In a message dated 1/6/2005 9:58:30 AM Mountain Standard Time, holden.mcgroin@dsl.pipex.com writes: I'd not argue that some people in creative industries do work for similar reasons as your steelworker and waitress above. However, I would argue that the vast majority of people create not because they make a living that way but because they enjoy the act of creation. Every day, I meet people who write books (even ones that I'd consider worth publishing) but never send off a copy to any publishers or agents. Every day, I meet people who write, perform and record music not because they're secretly hoping for a contract from the record industry but because they enjoy making music and they enjoy that they can give people a little entertainment. Goodie for them. I WRITE FULLTIME. Making a living is important to me. I am no longer physically capable of doing any other work. And I am sick and tired of this patronizing attitude from somebody who knows absolutely nothing whatever of the kind of work I do or the fact that it is extremely HARD work. If I gave a complete answer to this I would set fire to the internet. So I will simply say that you are totally and completely out of your mind. It is quite obvious that you hate anybody who wants to make a living in the arts. As long as YOU get paid for whatever YOUR paid work is, you care far too little what happens to anybody else. Knowing somebody who writes books is not the same as writing books yourself. When I was a teacher, I got paid monthly. When I was selling telephone systems to businesses, I got paid biweekly. When I was a cop, I got paid biweekly. As a writer, I get paid whenever some editor decides to get up off her butt and send me a check. If my book sits on her desk for a year because she's too lazy to open it and look at the first three pages, which is all it takes to say "No, I don't want this," that's my problem, as is the fact that most editors won't look at simultaneous proposals at all. Greg, I'm sorry. I know you like me to stay current with what's going on in the mailing lists. But I'm taking four blood-pressure meds already. I'm bailing out. I will do all the things that I am committed to doing, and you know what they are. But I'm not going to read this crap anymore. Anne
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 04:05:36PM -0500, Gutenberg9443@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 1/6/2005 9:58:30 AM Mountain Standard Time, holden.mcgroin@dsl.pipex.com writes:
On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 at 11:20:36 EST, Gutenberg9443@aol.com wrote:
For cryin' out loud, YOU CANNOT HAVE LABOR OF ANY KIND, WHITE COLLAR OR BLUE COLLAR, WITHOUT PAYING THE LABORER. Karl Marx and Jesus Christ agree on this, though they disagree as to how it should be done.
I'd not argue that some people in creative industries do work for similar reasons as your steelworker and waitress above. However, I would argue that the vast majority of people create not because they make a living that way but because they enjoy the act of creation. Every day, I meet people who write books (even ones that I'd consider worth publishing) but never send off a copy to any publishers or agents. Every day, I meet people who write, perform and record music not because they're secretly hoping for a contract from the record industry but because they enjoy making music and they enjoy that they can give people a little entertainment.
Goodie for them. I WRITE FULLTIME. Making a living is important to me. I am no longer physically capable of doing any other work. And I am sick and tired of this patronizing attitude from somebody who knows absolutely nothing whatever of the kind of work I do or the fact that it is extremely HARD work.
You two seem to get passionate, argue irrationally, and mix different kinds of problems here. This bogus (to me) argument often appears when people complain about the development of the sharing of material on P2P systems and the like: "artists (Artists!) need to be able to make a living, etc.". Either you are some kind of modern slave, and you do a job you don't like because you need the money: a contract promises in advance some money to you in exchange for your work. This can be blue-collar work or some command-blue-collar work, even creative works. Either you like what you are doing, and you would do it anyway (or if not, you are willing to take the risk to be successful or not). I agree most waitresses and steelworkers wouldn't do their job if they didn't need the money. Many people are unlucky enough to have to do a job they hate (or don't like) for this reason. I agree some (most?) creators would create (nearly as much or as well) no matter what. But some time creators and artists who advocate copyright laws to ensure their living give, in such discussions, the feeling that they want the society at large to pay them for their creation no matter how good or bas it is. A simple criterium (and maybe, the only one found until now, no matter how imperefct) is public success: either you work sells, and you are entitled to money, either you fail to please many, and why demand money for your work? Get a public or cultural institution to sign you up a contract before you start working on this obscure field, or forget the idea to be paid for it! Anne, you write fulltime, with no contract warranties. In the present situation, you make make ends meet and make a living with that. If copyright laws get less harsh as some people would like them to, you are afraid the balance will shift and you will not be able to make a living writing any more. Fine. So what? Laws are not supposed to be designed to give anybody a way of living; they should serve the public good and make life better for most. Many people would like to do nothing but their pet hobby and be paid for it, and can't do it. Maybe the society would be better off with shorter copyright terms, even though that would prevent some creators (like you) to live like they do now. If tomorrow copyright laws change and the new situation makes it impossible for you to keep making a living doing what you do now, you will know in advance. Whenever you choose to work on a new book, you will know what protection and money you can expect from laws and society (market, editors power, etc.). If that money is the only reason for you to create, then you won't create any more. Nobody will have lied to you or stolen you. This is the idea of non retroactivity of law. I guess (most) people who advocate changes in copyright law don't ask to change the law with retroaction. If tomorrow some brave governement listens to them and passes a law taking copyright protection down to 14 years or so, there will still be a big black cultural hole in the XXth century. Unless something really hard happens, like a revolution or a war (after all, copyright is one of the first industries in the world now, many wars have been fought on less than that). Even like that, your grand-children should be able to sue for breach of retroativity (unless some non-democratic governement takes place for long enough for all of them or for the case to be inwinnable). And if in the meantime you and your children will have been deprived of your "legitimate rights" because there was a war, a dictatorship or whatever, well, I can't see how to avoid brute force to prevail. This happened to many. When Michael Hart spoke in the offices of the French National Assembly last year, somebody asked him what would be *his* ideal copyright laws. He replied this: http://quatramaran.ens.fr/~blondeel/conf/2004-02-13-Hart-AssembleeNationale.... -=-=-= Question: In their place, what copyright laws would you have set up? Answer: My proposal is to design a program to predict sales curves. Database(?): when any book has sold, copyright expires. When a book is out of print, copyright expires. And print on demand dosn't count, we are not playing games here: the book has to be on a frequent shelf. That would give them the lion's share of the profit. Sales fall off fast. In 5, 10, 15, 20... 25 years, 99% of books have sold all they are ever gonna sell. After 5 years, 50% of books are out of print. -=-=-= (note: go up to the directory to find the speech he gave in UNESCO)
Question: In their place, what copyright laws would you have set up?
Answer: My proposal is to design a program to predict sales curves.
Database(?): when any book has sold, copyright expires. When a book is out of print, copyright expires. And print on demand dosn't count, we are not playing games here: the book has to be on a frequent shelf.
That would give them the lion's share of the profit. Sales fall off fast.
In 5, 10, 15, 20... 25 years, 99% of books have sold all they are ever gonna sell. After 5 years, 50% of books are out of print.
Use-it-or-lose-it copyright is an interesting idea, but one that was born too late, for reasons suggested above. With traditional distribution channels, a product being in print was a good surrogate for a product still having commercial value, because the costs of keeping something in print ensured that it was foolhardy to keep something in print unless it still had commercial value. And this applied to other media as well as to print. But with modern distribution methods, like print-on-demand, it costs little to keep something in print indefinitely. And this can only be a good thing for all concerned. Why should print-on-demand be excluded, other than that it wrecks a use-it-or-lose-it copyright scheme? For books with expected runs of only a few thousand copies, it is already cost-competitive as the primary means of distribution, and its range of applicability can only increase. If someone finally gets around to producing a PDA that's as much joy to read as a printed book, and ebooks become a major part of the publishing industry, we may see titles that were only ever available via download. In the music business, there are already titles that have only ever been available via mp3.com or iTunes. I forsee more and more media being distributed via means such that the concept of being "in print" becomes increasingly obsolete. A scheme to adapt to this changing world might work as follows: When a copyright is registered (and while you don't have to register to have one, you do have to register to have one worth enforcing) the rights holder assesses a value for the work. They are free to change this value according to market conditions. As real property is taxed based on its assessed value, intellectual property would also be taxed on its assessed value. Meanwhile, the assessed value can be used to set prices in a compulsory licensing system. When a work no longer has comercial value, it behooves the rights holder to devalue it to the point where public use is essentially free, or be assessed tax on something that is no longer valuable to them. -- RS
participants (3)
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Gutenberg9443＠aol.com -
Robert Shimmin -
Sebastien Blondeel