Very interesting about the artist, and good job trying to side-step the question by taoareyou. He asked:
"Hey Suzanne, would you share your income and expense figures with us here?"
I am fairly confident that he wasn't asked about your experience with the artist you had been discussing but was asking about your personal income and expense figures. It is very easy to talk about someone else's income and expenses, or call on others to be 'more transparent', but when it comes down to it everyone tries to sidestep. So I'll ask the same question. Would you be willing to share YOUR income and expense figures with us here?
(Side-note):
Before I start seeing AC's or whomever calling out for the same information from me, I make a little over $43K a year from my Job and generally spend it all on rent/food/electricity/water/etc with some left over to buy the occasional movie or book.
Wow, missing the point. Of course your boss can replace u with someone who they pay less. I'm sure you'll start in about how so could his fans, now try and think of an argument that doesn't compare apples (people giving him money because they enjoy what he creates and he tries to treat his fans more like friends) and oranges (your boss paying you your wage/salary because they tell you to do stuff and you have to do it or you get fired).
Ahh I see, you thought I meant "just compensation" when what I really meant was only "compensation". As far as I am concerned this is total profit for the author. You speak about an author using his time and money as if he was wasting these by writing, an author is doing what they want to do writing. If he is not a published author yet then he has some other job which is paying the bills and he is using his spare time to write rather than practice guitar and become a musician, or read, or get a higher education, or anything else people do in their spare time. The benefit though is at the end he can sell his creation for money, and if the public likes him he can maybe sell his next copy for even more, and if he is really lucky he can quit that job and live off of what he has sold his work for and write full-time.
That darn Gutenburg, how dare he make it cheap and easy to make a copy of a book instead of copying the entire book by hand how will we ever sell our books to the rich if they can get the same content for less? We need to protect the scribes. Why won't you people think about the scribes and their families?
"How many Tom Clancy t-shirts have you purchased? How many Stephen King book signings have you PAID to attend? How many fractions of one percent would want an leather autographed copy of John Connolly's latest book?"
Well since I don't read Stephen King and most book signings don't stroll through my city that would be 'zero', however since they currently give the signature away for free with the purchase of a book this wouldn't really change how it is now (person buys book, stands in line, gets book signed). Now what if instead Stephen King showed up in a convention center and charged $1 for his autograph, would no one show up, would he have wasted his time and energy? I think the line would be snaking around the block, but hey what do I know. You also ask how many Tom Clancy t-shirts have I purchased, zero since I don't read his books (not my style); and how many fractions of one percent would want a leather autographed copy of John Connolly's latest book, no idea. I have a few questions for you. How many pre-order's did book seven of Harry Potter sell? How many wands, t-shirts, etc. have been sold relating to Harry Potter? If twice as many people had read the books because it was free would the sale of these item's go up or down?
Why couldn't the 'First Edition' books we were discussing earlier be pre-orders and shipped to the individuals who purchased them? If an author's first book was successful how high would the demand go for his second book?
Some people write long entries for free defending their industry, or do you get a royalty for each post you place? Your wrote it so you should be compensated for it right?
So what your saying is that consumers, if the supply is essentially infinite, want a reason to buy the better quality version? Besides the concept of many consumers wishing to own 'First Edition' books, I'm sure a bright publishing company could come up with numerous ways to increase the 'value' of their 'official' version and give consumers a reason to buy.
I've heard similar concepts somewhere before...if only I could remember what industry claims that if content was given away content creators would evaporate and never be able to make money contrary to the fact that numerous content creators are making even more money, while the 'distributors' are increasingly trying to 'protect' content creators from the evil consumers....
"He has no salary and no benefits"
Except how did the author survive while writing the first book?
"Only a very, very few people can do the former, practically anyone can do the later."
Although this may be true would you try and fix the water main or would you call a plumber?
Writing is a talent, much like anything else. Lets look at your eBook question from a different comment to correlate an idea; the author has almost no cost of distribution once the work is created, and doesn't need a pesky publisher-distributor-bookseller anymore, so how do they sell the book when five minutes after it is released it can be forwarded(in a DRM free environment) to anyone without having to receive it from his site? He creates 'finite' goods to sell and includes the content of the story with it, maybe if he writes with pen and paper this content is a signed page from his original version before he typed it into the computer, or maybe its the toothbrush he uses, or book readings from the author, who knows what a creative mind could come up with.
Or, ...gasp, he writes because he enjoys it and pays his bills with a job where he makes a salary.
"Or until he recoups his investment? Okay... but the publisher made an investment in paying for something that may or may not sell. He took a risk. So how much "profit" is he allowed to make? How many failed risks is he allowed to cover?"
Lets use another example. With a new author their first book may only have cost the publisher $1,000 to purchase; the publisher makes up 4,000 hard-cover books, maybe a few special one with a leather binding or something like that. These initial books are to be released across the nation at book stores on a given 'release date', if the publisher does it's job these initial books sell without an issue; however once these books are released anyone can take the story and copy it and sell it. The new author is a huge hit and makes some money promoting the book by signing copies, any copy not just the initial ones created by the first publisher. This first story was such a large success that the public can't wait to get their hands on the next book. The author writes the second book, possibly approached by multiple publisher's offering differing deals for the right to first publish; the author agrees to the best deal for himself and finishes writing the book. The publisher receives the book paying the author $500,000, and creates 1 million hard cover copies for release; the buzz about this second book is huge and every copy is purchased and then follows the same general process as the first. This creates a larger demand on these 'first' edition books for this author.
To recap, the author created a book and received compensation. The book was a huge success and so with the second book the compensation was much larger, since the risk of not selling copies was low to the publisher.
"Besides, what about, say, ebooks?...."
Actually with an eBook why would the need a publisher? To take something I've learned here on TechDirt if an author could write a story and release it as an eBook, he could make it where he is selling some other 'finite' good and giving the story away with it. This would, and does, require a completely different business model than the writer/publisher/distributor/bookseller one.
"Says you. I say they should. An author is making an up-front investment writing something that may not be rewarded at all. He's betting his time and money on the fact that it will."
So during this time that the author is working on the project where does his money, food, housing come from, thin air?
"If he does a great job and makes a great product, he's rewarded for it. If he makes a crappy product he's not. Simple."
You speak about reward, but its a matter of just compensation for their time...I would go into greater detail but I believe one of my other comments already covers this.
"If an inventor starts a business making whatsits, and the market falls in love with his whatsits and he sells millions of them, then he is well rewarded for his invention, yes?
Why should not a great author have the same benefit?"
Finally, you are talking about a unique item this 'whatsit' which this inventor creates. Personally I'm for doing away with patents but that's another discussion. Now if this 'whatsit' is easy to replicate then it will be easy to piece together. Just as an example let us say that up until now no ladder's ever existed, only step stools, one day an inventor decides to make a 'ladder' out of wood using bolts and reinforced steel rods to add structure and starts to sell this innovation. I stroll by his ladder stand and look it over, this would be really useful but I can make it better and I go home and use a welder to create a ladder completely from steel. I have used this innovators 'idea' to build a ladder, if I hadn't seen his ladder I may have never built it. However if I have no idea how to make one myself then I would purchase from this person. The same goes for any other innovation. I could go into much greater detail but the association you are trying to make between a physical object and a story (which are ideas) is not very relevant to this discussion about copyright.
"You mean, everyone except those who actually create the work? The ones that spent years writing books and novels and plays and stories? Those people?"
Look above for a good example in my other comment. I detail that the author more than likely will get paid, however just because they spent years writing a book doesn't mean they deserve to get paid for 1, 5,10, 20, 70 years for the same story; they should get one payment from a publisher for the ability to print the story first, after that it's public domain. I think Derek Kerton said it fairly well with the following comment farther down the page(or up depending on your view):
"Think of Grok the caveman storyteller. He invents a good story, tells it, and then everyone he told is free to repeat it."
The advance of course is not required of course, just an example.
Lets take a look at an unknown author, they have no contracts and essentially must create a good enough work to 'sell' it, being able to eat and live indoors while they create this first work is more than likely covered by the job they have when they are not writing. Once they have completed their work and are able to sell the right of first publish to a given publisher they receive an amount from the publisher, the amount would be an agreed upon sum between the two parties. Look now the author has some money to use for food and living indoors while he writes the next book, if it's not enough to pay all the bills until they sell this book then they...get/keep a job.
If the first book sold out of the initial production amount, and then was sold by many book vendors, selling many copies and creating a large demand for this second book then the author knows they can charge the next publisher more money for this second book. I could go on, but this is called getting compensated for something you create rather than getting compensated for something you created 5, 10,..., 75 years ago.
Again, that advance should come out of the payment the publisher pays the author once they deliver the completed work. Again royalties should not come into the equation at all. Essentially a publisher purchases from the author the right to produce a book first, after the initial production and the book is delivered to stores it is now in the public domain and can be published by anyone if they so choose (this of course is the world before copyright and worked just fine as we see books and works from before copyright.)
You mean besides the initial payment from the publisher for the work? The ability of the writer to ask for an advance as he works on creating the work? These seem like just compensation to me, you 'do' something you get paid for 'doing' something. Yes it really is that simple.
An even better question is what right does the government/people have to double-tax the property and assets? Weren't they taxed when they made their fortune?
I have to say, WOW, you missed the point entirely. If you'll notice this was not about an Author, the content creator, getting paid for his/her work; it was about how the descendants are now getting paid for content that was not theirs.
Besides missing the point you state:
"One should also note that that in order to produce new work one still needs to be able to live off the proceeds of the existing work."
This is not a logical or factual argument as the artist, author, painter, etc. does not 'need' to live off the proceeds of their old work. It is true that 'in order to produce new work one does need to be able to live', but that is where the fact/logic ends. It would be nice for the artist, author, etc. to be able to live off their existing work but not necessary for their continued survival. Your type of argument falls into the category of 'entitlement society', once content creators and their representatives move away from this type of thinking everyone wins.
To conclude, I can not stress this enough, where in the constitution does it say that the heirs (often times several generations removed) of content creators should receive the patent/copyright for work they did not do?
Wasn't sure if I was going to make a comment on this one..
So I read over all four legal arguments, besides ZL Technologies filings sounding more like a persuasive sales pitch 'our product is so much better than the Symantec one', I kept trying to find where Gartner had presented actual facts, the basis for every complaint within the suit. Instead of facts I see a large number of subjective arguments attempting to state how much better ZL Technologies is to Symantec's, but how that translates into Gartner ranking ZL's product in a niche category and because of this ranking ZL cannot effectively compete against Symantec is somehow the liability of Gartner is beyond me?
"Music and movies are not an abundant resource..."
Although true in that there are a limited number of Music Albums/Songs and Movies, the ability to replicate said movies makes it an abundant resource. When a company has the ability to take a movie such as '300' and make it available to have an infinite number of copies then the movie itself is an abundant good; however the ability to see it in the theater once, twice, etc. is a limited good. Hopefully your MBA friends understand that simple explanation since they missed Mike's.
"Pirated copies may be abundant, but that is a situation that even a first year business student knows is not supportable."
Second, where in the video does Mike talk about Pirated copies? I thought he was talking about the ability of the companies themselves to release a digital form; for instance iTunes or did you forget that you can buy stuff through iTunes and the music could easily be free instead of charged. After all how much did you spend on that iPod or iPhone?
Re: Re: When will the police try to utilize it in highspeed chases?
Ahh someone who doesn't understand our legal system....
Nope, it's called Innocent Until proven Guilty...so just because you are running from the cops...does not mean you will be convicted of running from the cops.
On the post: Musician Making A Living With Forty Committed True Fans
Re: Re: Re: Re: yes, Go Matthew!
"Hey Suzanne, would you share your income and expense figures with us here?"
I am fairly confident that he wasn't asked about your experience with the artist you had been discussing but was asking about your personal income and expense figures. It is very easy to talk about someone else's income and expenses, or call on others to be 'more transparent', but when it comes down to it everyone tries to sidestep. So I'll ask the same question. Would you be willing to share YOUR income and expense figures with us here?
(Side-note):
Before I start seeing AC's or whomever calling out for the same information from me, I make a little over $43K a year from my Job and generally spend it all on rent/food/electricity/water/etc with some left over to buy the occasional movie or book.
On the post: Musician Making A Living With Forty Committed True Fans
Re: AC
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
"How many Tom Clancy t-shirts have you purchased? How many Stephen King book signings have you PAID to attend? How many fractions of one percent would want an leather autographed copy of John Connolly's latest book?"
Well since I don't read Stephen King and most book signings don't stroll through my city that would be 'zero', however since they currently give the signature away for free with the purchase of a book this wouldn't really change how it is now (person buys book, stands in line, gets book signed). Now what if instead Stephen King showed up in a convention center and charged $1 for his autograph, would no one show up, would he have wasted his time and energy? I think the line would be snaking around the block, but hey what do I know. You also ask how many Tom Clancy t-shirts have I purchased, zero since I don't read his books (not my style); and how many fractions of one percent would want a leather autographed copy of John Connolly's latest book, no idea. I have a few questions for you. How many pre-order's did book seven of Harry Potter sell? How many wands, t-shirts, etc. have been sold relating to Harry Potter? If twice as many people had read the books because it was free would the sale of these item's go up or down?
Why couldn't the 'First Edition' books we were discussing earlier be pre-orders and shipped to the individuals who purchased them? If an author's first book was successful how high would the demand go for his second book?
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Entitlement
One hopes you can recognize sarcasm.
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
I've heard similar concepts somewhere before...if only I could remember what industry claims that if content was given away content creators would evaporate and never be able to make money contrary to the fact that numerous content creators are making even more money, while the 'distributors' are increasingly trying to 'protect' content creators from the evil consumers....
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Entitlement
Except how did the author survive while writing the first book?
"Only a very, very few people can do the former, practically anyone can do the later."
Although this may be true would you try and fix the water main or would you call a plumber?
Writing is a talent, much like anything else. Lets look at your eBook question from a different comment to correlate an idea; the author has almost no cost of distribution once the work is created, and doesn't need a pesky publisher-distributor-bookseller anymore, so how do they sell the book when five minutes after it is released it can be forwarded(in a DRM free environment) to anyone without having to receive it from his site? He creates 'finite' goods to sell and includes the content of the story with it, maybe if he writes with pen and paper this content is a signed page from his original version before he typed it into the computer, or maybe its the toothbrush he uses, or book readings from the author, who knows what a creative mind could come up with.
Or, ...gasp, he writes because he enjoys it and pays his bills with a job where he makes a salary.
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
Lets use another example. With a new author their first book may only have cost the publisher $1,000 to purchase; the publisher makes up 4,000 hard-cover books, maybe a few special one with a leather binding or something like that. These initial books are to be released across the nation at book stores on a given 'release date', if the publisher does it's job these initial books sell without an issue; however once these books are released anyone can take the story and copy it and sell it. The new author is a huge hit and makes some money promoting the book by signing copies, any copy not just the initial ones created by the first publisher. This first story was such a large success that the public can't wait to get their hands on the next book. The author writes the second book, possibly approached by multiple publisher's offering differing deals for the right to first publish; the author agrees to the best deal for himself and finishes writing the book. The publisher receives the book paying the author $500,000, and creates 1 million hard cover copies for release; the buzz about this second book is huge and every copy is purchased and then follows the same general process as the first. This creates a larger demand on these 'first' edition books for this author.
To recap, the author created a book and received compensation. The book was a huge success and so with the second book the compensation was much larger, since the risk of not selling copies was low to the publisher.
"Besides, what about, say, ebooks?...."
Actually with an eBook why would the need a publisher? To take something I've learned here on TechDirt if an author could write a story and release it as an eBook, he could make it where he is selling some other 'finite' good and giving the story away with it. This would, and does, require a completely different business model than the writer/publisher/distributor/bookseller one.
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
So during this time that the author is working on the project where does his money, food, housing come from, thin air?
"If he does a great job and makes a great product, he's rewarded for it. If he makes a crappy product he's not. Simple."
You speak about reward, but its a matter of just compensation for their time...I would go into greater detail but I believe one of my other comments already covers this.
"If an inventor starts a business making whatsits, and the market falls in love with his whatsits and he sells millions of them, then he is well rewarded for his invention, yes?
Why should not a great author have the same benefit?"
Finally, you are talking about a unique item this 'whatsit' which this inventor creates. Personally I'm for doing away with patents but that's another discussion. Now if this 'whatsit' is easy to replicate then it will be easy to piece together. Just as an example let us say that up until now no ladder's ever existed, only step stools, one day an inventor decides to make a 'ladder' out of wood using bolts and reinforced steel rods to add structure and starts to sell this innovation. I stroll by his ladder stand and look it over, this would be really useful but I can make it better and I go home and use a welder to create a ladder completely from steel. I have used this innovators 'idea' to build a ladder, if I hadn't seen his ladder I may have never built it. However if I have no idea how to make one myself then I would purchase from this person. The same goes for any other innovation. I could go into much greater detail but the association you are trying to make between a physical object and a story (which are ideas) is not very relevant to this discussion about copyright.
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
Look above for a good example in my other comment. I detail that the author more than likely will get paid, however just because they spent years writing a book doesn't mean they deserve to get paid for 1, 5,10, 20, 70 years for the same story; they should get one payment from a publisher for the ability to print the story first, after that it's public domain. I think Derek Kerton said it fairly well with the following comment farther down the page(or up depending on your view):
"Think of Grok the caveman storyteller. He invents a good story, tells it, and then everyone he told is free to repeat it."
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
Lets take a look at an unknown author, they have no contracts and essentially must create a good enough work to 'sell' it, being able to eat and live indoors while they create this first work is more than likely covered by the job they have when they are not writing. Once they have completed their work and are able to sell the right of first publish to a given publisher they receive an amount from the publisher, the amount would be an agreed upon sum between the two parties. Look now the author has some money to use for food and living indoors while he writes the next book, if it's not enough to pay all the bills until they sell this book then they...get/keep a job.
If the first book sold out of the initial production amount, and then was sold by many book vendors, selling many copies and creating a large demand for this second book then the author knows they can charge the next publisher more money for this second book. I could go on, but this is called getting compensated for something you create rather than getting compensated for something you created 5, 10,..., 75 years ago.
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: re rewards, etc.
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking
On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It
Re: Re: Shocking
Besides missing the point you state:
"One should also note that that in order to produce new work one still needs to be able to live off the proceeds of the existing work."
This is not a logical or factual argument as the artist, author, painter, etc. does not 'need' to live off the proceeds of their old work. It is true that 'in order to produce new work one does need to be able to live', but that is where the fact/logic ends. It would be nice for the artist, author, etc. to be able to live off their existing work but not necessary for their continued survival. Your type of argument falls into the category of 'entitlement society', once content creators and their representatives move away from this type of thinking everyone wins.
To conclude, I can not stress this enough, where in the constitution does it say that the heirs (often times several generations removed) of content creators should receive the patent/copyright for work they did not do?
On the post: Tech Company Sues Gartner Because It Doesn't Like How Gartner Placed It In Its Magic Quadrant
Wasn't sure if I was going to make a comment on this one..
On the post: Trying To Explain The Economics Of Abundance In Two Minutes Or Less With A Whiteboard
Re:
Although true in that there are a limited number of Music Albums/Songs and Movies, the ability to replicate said movies makes it an abundant resource. When a company has the ability to take a movie such as '300' and make it available to have an infinite number of copies then the movie itself is an abundant good; however the ability to see it in the theater once, twice, etc. is a limited good. Hopefully your MBA friends understand that simple explanation since they missed Mike's.
"Pirated copies may be abundant, but that is a situation that even a first year business student knows is not supportable."
Second, where in the video does Mike talk about Pirated copies? I thought he was talking about the ability of the companies themselves to release a digital form; for instance iTunes or did you forget that you can buy stuff through iTunes and the music could easily be free instead of charged. After all how much did you spend on that iPod or iPhone?
On the post: OnStar Used To Stop Carjacked Car
Re: Re: When will the police try to utilize it in highspeed chases?
Nope, it's called Innocent Until proven Guilty...so just because you are running from the cops...does not mean you will be convicted of running from the cops.
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