Re: Do you consider the creativity of one human to be infinite or scarce?
The ability to created is definitely a scarcity. It takes time and talent to create works.
What's infinite is the content once it's been created. If it can be represented digitally and the marginal cost of reproduction is next to nothing, then it's an abundant good.
Content creation is definitely a scarcity though. One of the business models often discussed here is based on that precisely. If you have the ability to create content that people value and want more of, it makes more sense to leverage the abundance of the content you've already created (i.e. let people share the digital files, share them yourself) in order to promote your ability to create content, to raise interest and even raise money for the creation of new content.
They must create something that is not easily reproducible or they must "sell" some other thing rather than the fruit of their creativity.
No, not at all. I mean, it's definitely a good idea to recognize the scarcities in the "other things" surrounding your creativity, but the the ability to create content in the first place is one of the most important (if not the most important) scarcities to recognize. You can (and should) sell that too.
You're saying that, because this thing I created can be easily reproduced, it has no intrinsic value. The only value is the value placed upon it by the 'market' and, since it is not scarce, its value is low.
Also, don't confuse value and price. Value is only one of the factors that determines price and the two don't have to correlate (value oxygen?). The price of digital goods is low because the marginal cost of reproduction is low. Value is something different.
Agreed. I don't think I suggested that people can determine value, I certainly agree with your comment. In the face of competition, people can differentiate their products based on price (i.e. cutting prices) or perceived benefits (doesn't have to be actual, could be the effect of marketing).
The point about the marginal cost is that, in a competitive market, that's where prices naturally tend to (not towards some "actual value" as John Doe suggested). That doesn't mean that you can't sell something about the marginal cost, you just need to give people a reason to buy it.
The effect of marketing on stimulating demand is even more reason that price is not so heavily dependent on value, but is determined by a variety of different factors.
"... price and value are two different things. Price isn't determined by value -- it's determined by the intersection of supply and demand. Value plays into that, by determining what the demand part is."
Let me get this straight, price and value are different but value affects demand which affects price? So in effect, value affects price. So they aren't as different as you make them out to be.
I feel as if this is an obvious example, but... do you value oxygen? Do you pay for it? "Affects" doesn't imply that they're the same thing.
Yea, something may be priced lower than its value, but usually the price will rise to match its value.
No, price approaches the marginal cost of reproduction, it doesn't rise to match a products value. Whatever that is. Price can be the same for everyone, but everyone doesn't place the same value on everything.
More importantly, you ignore the role supply plays in determining the price. That would explain the oxygen example. Sure, value is high (we all need to breathe), but the price doesn't somehow "rise to match its value" because the supply is infinite.
I'm not going to accuse you of poor reading comprehension, but I think you're refusing to understand the basic economic distinction here because of preconceived notions and a misunderstanding of the arguments being made here ("it is also used to argue that stealing music is ok..."). The argument is not to "steal" other people's music or news articles or whatever, but to encourage creators to adopt business models that recognize the economics at play so that they can be more successful in a digital age. Confusing price and value is a barrier to understanding these business models.
Disney isn't out to rip off others, that's not what's being suggested. Disney is happy to avoid complex licensing when it's the one that has to get a license, but when the tables are turned, Disney is not so worried about complex licensing.
I mean, lobbying for the retroactive extension of copyright and preventing any works from entering into the public domain for a couple decades... that's hardly improving the complex licensing situation for anyone, when works that were supposed to enter the public domain (and therefore not need to be licensed anymore) are held back.
It's not that it's bad that Disney builds off the ideas of others. It's just a shame that they don't seem to think others should be able to do the same.
Licensing negotiations can definitely be very complex. It's a good thing Disney didn't have to deal with them when they were starting out. Yet, they're one of the biggest supporters of making these negotiations more common for the rest of us.
The 9/11 report had so much news coverage, and so many people were waiting for it, that to use it as a typical example is dishonest.
This sounds like a Masnick's Law type comment to me... If a smaller profile example was used, someone would step in and complain of the exact opposite.
Though, there were more examples given. You ignored "Paulo Coehlo, Jonathan Lethem, Charles Sheehan-Miles and Cory Doctorow."
I wonder where the call to disenfranchise authors comes from, and the call to empower copyists?... I still do not understand why anyone feels (a) they have to claim that my ownership and control of my own authored intellectual property is inappropriate, and (b) that it can only be seen as a monopoly. What am I denying anyone else access to by monopolizing my own creative artifacts?
I ask again, have you never build off the work of others? Do you ever take photographs of things that other people have made? It's natural to build off the works of others, to "stand on the shoulders of giants." Mere copyists won't have anything new to offer the world, but there's a lot to be offered from those would can add something new or original, something transformative.
I forget if it was in this thread or another, but take West Side Story as an example, based on Romeo and Juliet, based on an earlier Italian play, based on a Greek play...
Derivative works are not just mere copies. There's such a thing as transformative use. See Garfield Minus Garfield for a recent example, or Girl Talk.
And who's trying to take power away from authors? We're trying to show them that there's an opportunity to grow their market and develop stronger business models that will thrive in a digital age. That would be helping authors.
If you're following the whole conversation (granted, there's a lot), what he's saying is pretty clear.
From another comment, Mike suggested two methods to deal with a lack of attribution:
"(1) Ask the person for attribution.
(2) Tell others about the use, so that you get attribution by default, whether or not the original person attributes you. Word will spread."
These suggestions are in place of taking legal action.
"Make a big stink about it" was in response to a comment about reputation and refers to (2), while "freaking out" was in response to a comment about the legal matters involved. (Basically, if someone is using your work without attribution, tell people it's yours instead of suing them.)
Re: Rewording: How some author's Copyright practices are Holding Back Their own Creativity
Oh? Do tell. What government monopoly?
Maybe a more accurate term is "government granted monopoly," which is what copyright is.
All the government is doing is securing those rights -- protecting those innate, unalienable, rights, authorship copyrights.
This is not the American view on copyright. The constitution says,
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
These are not natural rights.
It's optional for Congress to implement them
It's for a limited time -- nothing says that it has to be greater than the life of the author, and the original 14 years of copyright in the US certainly wasn't
The purpose is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts", not "to give authors and inventors what is rightfully theirs" or something. It says "the" exclusive right, not "their" exclusive right. It's an incentive to create more art
If these rights are innate and unalienable, why is it optional for Congress to secure them? And why only for a limited time?
Mike linked to an earlier article on the real purpose of copyright in the post.
Could you specify without adjectives what specific "limit" you prefer?
Given that the purpose of copyright is to create an incentive for the creation of works, the limit should logically be linked with that incentive. What sort of limit is reasonable to "promote progress of science and the useful arts?" The law of diminishing returns also kicks in. What's the real difference between 20 and 50 years in terms of the incentive to create? At some point, the trade off (of not getting works into the public domain) no longer becomes worth it. Will there be any shortage of works if people don't retain the rights after they're dead? I'd be willing to bet money that there won't be.
"All content is based on earlier works ..."
Not mine, and even if it were, it certainly is not based on anyone's extant copyright.
So you've never taken a photograph of something which someone else has created? You've never tried to learn from or mimic the styles of other photographers? Not all of these cases are copyright infringement, but it's a myth that our creativity comes entirely from within. We are all influenced by those around us.
Sidenote: "I end up writing in a word processor, spell check, miss "from" versus "form" typos"
Firefox has a built-in spell-checker. Save me a lot of time. :)
I wasn't trying to say that inline responses are hard to follow, I prefer them! But you have to break things down logically, you can't just reply to comments taken clearly out of context (e.g. "Really?").
The "as if it were an answer in and of itself" bit is key...
Small point, as I haven't had a chance to read all of the comments.
You said: "As for the Norton report, surely you know how riled other publishers because the government did exactly what you are railing against: it gave Norton an unfair advantage by granting them the rights to publish what everyone knew was a sureshot." [emphasis mine, of course]
Without getting into the specifics of this situation, that seems to be the whole general point being made. Even you recognize that it was an advantage for a publisher to get it first even though they didn't have the exclusive rights.
Why would any publisher agree to publish a scenario like this? Because it's an advantage.
Also, you initially described this as a "lose-lose business model." Showing a counterexample isn't an attempt to pronounce a trend based on a single example, it's an attempt to show an counterexample.
If you say it's not possible, a counterexample is a good way to show that it is possible.
And one last thing. You can't just pick apart Mike's responses and pretend like he's not answering you. It makes trying to follow the discussion thread really annoying, because it's as if you're just looking for ways to pretend he's avoiding the issues when he's not.
When Mike just says "Really?", you don't honestly think that was his answer, do you? The rest of the answer is broken up throughout the rest of the comment. It's called inline replying.
Attacking every one of Mike's inline comments as if it were an answer in and of itself doesn't prove anything. It just confuses the discussion and makes it more difficult to follow.
I took my laptop on a month-long vacation to Australia, and though I did a little bit of work throughout the month, I used my laptop often as a tool for my vacation.
We booked a lot of our accommodations along the way, researching and booking online. We found out more about the places we wanted to visit online. We used Google Maps to plan our itinerary. We used Flickr and Facebook to share photos with family and friends, and I posted to my blog and to Twitter along the way. I subscribed to the Google News Australia feed for the month to get a bit of a sense for what was going on in the country (and Google Reader helped me keep up with what was going on at home). My laptop housed my music library, which we often took advantage of in hotels. We used WengoPhone to call home every now and then, and to make cheap calls within Australia to book reservations and find out information about tours.
There are lots of ways a laptop can be useful on vacation for the purposes of the vacation.
Good point. I would think this might be taken into account if the various areas being indexed are balanced in some way to produce the index?
"to find out what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to..."
If it's really that bad that people are trashing it etc, it might get written about, but it probably won't be listened to or watched or downloaded nearly as much as something that people actually like.
And if it is... well, then isn't it a success in some way if people are consuming it?
On the post: Removing Songs From iTunes A Great Way To Help Cover Bands
Re: Re: no problem
On the post: isoHunt Seeks Declaratory Judgment In Canada On Legality Of Torrent Tracking
Re:
Yet, the country's national broadcaster has recognized this type of distribution as legitimate: CBC Plans to BitTorrent Its Own Program
Clearly, there are important non-infringing uses.
On the post: Free Doesn't Mean Unpaid
Re: Do you consider the creativity of one human to be infinite or scarce?
What's infinite is the content once it's been created. If it can be represented digitally and the marginal cost of reproduction is next to nothing, then it's an abundant good.
Content creation is definitely a scarcity though. One of the business models often discussed here is based on that precisely. If you have the ability to create content that people value and want more of, it makes more sense to leverage the abundance of the content you've already created (i.e. let people share the digital files, share them yourself) in order to promote your ability to create content, to raise interest and even raise money for the creation of new content.
Some musicians have taken advantage of this business model already, like Jill Sobule, Maria Schneider and the band Marillion.
They must create something that is not easily reproducible or they must "sell" some other thing rather than the fruit of their creativity.
No, not at all. I mean, it's definitely a good idea to recognize the scarcities in the "other things" surrounding your creativity, but the the ability to create content in the first place is one of the most important (if not the most important) scarcities to recognize. You can (and should) sell that too.
You're saying that, because this thing I created can be easily reproduced, it has no intrinsic value. The only value is the value placed upon it by the 'market' and, since it is not scarce, its value is low.
Also, don't confuse value and price. Value is only one of the factors that determines price and the two don't have to correlate (value oxygen?). The price of digital goods is low because the marginal cost of reproduction is low. Value is something different.
On the post: Understanding The Difference Between Price And Value; Product And Benefit
Re:
The point about the marginal cost is that, in a competitive market, that's where prices naturally tend to (not towards some "actual value" as John Doe suggested). That doesn't mean that you can't sell something about the marginal cost, you just need to give people a reason to buy it.
The effect of marketing on stimulating demand is even more reason that price is not so heavily dependent on value, but is determined by a variety of different factors.
On the post: Understanding The Difference Between Price And Value; Product And Benefit
Re: Re:
On the post: Understanding The Difference Between Price And Value; Product And Benefit
Re: Re: Re: And your point is?
"... price and value are two different things. Price isn't determined by value -- it's determined by the intersection of supply and demand. Value plays into that, by determining what the demand part is."
On the post: Understanding The Difference Between Price And Value; Product And Benefit
Re: And your point is?
I feel as if this is an obvious example, but... do you value oxygen? Do you pay for it? "Affects" doesn't imply that they're the same thing.
Yea, something may be priced lower than its value, but usually the price will rise to match its value.
No, price approaches the marginal cost of reproduction, it doesn't rise to match a products value. Whatever that is. Price can be the same for everyone, but everyone doesn't place the same value on everything.
More importantly, you ignore the role supply plays in determining the price. That would explain the oxygen example. Sure, value is high (we all need to breathe), but the price doesn't somehow "rise to match its value" because the supply is infinite.
I'm not going to accuse you of poor reading comprehension, but I think you're refusing to understand the basic economic distinction here because of preconceived notions and a misunderstanding of the arguments being made here ("it is also used to argue that stealing music is ok..."). The argument is not to "steal" other people's music or news articles or whatever, but to encourage creators to adopt business models that recognize the economics at play so that they can be more successful in a digital age. Confusing price and value is a barrier to understanding these business models.
On the post: ABC/Disney Memo Shows That Ripping Off Other TV Programs Is Ok... For ABC/Disney
Re:
I mean, lobbying for the retroactive extension of copyright and preventing any works from entering into the public domain for a couple decades... that's hardly improving the complex licensing situation for anyone, when works that were supposed to enter the public domain (and therefore not need to be licensed anymore) are held back.
It's not that it's bad that Disney builds off the ideas of others. It's just a shame that they don't seem to think others should be able to do the same.
Licensing negotiations can definitely be very complex. It's a good thing Disney didn't have to deal with them when they were starting out. Yet, they're one of the biggest supporters of making these negotiations more common for the rest of us.
That's the double standard.
On the post: How Copyright Is Holding Back The Creative Class
Re: Re: Re:
This sounds like a Masnick's Law type comment to me... If a smaller profile example was used, someone would step in and complain of the exact opposite.
Though, there were more examples given. You ignored "Paulo Coehlo, Jonathan Lethem, Charles Sheehan-Miles and Cory Doctorow."
On the post: How Copyright Is Holding Back The Creative Class
Re:
I wonder where the call to disenfranchise authors comes from, and the call to empower copyists?... I still do not understand why anyone feels (a) they have to claim that my ownership and control of my own authored intellectual property is inappropriate, and (b) that it can only be seen as a monopoly. What am I denying anyone else access to by monopolizing my own creative artifacts?
I ask again, have you never build off the work of others? Do you ever take photographs of things that other people have made? It's natural to build off the works of others, to "stand on the shoulders of giants." Mere copyists won't have anything new to offer the world, but there's a lot to be offered from those would can add something new or original, something transformative.
I forget if it was in this thread or another, but take West Side Story as an example, based on Romeo and Juliet, based on an earlier Italian play, based on a Greek play...
Derivative works are not just mere copies. There's such a thing as transformative use. See Garfield Minus Garfield for a recent example, or Girl Talk.
And who's trying to take power away from authors? We're trying to show them that there's an opportunity to grow their market and develop stronger business models that will thrive in a digital age. That would be helping authors.
On the post: In An Age Of Abundance, Attribution Is More Important Than Copying
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
From another comment, Mike suggested two methods to deal with a lack of attribution:
"(1) Ask the person for attribution.
(2) Tell others about the use, so that you get attribution by default, whether or not the original person attributes you. Word will spread."
These suggestions are in place of taking legal action.
"Make a big stink about it" was in response to a comment about reputation and refers to (2), while "freaking out" was in response to a comment about the legal matters involved. (Basically, if someone is using your work without attribution, tell people it's yours instead of suing them.)
On the post: In An Age Of Abundance, Attribution Is More Important Than Copying
Re:
No one is suggesting that attribution alone is a business model. But, for an artist, having your work recognized is key to paying the bills.
On the post: In An Age Of Abundance, Attribution Is More Important Than Copying
Re: creative commons?
On the post: In An Age Of Abundance, Attribution Is More Important Than Copying
Re: Re: Re: this poster is more confused than Tiffany.
I can see some potential objections if you want to be picky, but I don't see how this affects the fundamental point in the post.
On the post: How Copyright Is Holding Back The Creative Class
Re: Rewording: How some author's Copyright practices are Holding Back Their own Creativity
Maybe a more accurate term is "government granted monopoly," which is what copyright is.
All the government is doing is securing those rights -- protecting those innate, unalienable, rights, authorship copyrights.
This is not the American view on copyright. The constitution says,
These are not natural rights.
If these rights are innate and unalienable, why is it optional for Congress to secure them? And why only for a limited time?
Mike linked to an earlier article on the real purpose of copyright in the post.
Could you specify without adjectives what specific "limit" you prefer?
Given that the purpose of copyright is to create an incentive for the creation of works, the limit should logically be linked with that incentive. What sort of limit is reasonable to "promote progress of science and the useful arts?" The law of diminishing returns also kicks in. What's the real difference between 20 and 50 years in terms of the incentive to create? At some point, the trade off (of not getting works into the public domain) no longer becomes worth it. Will there be any shortage of works if people don't retain the rights after they're dead? I'd be willing to bet money that there won't be.
"All content is based on earlier works ..."
Not mine, and even if it were, it certainly is not based on anyone's extant copyright.
So you've never taken a photograph of something which someone else has created? You've never tried to learn from or mimic the styles of other photographers? Not all of these cases are copyright infringement, but it's a myth that our creativity comes entirely from within. We are all influenced by those around us.
Sidenote: "I end up writing in a word processor, spell check, miss "from" versus "form" typos"
Firefox has a built-in spell-checker. Save me a lot of time. :)
On the post: How Copyright Is Holding Back The Creative Class
Re: Re: Re: typical
The "as if it were an answer in and of itself" bit is key...
On the post: How Copyright Is Holding Back The Creative Class
Re: typical
Small point, as I haven't had a chance to read all of the comments.
You said: "As for the Norton report, surely you know how riled other publishers because the government did exactly what you are railing against: it gave Norton an unfair advantage by granting them the rights to publish what everyone knew was a sureshot." [emphasis mine, of course]
Without getting into the specifics of this situation, that seems to be the whole general point being made. Even you recognize that it was an advantage for a publisher to get it first even though they didn't have the exclusive rights.
Why would any publisher agree to publish a scenario like this? Because it's an advantage.
Also, you initially described this as a "lose-lose business model." Showing a counterexample isn't an attempt to pronounce a trend based on a single example, it's an attempt to show an counterexample.
If you say it's not possible, a counterexample is a good way to show that it is possible.
And one last thing. You can't just pick apart Mike's responses and pretend like he's not answering you. It makes trying to follow the discussion thread really annoying, because it's as if you're just looking for ways to pretend he's avoiding the issues when he's not.
When Mike just says "Really?", you don't honestly think that was his answer, do you? The rest of the answer is broken up throughout the rest of the comment. It's called inline replying.
Attacking every one of Mike's inline comments as if it were an answer in and of itself doesn't prove anything. It just confuses the discussion and makes it more difficult to follow.
On the post: Is Taking A Laptop On Vacation Stupid?
Laptops aren't just for work
We booked a lot of our accommodations along the way, researching and booking online. We found out more about the places we wanted to visit online. We used Google Maps to plan our itinerary. We used Flickr and Facebook to share photos with family and friends, and I posted to my blog and to Twitter along the way. I subscribed to the Google News Australia feed for the month to get a bit of a sense for what was going on in the country (and Google Reader helped me keep up with what was going on at home). My laptop housed my music library, which we often took advantage of in hotels. We used WengoPhone to call home every now and then, and to make cheap calls within Australia to book reservations and find out information about tours.
There are lots of ways a laptop can be useful on vacation for the purposes of the vacation.
On the post: BBC And IBM Reinvent The Music Chart
Re: Errr....
"to find out what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to..."
If it's really that bad that people are trashing it etc, it might get written about, but it probably won't be listened to or watched or downloaded nearly as much as something that people actually like.
And if it is... well, then isn't it a success in some way if people are consuming it?
On the post: Is Embedding Infringement? MPAA Sues Two Sites
Re: No
I assume you meant "it's not infringement."
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