The point isn't that the IFPI is wrong from a legal perspective. The point is that it's not actually acting in line with the interests of artists, like it often claims to be doing.
You still haven't answered a question I keep raising: why should some guy be allowed to profit from my work without compensating me?
Why not? Cases where you can't build on the work of others and make are profit are the exception, not the rule.
I profit from the work of Lenovo all the time when I develop websites on my ThinkPad. I've paid them once for the laptop. I don't pay the engineers royalties (at Lenovo, Intel, etc...). Do companies pay architects royalties when operating in buildings they've designed? Do pizza delivery guys pay a cut to their car manufacturers? Do university or college graduates pay their professors a cut when they apply the knowledge from their classes on the job?
The question isn't "why" but "why not?" If there's a reason in some cases, why doesn't it apply to the types of cases above?
(Plus, the "why" is because they'd be better off, as evidenced by those artists who are taking advantage of more efficient economic models.)
There may be a "marginal cost" to copy, but there is not a "marginal cost" to produce.
Marginal cost is reproduction, by definition. The price doesn't approach the cost of production, it approaches the marginal cost of reproduction.
At some point, as the price moves further down the line, the content producer will no longer be able to sustain production. At that point, the price reduction stops, or the product ceases to exist.
Think about what you're saying for a second. How is it any different if the price is zero? If price approaches marginal cost, and the marginal cost is $100 per unit, there's still no profit if someone isn't able to sell something for more than it costs to make it (again, not even considering the cost of initial production).
This is not specific to the price of $0.
How do people make money if the price approaches the cost of marginal reproduction? They do it all the time, unlike your suggestion that content would stop being produced.
It's done through differentiation based on cost or benefit. If you provide a perceived benefit to consumers, they will be willing to pay more for the product you're selling. That's the demand part of things. You need to either give people a reason to pay above the marginal cost of reproduction (e.g. patronage like the pay-what-you-can model, high-quality audio formats, combination of digital music with scarce goods, etc) or leverage the abundance of digital music to add value to your scarce goods. Or better yet, a combination of both.
I think you might be missing part of the idea of competition between collection societies. What about competition between what collection societies are offering artists? That, to me, seems to be the most important issue, and the question of the ease and price of licensing is en extension of that (because, ultimately, that process should be helping artists).
Does anyone believe... that files published on bittorrent or through other file sharing networks are done so with the intention "not" to be distributed in violation of copyright?
Uh, yeah. Despite the fact that there is nothing wrong with file sharing (not all files are copyrighted), some copyright holders have actually begun distributing some of their own content through BitTorrent, like television broadcasters and musicians.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Market Doesn't Care About the Public Good
Copyright infringement, by definition, is not "taking something from someone else." It's copying.
Copying means making a copy. Meaning, the owner retains their copy.
Copyright infringement is wrong, yes, because it infringes copyright. Copyright infringement is not wrong because it takes something away from someone without their permission, because it doesn't.
It's copying or using something from someone without their permission. Everyone does that all the time. It's just that we've decided to restrict that freedom on some things for a limited time through copyright (and patent) law in order to provide an incentive to authors (/inventors).
There's nothing inherently wrong with using or copying something from someone without their permission.
Re: Re: Re: What about musicians that can't play live?
Did you read my whole message? Without getting into a debate about whether or not Girl Talk is a musician, I already named and linked to two other people who "play notes on a keyboard, guitar or whatever"
More? Imogen Heap and Pat Robitaille both layer in their live performances, just going off the top of my head from artists I've actually been out to see recently.
Re: Re: What about musicians that can't play live?
No, the Masnicks of the world propose that the songwriter who creates but does not perform be turned into some rank-and-file employee that gets paid a salary based in his reputation, not a royalty based on the value of his actual work.
Songwriters can get paid to write songs, rather than only getting paid for songs they've already written. Isn't that what songwriters are supposed to do, write songs? A salary may be one example, though it may have limited application if few people need a salaried songwriter. Commissioned works are another great example though. A television producer might commission a theme song from a songwriter. Before copyright existed, works were often commissioned from composers. Or there's the fund-and-release model, which Mr Pitiful was just talking about, where fans contribute to the costs of producing a record, to the cost of writing and recording songs.
These are all just examples of songwriters being paid to write songs.
My best guess as to why this compensation model has not been employed for songwriters is because it does not work for songwriters
My best guess is that there's been little incentive to do so, since money was largely made off works that had already been written via copyright rather than from creating new works, before digital technology began to pose a serious threat to that system.
Of course songwriters aren't exactly like journalists, but it's an analogy. There are some similarities, namely, that both songwriters and journalists can be paid to create content.
What about a one person writer/musician/producer who creates by himself... ?
You mean like Girl Talk? Apparently, he puts on a really good live show. He found a way to translate it into a live environment.
I've witnessed lots of amazing live one man acts, from Fr. Stan Fortuna to Danny Michel. Fr. Stan, in particular, used to rap and sing to pre-recorded backing tracks, but in the past few years with the advances in audio equipment, he began using repeater pedals to build his own backing tracks on stage during his performance. Danny Michel sounds like he has a full band behind him even when he's on his own.
Aside from opportunities beyond live performances, most talented artists I know are able to put on compelling live shows, even as a one man band and even if it involves layering.
Are you suggesting that it's cherry picking to say the "exceptions are the rule" in this case?
No one is saying exceptions are always the rule, then they wouldn't be exceptions. The point is that when people start labeling virtually all examples as exceptions, they make a mistake in doing so. Everything can't be an exception.
I don't see how the analogy with Scientology holds... that isn't an example of someone calling virtually everything an exception.
True, but I think that the best business models out there don't considering this sharing to be cheating. Girl Talk, maybe not, but Reznor, for example, releases his music under a license that explicitly permits file sharing.
If the business model is about leveraging the infinite goods to add value to the scarce, why not let or encourage people to share your music? I don't think that's "cheating" or doing the wrong thing.
If a company forsakes copyright protection in the US, it cannot seek to be covered by copyright laws in other countries. I don't think you can have it both ways - you know, copyleft in the US and copyright in the US.
Just a side note (apologies if I'm stating the obvious): copyleft is not simply the absence of copyright. Copyleft is the practice using copyright to remove copyright restrictions on a work and all its derivatives.
There are free (libre) licenses which are not copyleft licenses. The public domain is not copyleft either. There are ways to forsake copyright protection that don't involve copyleft.
Re: Re: Re: The Market Doesn't Care About the Public Good
Does this mean such laws would be "just" if they let you make illegal copies to your heart's content?
How can a law let you make illegal copies? Wouldn't that make the copies legal?
Seriously though, that's an important point. Copyright infringement is only unethical insofar as it's illegal. There's nothing inherently unethical about copying and we have the freedom to change the law with respect to copyright infringement.
It's taken me a while to respond, but better late than never!
I don't see how sticking with copyright will diminish an author's chances of gaining long-run benefit.
In the long-run, don't you think electronic books will become more popular? Holding onto copyright has put publishers in the music and movie business in direct conflict with their consumers as digital audio and video have risen in popularity. What makes you think copyright and digital books will magically get along?
One compelling reason to look beyond copyright for a business model is simply in anticipation of that.
And the digital landscape isn't posing any threat to their existing model. People are still buying books.
Yet. There haven't been many compelling offerings, most are hindered by some sort of DRM. But yes, there is something about books that is less replaceable by a screen, maybe, which makes them the perfect scarce good to complement a digital offering.
But even if there isn't a serious threat now, that doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity for authors to grow their market by leveraging digital goods.
And what about the publishing companies? How would they benefit if copyright goes?
The provision for intellectual property laws in the U.S. constitution is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, not to benefit publishing companies. The key goal is to provide an incentive to produce art. If publishing companies aren't needed, why would that be problematic?
But publishing companies will still have an important role to play, in the same way that there's still a role for record labels in the music business. Not every author can or would want to manage their own distribution, whether digital or physical.
It seems like another case of a company needing to define their market based on the benefit they provide, rather than the product. Publishing companies are in the business of providing distribution for authors (or something along those lines), rather than simply selling books. If publishing companies look to the benefits they provide, there would definitely be business opportunities in the absence of an author's dependence on copyright.
Take movies, for instance: Why would a company produce a film if they cannot exercise control over it? The movie hall experience that you tout as a scarce good is dependent on copyright, as are television revenues, international rights revenues, DVD sales income, etc. I just don't see the copyright-free model working for the film industry.
First of all, the motivation for most artists to produce art isn't their ability to exercise control over it, but a desire to produce art. Art was produced before copyright existed as an incentive.
I don't think the movie experience is necessarily dependent on copyright. There are lots of reasons a movie theatre would want to maintain a good relationship with a movie company. Even if digital video might be an infinite good, high-quality video (i.e. the kind you might want for a giant screen in a theatre) isn't as abundant. What about other high-quality movie experiences, like an IMAX theatre for example? There are some things that can't be copied, or can't be copied easily, and it would be much easier for a movie theatre to get them from the source, which would require a good relationship.
I agree the dynamics of consumption are very different between movies, music, books, etc. I don't think it follows that simply because you or I can't imagine how it might work that it wouldn't work. If there is a demand for a certain type of movie and companies/filmmakers interested in producing it, there is a market that can be monetized with the right business models, even if it takes some experimentation on the part of companies to figure that out.
On the post: IFPI Forces Music Offline, Even Though Copyright Holder Wanted It Shared
Re:
On the post: Trent Reznor Continues To Show Different Ways To Connect With Fans
Re: Re: #32
On the post: ASCAP's Bill Of Wrongs
Re: Good music is under rated!
On the post: Too Much Ownership Can Be Bad For The Economy
Re: back again
Why not? Cases where you can't build on the work of others and make are profit are the exception, not the rule.
I profit from the work of Lenovo all the time when I develop websites on my ThinkPad. I've paid them once for the laptop. I don't pay the engineers royalties (at Lenovo, Intel, etc...). Do companies pay architects royalties when operating in buildings they've designed? Do pizza delivery guys pay a cut to their car manufacturers? Do university or college graduates pay their professors a cut when they apply the knowledge from their classes on the job?
The question isn't "why" but "why not?" If there's a reason in some cases, why doesn't it apply to the types of cases above?
(Plus, the "why" is because they'd be better off, as evidenced by those artists who are taking advantage of more efficient economic models.)
On the post: It's Good To Be A Monopoly: Rogers Prices iPhone Service At 2 Arms And 2 Legs
Re: No Monopoly Here
On the post: Newly Independent Pop Band McFly Gives Away Free CD With Newspaper
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The
Marginal cost is reproduction, by definition. The price doesn't approach the cost of production, it approaches the marginal cost of reproduction.
At some point, as the price moves further down the line, the content producer will no longer be able to sustain production. At that point, the price reduction stops, or the product ceases to exist.
Think about what you're saying for a second. How is it any different if the price is zero? If price approaches marginal cost, and the marginal cost is $100 per unit, there's still no profit if someone isn't able to sell something for more than it costs to make it (again, not even considering the cost of initial production).
This is not specific to the price of $0.
How do people make money if the price approaches the cost of marginal reproduction? They do it all the time, unlike your suggestion that content would stop being produced.
It's done through differentiation based on cost or benefit. If you provide a perceived benefit to consumers, they will be willing to pay more for the product you're selling. That's the demand part of things. You need to either give people a reason to pay above the marginal cost of reproduction (e.g. patronage like the pay-what-you-can model, high-quality audio formats, combination of digital music with scarce goods, etc) or leverage the abundance of digital music to add value to your scarce goods. Or better yet, a combination of both.
On the post: Europe Looks To Get Rid Of Monopoly On Royalty Collection Societies
Re: what competition?
On the post: Is That The Best Cato Can Do In Defense Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Market Doesn't Care About the Public Good
I meant to refer to using or building on the creative ideas of others.
On the post: MPAA Explains Why Proof Shouldn't Be Necessary In Copyright Infringement Cases
Re: Does anyone believe...
Uh, yeah. Despite the fact that there is nothing wrong with file sharing (not all files are copyrighted), some copyright holders have actually begun distributing some of their own content through BitTorrent, like television broadcasters and musicians.
On the post: Is That The Best Cato Can Do In Defense Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Market Doesn't Care About the Public Good
Copying means making a copy. Meaning, the owner retains their copy.
Copyright infringement is wrong, yes, because it infringes copyright. Copyright infringement is not wrong because it takes something away from someone without their permission, because it doesn't.
It's copying or using something from someone without their permission. Everyone does that all the time. It's just that we've decided to restrict that freedom on some things for a limited time through copyright (and patent) law in order to provide an incentive to authors (/inventors).
There's nothing inherently wrong with using or copying something from someone without their permission.
On the post: Is That The Best Cato Can Do In Defense Of Copyright?
Re: My Business Model For My New Blog
You're not the first to suggest this and others have already done it. Mike's response is: "GO RIGHT AHEAD."
Here's an example of him responding to this idea just a few weeks back:
http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20080611/1900481382#c284
On the post: Less Well Known Musicians Embracing 'Pay What You Want'
Re: Re: Re: What about musicians that can't play live?
More? Imogen Heap and Pat Robitaille both layer in their live performances, just going off the top of my head from artists I've actually been out to see recently.
On the post: Less Well Known Musicians Embracing 'Pay What You Want'
Re: Re: What about musicians that can't play live?
Songwriters can get paid to write songs, rather than only getting paid for songs they've already written. Isn't that what songwriters are supposed to do, write songs? A salary may be one example, though it may have limited application if few people need a salaried songwriter. Commissioned works are another great example though. A television producer might commission a theme song from a songwriter. Before copyright existed, works were often commissioned from composers. Or there's the fund-and-release model, which Mr Pitiful was just talking about, where fans contribute to the costs of producing a record, to the cost of writing and recording songs.
These are all just examples of songwriters being paid to write songs.
My best guess as to why this compensation model has not been employed for songwriters is because it does not work for songwriters
My best guess is that there's been little incentive to do so, since money was largely made off works that had already been written via copyright rather than from creating new works, before digital technology began to pose a serious threat to that system.
Of course songwriters aren't exactly like journalists, but it's an analogy. There are some similarities, namely, that both songwriters and journalists can be paid to create content.
On the post: Less Well Known Musicians Embracing 'Pay What You Want'
Re: What about musicians that can't play live?
You mean like Girl Talk? Apparently, he puts on a really good live show. He found a way to translate it into a live environment.
I've witnessed lots of amazing live one man acts, from Fr. Stan Fortuna to Danny Michel. Fr. Stan, in particular, used to rap and sing to pre-recorded backing tracks, but in the past few years with the advances in audio equipment, he began using repeater pedals to build his own backing tracks on stage during his performance. Danny Michel sounds like he has a full band behind him even when he's on his own.
Aside from opportunities beyond live performances, most talented artists I know are able to put on compelling live shows, even as a one man band and even if it involves layering.
On the post: Less Well Known Musicians Embracing 'Pay What You Want'
Re: Re: concert tours
No one is saying exceptions are always the rule, then they wouldn't be exceptions. The point is that when people start labeling virtually all examples as exceptions, they make a mistake in doing so. Everything can't be an exception.
I don't see how the analogy with Scientology holds... that isn't an example of someone calling virtually everything an exception.
On the post: Less Well Known Musicians Embracing 'Pay What You Want'
Re: Re:
If the business model is about leveraging the infinite goods to add value to the scarce, why not let or encourage people to share your music? I don't think that's "cheating" or doing the wrong thing.
On the post: Is That The Best Cato Can Do In Defense Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: Thanks
Just a side note (apologies if I'm stating the obvious): copyleft is not simply the absence of copyright. Copyleft is the practice using copyright to remove copyright restrictions on a work and all its derivatives.
There are free (libre) licenses which are not copyleft licenses. The public domain is not copyleft either. There are ways to forsake copyright protection that don't involve copyleft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
On the post: Is That The Best Cato Can Do In Defense Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: The Market Doesn't Care About the Public Good
How can a law let you make illegal copies? Wouldn't that make the copies legal?
Seriously though, that's an important point. Copyright infringement is only unethical insofar as it's illegal. There's nothing inherently unethical about copying and we have the freedom to change the law with respect to copyright infringement.
On the post: What If Copyright Only Applied To Commercial Use?
Re: Re: Re: Here we go again
The fashion industry used to be a good example, though I'm not sure anymore.
On the post: What If Copyright Only Applied To Commercial Use?
Re: Re: Re: Thanks Blaise
It's taken me a while to respond, but better late than never!
I don't see how sticking with copyright will diminish an author's chances of gaining long-run benefit.
In the long-run, don't you think electronic books will become more popular? Holding onto copyright has put publishers in the music and movie business in direct conflict with their consumers as digital audio and video have risen in popularity. What makes you think copyright and digital books will magically get along?
One compelling reason to look beyond copyright for a business model is simply in anticipation of that.
And the digital landscape isn't posing any threat to their existing model. People are still buying books.
Yet. There haven't been many compelling offerings, most are hindered by some sort of DRM. But yes, there is something about books that is less replaceable by a screen, maybe, which makes them the perfect scarce good to complement a digital offering.
But even if there isn't a serious threat now, that doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity for authors to grow their market by leveraging digital goods.
And what about the publishing companies? How would they benefit if copyright goes?
The provision for intellectual property laws in the U.S. constitution is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, not to benefit publishing companies. The key goal is to provide an incentive to produce art. If publishing companies aren't needed, why would that be problematic?
But publishing companies will still have an important role to play, in the same way that there's still a role for record labels in the music business. Not every author can or would want to manage their own distribution, whether digital or physical.
It seems like another case of a company needing to define their market based on the benefit they provide, rather than the product. Publishing companies are in the business of providing distribution for authors (or something along those lines), rather than simply selling books. If publishing companies look to the benefits they provide, there would definitely be business opportunities in the absence of an author's dependence on copyright.
Take movies, for instance: Why would a company produce a film if they cannot exercise control over it? The movie hall experience that you tout as a scarce good is dependent on copyright, as are television revenues, international rights revenues, DVD sales income, etc. I just don't see the copyright-free model working for the film industry.
First of all, the motivation for most artists to produce art isn't their ability to exercise control over it, but a desire to produce art. Art was produced before copyright existed as an incentive.
I don't think the movie experience is necessarily dependent on copyright. There are lots of reasons a movie theatre would want to maintain a good relationship with a movie company. Even if digital video might be an infinite good, high-quality video (i.e. the kind you might want for a giant screen in a theatre) isn't as abundant. What about other high-quality movie experiences, like an IMAX theatre for example? There are some things that can't be copied, or can't be copied easily, and it would be much easier for a movie theatre to get them from the source, which would require a good relationship.
I agree the dynamics of consumption are very different between movies, music, books, etc. I don't think it follows that simply because you or I can't imagine how it might work that it wouldn't work. If there is a demand for a certain type of movie and companies/filmmakers interested in producing it, there is a market that can be monetized with the right business models, even if it takes some experimentation on the part of companies to figure that out.
Next >>