Wikimedia Warns: EU Copyright Directive Could Drastically Change The Internet We Know And Love
from the speak-up dept
We're getting mighty close to the EU Parliament again voting on the proposed EU Copyright Directive we spent so much time discussing a few months ago. As we've discussed there are many, many problems with the proposal, with two of the biggest ones being in the link tax of Article 11 and the mandatory upload filters of Article 13. Incredibly, when Wikimedia correctly pointed out the problems of mandatory filters on a site like Wikipedia back in the summer of 2017, rather than fix the overall Directive, the EU merely tried to carve out a special exception for "online encyclopedias." Really:
Note that this update also tried to carve out another vocal critic of the bill, Github, by exempting "open source software developing platforms." But merely carving out two organizations that demonstrate just how poorly thought out Article 13 is, ignores the larger problems of the Directive, and is simply trying to buy off these organizations to silence their criticism.
It has not worked with Wikimedia. Despite being explicitly carved out by cynical EU officials, the Wikimedia Foundation this week is rightly warning everyone how devastating the EU Copyright Directive could be for the internet should it move forward unchanged.
The world should be concerned about new proposals to introduce a system that would automatically filter information before it appears online. Through pre-filtering obligations or increased liability for user uploads, platforms would be forced to create costly, often biased systems to automatically review and filter out potential copyright violations on their sites. We already know that these systems are historically faulty and often lead to false positives. For example, consider the experience of a German professor who repeatedly received copyright violation notices when using public domain music from Beethoven, Bartók, and Schubert in videos on YouTube.
The internet has already created alternative ways to manage these issues. For instance, Wikipedia contributors already work hard to catch and remove infringing content if it does appear. This system, which is largely driven by human efforts, is very effective at preventing copyright infringement.
As Wikimedia notes, the EU Copyright Directive seems wholly focused (obsessively so) with Google and Facebook, while ignoring basically every other platforms -- large, medium and small -- that would be impacted.
Much of the conversation surrounding EU copyright reform has been dominated by the market relationships between large rights holders and for-profit internet platforms. But this small minority does not reflect the breadth of websites and users on the internet today. Wikipedians are motivated by a passion for information and a sense of community. We are entirely nonprofit, independent, and volunteer-driven. We urge MEPs to consider the needs of this silent majority online when designing copyright policies that work for the entire internet.
As amendments to the draft for a new Copyright Directive are considered, we urge the European Parliament to create a copyright framework that reflects the evolution of how people use the internet today. We must remember the original problem policymakers set out to solve: to bring copyright rules in line with a dramatically larger, more complex digital world and to remove cross-border barriers. We should remain true to the original vision for the internet — to remain an open, accessible space for all.
Hopefully the EU Parliament listens, and comes back with actual improvements to the Copyright Directive, rather than cynically trying to buy off a vocal organization like Wikimedia.
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Filed Under: article 13, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, mandatory filters, open internet, upload filters
Companies: wikimedia
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You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
HOW MANY PETABYTES OF INFRINGED CONTENT ARE ON PIRATE BAY, MEGA, YOUTUBE, AND A THOUSAND OTHER PIRATEY SITES? HMM? JUST FOR ONCE, STATE A NUMBER AND COMPARE IT TO "one German Professor's" troubles.
Typical Techdirt.
So utterly typical that only point of interest left is to time how long takes for this to be censored.
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Re: You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
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Re: You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
For you, if "one German Professor's" content is removed alongside a bunch of infringing content, it's an acceptable loss. For me (and probably for the German professor), it isn't. Why is Hollywood's content so much more important that other people's material should be trampled in the name of protecting it?
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Re: You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
So Youtube is a pirate site? That's a laugh. I can barely find a video telling me to go to some other pirate site to watch illegal content. And that's looking for it!
I'll counter with how many petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes, or yottabytes of legitimate, legal content are on those same platforms? Let's take Youtube for example, you can literally buy or rent almost any movie you want on there, legally, from the publisher. That's got to be a few petabytes, at least, since my plex server is already soaring past 2 terabytes with legal content. And that's just one site. All the other sites also have tons of legit content on there and, despite their name containing the word, the Pirate Bay is a well respected torrent site to get legal content.
Well, there are estimated to be 1 billion users on Youtube. If every user uploaded one video, that would be 1 billion videos. Most users upload more than that and hundreds of hours of videos are being uploaded every day. So I think a safe estimate is there are likely somewhere around 3-5 billion total videos on Youtube. Youtube itself has estimated there are only around 200 million illegal videos, some of which may still fall under fair use, so the actual count could be even lower.
Now take into account that almost every single content creator on Youtube has complained that at least one or more of their videos has received a DMCA notice and how it's a major pain for them to deal with, and we now likely have more false DMCA claims on legitimate content than we have true DMCA claims on illegitimate content.
How is that for a comparison to one man's troubles?
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Re: Re: You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
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Re: You state ONE Troll
You are censored because you are shouting, being annoying, and just plain being a troll.
Also, your statement is pretty much nonsensical, and does not contribute to the conversation.
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Re: You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
Who in the f cares? Apparently they're still making money or why would they still produce as much content as they do? If they can pay Jim Parsons 50 million for two years of a mediocre show, they apparently not too bad off.
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Re: You state ONE "false positive" while OMITTING BILLIONS OF TRUE!
It's guaranteed that the amount of false positives actually exceed the number of properly identified unlawful files. By orders of magnitude.
And this is because if the system is 99% accurate then it means that not only does it find 99% of the files it's supposed to identify - it also misidentifies 1% of EVERY FILE IT LOOKS AT.
And that is why article 13 is a piss-poor idea.
But don't let logic stop you.
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Give it a rest, Masnick. Go play with your torrents for a while.
What an odd response. Why should I "give it a rest" when highlighting how our free speech is under attack at the behest of legacy industries?
Also, I don't use torrents so I'm not sure why I should want to go play with them.
I know it's tough for you to believe, but one does not need to infringe on copyright-covered material to be concerned about the laws being out of control and the impact they can have on protected speech.
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Or maybe you’re just trolling with this stuff. Everybody needs traffic.
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What will it take to get it through your thick head that the First Amendment only means the government can't restrict your speech? Private individuals and companies are free to allow or not allow what they please.
Or are you willing to let me come and plaster your house in posters for my political candidate of the day and hold rallies with bullhorns and speakers on your front lawn?
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Because everyone knows it isn’t free speech you care about, but copyright enforcement and money continuing to be kept from creators and instead being leeched by Silicon Valley companies
Hmm. Well, if "everyone" knows it, everyone is flat out wrong. I'm very concerned with creators making money -- it's why I've spent decades highlighting great new business models -- many of which involve avoiding the unnecessary gatekeepers who keep the vast majority of the revenue from their creations.
I'm not sure why you have a near pathological desire to misrepresent my views, but it's a bad look.
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If it walks like a duck...
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So if you would like to convince the rest of us that it walks like a duck, we're going to need to see some evidence.
Or in a short pithy statement, "pics or GTFO."
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You say it's demonstrable. Please demonstrate.
If you are not willing to take the time to demonstrate and defend your opinion, then please be quiet.
Or, in other words, "Pics or GTFO."
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Sorry Mike, but years of demonstrable behavior says otherwise.
Can you point to any actual examples? I can link all day long to examples of me highlighting new business models and celebrating artists making money... so I'm afraid that the [citation needed] has to go in your direction.
Or, at least admit that you're full of shit.
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I think I’m happy to just continue to point out how blatantly dishonest you are.
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You mean like this one?
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180808/09343340393/accused-pirate-tries-attorneys-fees-afte r-copyright-troll-attempts-to-run-away-discovery.shtml
Huh, man wrongfully accused of piracy wants copyright troll to pay fees. Yup, you definitely got Mike there.
So you're in favor of letting ISP's break the law then? Good to know. You anarchist. Also, don't you mean "legacy entertainment companies being sued for not following the DMCA". Pretty sure that's what you meant.
Well actually, the stories are about copyright enforcement being the bane of the public's existence. Especially the public domain since, as we've recently seen, even works in the public domain are not safe from copyright enforcement.
But sure, go ahead and claim all you want about how dishonest Mike is while providing no proof. We'll just sit back and laugh at your dishonesty and hypocrisy.
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Pics or GTFO.
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Except being a little whiney bitch, you got that going for you in spades.
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AThe only business model that works now is a hyb rid of free content and patronage, with the patronage supporting the free content much the way hit records used to support the more serious artists with limited audiences.
Many of these "new models" don't account for paying the below-the-line people whose careers used to depend on the artists being paid. The #1 hit in 2014 that made $5,000 from 178 million views had the songwriter telling congress
it was impossible to make a living that way. Someone here posted that this was a "good wage" for "a few hours of writing," while ignoring the need for anyone else to get paid, the years it takes to learn how to write #1 hits, or the costs of producing music videos that aren't viral cellphone stuff that dominates now because that model works.
Creators should have total control over their work. Those who don't want to pay for that work shouldn't steal it, and if they want to threaten not to buy someone's work, it's up to the artist to heed or ignore the threat.
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Creators already do have all the total control over their work. So long as they never release it, they have 100% control. Releasing a work to the world signs an implicit contract to cede that right to the public. Copyright is a (supposed-to-be) temporary end-run around that contract.
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Try not to be a complete fucking idiot your whole life, mkay?
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If his explanation is wrong, just saying "No it doesn't" does not actually add anything. Explain how and why it's wrong, so that people can understand how and why it's wrong.
Otherwise you're just spouting so much hot air, which will be summarily ignored.
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Thomas Jefferson disagrees with you.
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Creators should have total control over their work. Those who don't want to pay for that work shouldn't steal it, and if they want to threaten not to buy someone's work, it's up to the artist to heed or ignore the threat.
I can agree with this in principle, with limitations on the extent of "total." There are some issues with basing everything off of this, though.
For one, the current system, at least in the music industry, doesn't have the actual creators having total control over the product. The songs are owned by the various labels, much of the time. I take objection to this.
I personally think copyright should be non-transferable. If you wrote the song, you cannot sell the copyright to any other entity, and no one can inherit it from you. The only transfer of copyright should be the one that transfers a work out of copyright, and into the public domain after a reasonable period of time.
In terms of the rest of it... again, I agree with you in principle. No, people should not try to steal the work, and yes, if they want to threaten not to buy someone's work, it should be up to the artist to heed or ignore the threat.
The problem is that the operative word here is "should." In reality, there will be people who will try to enjoy the work without paying. This has been the case for the entirety of human history. To ignore it is foolish.
Secondly, it is very important to examine the effectiveness of attempts to address this fact, and it is equally important to consider what all the effects of said attempts will be.
If a method being used to try and curtail the infringement of this creator's right is proven to be ineffective, why should it continue to be used? It does not work.
Additionally, if a method being used to try and curtail the infringement of the creator's right is proven to infringe upon separate rights of others, than we have another whole issue.
See, the creator has exercised their right to expression in the creation of a work. I, you, and everyone else has their own rights to expression, exactly the same as the creator's. The problem with a mandatory upload filter is that upload filters are going to infringe on that right.
There will be many, many cases where perfectly legal, non-infringing content gets caught in the wide-ranging net that would be put in place. It happens now with Content ID.
To me, the creator's right to control is not superior to anyone else's right to create in the first place. I will not support any effort to protect creators that infringes on the rights of the rest of the populace in the process.
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Maximalists seem to always be incapable of understanding how us, the reasonable people, can simultaneously oppose both those who want the works without the paying and those who want the pay without the work.
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The creatives I know who are doing well are happily sharing their work online and making most of their money from merch and from personal appearances. With that in mind, meet Preston Reed, ace guitarist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oVzB0zRBU0
Fantastic artist. Show him some love! /Shill
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Ahem.
Patron:
Patronage:
I don't know, kind of sounds like patronage is people buying goods and services which means that is the ONLY way you make money. Different business models may change how your patrons do business with you, but that doesn't change the fact that anyone who pays for something is a patron of whatever individual or artist is doing the selling. Copyright wasn't designed to make patronage unnecessary, it was designed to PROTECT patronage. If by some weird reason you are actually correct (you're not), then copyright needs to die in a fire and be spat upon until the end of time because then it's purpose is to harm everyone.
Yeah, because every business model is covered under patronage, see above definitions.
If I write and record a song and sell it on iTunes or Amazon Music, and iTunes and Amazon take, say, a 15% cut off the top and I get 85%, who else needs to get paid? If that song brings in $5000, that means I make $4250 in direct profit. That seems like a pretty good wage to me for one song.
So what you're saying is people actually have to be good at what they do if they want to make the big bucks? Sounds fair to me. Or are you saying it's unfair that the guy who didn't take the time to develop his skill and talent doesn't make as much as the guy who spent years honing his musical skill and acumen? (this applies to any job by the way)
If the viral cellphone stuff model works better than costly music videos then what is the problem? It's easier and cheaper to produce, more accessible, and more available to budding and indie artists who aren't signed with a major recording label.
I agree. And they absolutely don't have that if they are signed to a major recording label. If they want total control of their work then they should never sign a contract and go full indie.
Agreed, but what's your point? There are already laws against stealing.
Agreed. That's how "patronage" works.
Your arguments really smack of protecting one specific industry, ignoring the fact that progress and change are moving beyond them and that industry is not as needed or important as it once was. There are thousands, if not millions of new artists who are now making some money from their art, where before they made none because the magic of the internet and technology has allowed them to create, produce, publish, market, advertise, and sell their stuff on their own, without begging for a fractional percentage cuts by signing the rights to their stuff away to a major record label. And that's if the record label even deigns to notice them. Now they are getting the lion's share of the profits and actually making something as opposed to nothing.
Honestly, now that I think about it, the internet has, in some ways, returned art and patronage of it, to its roots, like back in the days of the Renaissance, where people paid artists directly for their work.
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I agree. And they absolutely don't have that if they are signed to a major recording label. If they want total control of their work then they should never sign a contract and go full indie.
The rest of your comment is good, but this part I have to disagree with as it flies smack dab in the face of fair use, which makes it clear that creators do not get total control over their work, and that in fact it is entirely legal for other people to use it even if the copyright owner doesn't want them to, so long as the use falls within certain categories.
The only way for someone to have total control over their stuff is if they never release it, once it's out there while it may not be open season for all to do what they will it is open to be used by others, like it or not.
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Just to clarify, I'm not in any way against fair use. When I was talking about total control, I was thinking about how, when, where, and in what way an artist decides to sell or license their content. Because once your art is out there, you really can't control how people use it. No matter how many laws you put in place. Even if people don't steal it, it's still going to be reported on, re-mixed, criticized, evaluated, transformed, etc...
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In that case I don't disagree, though funnily enough you did bring up something else I object to, conflating stealing with infringement, though in your case I'm guessing you did so merely in response to John's use of the term.
It's wrong when John and others use it, and I'd much prefer people not fall into the trap of using inaccurate, emotionally loaded language pushed by maximalists to try to bolster their arguments.
If one takes a physical copy of a CD out of a store without paying for it, depriving said store of a scarce good, that is stealing.
If one downloads a CD without paying for it, creating an additional copy of it but not impacting the seller in any demonstrable way, then that would be copyright infringement.
It may be a minor point overall but correct usage of terminology is one I consider important for an honest discussion.
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No?
Didn’t think so.
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You are ignoring the many more man years spent by people trying to develop a creative skill that never lead to any income at all. It has always been the case that few creative people can make a living with their creativity, but at least now many more have a chance of gaining an audience and making some money.
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They do. Up until the point where they show it to people at which point they no longer have control over the copies everyone else has made. End of story.
This was extensively covered during the VHS and tape cassette era.
You can have control over yourself and your own copies. Not of other people or their property.
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The complaining artist would have made zero otherwise, since they obviously didn't sign with a label. Total control means you are in charge of marketing, the government doesn't do it for you. "Don't quit your day job" is still valid advice. Never mind that traditionally signed artists with hits rarely make money either. They have to tour. Some end up broke anyway. What do you, or this 5k person, imagine is owed them?
Other "below the line" peoe do not have a right to employment living off someone else's work in an obsolete business model. Welcome to the job market that everyone else has to deal with.
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They will never be able to limit us to sites that the industries say we can go to.
Let alone force us to pay acees and downloading/uploading.
Stop saying they will take control of the internet when they will not Mr meat in boxes
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Yap yap yap...
I keep telling you numbnuts that this is the result of your "salvation politics" bullshit. You say "regulate them" but they only hear "control us".
You need to kick back and lay in the damn beds you fucking made. Where is that knob PaulT? Happy about your possible regulations now?
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Re: Yap yap yap...
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Re: Yap yap yap...
Getting rid of all the laws will result in nirvana - brilliant!
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Re: Yap yap yap...
Care to restate?
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Re: Yap yap yap...
If you have something worthwhile to say, I at least would like to hear it. Please try again.
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Re: Yap yap yap...
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Re: Yap yap yap...
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Technology to force social change
One of the arguments that rose regarding DRM is that is hasn't been used in good faith. Rather than using DRM to strictly block infringing use, DRM has been used to block legitimate use as well, by limiting installs, by blocking second sales and so on.
The same is true with all of our censorship efforts, from net nanny software to the Great Firewall of China, not only in which algorithms can't tell Scunthorpe situations from Gropecunt situations, but the listmakers have knowingly allowed hate speech of some kinds (e.g. Evangelist anti-gay) while blocking other hate speech (Islamist anti-American) even though the rhetoric was essentially the same with identity-groups changed.
It makes me wonder if we could use our crypto technology to anonymize users of the internet well enough even to engage in secure transactions, so as to assure all kinds of internet traffic are out of the reach of national security interests and law enforcement.
Can we make the internet truly go dark, so that there isn't even the illusion that laws like the EU Copyright Directive can be effectively enforced?
It might even dispel the illusion that a backdoored crypto mandate could be enforced let alone secure math created.
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"Crypto is not magic"
I'm not saying it is. But keys can be kept secret. That's the point of end-to-end encryption.
I suspect it is possible to associate a temporary money account, a shipping address, and the intent to buy a specific item without requiring the identities of the buyer or seller to be divulged.
I am sure it is possible to post speech (even illegal speech) anonymously, and to read it anonymously.
And with these capabilities, we should be able to create markets and societies that are entirely out of the reach of state law enforcement, where no court can trace or be sure who has done what, even with mass surveillance dragnets.
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most content creators have moved beyond copyright, but it's the public who loses. We now have a patronage model as well that makes a lot of content available only to the wealthy, never even hitting the radar of the unwashed masses.
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It doesn't. It argues that the law is bad, and the exceptions don't fix it.
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a) The "exception" in the form of FOSTA-SESTA is currently facing a very strong court challenge. Even without the blatant constitutional conflicts, the government's best argument so far has been that it's OK because it's basically the same as an existing anti-trafficking law. Soooo, what was the point of it again?
b) There is no "revenge porn" exception, nor will there ever be one. A lot of states have tried enacting their own, but they keep getting struck down as unconstitutional. It's a fundamental incompatibility since they need to be simultaneously overly broad and narrowly tailored. Also not helping is a familiar argument that the law, even if interpreted only as the state wants, is redundant since it criminalizes something that's already a crime. So yeah, yet another "exception" that doesn't actually help anything.
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Because it's a broken system that isn't working as intended. Therefore people are, rightly, ignoring it. (note, I'm not talking about those steal, I'm talking about the content creators not bothering with doing all the work of protecting their copyright)
How so? More stuff is being released to the public at large and into the public domain where anyone and everyone can use and benefit from it. How is that a public loss?
We never DIDN'T have a patronage model. That's how all businesses work.
...kriffing what? Where do you get this from? The only content that's outside my price range is the stuff from the major record labels. All the indie stuff is way cheaper.
Tell that to Ed Sheeran and all the other indie artists on the internet.
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"More stuff" doesn't mean "better stuff." The "better stuff" never sees mass distribution anymore.
if you don't understand the patronage model, or why it has taken over (even though Patreon, if you want public evidence of this), you're not likely to believe in that which you can't see, because the creators don't want you to see it.
there's plenty of pop music out there, just not of the quality of the era when artists actually got paid.
You can pretend that a model which turns content creation into a hobby or a distribution contest is good for the public is a good thing, but that doesn't make it so.
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Ahem.
Patron:
Patronage:
As I stated previously, patronage is a super class of business model that includes all other business models. i.e. if you have no patrons, nobody is buying your stuff. What about this do you not understand?
Yes? And? So? What's your point? The more stuff that's out there, the better the chance of, you know, more better stuff getting out there as well. Or are you arguing for artificial scarcity?
Massive [Citation needed] please.
As explained above, you are the one who doesn't understand patronage. Not me. If I buy something from Walmart, guess what, I am a patron of Walmart. If I buy an album from a major record label, guess what, patronage.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Pray tell, how are they going to sell their stuff then if I can't see it?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Then why is pop music raking in more money today than ever before? And why are song and record sales blowing away the numbers from your said "golden era"? Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. Just because you don't think the quality is that good, doesn't mean it's true.
And you can pretend words don't mean what they mean, and things don't work the way they actually do, but that doesn't make it so.
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The system is not broken, only its enforcement.
Because giving money to an artist for the 75 years (and counting!) after he turns into a corpse benefits content creation... how?
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Well think about it, which you you rather have?
1) An author/musician/film-maker coming back from the dead to find out that they have plenty of money to buy brains.
OR
2) An author/musician/film-maker coming back from the dead to find out that they're broke, and therefore need to get the brains themselves.
When you think about it it's really in everyone's best interests that corpses continue to have a steady stream of income, just in case they find themselves in a position where they need some quick cash for 'pressing biological needs'.
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Except 1 is unlikely to happen, as the author's descendants/estate/holdung company is likely to spend that money as their own rather than putting it in a brain trust, so the author'll still awaken broke even with +75.
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