Downloading is a human right.

[chikusho]

I would like to extend that to doctors, teachers, pilots, garbage collectors, etc. If they are passionate about their work they will do it without pay.

First of all:

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.teacherswithoutborders.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Pilots_Association

Secondly, in all the fields mentioned, people have gone above and beyond what they are "paid to do" in order to be better at their craft, without promise or expectation of an extra penny. There have always been doctors pushing the limits of medicine in order to find cure to any and all ailment, academics who are managing journals, doing research, reviewing other research and innovating in their field, and pilotes who have volunteered to almost suicide-like missions and tests in order to further understanding of aerodynamics and human potential, and this in occupations with a set fee. If you think any of this has to do with _money_, the weakest and most ineffective motivation of all, then I feel sorry for you and your perception of humanity.

 

[Do4600]

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

There is plenty of other ways to get paid. Like donations. Or collecting the money first, Kickstarter style. And there is probably other possible schemes too.

Yeah, or standing on the corner with a guitar and begging.

 

[micahrp]

If all digital content would be open to the public for access, then the Internet as a whole would be a form of public domain. And vice versa, if listening on any open-air performance would be controlled by the artists through law, then the places where these are held would automatically be the artist's private domain.

That's basically my whole argument, that large, non-scarce portions of the Internet (that is, the content on it) SHOULDN'T be locked away as someone's property, but be a public surface, analogous to a street that anyone can walk on, and art and entertainment should exist without limiting my movement on it.

So you are basically just begging the question, by citing how "the street performer is a free speech user in a public setting." but "copyright holders have the right to keep their products private".

It's not so much that I want "this privacy" to be illegal, that I think it shouldn't be considered a form of privacy to begin with. An already released content is already a subject of public discourse, it is lifted into popular culture, and it is naturally accessible through a publically available technology. Therefore, declaring that it is in someone's "privacy rights" to stop others from repeating it, is unfair.

What if we would have the technology to easily create tens of thousands of whales? Would that make whale hunting OK?

What if we would have the cigarettes that don't cause any smell or unhealthy effect to outsiders? Would that make ignoring the public smoking bans OK?

That's the difference between commandments that stem from natural law, and that had been the cornerstone of all civilizations for thousands of years, and legal regulations that exist for a specific practical purpose that may or may not stay relevant on the long term.

Copyright is the latter. It has been written solely because the early modern era's book printing needed to be regulated, and at the time, this appeared to be a simple way to do it.

That's what all the "piracy is theft" comments are about. Trying to associate it with a universal sin, as opposed to the infringement of a regulation that may not even be necesary to begin with.

First off, thank you I actually enjoyed reading this one. I apologize if my posts are like nails on chalkboards.

The internet as public domain would be fully wonderful and totally possible as long as people only upload what they create or have permission to upload. Just convince the copyright holder to upload it publicly.

As for the streets, we do define where the street ends and where individuals lawn starts and if you need grass and trees we have public parks. You don't get to go into someones backyard and start grilling even if their grass is lusher and they have a pool and somehow you have the technology attached to your torso that allows you to walk into their yard.

Since the open air public performance's have been covered as free speech not business, I am taking this as an open air paid performance. How many open air paid performances have no gatekeeping? Or if they do gatekeep, do they maximize the area those gates cover to the point where the sound quality value has diminished enough that they no longer care if someone is listening or beyond that range they will have property problems?

At what point did the product get raised to become public? I still haven't been convinced a private product privately sold to individuals is culture. At what number of individual sales is it no longer private?

What is unfair about stopping them? I hate the word fair. It is not used right and is used too often and is not accompanied by a basis of comparison (thank you Jim Henson, we still miss you). The closest to a basis of comparison you gave is "it is naturally accessible through a publically available technology" so we shouldn't "stop others from repeating it" (I hope you don't mind that quote I believe I kept your thought in tact). My rebuttal is: it wasn't available in the n=1 case. Someone had to be first. So someone uploaded it when it wasn't "naturally available". Or is this an example where the n=1 case is false but the n+1 case and the nth case is true and the principle doesn't violate logic.

I feel as a consumer that I benefitted from them profitting. Also, I guess it is my feelings on work. Those who do the work get the rewards. And I don't believe all work is equal so I suggest sticking to work people want.

As for the whales, I think there would be a point where it would be illegal NOT to hunt whales (I think 500 trillion whales or so would do it, maybe a few less). Every law has breaking points, but until it is shown that every combination of words and notes and color have been made I don't think we've reached it. Some ok threshholds might be: 60,000 words, 10 minutes of standard scale eighth notes or an 11x14 canvas size with the same dpi and palate as a current hd tv. Sorry music you get the short end of the stick, but I hate you. Oh and I guess moving pictures would be covered by the combination of all 3 of those.

Nope, I hate those fake smoking things. My friend has one and it makes my head spin and then later a bit of nausea.

 

[TKretts3]

I wouldn't go as far as to call it a human right. A civil liberty for sure, but not an innate right which all humans are entitled to. The same as any privilege, it should have requirements (In this case technological and monetary), and restrictions (Piracy), and repercussions when used maliciously.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

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.

First, I didn't say "artists shouldn't do art for money". That would be a silly thing to say and I don't really care what artists should or should not do.

Secondly, as you pointed out I'm not an artist which makes it all the more disappointing that I haven't received a single reply that gave thought to what the artist actually is and what their relationship to other people in the world is, which seems to be necessary to answer any question relating to artists' rights. You say you are in art school. Are you really of the opinion that an artist is someone who makes goods to be consumed for payment? Is that really why you're studying art?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

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".

If your not concerned with getting paid, then you are also not what I would call, "Well fed" or "Not homeless".

Seriously, there is a middle ground here. Artists want to get paid for doing a good job, just like every other person in the world, and that is a good thing. There's mitigating factors for piracy, and problems with the way things are now, but the idea that artists shouldn't want to get paid for there efforts is fundamentally absurd.

I think you assumed that when I say "artist" I was talking about the person who produces art. I wasn't. That should clear up the misunderstanding.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

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".

your kidding right?

are YOU an artist? like I already said...its not always fun and it takes dedication, if you want to be at your best as an artist then you need time, the most valuable thing.Feeling burnt out by your day job may be nessicary somtimes but not good if your want to put out good work

exposure is great and if the art in question is in a place where it is for free then fine

but in cases when it is a product then its not right to take for free...YOU do not dictate what the artist should/does want, thats just arrogant

Again, we're talking about artists. You're talking about a trader of some sort. Artists have not always produced art in return for material benefits and it is not outrageous to claim that the greatest artistic works in history were produced without any returns, nor the intention of any. It need not even be mentioned that artists who do their "work" for the money and find no reward in the production itself, are generally useless.

It says a lot about our modern era that an artist's role is narrowed down to a "job" in and of itself and therefore deserving of payment for services.

Yes it is....

It is for a fact an outrageous claim.
Our greatest artworks of almost any era has been works of commission.

The Sistine Chapel was made on the wealth of the church.

The great symphonies were composed for the entertainment of the noble or use of political parties.

The whole idea of purist art for the sake of art denies people the ability to live on their craft and hone it. Really it is an absurd suggestion. We like their artwork for their talent and their skill to execute said talent. Talent is what you are born with in my opinion, but skill takes practice. Practice takes time. And time is money.

It's not a purist idea, it's what the artist in fact is - the medium through which art is produced. As long as we cannot see this and we can only view art through the commercial structures of the day, it's going to be difficult to answer the crucial questions which are raised by the encounter between art and technology.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Well if we take that logic to an extreme, many of the classic artists like Da Vinci and Michaelangelo weren't artists either as they did work by commission, as in, people paid them (very generously) to make portraits of nobles and other prominent figures, granted, some of that money was used to fund pet projects with some artists, but others basically spent their whole lives working commissions. Others tried to sell off (older) works of theirs to try and stay aloft financially. And I personally don't feel that invalidates them as artists. Or their creations as art.

(Captcha: love-hate)

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

If you expect someone to live on nothing and produce something you want to enjoy, you can suck a big fat one. Even artists like Michelangelo and Da Vinci had rich patrons allowing them to actually live and eat etc. If someone's doing handstands on the street for general public consumption, of course you owe them nothing - there's no written contract and they're taking their chances. In fact, you're doing them a favor not complaining about them if you don't like what they're doing. That's different from people trying to sneak into a show or pirate games/movies etc, which is an invasive kind of theft.

The real villains of the piece are selfish idiots, whether they're middle men giving themselves undeserved excessive cuts or consumers stealing the end product. You need a sensible business strategy that doesn't shaft people or you.

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

It's a human right in Sweden, where Piracy is legal.

It's not a right anywhere else in the civilised world. Particularly Europe, the UK, North America, Australia, or Japan (the biggest regions for the industry)

Eh? I think you are referring to Switzerland there.

Piracy is not legal in Sweden, especially since the Ipred laws were enacted in 2009.

 

[chikusho]

snip

Noone is arguing that commissioned work can't be art.

If you expect someone to live on nothing and produce something you want to enjoy, you can suck a big fat one.

But you can rightly expect someone to live on nothing while they produce something you don't enjoy.
The point is, money on its own is a lousy motivator, and passionate people will create works of passion forever, whether or not anyone pays them, which has been proven time and time again by the passionate people who create works of passion since forever whether or not anyone pays them. The phenomenon of free content spread on the internet (including illegally, such as piracy) is helping these people get discovered and generate interest in their work, which in turn will help them transform their passion into a source of income. It doesn't work the other way around.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

There's certainly a lot of truth to what you say, there's no denying that financial motivation is not the only source of motivation. It's more once they've established a channel of income and if people then steal from that, where the problem lies. If you don't like what someone produces, you shouldn't be motivated to steal it. And it wouldn't hurt if the artist had a backup job to minimise the chance of financial disaster from people stealing their work.

It's like Nassim Taleb says in 'Anti-fragility' - "You can't predict exactly when and how something can fail, but you can build systems that aren't so fragile." So anti-fragile business "plans" where something like piracy can be a positive really should be what the artist does. Maximise the upside (through exposure of your product) while minimising the downside (possibly losing everything through theft and overcommitment to your art without any other means of support). Easier said than done of course and you have to experiment to try out new ideas (which is what a lot of art is)

 

[SteewpidZombie]

(Gonna CLEAR up some things, because obviously too many people are arguing about Piracy without understanding the context of the whole situation).

You can upload and download ANYTHING related to the pursuit of knowledge or culture in Europe, and nobody can say no. So if you wanted to read a book about the ancient history of Rome, you CAN! And it's no longer illegal, even if the book was published only 10 minutes earlier. So long as you can prove (In a court of law) that you were pursuing knowledge/information for cultural or important reasons, and that you NEEDED to use that particular source. Which of course means that simply hitting 'DOWNLOAD' on half of Amazon.com is still illegal, but if your country banned the sale of a particular book or source of information or a company simply put a absurd price on it, it is perfectly legal to obtain and read it if it is providing you with information.

HOWEVER

Downloading videogames, Music, and Movies that are considered 'Entertainment' is still illegal.

It's supposed to be a law that PROTECTS the right of everyone to receive information. Which is the same as if all the schools suddenly decided that all students with Green eyes weren't allowed to read books. This law is just a way to ensure that REGARDLESS, those Green eyed kids can get ahold of that information and read their books even when someone says they can't. Or for another example if you're from a poor family and cannot afford to attend school, you can download or get ahold of those books/information illegally IF it's merely providing you with the Right to Education.



EDIT: Because the 'Right to an Education' is protected in most first world, and developing nations. So if someone tries to prevent the public from becoming educated (Propaganda, Blocking websites, ect.), they cannot sue or have you arrested for pursuing that knowledge for yourself. Basically making Knowledge/Human Rights TRUMP Copyright Laws. (A modern version of when Scientists were finally being able to publish theories and pursue knowledge WITHOUT the interference of the Church).

 

[The-Traveling-Bard]

Snip

Aye. I don't think a company really loses money over piracy to the amount they claim, but the problem is that.. they *could* lose that amount of money. Companies who make games and blame their failure on piracy need to check themselves. Because if you make a good game you won't have an issue in succeeding. I think a lot of companies are too busy making cash outs, stupid dlc, half-assed games to get a quick dollar while great companies like cd projekt red are making it big because they take their games seriously.

I *could* die tomorrow and I have a higher chance of it because I drive a motorcycle during winter. Doesn't mean it'll happen, doesn't mean that I'm anywhere near the statistic, because anyone who takes precautions and makes an effort will do well. Accidents happen, but that's an exception, not a tendency, so you should forget all about potential losses.
The entertainment industry has mostly realized this and is trying to find ways around it and so should you.

I apologize for the analogy, I hate making those and it's obviously not completely relatable. At least it makes sense compared to the string of theft analogies that so many constantly come up with.

Lol, I agree.

But still
"Cysis 2 clinches the dubious honour for the most pilfered PC game of 2011, with an estimated 3.92 million illegal downloads. " That's almost 4 million copies. I know this is old, but that's still a problem. I don't know like the way companies are handling things with DRM (Mostly the always online DRM crap.) I think it would help if they started to release demos again instead of expecting people to throw out 60 dollars every time EA decides to throw out a cash grab.

 

[Lilani]

Are you really of the opinion that an artist is someone who makes goods to be consumed for payment? Is that really why you're studying art?

For me, those are two very different questions. Yes I think an artist makes (or at least can make) goods to be consumed for payment. You can go to Hobby Lobby or a furniture store and buy factory-prints or handmade furniture, so why wouldn't an individual be able to do the same? I see no difference between paying Hobby Lobby for a print to hang on my wall and paying an artist for a handmade work to hang on my wall, apart from a greater percentage of the money going to the creator and the uniqueness of the product. They don't have to, if that's what you're trying to get me to say, but they certainly can. An artist isn't just one thing, but I thought for the purposes of this thread we were talking about artists who were selling their things.

As for your second question, why am I studying art, I suppose yes I am wanting to make money for studying art, but I suppose knowing my degree would be more helpful to you. My major is computer animation, so what I'm hoping to make money from is producing animations and motion graphics for either a single client over time or multiple clients at an ad firm. I still consider that art, even though it might not be character animation I still use principles of arts and graphic design to make my work. I don't really want to freelance if at all possible, I do want a certain amount of security and regularity.

But as for everyone else, I don't think I could name a single person I've met in the art department who doesn't have some desire to make money for what they do. Many consider it to be the perfect job--creating stuff day and night, and paying the bills with their work without having to have a day job. Of course they're doing it for the art, but there's no reason they can't make money off of it as well. Just because the job is their passion doesn't mean they can't plan to make a few bucks off of it. I mean, just holding onto the stuff they make isn't reasonable from a practical standpoint. Professional artists can produce hundreds, if not thousands, of works in a single year. You can't just hold onto that stuff, you have to get it moving either through galleries or into the hands of buyers or else you both run out of space and money.

 

[DracoSuave]

The problem is, people usually don't get paid for the work through game purchases. Somebody ELSE who then funds the artists/programmers etc gets paid.

Publishers are the ones at stake here, not gaming itself. Video games have already proved themselves to be a highly desired item. Even if one means to make money off of it is destroyed, someone else will come up with a different method.

You fail economics forever.


The artists get paid for their work--if it's the publishers doing so, where do you think that money comes from to pay the artists? Do you think that if you don't pay the publishers the artist will end up paid still?

No.

Because without the reason to make that money, there's no need for the artist to make that product. And if there's no need for the artist, he doesn't get paid because he doesn't work.

Developers get their pay beforehand.

It doesn't matter if you pay your worker beforehand or afterhand. If you don't have work to give them, you have no reason to pay them. And if a company goes out of business because they're not getting paid, there's no work to give the developer.

No work=no pay.

This isn't difficult, man. No money=no work. No work-no pay. No pay=artist has no food.