Downloading is a human right.

[aelreth]

It should be, but as everyone has stated the world doesn't work that way, as least as it is now. I wasn't saying people should produce their commodities for free, apologies if it appeared that way.

If you're going to sit here and argue that artists shouldn't do art for money, then you clearly don't know anything about how the art world works. Many artists get education, which costs money. They buy supplies, which costs money. They either produce their own pieces or produce pieces on commission, and then either sell them freelance or get themselves and their works known through galleries. In the galleries, they can either sell them or gain more commissions.

I know all this because I am an art major in college, and I am in a senior class with many other artists who are about to enter the "real world" of art. It is a business. Galleries run like businesses. Museums run like businesses. They may have mission statements that say how much they're about art, and if they are owned and operated by artists themselves then they may be more about the art. But in the end something has to pay the rent in those spaces, somebody has to pay the gallery workers who put up installations and schedule exhibitions, and somehow the artists themselves have to afford more supplies to work with.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If you think I'm wrong, then find an art instructor at a university or talk to somebody who works at a gallery. They'll tell you how much business sense you have to have in order to make it as an artist.

Pardon me, I would have thought that in Academia that those teaching the class are insulated enough from the real world that they don't adequately prepare their students for it. Does that mean your instructor actually has experience outside of the university?

 

[Lilani]

Pardon me, I would have thought that in Academia that those teaching the class are insulated enough from the real world that they don't adequately prepare their students for it. Does that mean your instructor actually has experience outside of the university?

Well that is sort of what they're going to school for, lol. To learn the principles of art and to launch their careers. That is the entire goal of this class I'm taking--to finish up our senior exhibitions and present them in the best way possible. We're also doing resumes (which is a bit boring to me because I've already taken another class on those), and learning about the structure of museums and galleries so we know how to deal with them.

The teacher runs our class and is the main coordinator of the school's two art galleries. She has been working in galleries most of her professional life, which made the transition pretty smooth. I believe she said it's been 17 years since she graduated, so that would make it about 15 years she's been in galleries. So yes, she has experience, lol. And the entire point of this class is to get us set up for finding a career in the "real world." And all of the instructors are practicing artists. Not all of them may be showing work, but they do commissions and all started their careers selling their art.

I am curious as to why you asked this question, though. Have you been to a university before and had a bad experience, or have you just gotten this bad impression from others? Of course it varies upon your teachers and such, but most of mine have been very helpful in helping me chart a course after graduation, and have never at any point failed to acknowledge that real life will begin after school ends. And from what I understand from my non-art major friends, they are all the same way. I can't think of any of them that don't have some sort of plan for what they're doing after they graduate. If anything, going to school has been an experience that has caused them to mature. Being away from their parents, having to make their own decisions and live up to their responsibilities.

 

[aelreth]

Pardon me, I would have thought that in Academia that those teaching the class are insulated enough from the real world that they don't adequately prepare their students for it. Does that mean your instructor actually has experience outside of the university?

Well that is sort of what they're going to school for, lol. To learn the principles of art and to launch their careers. That is the entire goal of this class I'm taking--to finish up our senior exhibitions and present them in the best way possible. We're also doing resumes (which is a bit boring to me because I've already taken another class on those), and learning about the structure of museums and galleries so we know how to deal with them.

The teacher runs our class and is the main coordinator of the school's two art galleries. She has been working in galleries most of her professional life, which made the transition pretty smooth. I believe she said it's been 17 years since she graduated, so that would make it about 15 years she's been in galleries. So yes, she has experience, lol. And the entire point of this class is to get us set up for finding a career in the "real world." And all of the instructors are practicing artists. Not all of them may be showing work, but they do commissions and all started their careers selling their art.

I am curious as to why you asked this question, though. Have you been to a university before and had a bad experience, or have you just gotten this bad impression from others? Of course it varies upon your teachers and such, but most of mine have been very helpful in helping me chart a course after graduation, and have never at any point failed to acknowledge that real life will begin after school ends. And from what I understand from my non-art major friends, they are all the same way. I can't think of any of them that don't have some sort of plan for what they're doing after they graduate. If anything, going to school has been an experience that has caused them to mature. Being away from their parents, having to make their own decisions and live up to their responsibilities.

No I'm professional military, as you could guess we create our own prejudices. Thus I had a very colored bias, I was under the impression that your class was led by someone that went from student to teacher, never left the university. Apparently my bias was proved wrong. That's why I was genuinely surprised that was the case in your university. If this is the norm, I have some hope for the university system. Have you begun putting your foot in the door as a entree level part time in this field or have all the nearby galleries dried up?

 

[Lilani]

No I'm professional military, as you could guess we create our own prejudices. Thus I had a very colored bias, I was under the impression that your class was led by someone that went from student to teacher, never left the university. Apparently my bias was proved wrong. That's why I was genuinely surprised that was the case in your university. If this is the norm, I have some hope for the university system. Have you begun putting your foot in the door as a entree level part time in this field or have all the nearby galleries dried up?

Ah I see, lol. I do know that some majors are more like you described. Philosophy, in particular, is known to be a fairly useless major that only produces more philosophy teachers. And sometimes that can happen with the sciences, but with most other departments the instructors tend to have fairly broad careers. I think they start to get more "insulated" as you said once they get a PhD and a tenure. In my freshman semester I was required to take a class called "Intro to college life," and the teacher I had for that class put it like this: "A person with a PhD is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until finally they know practically everything about practically nothing."

So, yeah. It's a mix, but a pretty good one at my school anyway. I couldn't tell you if it's the norm or not, but I know my school is just a state-school and nothing special so it's not like they've pulled out all the stops for us. And actually I won't be entering the gallery system at all. My major is computer animation, and I'm hoping to either go into advertising or motion graphics for corporations (training videos, presentations, that sort of thing). I have a couple of things I'm looking into at the moment. So the class isn't actually very well suited for me, but I'm required to take it to graduate and I'm learning a lot of interesting stuff about galleries and museums.

Conveniently, the city the college is in is very receptive to galleries and art. There is a city-funded art museum here, and there are lots of galleries that all open themselves to the public and have mini-exhibitions every first Friday of the month. And most of them are downtown so that makes it very easy to go from one gallery to the other. That is actually why I'd like to stay in town if I can, I just love this place. I know a lot of other people in my class will be trying to get into these galleries, but some of them may also end up leaving. Some of them are going to grad school, some of them are trying to get positions at galleries or museums, and some of them just want to go straight into freelance art selling.

 

[aelreth]

Snip.

Thank you for your time.

As to the OT, if you want artists to work for you for free. You'll find that if they have legs, they will use them.

 

[Mykal Stype]

Hooray, I get to weigh in for stuff with more than an opinion! I have experience in this as an author.

So I'm making a children's book. The first thing I need is a place to write it as I can't write homeless. Then I need to pay for either a computer to write on--which is a one time service--or paper and pencil--which needs to be bought every time. After that, I need to pay bills to write, such as electricity. After all of that is done, then I need to do it again. And then I need to do it again. Repeat until I'm happy.
After that, I need to find an artist. As a first time writer, the publisher expects at least one full page. That means I have to drive--gas, car--to a place like the Art Institute, where I find an artist and have to pay him for his time and materials, no matter if I end up using him or not. Then I have to mail all of this back and forth with an editor--postage. I also need to not die while writing it, so that's food and water.

I would like someone to explain to me why my book should be free and that all of my payments were worth it. And no, the publisher does not pay you. You get an advance payment, which is small for a first time publisher, and will never see another dime until enough copies are sold.
And if art is so important, you also have to tell me why all of my time and effort is worth less money than yours.

I only believe in piracy as punishment. Saying that you should get something because you want it is bullshit.

 

[Mykal Stype]

I would like someone to explain to me why my book should be free and that all of my payments were worth it. And no, the publisher does not pay you. You get an advance payment, which is small for a first time publisher, and will never see another dime until enough copies are sold.

I think one of your fellow authors has you covered

Kind of, kind of not. He's talking about sales, not worth. So basically, if someone comes up to him and says "I pirated your book or got loaned your book, and I then bought more because I liked your work," he will be happy, as he said. If someone says "I pirated your book because your work and efforts have no value," then he'd be a bit pissed, or at least I assume he would be.

What I said was a response to people saying that the books should be free because "artists shouldn't want money for their work," or somebody was saying that if they do handstands in the street, they shouldn't get paid. But I'm sure that the handstand guy would even get angry if someone went up to him and said "you and what you are doing has no worth whatsoever. Do it again and again until I'm bored."

Basically, it's monetary vs. general value, and people are saying that art has no value, and therefore should be free to them (which essentially does say that it has value, they just don't want to pay for it and will make excuses).

 

[Mykal Stype]

Or you could put it like this: if I want an original Monet, I will need to pay a few million. I can buy a print of a Monet for ten dollars. Or I can go to a museum and see it in person for five. Why do these have monetary value, and is that reasonable?

 

[Entitled]

All I keep hearing in here is anti-corporate sentimate, but do you really live up to that? Do you only eat food you grow or buy in farmers markets? Do you not watch tv in some form? If this is only anti-entertainment corporate is that being hypocrital or lazy because their content in the easiest to violate?

No ideological motivation should be expected to automatically expected to follow itself to it's own logical extreme.

Just as wanting a smaller government than the one right now, doesn't mean that you are an anarchist, or wanting more government intervention doesn't mean that you are a communist. Caring more about the environment than others doesn't have to mean that you put animals in front of people, and being cynical about the newest technological developments doesnt have to mean that you have to live like an amish.

So no, I don't think that there is anything hypocritical about being anti-corporate in the sense of wanting corporations to have less authority, (e.g. in the field of controlling culture through copyright) while at the same time wanting corporations to continue existing, and even keep minor IP authorities that don't impact on personal freedoms as harshly as the current ones.

Actually, that's a good thought. What if the technology existed so anyone could copy everything (physical items, raw energy, people)? That points out this is a capitalism versus other market-type debate, not a democracy versus other government-type debate as the writer of that article points out (some lawyers in the comment section state the author is not reading the phrasing correctly about the "threat to democracy" level bruden of proof).

That is what really is being argued here is an infinite supply driving the value of the product toward zero but that is mixed with an economy that survives off limited supply goods with non-zero values (sorry sometimes I'm a bit slow with the absolute bottom line definition of things).

On my side, the argument is not really "capitalism versus other market-type", so much as between two possible forms of capitalism, one where everything that has a "value" in any informal sense must be pretended to be analogous to physical goods, and another one where only scarce goods should actually be sold, and the other, more intangible "values", such as culture, should be allowed to form without much government interaction.

Look at it this way: "fame" is a form of value. It's something that people want, and what they work for. But that doesn't mean that the government should actively give famous people authority to tax the general populance to reward their work that gave them fame. If there would be, people would argue that such a system is necessary to "pay for these goods", otherwise no one would be properly rewarded for being famous. But we don't have, so now we understand that fame is all right being either the goal for itself, or just a positive externality that people get while trying to be successful in other, more economically tangible business models.

It's the same with the value of "culture". You produced a piece of culture? Congratulations. You might even get paid for it, if you play your cards right and find a viable business model. You might even fund a corporation that will mass-produce cultural values by following that business model. There is already precedent for systems such as over-the air broadcasted TV, or most of all websites, that showed that content can get created without limiting the distribution of accees.

Creators can get a profit from ad space, from merchandise, from donations and crowdfunding, from live presentations, from selling physical copies, etc, etc. We can admit that corporations can already support themselves for these things, so we don't have to give them extra authority to protect their peculiar, outdated form of business wher they are playing gatekeepers, directly charging for access to any piece of culture, for seeing, for reading, for copying, for and playing.

 

[Strazdas]

Are the developers and artists getting the money the deserve, pirates? If not, throw some money at them. They'll be happy if you guys do it for the things you love.

I'm honestly baffled at what makes people pirate. Just pay for it if you like it, seriously. People could have avoided this if this happened instead of pirates sticking a middle finger at one party and forgetting the other parties affected.

The reason I jumped straight to piracy is that this just gave pirates some immunity. Pirating is not stealing, I get that. I don't get what's the issue with paying SOME amount of money to support what they love. Why are they letting the very things that they love not getting the money they deserve?

People pirate for many reasons.
1. its a better service.
2. with orgin and the co pirating is a SIMPLER way.
3. pirated version are foten far superior (no ads, no need to isnert CD, no need to be always online, ect)
4. whne buying only 10% or less go to the artist, everything else go to some rick people doing fuckall. no scrap that, they are trying their best to get bad media coverage all day long. Alternatively, you could use a donation model and pay 10% of the price and still have same amount of money reach the artist.
we have internet, publishers and retailers are obsolete. yet they get the most of the profit still.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Ugh, quoted the wrong person. Hate that.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Well that's cool and all but people still deserve to be paid for their work.

If you're an artist "getting paid" is producing your work and having it appreciated. If it isn't and it's about the money, you're not what I'd call an "artist".

Amazingly though, I'm sure you still expect to get paid for doing YOUR job, right? It may not be all about the money, but being able to eat and have a place to live are nice things to have.

Yes, but that still doesn't establish the claim that artists deserve to be paid. I could claim that I deserve to be paid for doing handstands in the middle of the street while people walk by.

Pure win here guys. This is the definition of a stupid comment. You equate a simple talent you could learn without paying money and without putting years of dedication into something like art? Wow. First off, my friend learned how to do handstands quickly, and easily so don't give me that shit that it takes forever and has as much merit as taking art courses and getting a degree.


First off, people get paid to do things because others need/want it. You standing on your hands isn't something people need/want.

Why don't you go do an 8 hour shift, weekly for a year. Don't get paid a single dime then come back and tell us how it feels to be given nothing in return for your work?

 

[Entitled]

Pure win here guys. This is the definition of a stupid comment. You equate a simple talent you could learn without paying money and without putting years of dedication into something like art? Wow.

That sounds about fair, since art is also something that you can profit from with a simple talent, that you could learn without paying money and without putting years of dedication into it.

You can make a living from drawing a stick figure comic panel three times a week. You can become a BILLIONAIRE from publishing your amateurish fanfiction with the trademarked names changed.

Getting paid isn't about exactly how hard work was, but about whether you can offer a scarce service that there is enough demand for.

I certainly don't agree with most of what Blood Brain Barrier said about how artists shouldn't get paid at all, but mduncan50's reaction was a massively wrong counterargument by implying that all possible work must be equally treated as a "job", and Barrier's analogy appropriately pointed out the difference between an effort, and a needed job.

You seemed to recognized that distinction in your reply, but then still played along with mduncan50's ideas, and pretend that it's only about the amount of effort making a difference between long-term dedication that must always get paid, and temporary effort that doesn't.

Which still doesn't make sense, if that would be the case, then flipping burgers would be just as worthless as standing on hands, while building an elaborate beautiful castle on your lot would automatically give you the right to get paid by someone for enriching the neighborhood's image, as much as for writing a beautiful novel with great skill and years of effort.

First off, people get paid to do things because others need/want it. You standing on your hands isn't something people need/want.

Yes, ultimately, that's the gist of it.

But when people pay for a piece of digital content, they are not paying for the existence of that, they are paying for the access to an aalready existing non-scarce data.

Which they don't actually need to pay for, or want to pay for. You could legitimately get paid for standing on hands, by finding a crazy person who directly pays you for standing on your hand in front of him. (or by finding a community that will pay you for building a castle). But you coudn't just decide for yourself that your effort has a value, thereby everyone who has access to it must pay.

Yet that's what modern copyright system does. It builds a wall around all pieces of modern culture, and if anyone wants to access any of it, to read any book, or listen to any song, they are forced to pay first before even accessing ANY cultural good, to support "the effort", instead of deciding that they want to fund work on a certain effort.

 

[Glasgow]

Ha. I sometimes feel ashamed for being in the EU. Their (official) understanding of human rights is ridiculous.

 

[Lilani]

Or you could put it like this: if I want an original Monet, I will need to pay a few million. I can buy a print of a Monet for ten dollars. Or I can go to a museum and see it in person for five. Why do these have monetary value, and is that reasonable?

Why wouldn't they have monetary value?

I mean really, how does this "real artists do it for free" logic even work? Where do you think they get the money for their supplies? How do you think they pay rent and live? Art has been a business for thousands of years, dating back to the first pottery and spiritual totems carved and traded. Art has never not been a business. Even the abstract expressionists of the mid 20th century, as renowned as they were for doing everything "from the soul" sold their pieces and had some incredible marketing forces behind them. The only way you can run around claiming that art is something that should be free for everyone is if you are completely ignorant of how art is created and distributed.

 

[Something Amyss]

However, things regarding piracy get more complicated when you're talking about things that are rare or never got a proper release, or when it comes to old games that never got a release on digital stores.

It's amazing. When you don't treat something as black and white, it becomes...Complicated.

The problem is, even the people you were tarring with that broad brush are complicated.

You're wrong.

Because ponies, I assume.

Being an artist does not include the notion of being compensated for provision of services - that's a function of the prevailing economic attitudes of the day.

And it's only in relatively recent times where that became an issue.

Further, imagine the likes of Da Vinci getting bitched out by pirates for the audacity to demand compensation for his work. Oh right, that didn't happen because the self-serving logic of the day hadn't come along to redefine things yet.

Maybe the proof is in my inbox which is somehow full of such opinions.

Elaborate, because this looks like an argumentum ad populum logical fallacy here, but I can't quite be sure.

 

[Mykal Stype]

Or you could put it like this: if I want an original Monet, I will need to pay a few million. I can buy a print of a Monet for ten dollars. Or I can go to a museum and see it in person for five. Why do these have monetary value, and is that reasonable?

Why wouldn't they have monetary value?
I mean really, how does this "real artists do it for free" logic even work? Where do you think they get the money for their supplies? How do you think they pay rent and live? Art has been a business for thousands of years, dating back to the first pottery and spiritual totems carved and traded. Art has never not been a business. Even the abstract expressionists of the mid 20th century, as renowned as they were for doing everything "from the soul" sold their pieces and had some incredible marketing forces behind them. The only way you can run around claiming that art is something that should be free for everyone is if you are completely ignorant of how art is created and distributed.

Yay, somebody gets it!

 

[Mykal Stype]

That sounds about fair, since art is also something that you can profit from with a simple talent, that you could learn without paying money and without putting years of dedication into it.

You can make a living from drawing a stick figure comic panel three times a week. You can become a BILLIONAIRE from publishing your amateurish fanfiction with the trademarked names changed.

Getting paid isn't about exactly how hard work was, but about whether you can offer a scarce service that there is enough demand for.

I certainly don't agree with most of what Blood Brain Barrier said about how artists shouldn't get paid at all, but mduncan50's reaction was a massively wrong counterargument by implying that all possible work must be equally treated as a "job", and Barrier's analogy appropriately pointed out the difference between an effort, and a needed job.

You seemed to recognized that distinction in your reply, but then still played along with mduncan50's ideas, and pretend that it's only about the amount of effort making a difference between long-term dedication that must always get paid, and temporary effort that doesn't.

Which still doesn't make sense, if that would be the case, then flipping burgers would be just as worthless as standing on hands, while building an elaborate beautiful castle on your lot would automatically give you the right to get paid by someone for enriching the neighborhood's image, as much as for writing a beautiful novel with great skill and years of effort.

If the person drawing stick figures is trying to do it for a living, no matter how bad they are, it's a job, just like any other job. But it also means you suck at it, which means no one will buy it, which is like getting fired.

the person with the castle is building the castle for nothing but their own benefit, so that wouldn't be a job. And if the neighbors find no value in it, they don't pay for it. The difference between stealing and that is that a thief claims there is no value in what they are stealing, and therefore they should be allowed to steal it, despite that they are actually claiming it has value.

 

[Mykal Stype]

I think this is the best argument for paying artists:

An artist can't pay bills in accolades, and can't eat off of pats on the back. So how do you think we survive when no one is paying us? We have to pick up a dead end job unloading boxes at the Piggly Wiggly. When we have no time to make art and are extremely tired when we do have time, we either won't produce more art, or the art suffers significantly.
And why do we work at a dead end job? Because it does give us a minor amount of time that we can work on our now shitty art, which we do because despite how you all steal our work, we still want to do it, because that's all we have left.

So what do you want? And artist that has time to put in thought to our work, or an artist that is constantly tired, depressed, and barely can deal with the art you all keep begging for anyway?

 

[Entitled]

If the person drawing stick figures is trying to do it for a living, no matter how bad they are, it's a job, just like any other job. But it also means you suck at it, which means no one will buy it, which is like getting fired.

Uhhh... I guess that's possible (and so is actually making a living from one, see XKCD, Order of the Stick, MS Paint Adventures), but I have the feeling that we are starting to completely lose the analogy about whether or not hardd long effort deserves to be rewarded for it's own sake.

the person with the castle is building the castle for nothing but their own benefit, so that wouldn't be a job. And if the neighbors find no value in it, they don't pay for it. The difference between stealing and that is that a thief claims there is no value in what they are stealing, and therefore they should be allowed to steal it, despite that they are actually claiming it has value.

Having a beautiful fancy building in your neighborhood has an aesthetic value, and it can even have a tangible financial benefit in the form of slightly raising local real estate prices.

In other words, you are wrong, "something that others are benefit from" isn't a proper justification why certain acts must get rewarded, either.

In economy, an act that has added benefits for surrounding people, is called a positive externality [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Positive], and it is usually considered a good thing. Other classic examples would be how having another apartment above helps to insulate your ceiling, or turning on a porch light as you step outside, to see the stairs, and a passerby on the street next to you using it to read the newspaper in their hand.

When a service or product ends up having benefits to other people beyond it's original investor, that's considered a good thing, because it increases value without unnecessarily increasing payment.

There is no reason why culture couldn't be treated like one of these, so it gets created by investors through any possible business model that they hope to profit from, but afterwards it's just there, accessible for the general population's mutual benefit.

Again, we already have multiple meiums that work like this, including much of the TV industry, most websites, and some smaller fandom-supported niches.