/libraries/etc. are also a rip off.

So it's just a question of ripping them off completely of just a little bit.

Either way, through downloading or used the artist isn't getting fairly compensated for their work.

[Chris Hansbrough]

The reason it keeps coming back is because of the similarity to downloading.

If the outcome of this discussion is someone would change their mind about downloading and consider it theft, consider it ripping off the artist it's then not outside the realm of reason to go that extra step and determine that used stores/libraries/etc. are also a rip off.

So it's just a question of ripping them off completely of just a little bit.

Either way, through downloading or used the artist isn't getting fairly compensated for their work.

No, no it is not. Libraries/used stores......There is one copy of the object in question that has been paid for. This is a 1:1 ratio. One copy, and one person is reading it....

Downloading.....One copy is purchased, an infinite number can be downloaded from this one copy when it goes on the internet. That is NOT a 1:1 ratio. one copy was paid for and a shitton of people see it for free. how is that even similar in any freaking way.

In the first....there is one copy and then there is still one copy. in the second, there was one copy and then there were an infinite number of copies all coming from the one that was purchased. how is that even remotely difficult to understand?

[Rev. Calibos]

No, no it is not. Libraries/used stores......There is one copy of the object in question that has been paid for. This is a 1:1 ratio. One copy, and one person is reading it....

Downloading.....One copy is purchased, an infinite number can be downloaded from this one copy when it goes on the internet. That is NOT a 1:1 ratio. one copy was paid for and a shitton of people see it for free. how is that even similar in any freaking way.

In the first....there is one copy and then there is still one copy. in the second, there was one copy and then there were an infinite number of copies all coming from the one that was purchased. how is that even remotely difficult to understand?


You're not understanding, if an artist puts out a CD set at $20 and there are 10 consumers who want that product then, ideally, the artist will make $200.

But, initially,he makes $20 from the first consumer. He buys it, burns it and makes copies for the other 9.

So the artist s.o.l. He had 10 customers who had a genuine interest in his work and only sold one CD.

Now if the first customer, instead of burning it and making copies, instead decides to sell it to a Used place.

The remaining 9 customers now have an additional option.They can buy the album at the price the artist wants to sell it at or they can go elsewhere and find it cheaper.

Any one of them that goes out and buys used affects the artist's bottom line.

Instead of making $200 off of customers who are genuinely interested in his work he's only making a fraction of that.


Btw, no one ever said anything about downloading and buying used being exaclty the same. They're not the same thing at all but there are similiarities which have already been pointed out.

[Chris Hansbrough]

You're not understanding, if an artist puts out a CD set at $20 and there are 10 consumers who want that product then, ideally, the artist will make $200.

But, initially,he makes $20 from the first consumer. He buys it, burns it and makes copies for the other 9.

So the artist s.o.l. He had 10 customers who had a genuine interest in his work and only sold one CD.

Now if the first customer, instead of burning it and making copies, instead decides to sell it to a Used place.

The remaining 9 customers now have an additional option.They can buy the album at the price the artist wants to sell it at or they can go elsewhere and find it cheaper.

Any one of them that goes out and buys used affects the artist's bottom line.

Instead of making $200 off of customers who are genuinely interested in his work he's only making a fraction of that.


Btw, no one ever said anything about downloading and buying used being exaclty the same. They're not the same thing at all but there are similiarities which have already been pointed out.

no there aren't. in one case the one copy is still one copy. in the other the one copy becomes an infinite number. how the hell is that anyway similar.

[Rev. Calibos]

no there aren't. in one case the one copy is still one copy. in the other the one copy becomes an infinite number. how the hell is that anyway similar.

Because either way the artist isn't being compensated fairly.

He produces a CD and sets a price for it.

If you're a fan you can plunk down that money to buy a copy or you can just download it or pick it up used.

Either way you're not giving the artist what he deems his work is worth.

How is that even remotely difficult to understand?

[CutterMike]

Oh no, there's a difference and it's a difference already mentioned twice in two of my older posts.



What I'm trying to get across here is that if Cutter Mike makes that fabulous Pirate Shanty CD and puts it out there, ideally, how would he prefer that I find it?

Full price at a store, purchasing it at the amount that you deemed your output is worth?

Or at a used store, picking up a copy for cheap 'stealing' another sale from you?

You got 'something' to be sure which is always better than 'nothing' but it's nowhere near what you deemed your work to be worth.

Okay --

I would prefer that I get paid for a new copy, because I could use the money. Primary sales are POSITIVE.

I accept that some copies will be resold because -- as a consumer -- I also appreciate a bargain. While I obviously would prefer all sales to be new sales, at least in a resale situation I am losing out on a one-to-one basis: one second-hand sale is one primary sale that I don't get. It doesn't ADD primary sales to my numbers, but it doesn't dilute them, either. Secondary sales are NEUTRAL.

I have no respect for a shoplifter, because his only concern is for his wants and he returns nothing tangible to the system that he preys upon. This is the "mugger" mindset. For torrented copies, unlike the second-hand-sale situation above where I am losing primary sales one-to-one -- retail, if you will -- I end up losing wholesale since one primary or secondary sale spawns innumerable acquisitions of the result of my labor for which I receive no compensation -- not even the compensation of counting those myriad acquisitions towards the sales numbers that I can use to negotiate my next recording deal since I have no way of knowing how many there are and how many translate to later primary sales. This dilutes the value of those numbers, to me since the one sale that I CAN count has metastasized and created MANY iterations that benefit me not at all. Torrents and shoplifting are NEGATIVE.

The primary sale exchanges value between you and the creator.

The secondary sale exchanges value between you and the reseller, with indirect but (hazily) quantifiable value to the creator.

A non-sale gains one party the object desired with little or no quantifiable value received by the creator, and THAT small value is only received if it converts to enough primary sales to counterbalance the number of sales lost to downloads or shoplifted packages.

So that's the breakdown -- if you are exchanging value for value with someone else, you are NOT a mugger, since you are choosing to make an exchange of values as (relative) equals. You have entered into a dialogue and an exchange that, in one way or another, benefits both parties. Maybe not to both parties' total satisfaction, but some degree of benefit DOES travel both ways.

If you are ONLY gaining value (the thing that you want) without returning ANYTHING that they value to the person(s) from whom you are gaining value, then you have treated them with the same sort of ethical behavior as would your average mugger. There is no dialogue, there is no attempt at equality of exchange, there is simply a demand for a one-way flow of value.

[Paul McEnery]

Did you shoplift the disk from the used-CD store...?

No...?

Then you choose to pay the shop owner to get something that: A -- you wanted, and; B -- he had paid to acquire in his turn, implying that getting your cost down to zero without concern for anybody else's good really isn't your ultimate ethical base, is it?

Please read the bolded text there, because I have used equivalents to that phrase in EVERY FRICKIN' POST that I have made on this particular aspect of this thread.

It, frankly, looks like you're TRYING to misread what I'm saying.

I'll try it one more time:

IF someone believes that they have, as their PRIMARY ETHICAL GOOD, the right to have anything they want at the lowest possible price (zero cost), and feel that ANYTHING that they choose do to WITHOUT REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S RIGHTS is therefore ETHICALLY JUSTIFIED, he has the heart of a mugger. I say this because he sees other people as NOTHING but means to attain what he wants: "You have it. I want it. I will take it. End of story."

Presumably you, and anyone who purchases at a second-hand store does NOT, in that instance, feel that ANYTHING that they choose do to WITHOUT REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S RIGHTS is justified by their ethics, since they choose to pay SOMETHING, rather than NOTHING: "You have it. I want it. I will come to an accommodation with you whereby we BOTH get something that we want."

There is a significant difference between those two scenarios that, as I said, you appear to be intentionally ignoring.

I seem to hear the breeze whistling through the mouths of a couple of strawmen.

[Paul McEnery]

Not reasonably by your or my standards, perhaps, and presumably not by Howard's, but if we take your argument that ONLY the consumer gets to set the terms of payment ("payment" here being defined as anything from doing nothing, through prop-ware, to handing over a gazillion bucks), then your, or my, or Howard's opinions are immaterial.


Less crap analogy, more truthful analysis

Commodity prices are negotiated between seller and buyer, each of them with leverage in the haggling.

I have Van Gogh's Sunflowers, I can hold out for 22 mill. I have bottled air, I got nothing. It's all about analyzing the relative leverage. In the case of a false commodity with zero actual exchange value, the buyer has all the leverage and the seller has none.


Again, I see that that is the reality. The issue that I have is that, under those conditions, labor is being told that, if they want to profit FROM their labor at all, they must be willing to give it away to capital (the consumer)

Can I just stop you there? The buyer is not capital. Property is capital. Capital is property. The buyer is neither, unless the buyer represents the interests of property-capital; i.e. the goal is economic exploitation.

At which point an entirely different situation obtains.


Somehow, I'm missing how labor is supposed to see this as any sort of a situational improvement.

Contradictory premises lead to absurd conclusions.


Perhaps. The problem is that, for too many it also ENDS with that as well which -- IMO -- brings us Bernie Madoffs and downloaders who value the use of labor's output but feel no need to meet labor's needs in return.

Instead of insulting downloaders -- who contribute an above average per capita payment to the artist -- lets look at the real Madoffs, the comic book companies who, for a quick buck, promoted the culture of speculation in the full knowledge that the million-copy edition of a foil-embossed "collectible" had zero real exchange value. Which is what killed the audience for comics, leading to an exaggerated price point, which unsurprisingly led to buyers being unwilling -- indeed unable -- to pay.

[Paul McEnery]

no there aren't. in one case the one copy is still one copy. in the other the one copy becomes an infinite number. how the hell is that anyway similar.

I buy a book, I read it once, I sell it on. Someone else buys the book, reads it once, sells it on. And so on.

Fairly obviously, the original seller only makes money off the first transaction.

The situation is identical.


Downloading.....One copy is purchased, an infinite number can be downloaded from this one copy when it goes on the internet. That is NOT a 1:1 ratio. one copy was paid for and a shitton of people see it for free. how is that even similar in any freaking way.

The effect of which is to increase the number of original transactions; especially when the price is lowered to what the payloader is willing/able to meet.

More bang for the buck leads to happier buyers leads to more sales.

More diffuse marketing -- which is what downloading is -- leads to greater market diversity, and more people able to conduct original transactions.

[Chris Hansbrough]

so the book magically multiplied? seems to me to still be one book....

one book remains one book.

One book becomes an infinite number of books obtainable to a mass amount of people at the same time....


yep seems exactly the same to me when I put on my elitist dumb shit hat too

[MacQuarrie]

Is there a difference for a new consumer?

I have options now, full price or less than full price.

Where the item originated from makes little difference for the Used buyer I fear, ultimately it's all about scoring the product for a lower price.





I know. It's a chain but as far as I'm concerned I'm the first link between consumer A (me!) and Producer A (Artist!)


It's after the show. Joe Artist is selling CD's for $10 a pop outside the theater.

Consumer A feels that, crap, he got ripped off and, on a whim,.decides mere moments after he bought the CD from Joe Artist and his people he's done with it.

Me? I'm all about it. I loved the show and I'm looking forward to buying the CD after the show.

Problem is, Joe Artist is selling it for $10 and disgruntled fan #1 is selling it for $5.

If I buy it from Disgruntled Fan #1 for $5 I've purchased the album but I've robbed Joe Artist of the full worth of the album, the worth determined well before any of us stepped into the theater to enjoy the show.

End result?

I pick it up for $5 and Joe Artist is out another sale.






Never said it was but it is similar.


The product, as determined by artist and lable is X dollars and I buy used for less than X dollars.

Regardless of where it came from, I'm the 'new guy', the new consumer who's yet to enter into that agreement between artist and consumer.

By buying used I'm picking up the remains of the product already purchased by somebody else.


Can you see the difference?


If Mcquarrie puts out a CD and one fellow buys it for the full price and I buy that same CD a week later for a fraction of that how much did you lose?

Answer?

You lost the full price of the CD I felt was worthy enough to purchase.



Agreed.



But you have to acknowledge that in that long line of purchases from new to used to used to used to used to etc to etc. to etc. only ONE purchase has been made.

So we have some options here. Joe Artist has been fairly compensated for his work or he has not.

If not he's received 'nothing' due to downloading or he's received 'something' through the used route.

However, neither through 'downloaded' or 'used' does Joe Artist get the full value of what his work is worth.
You are deliberately muddying the issue and your argument is nonsense.

The issue is downloading. Buying a used CD is a whole different issue that has ZERO to do with it.

If you buy a used CD, you're buying something the artist and label have already paid for. If the original owner flung it off a cliff or busted it up to make guitar picks or gave it away or kept it forever, the artist and label would not expect to make another nickel off the sale of that particular disc, nor should they.

If that CD enters the resale market, it's a moot point. It's a physical object that can only be in one place at a time, and only possessed by one person at a time, and it's subject to age and damage. Under the best of circumstances, that CD is most likely never going to be owned by more than three or four people before it becomes unusable. Any secondary sales are so trivial as to not matter to anyone.

On the other hand, a digital download can be replicated and distributed endlessly, and can be passed on virtually forever. A single file can be reproduced and distributed to hundreds of thousands of people and can be passed along for decades, it represents a serious impact on an artist's royalties.

If you think it's important to make sure that the artist gets paid his full revenue, always buy new. If you don't think so, don't use this piss-poor analogy as an excuse to justify illegal downloading, because it's bullshit.

[Paul McEnery]

On the other hand, a digital download can be replicated and distributed endlessly, and can be passed on virtually forever. .

Which is exactly why it has zero exchange value.

Not sure why this point isn't getting across.

[MacQuarrie]

I buy a book, I read it once, I sell it on. Someone else buys the book, reads it once, sells it on. And so on.

Fairly obviously, the original seller only makes money off the first transaction.

The situation is identical.

No, it's not. The copy you're passing on is aging and being damaged by handling and the elements. And it's passing from person to person and only in the hands of one person at a time. At most it may reach a couple dozen people before it's unreadable, and none of them get to keep it to read again later.

Contrariwise, the digital download does not age, does not get damaged, and can be endlessly replicated. Each person who passes it on also gets to keep it, so eventually everyone who wants it can have it. It can reach millions of people, and each of them gets to retain it when they pass it on.

The situations are only identical for those looking to create a bullshit smokescreen to defend and excuse their own actions by falsely equating their illegal acts with legal ones that they can manufacture a superficial resemblance to.

[MacQuarrie]

Which is exactly why it has zero exchange value.

Not sure why this point isn't getting across.

The problem is that this "zero exchange value" item replaces one that does have exchange value, and it does so thousands of times over.

[MacQuarrie]

The effect of which is to increase the number of original transactions; especially when the price is lowered to what the payloader is willing/able to meet.

More bang for the buck leads to happier buyers leads to more sales.

More diffuse marketing -- which is what downloading is -- leads to greater market diversity, and more people able to conduct original transactions.

The artist who recognizes the marketing value of downloading is free to facilitate it, as, for example, Jonathan Coulton does on his website.

But.

Artists who aren't interested in pursuing that vein of marketing have the right to prohibit it. They have that right. If Metallica says you can't download their songs, you have no right to claim you can. It's their music, and you don't get to appropriate their rights to it just because you think it's good for them.

In other words, you don't get to rationalize your way around copying somebody else's work. It's theft. They have the right to copy it and you don't, unless they say so. It's that simple. All the intellectual posturing about property and economics and political philosophy do not at all mitigate the simple principle, which you should have learned in Kindergarten, that it's wrong to take things that don't belong to you.

[Crowforge]

Metalica taught me you can be right and a douche at the same time.

[Tages]

No, it's not. The copy you're passing on is aging and being damaged by handling and the elements. And it's passing from person to person and only in the hands of one person at a time. At most it may reach a couple dozen people before it's unreadable, and none of them get to keep it to read again later.

Contrariwise, the digital download does not age, does not get damaged, and can be endlessly replicated. Each person who passes it on also gets to keep it, so eventually everyone who wants it can have it. It can reach millions of people, and each of them gets to retain it when they pass it on.

The situations are only identical for those looking to create a bullshit smokescreen to defend and excuse their own actions by falsely equating their illegal acts with legal ones that they can manufacture a superficial resemblance to.

Can we be done with this strawman already? It is possible to defend behavior as ethical, or at least not unethical, with motivations other than justifying one's own behavior. It's an unsupported assumption.

[Reverend Smooth]

The OP makes it very much about defending one's own behavior.

[Chris Hansbrough]

Which is exactly why it has zero exchange value.

Not sure why this point isn't getting across.

notice how you have to rewrite what I said to better accomodate your counterpoint to make one?

[Typo Lad]

notice how you have to rewrite what I said to better accomodate your counterpoint to make one?
That's what he does, over and over.

I'm done with this thread, because of Paul's near-constant intillectual dishonesty.

There are people who are making interesting arguments, like tages, but he ain't one.

Enjoy, kids.

[CutterMike]

Less crap analogy, more truthful analysis

Commodity prices are negotiated between seller and buyer, each of them with leverage in the haggling.

I have Van Gogh's Sunflowers, I can hold out for 22 mill. I have bottled air, I got nothing. It's all about analyzing the relative leverage. In the case of a false commodity with zero actual exchange value, the buyer has all the leverage and the seller has none.

Yes, we've agreed to that already. And you have stated that because of that fact, doing something that makes a third party happy is appropriate response for the use of a second party's labor if the payer believes that it is.

And I carried that stance to its logical absurdity -- that the consumer's choice of "payment" could be something that the "payee" would find actively abhorrent -- and you only response was "not really".

Could you explain WHY it's a crap analogy? Because to me it seems a logical conclusion from the marketplace as you're describing it.

Can I just stop you there? The buyer is not capital. Property is capital. Capital is property. The buyer is neither, unless the buyer represents the interests of property-capital; i.e. the goal is economic exploitation.

But property only = capital in a commodity world: capital is invested (real property and/or commodities bought, labor is hired) to make things, labor makes those things and capital sells them, recovering its investment plus some.

But in the new game, as you pointed out, there is no commodity, so the only transaction is between the laborer and the person buying the use of labor, i.e., with the ultimate source of valuta to be paid in exchange for work performed. In a non-commodity economy -- as you point out -- the role of the property-holder as middleman is eliminated makng the consumer (the ultimate source of payment in the commodity economy) the only source in the service economy since the initial investment in real property or commodities is eliminated. Thus, of the three classical hallmarks of capital in the commodity economy -- control of the means of production, distribution and exchange -- Labor determines production, while the consumer has sole control over distribution and the terms of exchange.

Sole source and arbiter of what payment labor will receive for its output, sole arbiter of how and to whom labor's output will be distributed, and whose ultimate ethical goal is the accumulation of items of (use) value with the least possible outlay of (exchange OR use) value -- you may choose to call it by another name but if it isn't "Capital" in the commodity-economy sense, "Consumerism" certainly appears to function (from labor's point of view) the same way in the service-economy (although without that pesky "risk taken investing in property first" thing, I suppose).

[Tages]

The OP makes it very much about defending one's own behavior.

Jim wasn't referring to just the OP.

[Reverend Smooth]

Jim wasn't referring to just the OP.

A lot of the posts since then have had anecdotes and personal opinions as rebuttals. I don't see why you're taking such an issue with it.

[MacQuarrie]

Flogging the dead horse a little more.

Why buying a used comic or CD is not at all similar to downloading one from a torrent site....

When I create a work of art, it comes into being with a variety of rights attached, each of which may be sold, transferred, given, lent or otherwise shared with others.

* Physical right. That's the right to own the actual original work, whether that's a painting, a Photoshop file, master tape, the art boards for the comic, or whatever.

* Reproduction right. That;s the right to make and sell copies.

* Publication right. Different from reproduction right. Suppose I do a painting; I can allow a magazine to publish it as an illustration, allow somebody else to sell prints of it, allow somebody else to put it on their website, allow another person to print it on t-shirts, etc.

* Derivative works right. I could license somebody to make porcelain sculptures of my painting. Or, in the case of fiction, I allow somebody else to write their own stories using my characters and setting. Or, in the case of music, I allow somebody to use part of my composition in theirs, as, for example, Vanilla Ice's use of Queen's "Pressure."

* Exhibition right. Ownership of the work may not include the right to publicly display it, whether or not admission is charged.

And so on.

If I sell you a copy of my CD or painting or comic, you have purchased only the right to physical ownership of that one copy. If you later choose to sell or give away that copy, you no longer have access to it; if you want to enjoy it again, you have to buy it again or borrow it from someone. The right to physical ownership of the copy has transferred to the new owner.

If I sell you the original painting, you have acquired only the physical right to that piece of art. You may not publish, reproduce, exhibit, exploit, or create derivative works based on it.

If you buy publication rights, you can only publish it according to the terms agreed upon. If you want to republish it again, you have to buy the right again.

All of these rights are respected when you buy a used copy, but all of them are violated when you illegally upload a file for others to share, and many of them are violated when somebody downloads it.

That's how it works.

[MacQuarrie]

Jim wasn't referring to just the OP.

The argument put forward is that downloading a work is no different (hence no more harmful and no more wrong) than buying a used copy. That's a spurious and false argument, and it is rationalization.

[Michael P]

Can we be done with this strawman already? It is possible to defend behavior as ethical, or at least not unethical, with motivations other than justifying one's own behavior. It's an unsupported assumption.

I think it's pretty well supported to anyone with (a) the ability to read and (2) a working understanding of human psychology.

[stealthwise]

Flogging the dead horse a little more.

Why buying a used comic or CD is not at all similar to downloading one from a torrent site....

When I create a work of art, it comes into being with a variety of rights attached, each of which may be sold, transferred, given, lent or otherwise shared with others.

* Physical right. That's the right to own the actual original work, whether that's a painting, a Photoshop file, master tape, the art boards for the comic, or whatever.

* Reproduction right. That;s the right to make and sell copies.

* Publication right. Different from reproduction right. Suppose I do a painting; I can allow a magazine to publish it as an illustration, allow somebody else to sell prints of it, allow somebody else to put it on their website, allow another person to print it on t-shirts, etc.

* Derivative works right. I could license somebody to make porcelain sculptures of my painting. Or, in the case of fiction, I allow somebody else to write their own stories using my characters and setting. Or, in the case of music, I allow somebody to use part of my composition in theirs, as, for example, Vanilla Ice's use of Queen's "Pressure."

* Exhibition right. Ownership of the work may not include the right to publicly display it, whether or not admission is charged.

And so on.

If I sell you a copy of my CD or painting or comic, you have purchased only the right to physical ownership of that one copy. If you later choose to sell or give away that copy, you no longer have access to it; if you want to enjoy it again, you have to buy it again or borrow it from someone. The right to physical ownership of the copy has transferred to the new owner.

If I sell you the original painting, you have acquired only the physical right to that piece of art. You may not publish, reproduce, exhibit, exploit, or create derivative works based on it.

If you buy publication rights, you can only publish it according to the terms agreed upon. If you want to republish it again, you have to buy the right again.

All of these rights are respected when you buy a used copy, but all of them are violated when you illegally upload a file for others to share, and many of them are violated when somebody downloads it.

That's how it works.

Then why wouldn't someone who's honestly interested in protecting those rights not change the medium through which they produce their work in order to prevent copying? Especially since it's well-established that people are going to do so regardless of any legal or ethical concerns.

[Reverend Smooth]

How do you make a comic scan-proof? Or music unrecordable?

[Paul McEnery]

Never mind

[Paul McEnery]

The problem is that this "zero exchange value" item replaces one that does have exchange value, and it does so thousands of times over.

So what?

The DJ replaced the live musician.

Big deal.

The point is, that's the reality that we now have to work with.

It has upsides. It has downsides. But it is reality.