You know, its not evil to get paid for your creations.
Gosh forbid that *I* make a living on my intellectual property.
Toady is an exception to the rule, just as everyone else on line who offer their content for free and lives off of t shirts and donations. For every toady, there hundred who cannot make a living from their independent free content IP.
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And this ties in with Copy Right laws are outdated, archaic. They need to be gutted and drastically reformed.
And likely won't make any without free content IP either, except insofar as they can con others into buying it without knowing what kind of dross it is.
There are a few different ways that artists get paid. Copyright laws are fairly recent.
Toady is using an older form of artist support. He is Busking. This is similar to ancient traveling storytellers, who would go from town to town, telling stories for a living. Also similar to modern day caricature artists who travel with local fairs. Some people have traditionally made a killing doing this, but it doesn't work for everyone. That is where Patronage comes in. Someone does something for a different person who appreciates art and knows what they want. This is much more restrictive, and actually resembles the modern game publishers today.
Copyright is there to make the public patrons of artists. Copyright is, at it's very core, a socialist idea. The public pays for it by not having access to it if they are capable of copying it, but in return get more unique art without a slant from a particular patron.
One thing to understand in that though, is it is a mandate granted by the public. This is why DRM is total and complete failure, and why Toady One is doing so well busking.
The public grants the mandate by respecting what Copyright means, not because it is inherently a good system, but because by protecting their artists, they give the greatest public good. This mandate is not inviolate, just as Divine Rule was immune from losing it's mandate from the masses.
I watched the birth of Intellectual Piracy in the form it is today. I grew up in the climate where it morphed to what it is now. I have come to a few conclusions regarding the problems with copyright protection.
First, 80% of what DRM does is fights "Fair Use" and not "Piracy", as given by the Mandate from the people. Why is this a problem? Because when it is illegal to eat bread, your moral line against stealing it goes away. What that means in a nutshell is when you start making laws against something that shouldn't be illegal, respect for all laws touching the subject aren't respected. People who don't respect the law are people that haven't given a mandate to that law, therefore that law will eventually crumble, and may bring anything that attempts to hold it up down with it.
Second, things are overpriced. People understand it is work to create things, and everyone accepts that things must be distributed, but there are a lot of places where costs can be cut in companies with the savings going to the people. I have believed that for a long time, most people believe it, and justify high prices by "maybe there is something I've missed". There are plenty of places missed, but things can be significantly cheaper anyway. The Video Game Industry isn't as bad as the big budget movie industry and Music Industry. Artists should be paid well, and be able to live off their art, but never should they be given the ability to act as they do. People give the mandate of copyright to artists for their art, which while it might be their personality, is not as a general rule.
Third, Bundling and licences. We want what we want, and we want to own it. We don't want three artists to combine their works into a package and charge 2 times the price. Furthermore, we don't want to give a bunch of money to someone and have them say that they can take it away and keep our money if we don't do as they demand. The Mandate is to support artists to allow more artists to be there, not support Artists holding the Public by the balls. Can't anger who allows you to exist. Unfortunately, too many artists want fame, and not to share their art. Fame artists isn't what this mandate is for.
The Mandate for Copyright allows artists to make a living. Only by respecting that mandate of what the people are honestly willing to allow, and by ensuring they are not demanding more from the public than is right, does that mandate remain. Copyright is not a right of artists, it is a right of the people. It is a socialist concept, and could very easily go back to the capitalistic patronage game. We don't want that, hence why Copyright remains, but only as long as it is of benefit to the public. Some artists get it. Google Larry Flint. I hate him as a writer, but he understands the underlying dynamic of why we have copyright.
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Topic: Thank you again, Toady One! (Read 3815 times)