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[Bdthemag]

If people suddenly start deciding to charge for mods, and it becomes a popular standard, then the quality of said mods would drop because the main interest of the community then would be to make money, as opposed to making a quality product.

Given those charging money would be in competition with those who are not, they could only make money by making a higher-quality product than the freely available ones...

i.e. I dont believe the whole "people who charge money for something don't care about the quality/art etc". Infact, if they made some money they might even be able to work on it full time and produce a much more detailed and high-quality product. I do not see how making money and making quality software are mutually exclusive, is it not possible to do both?

If people suddenly made money off of mods, regardless of the quality, then it'd be apparent to people inside and outside the modding community that good money can be made off of mods. The drop of quality wouldn't be instant, but it'd basically resort to more and more people charging for their mods, until a majority of the community did so. Then it would basically just be modders trying to see how little work they can put into something, before they stop making money (Which is how the current game industry is.)

And as I mentioned in my post, it'd bring up issues regarding selling something heavily based off of a company's work, along with being heavily against the spirit and history of the modding community in general.

[LordBucket]

what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy

I admit I find that amusing. But it doesn't change my position. It is possible to have a society where copyright is in use and people pay for material and it is possible to have a society where copyright is not in use and people don't pay for material. I've never seen a compelling argument for why the copyright model is preferable.

[Moghjubar]

Piracy just isn't what it used to be.

Off the port bow, they raise the skull and crossbones and vow to give no quarter as they waylay your ship.  They seize all your goods and make you tremble in fear... then they use their expert carpenters and craftsmen to make perfect duplicates of your cargo, and determine which port you are going to.  They then sail off, leaving you bewildered, and give away their goods for free there, thus crashing the market and making your journey either less profitable or unprofitable. 

These pirates are the scourge of the inter-seas. 

[Criptfeind]

and it is possible to have a society where copyright is not in use and people don't pay for material.

What do you mean by this? Like. Some sorta world where people are in some crazy hivemind? Or maybe some world where we have infinite resources? Oh. I know, a world where people just love living at a low basic level of consumption?

[Vector]

I like abandonware.

I am really not into the other kind of piracy.  I've done some semi-professional translation work; most of it is available online, and if some shithead decided to steal what little of it we didn't give away for free I'd be pretty fucking pissed, because we're getting almost no funds as-is for something that was a huge amount of work.  Like, c'mon, at least give us our pittance.

I'm hoping we'll start doing some sort of online "Library of Alexandria" deal where you pay in every month and creators get a little money every time their thing is read.

[LordBucket]

What do you mean by this?

In retrospect my choice of the word "material" was vague. I'm referring to intangible creative works.

Let's work with a metaphor: nobody pays for air. It exists in sufficient abundance with sufficient availability that there's no reason to. But you could, hypothetically pump trillions of tons of toxic gas into the atmosphere, build a bunch of domes with clean air, build a limited number of air purifiers, and then charge for breathing your clean air. By creating artificial scarcity for something that was otherwise available in abundance, you create a market for it. And if you grew up in a society where paying for air was the norm and suggested to people that it would be possible to have a society where air was free...no doubt they'd ridicule you and ask who would pay for it on your behalf, how could you expect people to do the work to make the clear air available, etc.

Copyright creates artificial scarcity for intellectual/creative works where scarcity does not otherwise exist. This is its purpose.

If I bring an intellectual "creative" work into the world for which physical matter is not essential, it exists in that same sort of "sufficient abundance" as air. I wrote this thread post, and dozens or hundreds of people can see it at no additional cost or effort from me. You can copy it and reproduce it endlessly for trivial effort without taking it away from me. The same is true if I write a song, or a computer program, or take a digital picture, or make a movie...any of these things can be endlessly copied by others without taking it away from me

Anticipated response:
"Oh, but if you copy/pirate creative works, then you're "taking away" the opportunity for the creator to make money from it."

Yes, but that opportunity only exists because of the existence of artificial scarcity created by copyright and social stigma. You wouldn't suggest that I'm "taking away your opportunity to sell air" by discouraging factory pollution. It would be a silly argument. You wouldn't make it. The only reason you don't see copyright as a silly thing is because you've grown up in a society where it's the norm.

Now, yes...there do exist creative works for which there is significant cost to their creation. Obvious example: most movies cost dozens of millions of dollars to make. But, that is only so because we exist in a culture where the arbitrary convention is that movies are sold. There's no reason for that convention to exist except solely so that money can be made to change hands.

There is fundamentally no reason for copyright to exist except to enable people to artificially create scarcity in order to encourage the exchange of money.

Why is this a desirable goal?

Anticipated response:
"Because if people can't make money for what they do, they won't do it."

This is obviously untrue. Even in a society like ours where copyright does exist, there are still creators freely producing content because it's what they want to do. Yes, people sell books, but nevertheless people write and make their works freely available. Yes, microsoft makes and sells windows, but nevertheless there are people making and freely distributing operating systems. Yes, studios produce and sell porn, but nevertheless there's no shortage of it online. Music, art, software...take your pick, there are people out there making it because it's what they want to do and giving it away because they'd rather their work be appreciated than not.

I simply ask: if people will produce these things because they want to, because they enjoy it, if you are taking nothing from them by making copies of it...why is it better to create artificial scarcity and require that money be exchanged for it?

[Solifuge]

Piracy just isn't what it used to be.

Off the port bow, they raise the skull and crossbones and vow to give no quarter as they waylay your ship.  They seize all your goods and make you tremble in fear... then they use their expert carpenters and craftsmen to make perfect duplicates of your cargo, and determine which port you are going to.  They then sail off, leaving you bewildered, and give away their goods for free there, thus crashing the market and making your journey either less profitable or unprofitable. 

These pirates are the scourge of the inter-seas.

I liked the story... but I disagree with the sentiment at the end. The RIAA spins a tale of how piracy is destroying potential profits for music artists, but this is actually quite false. The decline we're seeing is in the Recording Industry's profits, not in the profits of the artists themselves. And it's not really due to piracy either; it's symptomatic of the Recording Industry becoming increasingly obsolete, thanks to new direct-distribution and direct-funding methods now available to artists. If artists are willing to adapt to a new market, they can reach their audience without needing to use the behemothic Record Labels as middlemen (middlemen who are notorious for profiting tremendously off of musicians, who only see a fraction of the profits their content actually earns). In fact, according to several studies conducted over the past decade or so, artists are doing better than ever, and it's thanks in part to the free sampling and word-of-mouth advertising enabled by peer-to-peer media piracy:

Smaller labels and smaller artists have seen significant benefits from online piracy. Waldfogel’s study also found that the percentage of independent labels in the Pitchfork Top 100, a measure of the Top 100 tracks each year, rose from 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s to 60 percent in the 2000s. A 2007 study in Management Science found that albums by artists with smaller labels last longer on the Billboard Top 100 in the era of digital than before it and another study (pdf) in 2004 found that file sharing provides increased exposure for new artists and leads to income redistribution throughout the music industry. In addition, a just-released study found that online file sharing has led to increased concert revenue for artists as online piracy has dispersed artists’ music more widely and given them a greater following.

I pirate, but only when I could never afford (or am completely unable to locate) the piece of software or media in question. And I make efforts to support the artist or creator, be it through advertising it to my friends, or eventually purchasing it if it turns out to be useful or valuable enough to me that I would have bought it. Personally, I think Peer-to-Peer file sharing is a part of the future of creative content distribution. If we embraced it, and handled it ethically as individuals, I think it has the potential to hugely benefit content creators.

[Vector]

Yeah.  I'm worried about the "handle it ethically" part, but otherwise I think that returning to a patronage system would possibly work better (provided we had a little bit less economic disparity in general).

[Solifuge]

Some form of legal regulation of piracy, which still allowed it to exist, would be ideal... but I don't have the brilliance to see how to regulate something like this, in a way that doesn't compromise piracy and its benefits.

It's vital to be conscious of how your patronage allows products you enjoy to exist... and to give support where support is due. I think if more merchants selling digitally-distributable content adopted the "pay what you want/can" scheme, and budgeted their operating costs accordingly, they could get all the benefit of Piracy, while still raising money.

We're undergoing a bit of an economic revolution, with digital distribution, crowd-sourced funding, open game-development alphas, etc. It's going to cause growing pains, but after we trim the fat left behind by old business paradigms, I think everyone will be better off.

[Moghjubar]

The story and sentiment is like that, because there is no real analogue from software piracy to the actual term of piracy.  Pirates are pretty bad, they kidnap people and stuff.  Lets label these guys that copy stuff as pirates = genius.

[Darkmere]

Obvious example: most movies cost dozens of millions of dollars to make. But, that is only so because we exist in a culture where the arbitrary convention is that movies are sold. There's no reason for that convention to exist except solely so that money can be made to change hands.

I hope I'm reading this wrong but... are you actually saying that if movies cost nothing to see, the hundreds of people involved in making a blockbuster movie would all just show up to work for years at a time to throw out a top-notch production that will get them absolutely zero monetary returns? People have to eat. To eat, they must get paid. No money -> no food -> no time to waste making a big movie that's a complete financial loss because no one paid to see it.

[LordBucket]

are you actually saying that if movies cost nothing to see, the hundreds of people involved in making a blockbuster movie
would all just show up to work for years at a time to throw out a top-notch production that will get them absolutely zero monetary returns?

There are so many ways I can answer this question. Let's start with this:

It depends on what your expectations are.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/blockbuster

"thing of great power or size, in particular a movie, book, or other product that is a great commercial success"

If your definition of a successful movie is that it made a lot of money, then by definition, no...a movie nobody paid to see probably isn't going to be a blockbuster. But I'll give you the benefit of a doubt that you're not trying to trick me with clever wordplay, and that you meant more generally "a good movie."

And the answer to that is yes.

Imagine if you were to go to your local college or put an ad in the paper that said "actors and film crew needed for production that will be seen by millions of people worldwide. Must commit to 20 hours a week for a year. No pay." Would you get volunteers? ABSOLUTELY you would get volunteers. All you need to do to see evidence is that is go to any local community theater, and ask the performers and tech crew if they're being paid. i'll give you hint: they aren't. I know, because I did stagework for years. I also spent two years going on Hollywood cattle calls and stood in lines with hundreds of people at a time auditioning for roles. There's no shortage of people who'd be willing to invest years of their life for fame and glory to create movies without being paid for it.

True...Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Industrial Light and Magic probably won't be on your list of volunteers, but how important is that?

The film industry only exists in its current form because there are so many billions of dollars at stake. But would films continue to be made if what I suggest were to come to pass? Absolutely they would. How many thousands of unpaid  man hours have been put into Linux? How many thousands of unpaid manhours have gone into deviantart? How many thousands of unpaid manhours have been spent by local bands of friends who like to play music together and are occasionally asked to perform somewhere? What's so special about the film industry that you think people won't make movies if they're not paid for it?


Or...if you want to look at it another way, take a look at this list:

http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-channels

Do you think the Smosh crew get paid a salary for what they do? Do you think Teamfourstar gets paid on a fixed salary basis? Collegehumor? I'm guessing they probably don't. There are other monetization options besides those used presently by the film industry, and obviously groups like these can exist for years at a time without the "I pay you to be in and/or edit my film then people pay to see it" model being used. Your inclusion of "zero monetary returns" in your question isn't necessarily valid.

...or...if you want to look at it yet another way...here are couple of movies you might have seen:

Primer: Filmed on a $7000 budget
Clerks: Filmed on a $27,000 budget
Blair Witch Project: Filmed on a $22,500 budget

Are these numbers within Kickstarter ranges? Yes, they are. But here's an interesting thing. Clerks? Films on $27,000. But it took $230,000 for post production, marketing and advertising in order to make it a commercial success. Quick google search...the average hollywood movie marketing cost is $40 million.

People writing stories, coding software, drawing art and making music because it's what they love to do and because they want to share it with the world don't need to spend millions of dollars marketing themselves. They don't need to spend millions of dollars hiring A-list actors to attract fanboys who sees movies because of who's in them. They don't need to spend millions of dollars on special effects in hopes of distracting people from the fact the the movies are not well made.

They don't need to do these things because they're creating art rather than trying to sell a product.

Movies could work on this sort of model. Would it be different? Yes. Would it work? Yes. Maybe you wouldn't have Avatar. Maybe you wouldn't have Titanic. But I could live with that.

[LordSlowpoke]

Or...if you want to look at it another way, take a look at this list:

http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-channels

Do you think the Smosh crew get paid a salary for what they do? Do you think Teamfourstar gets paid on a fixed salary basis? Collegehumor? I'm guessing they probably don't. There are other monetization options besides those used presently by the film industry, and obviously groups like these can exist for years at a time without the "I pay you to be in and/or edit my film then people pay to see it" model being used. Your inclusion of "zero monetary returns" in your question isn't necessarily valid.

I hate to break it for you, but Google probably pays them literal fucktonnes from their partnership program. Just saying~

[LordBucket]

Or...if you want to look at it another way, take a look at this list:

http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-channels

Do you think the Smosh crew get paid a salary for what they do? Do you think Teamfourstar gets paid on a fixed salary basis? Collegehumor? I'm guessing they probably don't. There are other monetization options besides those used presently by the film industry, and obviously groups like these can exist for years at a time without the "I pay you to be in and/or edit my film then people pay to see it" model being used. Your inclusion of "zero monetary returns" in your question isn't necessarily valid.

I hate to break it for you, but Google probably pays them literal fucktonnes from their partnership program. Just saying~

...which is why "There are other monetization options" and "Your inclusion of "zero monetary returns" in your question isn't necessarily valid." is included in the part that you quoted.

"Just saying."

[alexandertnt]

what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy

I admit I find that amusing. But it doesn't change my position. It is possible to have a society where copyright is in use and people pay for material and it is possible to have a society where copyright is not in use and people don't pay for material. I've never seen a compelling argument for why the copyright model is preferable.

Producing a game is alot of bloody hard labour, and it sort of tears people up inside to watch people enjoy the fruits of labour without contributing one bit.

It has nothing to do with society not existing, but making life harder for those who produce copyrighted material. You pay for someone to clean your car, why should someone not pay you for providing them with a game when you have spent 10 hours a day making it for the last who-knows-how-long? I think people who do make this material have every right to be entitled to be payed. they put the hard work and labour into it, its not like it was free to produce...

I think copyright has gone overboard, but I still think it is necessary or those who produce that copyrighted material will find their life significantly harder.

Movies could work on this sort of model. Would it be different? Yes. Would it work? Yes. Maybe you wouldn't have Avatar. Maybe you wouldn't have Titanic. But I could live with that.

But some people couldn't. Some people actually like these movies.

There is fundamentally no reason for copyright to exist except to enable people to artificially create scarcity in order to encourage the exchange of money.

Why is this a desirable goal?

Because producing these things is hard and time consuming. Money makes it easier. Tools are (very) expensive, time (no full-time job anymore) etc. The exchange of money makes it easier to produce things.