I have little experience with digital sales, so I dont know how relevant this might be, but the bands I sometimes work with often sell physical albums at their shows.
The going rate is usually either $5, $10, or $15. The price changes depending on the band, the album, the venue, etc.
Despite what I would expect, $10 seems to be the sweet spot. I imagine people refuse to spend $15 because they can buy a CD from a 'real band' for that much.
But why turn down the cheaper option? people are actually less willing to buy a $5 album than a $10 album.
Does pricing something so low imply that it does not have value?
The same might hold true for digital files. Low pricing might imply that it has little value.
Paying anything for a 128kbps mp3 file seems like a rip-off to me, but I would (and have) gladly paid $5 for albums offered in the .flac format, even when a legit free option existed.
Skeptical Cynic:
"Name one thing other than the Military, and law enforcement that any government can do better, cheaper, and more efficient than private companies."
um...health care?
Your private system is the most expensive in the world, and it doesn't cover everyone. Ours costs less, and covers just about everyone. our infant mortality is lower, our life expectancy is longer, our drugs cost less, and it's free to use.
How would privatization help anyone?
What about Highways, both maintenance and traffic management? I've heard some nasty things about the privatized red light cameras reducing amber light duration to maximize profit, at the expense of safety.
Garbage collection?
Power? When electricity was deregulated in my province, the price skyrocketed.
It's sort of like saying 'making use of vertically deployed anti-personnel devices' instead of 'carpet bombing a city'. One obfuscates the message to make it sound less objectionable, while the other is direct to the point.
Note to other countries engaged in free trade negotiations with the America:
Even when you comply with their laws, they don't.
Look into the Canadian softwood lumber dispute. Even their own courts ruled America was in the wrong on that one, and they didn't change their ways.
Those levies have helped quite a bit up North, since downloading content is 'not-illegal' up here, despite the best efforts of the CRIA.
That doesn't make them a good thing. It's not so much the 'assumption of guilt' that bothers me; there is another often overlooked downside to these levies: it only helps the signed, established, successful artists at the expense of the little guys.
say I have a band, I record an album, and I burn it on multiple CD-Rs and sell it. That levy that is being collected on those CD-Rs gets distributed to acts like nickelback and avril. they profit from my work.
I really don't mind having to pay $10 for 50 CD-Rs if it means I get all-you-can-eat access to digital media.
I do mind having the struggling little guy subsidizing the big acts that don't need or deserve it.
I'm an artist too, I archive my work on CD-Rs, why am I not in on this deal?
(ps: how much does a 50-pack of CD-Rs cost in a non-levied country?)
that is not a 'really interesting article'. that is a terrible article.
The first page is rather interesting, but the second page, (the one you actually linked to) opens with logical fallacy before moving on to a discussion about 'frozen culture' from the perspective of someone who is completely ignorant about contemporary culture. It's called "postmodernism" and its been going on since the 1970's!
“It’s as if culture froze just before it became digitally open, and all we can do now is mine the past like salvagers picking over a garbage dump,” Mr. Lanier writes
But the thing is, mash up artists (like girl talk) will often take a melody or riff from one very old song, and contrast it with a riff from another song, to illustrate that artists have been sampling and copying each other for ages, he just makes it more obvious.
Artists in the past tried to hide it; mash up artists rub your face in it. That is not frozen culture, that is saying something very different than artists of the past were saying.
The times would have been wise to cut that article in half.
Science Daily recently had an article "Why Powerful People - Many of Whom Take a Moral High Ground - Don't Practice What They Preach"
Sarkozy's behaviour certainly provides some compelling evidence for this idea.
Intellectual Property Laws + Digital Technology = Epic Fail.
It's nearly impossible to use digital media and not violate several intellectual property laws. More restrictive laws will only make these problems worse, not better.
Fanaticism breeds fanaticism. A movement for copyright expansion leads to movements for copyright abolition, and the kind of hypocrisy we are seeing coming from people like Sarkozy makes it easier for the abolitionists to take the moral high ground.
I'm visited that site a few times, but I've never read that article before.
I seem to have missed something that I normally catch:
The wording used to describe any law usually means the exact opposite of what that law actually does.
eg. a 'privacy bill' most likely means, "these entities can now legally violate your privacy"
In legal speak, "promote the progress of the useful arts" would mean: secure profits of the middlemen who stand between creators and their audience.
I don't disagree with a single point in your argument, but you seem to be missing one important point. When is reality ever ideal?
I'm not saying that it's necessarily a good thing that content is being shared. I'm saying it's a fact of life; content is being shared. All attempts to stop it have failed, and nothing on the horizon seems like it has a shot of working, either.
The internet has been designed to be a redundant system that routs around damage, and it does that job really well. Storage and bandwidth are getting bigger/cheaper, and more media is being digitized. This reality is a nightmare for content owners, because it makes it really hard to stop something from spreading once its out there. It only takes one person to crack your lock, and after that, the whole world has access to it. Trying to stop this is a losing battle.
So, artists have three choices:
One is to ignore these realities, go about business as usual, and try to sell items that can be freely obtained elsewhere.
The second option: Produce content that can not be reproduced, copied and recreated very easily. Painters, sculptors, and other creators of unique, one-of-a-kind goods fit into this category.
The third option: Accept defeat, realize that your content is going to be copied, you're not going to make much off content sales directly, so you must find other ways to make money. Why not use what people want (content) to get them to buy other stuff (limited edition stuff, prints, t-shirts, etc).
The incentives have changed. The technology has changed. The world has changed. So why should we expect business models to stay the same?
Your misinterpretation of the message is what's laughable.
When your done with that straw man, perhaps you should go out and actually talk to some local unsigned or indie musicians.
I have, and in many cases, T-shirts actually bring in more cash than album sales. They might sell more CDs than T-shirts, but if you are printing them yourself, the margins are higher with shirts.
I talked to one band several months ago who actually makes most of their money from selling rolling papers!
When on the road, bands I have talked to treat their album as 'merch' no different than any of the other stuff with their logo stamped on it.
It's a physical thing to exchange for cash, that's all.
But all of this is beside the point.
Big companies are saying that copyright is necessary 'for the artists'
The artists are saying that copyright is preventing them from making art.
Copyright was not invented to secure corporate profits. it was invented to promote the creation of art. Copyright is preventing art from getting made.
Did you miss the part where I said I would be photographing art from the 18th century and earlier?
The work I would be photographing would be in the public domain, the creators are all dead.
If they ask me to leave because of copyright issues, they are liars.
They could argue that I'm trespassing if I continue to take photos after being asked to stop, but that is in no way related to copyright or protecting creators.
Even in the case of this article, how does taking a photo of half a painting screw the creator of the art work? He's dead. In fact, this artist has already set records for the prices of his paintings.
If you want to talk about screwing the creators of an art work, how about people who buy a painting for a few hundred bucks, then re-sell if for a few hundred thousand. Would you argue that the artist is entitled to a chunk of that resale price?
The painting is by Lawren Harris, who died in 1970, so there's only 10 years to go before this image is un-illegalized.
I wish this story had been posted yesterday. (Wednesday night is free night at the Gallery, and I live within walking distance.)
I would very much like to take my big DSLR and very obviously photograph the paintings, but only those from the 18th century and earlier, since they have long ago slipped out of copyright and have now entered the public domain.
What would their reaction be in that case?
Would they let it slide, or try to argue some other ridiculous reason
Off topic: I generally find the museums and galleries in Toronto to be very cold and uninviting. I don't get hassled at all in New York, even the private, commercial galleries showing contemporary work don't seem to mind some photos being taken. But if you're in Ontario: watch out. They'll break the Canadian stereotype, and actually be quite rude to you.
*ugh* Damn Luddites!
I wish I could "sudo apt-get update" their brains, so they would at least be aware of what parts of their personal body of knowledge are out of date.
Generally, if you are taking photographs on private property, you must stop and leave upon request, but you still own your photographs. If you continue to take photos after being told to stop/leave, you can be charged with trespassing, but it has nothing at all to do with copyright.
And I'm not 100% sure about this, but I *think* that in most cases, you must ignore a request to stop what you are doing and leave *before* that trespassing charge can stick.
I'm not sure how work-for-hire works, but in general, according to Canadian copyright law, the owner of the film or camera owns the image.
eg. If you take a shot on my camera, with my film, I own that image. If I take a shot on your camera, you own it.
Cameramen sometimes use company equipment, but some cameramen work for hire and own their cameras and bring those to a shoot.
There should be a very stiff penalty for falsely asserting copyright. This is getting beyond ridiculous.
Good for him! I'm glad to see common sense is not completely dead, it's just extremely uncommon.
This is why I oppose restrictive copyright laws. This should be an obvious case of fair use. I think a plaintiff should be required to establish that infringement is not fair use before even contacting the defendant to stop cases like this. Even if the defendant 'wins' they wind up with a massive lawyer fee.
Now lets wait for the trolls to appear, set up the 'guy-on-the-street selling bootlegs' straw man, argue that we are all freeloading pirate lovers, and this case is no different than large scale for-profit piracy.
Why is quoting text not only perfectly acceptable, but required for academic writing, but quoting snippets of TV, music, or film for a video of your own is automatically assumed to be infringement?
"What do you do if you want to be seen on Google Street View, rather than blurred, and your government has taken away that ability?"
I guess you can have a portrait printed on a sign, and have that sign beside you when the googlemobile comes by.
Personally, I like it how in this one particular case, the government has sided on privacy being the norm, not the exception. Having your face posted publicly on a system like street view should be be opt-in, not opt-out. and in this one particular case, I think the government is mostly right.
oh, and this is an absolutely brilliant idea! Good job!
"That doesn't mean that artists shouldn't try to find that "5th Beatle," to help them when it becomes necessary,"
Exactly.
Most artzy people I've com across (myself included) are terrible with organization and business stuff. Thats why you find others who can and let them help you.
In the visual art world, that means finding a gallery. The artist makes, delivers and prices the art, and the gallery does the rest. The artist does what they do best (make art/drink/be pretentious) and the gallery does what it does best (promote/advertise/sell art) Both sides benefit from the arrangement, and split the profits.
In a band, I imagine that would translate into finding a promoter or agent, have him plan shows/organize a schedule and transportation/ deal with the social networking/website stuff, merch, licencing, etc. The band just shows up and plays, the agent does the rest.
I believe U2 works this way, and their agent is treated like a band member, all band profits are split 5 ways. I see no problem with this. If the band wants to 'just' be a band, be prepared to pay for someone to take care of all the other stuff.
what takes place outside of the studio is half of your career as an artist, but music lessons/art school, etc. only focus on the in-studio part.
The people that make it don't necessarily make better art, they just deal with the non-art side of things much better.
While I don't agree with carfac on this issue, carfac is usually a great resource for artists. They explain laws that affect artists, keep us alerted to new laws being proposed, list events and grants, and offer case-bycase advice to artists. they have an office with several experts who you can just walk in and talk to, and they can be extremely helpful. They have helped me in the past, and it pisses me off to see them take a stance that is so wrong on this issue
A visual artwork has 2 components, the original object, and the image it contains. There is only one original object, and once it is sold, that's it, its gone, and the buyer now owns it. However, the image still belongs to the artist and they are free to do what they wish with that image.
That means that even though you have bought my painting, I am still free to print that image on t-shirts, books, posters, and coffee mugs. The buyer does now have the right to license the image. This is the law.
You own the object, I own the image.
If the National gallery is printing reproductions of artwork for advertising and promotion, that should fall within fair use. Any artist fighting against that would be an idiot; it's promotion, and they are paying for it. However, if the national gallery is printing postcards, posters, etc. and selling them for profit, they absolutely should be paying the artist for that right. unless the gallery has secured reproduction rights in the contract, selling reproductions for profit is infringement.
If they are fighting to be paid for having their work advertised, this is nothing but pure, short-sighted greed.
However, as a technicality, reproduction rights for the purpose of advertising and promotion must be included in the contract, if they are not, then carfac's actions, despite being dumb, are consistent with the law.
I like to be logically consistent where I can. Once anything is digital and online, it's free for everyone in the world, and any constraint is artificial and doomed to fail. So, most of what I do is CC-BY-NC. (Yes, the BY-NC is still an artificial restriction, but it's what im comfortable with)
This is why I have images of my painting on my website, but not my photographs. A painting can not be reproduced without losing a lot in the process, and I want people to download and share those images, it's more exposure for me, and that is exactly what I want. Using an infinite resource to promote a limited one.
A photograph, however, can be reproduced perfectly. For that reason, I don't post them (also, my photography is mainly commission work, where there would be little interest to anyone other than my client) I don't want them being copied, so I don't post them.
but $6 billion is still good, and I'm glad it's happening now, when the Canadian dollar is almost worth a dollar, rather than 5 years ago, when it was only 60-something cents.
woot!
On the post: Will Lower Prices Help Sell More Albums?
The going rate is usually either $5, $10, or $15. The price changes depending on the band, the album, the venue, etc.
Despite what I would expect, $10 seems to be the sweet spot. I imagine people refuse to spend $15 because they can buy a CD from a 'real band' for that much.
But why turn down the cheaper option? people are actually less willing to buy a $5 album than a $10 album.
Does pricing something so low imply that it does not have value?
The same might hold true for digital files. Low pricing might imply that it has little value.
Paying anything for a 128kbps mp3 file seems like a rip-off to me, but I would (and have) gladly paid $5 for albums offered in the .flac format, even when a legit free option existed.
On the post: Obama Calls The Patent Office Embarrassing For Its Outdated Workflow
Re: This is a surprise to anyone?
"Name one thing other than the Military, and law enforcement that any government can do better, cheaper, and more efficient than private companies."
um...health care?
Your private system is the most expensive in the world, and it doesn't cover everyone. Ours costs less, and covers just about everyone. our infant mortality is lower, our life expectancy is longer, our drugs cost less, and it's free to use.
How would privatization help anyone?
What about Highways, both maintenance and traffic management? I've heard some nasty things about the privatized red light cameras reducing amber light duration to maximize profit, at the expense of safety.
Garbage collection?
Power? When electricity was deregulated in my province, the price skyrocketed.
ever read this article?:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/14/us-technological-race-climate-chan ge
"US left behind in technological race to fight climate change.
A speech by the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, shows how America's unquestioning belief in the free market has held back technological innovation"
The idea that the free market can fix everything is a form of fundamentalism; potentially dangerous, and definitely foolish.
On the post: US Blocking Costa Rican Sugar From US Markets Unless It Agrees To Draconian IP Laws Citizens Don't Want
Re:
Note to other countries engaged in free trade negotiations with the America:
Even when you comply with their laws, they don't.
Look into the Canadian softwood lumber dispute. Even their own courts ruled America was in the wrong on that one, and they didn't change their ways.
On the post: Consumer Electronics Firms Fighting Against Copyright Levies In Europe
That doesn't make them a good thing. It's not so much the 'assumption of guilt' that bothers me; there is another often overlooked downside to these levies: it only helps the signed, established, successful artists at the expense of the little guys.
say I have a band, I record an album, and I burn it on multiple CD-Rs and sell it. That levy that is being collected on those CD-Rs gets distributed to acts like nickelback and avril. they profit from my work.
I really don't mind having to pay $10 for 50 CD-Rs if it means I get all-you-can-eat access to digital media.
I do mind having the struggling little guy subsidizing the big acts that don't need or deserve it.
I'm an artist too, I archive my work on CD-Rs, why am I not in on this deal?
(ps: how much does a 50-pack of CD-Rs cost in a non-levied country?)
On the post: Reading Between The Still Secret Lines Of The ACTA Negotiations
Re:
The first page is rather interesting, but the second page, (the one you actually linked to) opens with logical fallacy before moving on to a discussion about 'frozen culture' from the perspective of someone who is completely ignorant about contemporary culture. It's called "postmodernism" and its been going on since the 1970's!
“It’s as if culture froze just before it became digitally open, and all we can do now is mine the past like salvagers picking over a garbage dump,” Mr. Lanier writes
But the thing is, mash up artists (like girl talk) will often take a melody or riff from one very old song, and contrast it with a riff from another song, to illustrate that artists have been sampling and copying each other for ages, he just makes it more obvious.
Artists in the past tried to hide it; mash up artists rub your face in it. That is not frozen culture, that is saying something very different than artists of the past were saying.
The times would have been wise to cut that article in half.
On the post: France's Three Strikes Enforcement Agency... Pirated A Font For Its Logo
Sarkozy's behaviour certainly provides some compelling evidence for this idea.
Intellectual Property Laws + Digital Technology = Epic Fail.
It's nearly impossible to use digital media and not violate several intellectual property laws. More restrictive laws will only make these problems worse, not better.
Fanaticism breeds fanaticism. A movement for copyright expansion leads to movements for copyright abolition, and the kind of hypocrisy we are seeing coming from people like Sarkozy makes it easier for the abolitionists to take the moral high ground.
On the post: Artist Thinking vs. Lawyer Thinking
Re: Re: Re:
I'm visited that site a few times, but I've never read that article before.
I seem to have missed something that I normally catch:
The wording used to describe any law usually means the exact opposite of what that law actually does.
eg. a 'privacy bill' most likely means, "these entities can now legally violate your privacy"
In legal speak, "promote the progress of the useful arts" would mean: secure profits of the middlemen who stand between creators and their audience.
On the post: Artist Thinking vs. Lawyer Thinking
Re: Re: Re:
I'm not saying that it's necessarily a good thing that content is being shared. I'm saying it's a fact of life; content is being shared. All attempts to stop it have failed, and nothing on the horizon seems like it has a shot of working, either.
The internet has been designed to be a redundant system that routs around damage, and it does that job really well. Storage and bandwidth are getting bigger/cheaper, and more media is being digitized. This reality is a nightmare for content owners, because it makes it really hard to stop something from spreading once its out there. It only takes one person to crack your lock, and after that, the whole world has access to it. Trying to stop this is a losing battle.
So, artists have three choices:
One is to ignore these realities, go about business as usual, and try to sell items that can be freely obtained elsewhere.
The second option: Produce content that can not be reproduced, copied and recreated very easily. Painters, sculptors, and other creators of unique, one-of-a-kind goods fit into this category.
The third option: Accept defeat, realize that your content is going to be copied, you're not going to make much off content sales directly, so you must find other ways to make money. Why not use what people want (content) to get them to buy other stuff (limited edition stuff, prints, t-shirts, etc).
The incentives have changed. The technology has changed. The world has changed. So why should we expect business models to stay the same?
On the post: Artist Thinking vs. Lawyer Thinking
Re:
When your done with that straw man, perhaps you should go out and actually talk to some local unsigned or indie musicians.
I have, and in many cases, T-shirts actually bring in more cash than album sales. They might sell more CDs than T-shirts, but if you are printing them yourself, the margins are higher with shirts.
I talked to one band several months ago who actually makes most of their money from selling rolling papers!
When on the road, bands I have talked to treat their album as 'merch' no different than any of the other stuff with their logo stamped on it.
It's a physical thing to exchange for cash, that's all.
But all of this is beside the point.
Big companies are saying that copyright is necessary 'for the artists'
The artists are saying that copyright is preventing them from making art.
Copyright was not invented to secure corporate profits. it was invented to promote the creation of art. Copyright is preventing art from getting made.
On the post: Copyright Sillyness: Can't Take Photos Of Artwork That Was Built On The Works Of Others
Re: Re: hmmm...
The work I would be photographing would be in the public domain, the creators are all dead.
If they ask me to leave because of copyright issues, they are liars.
They could argue that I'm trespassing if I continue to take photos after being asked to stop, but that is in no way related to copyright or protecting creators.
Even in the case of this article, how does taking a photo of half a painting screw the creator of the art work? He's dead. In fact, this artist has already set records for the prices of his paintings.
If you want to talk about screwing the creators of an art work, how about people who buy a painting for a few hundred bucks, then re-sell if for a few hundred thousand. Would you argue that the artist is entitled to a chunk of that resale price?
On the post: Copyright Sillyness: Can't Take Photos Of Artwork That Was Built On The Works Of Others
hmmm...
I wish this story had been posted yesterday. (Wednesday night is free night at the Gallery, and I live within walking distance.)
I would very much like to take my big DSLR and very obviously photograph the paintings, but only those from the 18th century and earlier, since they have long ago slipped out of copyright and have now entered the public domain.
What would their reaction be in that case?
Would they let it slide, or try to argue some other ridiculous reason
Off topic: I generally find the museums and galleries in Toronto to be very cold and uninviting. I don't get hassled at all in New York, even the private, commercial galleries showing contemporary work don't seem to mind some photos being taken. But if you're in Ontario: watch out. They'll break the Canadian stereotype, and actually be quite rude to you.
On the post: CNN's Take On 'Book Piracy'
I wish I could "sudo apt-get update" their brains, so they would at least be aware of what parts of their personal body of knowledge are out of date.
On the post: Clothing Company Sues CBC Over Copyrights For Taping A Fashion Show
Re: could you call it theft of services
And I'm not 100% sure about this, but I *think* that in most cases, you must ignore a request to stop what you are doing and leave *before* that trespassing charge can stick.
On the post: Clothing Company Sues CBC Over Copyrights For Taping A Fashion Show
Re: Copyright
eg. If you take a shot on my camera, with my film, I own that image. If I take a shot on your camera, you own it.
Cameramen sometimes use company equipment, but some cameramen work for hire and own their cameras and bring those to a shoot.
There should be a very stiff penalty for falsely asserting copyright. This is getting beyond ridiculous.
On the post: Director Of New Moon Says Jailing Of Girl For Snippets Of Video Of His Movie Is 'Terribly Unfair'
This is why I oppose restrictive copyright laws. This should be an obvious case of fair use. I think a plaintiff should be required to establish that infringement is not fair use before even contacting the defendant to stop cases like this. Even if the defendant 'wins' they wind up with a massive lawyer fee.
Now lets wait for the trolls to appear, set up the 'guy-on-the-street selling bootlegs' straw man, argue that we are all freeloading pirate lovers, and this case is no different than large scale for-profit piracy.
Why is quoting text not only perfectly acceptable, but required for academic writing, but quoting snippets of TV, music, or film for a video of your own is automatically assumed to be infringement?
On the post: Musician Chases Down Google Street View Car To Promote His Music
I guess you can have a portrait printed on a sign, and have that sign beside you when the googlemobile comes by.
Personally, I like it how in this one particular case, the government has sided on privacy being the norm, not the exception. Having your face posted publicly on a system like street view should be be opt-in, not opt-out. and in this one particular case, I think the government is mostly right.
oh, and this is an absolutely brilliant idea! Good job!
On the post: Getting Past The 'But Artists Should Just Be Artists' Myth
Re:
Every one of your points has been refuted-in detail, on techdirt already.
Do you enjoy asking the same questions over and over again while refusing to listen to the response, or are you actually being paid to troll?
On the post: Getting Past The 'But Artists Should Just Be Artists' Myth
Exactly.
Most artzy people I've com across (myself included) are terrible with organization and business stuff. Thats why you find others who can and let them help you.
In the visual art world, that means finding a gallery. The artist makes, delivers and prices the art, and the gallery does the rest. The artist does what they do best (make art/drink/be pretentious) and the gallery does what it does best (promote/advertise/sell art) Both sides benefit from the arrangement, and split the profits.
In a band, I imagine that would translate into finding a promoter or agent, have him plan shows/organize a schedule and transportation/ deal with the social networking/website stuff, merch, licencing, etc. The band just shows up and plays, the agent does the rest.
I believe U2 works this way, and their agent is treated like a band member, all band profits are split 5 ways. I see no problem with this. If the band wants to 'just' be a band, be prepared to pay for someone to take care of all the other stuff.
what takes place outside of the studio is half of your career as an artist, but music lessons/art school, etc. only focus on the in-studio part.
The people that make it don't necessarily make better art, they just deal with the non-art side of things much better.
On the post: Artists To National Gallery Of Canada: 'Pay Us Again And Again And Again!'
an artists take on the matter...
A visual artwork has 2 components, the original object, and the image it contains. There is only one original object, and once it is sold, that's it, its gone, and the buyer now owns it. However, the image still belongs to the artist and they are free to do what they wish with that image.
That means that even though you have bought my painting, I am still free to print that image on t-shirts, books, posters, and coffee mugs. The buyer does now have the right to license the image. This is the law.
You own the object, I own the image.
If the National gallery is printing reproductions of artwork for advertising and promotion, that should fall within fair use. Any artist fighting against that would be an idiot; it's promotion, and they are paying for it. However, if the national gallery is printing postcards, posters, etc. and selling them for profit, they absolutely should be paying the artist for that right. unless the gallery has secured reproduction rights in the contract, selling reproductions for profit is infringement.
If they are fighting to be paid for having their work advertised, this is nothing but pure, short-sighted greed.
However, as a technicality, reproduction rights for the purpose of advertising and promotion must be included in the contract, if they are not, then carfac's actions, despite being dumb, are consistent with the law.
I like to be logically consistent where I can. Once anything is digital and online, it's free for everyone in the world, and any constraint is artificial and doomed to fail. So, most of what I do is CC-BY-NC. (Yes, the BY-NC is still an artificial restriction, but it's what im comfortable with)
This is why I have images of my painting on my website, but not my photographs. A painting can not be reproduced without losing a lot in the process, and I want people to download and share those images, it's more exposure for me, and that is exactly what I want. Using an infinite resource to promote a limited one.
A photograph, however, can be reproduced perfectly. For that reason, I don't post them (also, my photography is mainly commission work, where there would be little interest to anyone other than my client) I don't want them being copied, so I don't post them.
On the post: Major Labels Accused Of $6 Billion Worth Of Copyright Infringement In Canada
Re:
looks like it is 6 billion, not 60 billion.
this story is now 90% less ironic.
but $6 billion is still good, and I'm glad it's happening now, when the Canadian dollar is almost worth a dollar, rather than 5 years ago, when it was only 60-something cents.
woot!
let's hope those artists get paid.
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