Actually, there were rival playwrights who tried to sneak people into the Globe to have them copy down scripts word by word so they could sell the plays or put them on theirselves for profit.  This was a good way to get yourself stabbed or hanged in Elizabethan england, and Will and Burbage worked very hard to stop that sort of shit from happening.  When it did it did, but when they had new uncopied material they did everything they could to make money off of it.

Would you prefer a system perhaps where a vengeful artist might cut your throat?

Wow, way to be mature guys!

It looks like someone of you are putting words into TheGreg's mouth now. It isn't as simple as everything should be free, that may be the ultimate goal in a Star Trek-like universe but it isn't exactly the business model he proposes in the interim and it clearly doesn't/cannot extend to every service. Yes, there's the aspect whereby if Person A cannot profit from a digital product then how can they employ Person B on an hourly rate to help create it. But then, I understand TheGreg's argument to be that ultimately, a good digital product will make a profit somehow. I find the fact that many companies can actually sell bottled water quite a compelling demonstration that it is possible, and I'm reminded of quite a few models I've seen whereby freeware and websites have been supported by donations. The principle fault with the 'donation model', which would practically be the main source of revenue for digital information, is that it is alien to most people and antithetical to the current mindset of the free lunch. I'd argue that we live in a society where people have grown so tired of paying for things, and for so many types of things (as someone mentioned before in the forum), that any opportunity to take something for free is snatched up. There's not really such a thing as a free lunch, but most people want one. They miss the point that a free lunch is part of an exchange of some kind (usually generosity), so instead of a free lunch being given, they think a free lunch should be taken.

Change this mindset, and you potentially change the main revenue model from something that only a few people do to something that most people do. I think we are all a lot more generous than we think, if only the environment encouraged and drove human attitudes rather than the other way around. That to my mind was Roddenberry's message in his Star Trek utopia. Instead we're ruled by our greed and short-term approach. I've not seen it, but I'm reminded of the concept behind that 'Pay it Forward' film.

I think it's interesting how the dynamics of the human way of life, and Western society especially, has shifted to such an extent that parts of the population can devote their lives to and gain sustenance from creating art and entertainment for the remainder. And that this proportion has grown in size to what it is today, and that we've made the selling of products an entertainment in itself. The exchange of entertainment for services or goods used to stem logically from live performances or the production of the physical item, which both placed value on time. With the advent of processes that allowed that service to be quickly and easily replicated, the printing press and the ability to record music and plays, value notionally became attached to the thing instead. Someone could be paid several times over for a single performance/work, and an legal framework came up around to protect that because our culture is capitalist. The thought that we could make something once and be paid every single time it's looked at was a marvel! And for a job that my grandmother would probably insist wasn't a real job in the first place.

On a side note, isn't it bizarre that we all pay for things before we experience them? (with a few exceptions like petrol/gas and food in restaurants)

As I mentioned previously, Roddenberry's utopia was made possible by the existence of replicator technology, which made energy and resources limitless.  In a world where you can get a chicken sandwich by walking up to a machine and saying "chicken sandwich, please" and it simply appears without any effort on anyone's part - that's a world where you can do away with capitalism.  And then all humanity can be free to explore the galaxy - or do whatever else they desire - because everyone's basic necessities are covered without any effort.     

Roddenberry wasn't such a dreamer as to propose that new world would happen because we just decided to make everything free - it was a world made possible by new technology.   But since replicators don't exist yet, it's not the world we currently live in.  For now, creating a chicken sandwich or an episode of Game of Thrones still requires the expenditure of effort and purchase of raw materials.    And in either case, it seems fair to compensate the maker for that, if you want to partake of their wares.   

No, the marvel is that those scientific breakthroughs made it possible to make a thing and sell copies for far less than the cost of creating the original, because of the special ability of intellectual property to retain its full usefulness even when copied.   Thanks to the printing press, you no longer need to be phenomenally wealthy to own a book.    Thanks to audio recording, you can enjoy the performance of a great musician for far less than it would cost to pay her to come to your house.    And so on.

This is a peculiar trait that applies only to copyable things - it doesn't work with a house or a car (and definitely not with a chicken sandwich).   You can't get the full experience of a house or a sandwich by splitting the purchase price with a thousand other people - because you can't all live there, or drive it, or eat it. 

But you can all buy a copy of the same book... and your experience of that book will be just as valid and complete as everyone else's.  Now that is something to marvel at.

It is also a marvel that a similar system exists whereby a company will spend $200 million to create a piece of  entertainment, and then let you experience it for a mere $10.  Other companies spend millions creating entertainment and then let you see it for fucking free, as long as you also watch a mayonnaise commercial... and they don't even require you to watch the commercial!    Hell, for another $15 or so, most of them will even let you keep a copy of the thing to watch as often as you want.   Holy crap, how bout that?

All of these are incredible bargains, and on behalf of the entertainment industry (and science).... you're welcome. 

A lot of people paying a little bit apiece is what makes this possible.  It is not possible if people avail themselves of illegal methods to experience the entertainment while paying nothing at all.   

So, if you don't like the miraculous system we have, in which many people can pay for a thing collectively and still consume it individually... well, that's fine.  You don't have to buy one of my magical infinite chicken sandwiches.  But then you don't get to eat one either.   That's the deal, and it seems fair to me.   

And if you think you're somehow entitled to one of my sandwiches, because... hell, I have no idea why you'd think that.  I don't even know you.   Get somebody else to give you a free sandwich and bring about a new Utopia, if you can.   Me, I got bills to pay. 

 
This ignores the fact that a fair amount of Western society is a service-based economy. Everyone still has jobs in the future, the replicator machine still needs Bob the Builder to come in and keep in maintained, and  the expenditure of time and effort is still there, Kirk and co. still show up for work but don't get paid for it.  So no, I wouldn't say that technology/replicators alone have allowed that future to happen, a wholesale change has occurred in the manner in which people interact with each other, principally the need to exploit something and get rich. It's not precisely clear how this all works, as Picard says in First Contact, they work 'to better themselves' I guess.

It's not 'an incredible bargain', it's simply scale of economics, selling lots of items at a small price to offset a large upfront cost, and it happens in most industries and throughout history; it's not like technology has allowed this to happen. Elizabethans didn't pay the full cost of a Shakespeare production when they paid their entrance fee. Museums don't charge individuals the full cost of running the museum. The only time where this has ever occurred are custom-created/patronaged works involving a single customer with the finances to pay for it (which actually is one of the alternative models that TheGreg proposes).

That has nothing to do with what I've said and I don't think it's TheGreg's argument either. It's important to distinguish here what the discussion is. No-one's arguing that copyright infringement is good or justified, it's simply a discussion regarding how the internet creates a world where everything can be given freely and whether this a model that a) is sustainable and b) should be adopted at some point so that knowledge, essentially, is free for all people for all time. It's about moving from a 'you must pay this arbitary amount' method of payment (which doesn't always reflect true value) to either a donation method or something else (a number of other methods were proposed).  In reality, the distinction may not be that apparent, and the amount people wanted to pay could end up just being the amount being asked for before, or it could just be a form of haggling (which for some reason we don't do anymore). But no seller wants to create a scenario where people pay what they actually think their digital product is worth. I believe TheGreg argues in the long run that the free and unrestricted availability of digitalised materials would be much more beneficial. Hard to say really but it's food for thought. And this is the part where I remind everyone that the discussion only pertained to digital content, physical goods keep coming up and I believe we all agree that free distribution is just not applicable to these. Now there's a good point raised about whether there's actually a difference, and I'd say that there is purely on the basis of a phsyical and finite resource being used though I'm not entirely convinced by that.

I repeat, this is not about taking stuff for free, it's about being given stuff for free by the creators, and those creators finding sustenance through means that don't rely on artifical scarcity or elusive rights created to protect profits. At least that's how I understand the gist of TheGreg's argument, which I interate, because apparently everyone turns fucking blind when they don't agree with something, isn't something I'm wholly on board with.

Are you trolling, or do you really not understand the difference between a physical object and a pattern of information? A DVD is a physical object. It is 'scarce' in the sense that there are a limited number of them, and making more actually consumes resources. A pattern of information is not 'scarce' in the same sense. It can be reproduced indefinitely at vanishingly small costs.

Furthermore a DVD is a thing. If I take it from you, you don't have it anymore. An idea, or pattern of bits, is not a thing. If I copy it from you we both have it.

Last edited by TheGreg (2012-11-30 16:39:17)

This is a really odd idea that I'd like to unpack. You can own a physical object like a sandwich, but the comparison with ideas is confusing, because you can't 'own' an idea. If you make sandwiches, then fine, but if your job is to have ideas, or make items that are essentially information, and have no physical form (like the contents of books, movies, plays etc) then understand that you don't own the product. We have to be clear about this or else we'll just be going round in circles.

I think that the confusion here arises from the fact that (in the US at least) copyright law grants an author the limited  monopoly on producing copies of their work. The work is not owned by the author, it can't be. The temporary right to be the only person allowed to make copies of it (with exceptions) is granted to the author by the govt.

Last edited by TheGreg (2012-11-30 15:57:00)

No. They don't physically own the part of your brain that remembers the book. But they do own the reproduction rights.

And I'm dying to know - what are your thoughts on plagiarism in a classroom? Cause it sounds like you think copying off of someone's work is okay. That's the syllogism you're setting up here.

No it's not. How can it be fraud if the ideas are everyone's? It was never the original creator's idea. It's the public's. Duh.

I stand by the case I was making, that print newspaper ads have fallen by two-thirds from $60 billion in the late-1990s to $20 billion in 2011. The ability to make money from ads may still be twitching on the table, but it's far from healthy.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc … ph/253736/

Placing my marker with RedX and, to a lesser degree, TheGreg. There are alternatives to the capitalist model of media production. I don't think anyone means to suggest that you professionals don't deserve to make a living while enlightening and entertaining the rest of us.

There does seem to be a borderline generational sea change to how art is viewed and consumed.   And make no mistake, when you watch a film, listen to a song, or read a book, you ARE consuming it.  The way I was raised, if you consume something, you owe something.  You either believe this, or you don't.

Last edited by Eddie (2012-11-30 18:23:42)

The soviets had a government funded film and music industry, very different situation.