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Some asshole socialists opinion on art theft and copyright
9 years ago
I should open this by saying that I am a information 'pirate'. I don't appreciate the branding, but I use it for it's explanatory power within popular culture. According to the currently accepted definition, the verb pirate means to reproduce another's work without permission. This definition is powerfully inadequate, and the premise it's based on relies on a system that will always target nonviolent offenders, many times with debts that can never be paid or prison sentences that will result in the ethical degradation, sexual assault, or physical injury of the accused.
Reproduction is intrinsically a harmless act with no natural victims. Yes, we can create victims by propagating a system that leverages copyright itself as a revenue stream. Just the same as we can create victims by outlawing a substance such as marijuana, which is in itself nonharmful, but becomes dangerous to obtain or possess due to nothing more than regulatory power.
I frequently find that artists who complain about art theft are primarily concerned with the perceived revenue stream they've lost due to the unauthorized reproduction of their work. Even more perplexingly, I find that a startling number of these artists also participate in the unauthorized reproduction of music, movies, games and other forms of digital media. Of course, the hypocrisy is fairly evident, but even when there is none; even when the artist in question is a straight arrow according to even the most strident copyright enforcing corporations, we ultimately have to ask ourselves what kind of world we're creating for the future.
We live on the verge of a new decade in which 3D printing, medical science, and engineering will inevitably lead to the reproduction of physical goods. Plastic hangers, food, kidneys, homes and cars have all been demonstrated. Of course for now these physical items still cost something to make in materials, but who should hold the copyright to the design for a plastic hanger? Of course you'd say that was ridiculous, the very thought that a company or individual should hold the only legal means of the productions of a hanger, or a bowl, or even an artistic vase.
Imagine a future where I walk into your home, find a piece on your mantle that I absolutely fall in love with, and laser scan it using my smartphone. Later I print it on my 3D printer and place it on my own mantelpiece. This has cost you nothing. It has cost me the raw material. Who has been inconvenienced? Most of the people who say art theft is a real concern would point to the original sculptor, but the original sculptor has no reasonable expectation of exclusive distribution, just as someone screaming in public has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
To live in a world where tangible physical assets can be multiplied for pennies, where everyone's smart phone has laser scanning capability, and every library in the area has a 3D printer, an artist is a fool if they base their entire business model on keeping their designs proprietary. This truth is no less real in the 2D realm. This is why places like Patreon have emerged and flourished. This is the nature of the economy in the coming years for physical goods manufacturing. For artists it is already a reality.
Information itself should be free. You make money off of your creativity. You do not make it off of the edifices of your past. Adapt or don't, but the new economy will not bend to your will. The trend has already been set.
Reproduction is intrinsically a harmless act with no natural victims. Yes, we can create victims by propagating a system that leverages copyright itself as a revenue stream. Just the same as we can create victims by outlawing a substance such as marijuana, which is in itself nonharmful, but becomes dangerous to obtain or possess due to nothing more than regulatory power.
I frequently find that artists who complain about art theft are primarily concerned with the perceived revenue stream they've lost due to the unauthorized reproduction of their work. Even more perplexingly, I find that a startling number of these artists also participate in the unauthorized reproduction of music, movies, games and other forms of digital media. Of course, the hypocrisy is fairly evident, but even when there is none; even when the artist in question is a straight arrow according to even the most strident copyright enforcing corporations, we ultimately have to ask ourselves what kind of world we're creating for the future.
We live on the verge of a new decade in which 3D printing, medical science, and engineering will inevitably lead to the reproduction of physical goods. Plastic hangers, food, kidneys, homes and cars have all been demonstrated. Of course for now these physical items still cost something to make in materials, but who should hold the copyright to the design for a plastic hanger? Of course you'd say that was ridiculous, the very thought that a company or individual should hold the only legal means of the productions of a hanger, or a bowl, or even an artistic vase.
Imagine a future where I walk into your home, find a piece on your mantle that I absolutely fall in love with, and laser scan it using my smartphone. Later I print it on my 3D printer and place it on my own mantelpiece. This has cost you nothing. It has cost me the raw material. Who has been inconvenienced? Most of the people who say art theft is a real concern would point to the original sculptor, but the original sculptor has no reasonable expectation of exclusive distribution, just as someone screaming in public has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
To live in a world where tangible physical assets can be multiplied for pennies, where everyone's smart phone has laser scanning capability, and every library in the area has a 3D printer, an artist is a fool if they base their entire business model on keeping their designs proprietary. This truth is no less real in the 2D realm. This is why places like Patreon have emerged and flourished. This is the nature of the economy in the coming years for physical goods manufacturing. For artists it is already a reality.
Information itself should be free. You make money off of your creativity. You do not make it off of the edifices of your past. Adapt or don't, but the new economy will not bend to your will. The trend has already been set.
Thing about this "piracy" is that they're not even selling the work for money. They're not even claiming it as their own. They're just putting it on other websites.
Also, have you read Walter Benjamin's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction? There needs to be an Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.
It's a bit more of an issue when someone takes credit for your work, simply because they like it or want fame themselves.
You also mentioned monitary gain, but what about those (and I've seen this happen before) who've used stolen artwork for the sake of their own profit? Within the community, I've seen people essentially trace and slightly edit other people's work for commissions and profit from people who think they're dealing with a talented artist (rather than a complete fraud), but I've also seen examples of corporations flat-out stealing artists' work off of DA/FA/etc. to be used on their own products. I believe it was a couple of years ago that an artist found out that a company had stolen their artwork to be used as their branding logo and had put it on their own products!
It's examples like these that need to be adressed and stopped more than anything. Even putting money aside, people are taking credit for someone else's work, when the person who actually did the work for it gets ignored.
Also, the example of the 3D printing you gave, sure, you could do it... but it'd be a bit dickish not to ASK the owner of the house if you could scan the piece on the mantle first... and it certainly would be awkward to have the person then visit your house later and find the reproduced piece on your mantle.
As far as placing others art on physical products, you've missed my point completely. Copyright law needs to go. If it can be spoken in the language of binary, it's fair game and qualifies as free speech. Selling 'products' with someone else's art is pointless when the end user can do it themselves for free. I hold no ill will towards those that reproduce my work, and though common courtesy is appreciated, I have should have no legal expectation of it when I post it online.
How it all truly functions in the internet age when dealing with infinitely replicable data is a big old can of worms that the law hasn't yet caught up to, but I feel that any kind of simplistic extreme probably isn't serving the discussion well...
I agree that reproduction of a work, a copy, does not naturally have victims. In fact, not only has "1 copy = 1 lost sale" been thoroughly debunked both as a logical argument and debunked as a factual argument (as further studies continue to show that 'piracy' has a net increase on revenue, even in the event that fewer sales of a work are made - more ticket sales to concerts, more merchandise sales, and more word-of-mouth marketing. The people that download copies were unlikely to have bought the product in the first place, but their friends that never knew about the product are now hearing positive things from their pirate friends. These people are potential sales that would not have been possible if not for the pirate).
The most common misconception about 'art theft' is, I agree, from the artists themselves who have been led to mistakenly believe that the sharing of their work means a reduction in sales. This perception has been pushed strongly by publishing companies that have a vested interest in maintaining control over content developers - record labels, game publishers, music/movie distributors. These are the people 'hurt' by piracy because it takes their control away from the content creators. Unfortunately, the artists themselves are often convinced of piracy = bad even when there is no third party distributor.
Great read here: http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-3.html
Also see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI
We live in a society that places disproportionate power in copyrights and patents. Our system is poor at regulating these, as it is a continually overburdened system with poor mechanisms for invalidating patents or dealing with malicious false claims of copyright infringement. It pays little attention to how copyright 'infringement' was actually instrumental in the success of some of these industries. Example: The fashion industry: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1kt57197
IN the example you use of your mantle, however, I do see one problem. Piracy is an issue of availability and price. If the designer of the mantle makes his living off his mantle designs, and you are interested in obtaining one, then your creating a copy of his mantle is something he should be concerned with. You liked his work enough to copy one for yourself. Are his prices too high for you? Are his designs unavailable to you? Your copying of his creation is a signal to him that his business model is not reaching all his potential customers. What can he do to turn you into a potential sale?
To answer the above, I believe his best choice is to be delighted that you copied his work. His design was good enough to be introduced into your own home. Now, he'll get to reach all the people that visit your house, too! You may never have bought anything from him in any event, but the people that see his work in your home, they might buy from him instead. You're free marketing for him. Not everyone has a 3D printer, and/or not everyone wants to get a copy. There really does exist the notion that "I like this content, I want to see more. Giving my money to the content creator can help ensure that there is more." Hell, you may even donate to the artist what you feel the mantle was worth. Not only are you free marketing, but you're also free money - free, because he spent no work and no effort to make your mantle and ship it to you and install it.
Thanks for bringing this up :)
It's just my opinion that language, even binary, should not be censored. If it's shareable and reproducible, its fair game, and I have to be principled and apply it to my space just as I apply it to software and music.
On the whole copyright issue? I don't know. I'm a member of the US Pirate Party, I think everyone has louder opinions on that topic than me.
On that note, I shall hope it does indeed occur.
First off, you are not charged more taxes than you can earn.
Secondly, if you believe that art cannot feed you... Why aren't you forgoing art entirely in your life? Why is there art on your food, art on your car, art on your house?
That's great that it's your hobby. But you should be able to eat as well. Saying that everyone else should be a hobbyist about art? That's seriously ignorant and insulting.
So that's when you said it, and that's who, and why.
The first sentence in a statement or paragraph sets the subject for the statement or paragraph.
The theory behind copyright is supposed to be a time-limited benefit so that a capitalistic society can pay creators and encourage them to produce more.
Regulatory capture is what has change something from being limited in time to existing longer than any of us have (or will be) alive. Which limits the ability of creators to build anew, if they cannot use prior art. (It's impossible to not use prior art).
That said, arguments like these are the reason that socialism is such a hard sell in the US because it does not answer a simple question: why are you entitled to the creations of someone else?
Allow me to back up. It seems that the issue here is a misunderstanding of copyrights and patents. The idea of someone owning a patent on a hanger isn't exactly far-fetched, seeing as there have been hundreds of patents for them over the years. Of course, you can't patent a bowl unless you have some new and novel form of bowl (or bowl manufacturing), but you could absolutely copyright an artisan design of one. The reason for this is to protect research and craftsmanship, as well as encouraging innovations. It would be a hard sell to get a company to invest heavily in inventing some new technology if the minute it hit the streets every part of it was fair game. Instead, we grant patents so that years of research and money invested are rewarded with exclusive manufacturing rights, as well as makes the designs public knowledge so that they can go on to inspire others.
With art, the protections are for much the same reasons. If an artist creates something, its value is in its uniqueness. If I commission an artist, I'm getting a unique piece done specifically for me. I'm not paying for a piece of paper with ink on it, or a collection of bits that can be interpreted into graphics, I'm paying for the years that said artist spent learning and refining their skill. If, however, I were to take art from a popular artist and begin doing YCH traces of it for money, I'm taking the years of work from the original artist, adding very little of my own skill, and selling it for money. Absolutely making money off the work of someone else. This then devalues the original art because it suddenly becomes easy to get something in the same style for cheaper. Indeed, just because reproducing a piece of art is easy, and doesn't cause direct harm, it doesn't mean it's right to do so. If an artisan crafts something, they're putting themselves into that piece. If someone purchases it, then why should you be entitled to also have access to it as well? Because socialism?
When you reproduce a piece of intellectual property, you might not be directly taking something from someone else, but you're taking something that someone else worked for and paid money for and claiming it for yourself. Therefore, allow me to condense your argument down into what it really translates to: "I don't want to pay for art, but should still be entitled to it."
"I don't want to pay for art, but should still be entitled to it."
Firstly we should get the obvious out of the way and state that I am an artist. I worked hard for my art, both the pieces that I've created as well as the talent that I fostered. That being said, yes, everyone is entitled to work that I upload into the public space. This is me saying this. I'm not asking for the work of others, I'm arguing for the rights of others so take my work. If that's not a principled stand on the issue I don't know what would be. Reducing my argument to, "I don't want to pay for art, but I'm entitled to it anyway," seems like a cookie cutter argument that was made to target someone less fortunate than I am, which is sad. I feel like if I wasn't an artist that you'd have the high ground here. Everyone should be able to have this view without being labeled as a societal leech who feels entitled to the fruits of others' labor. That's not what this is.
The problem is a world is coming where copyright laws are becoming unenforceable. Movies, music, paintings, and soon physical objects will be whizzing through the air in code. When everyone has a 3D printer, you simply cannot prosecute everyone who 3D prints a patented piece of plastic. When everyone has image editing software, its a waste of time to go after people who hue shift pieces of art and reupload them somewhere else. It's a battle we'll never win and the reasons that people dislike it are often poorly thought out and have consequences. For example, something I said earlier in the thread:
"...my personal discomfort with someone else's fair use of my publicly available content does NOT trump their right to color it and post it. They don't even have to give me credit any more than a 5 year old has to give credit to the coloring book artist they used."
That's hard for me to admit but it is a position that I am forced to take if I'm intellectually honest and philosophically consistent with the way I view piracy.
Value, by the way, is not in uniqueness alone. There are masterfully replicated versions of Starry Night, done both by hand and robots, each stroke matching. To most the paintings are indistinguishable, yet the original retains a majority of the value. That's just a single example, but its where the economy of things is headed. Lots of unofficial replicas everywhere with few originals in the hands of serious collectors. That's where artists have to make their money. Not by going after Taylor Swift for writing her lyrics on a picture of a fox and uploading it to her Facebook page (yes this really happened).
Patents cannot work when I have the ability to recreate or copy what I want 'off the grid.'
I have zero interest in stifling people's ambition or motivations for themselves to be creative in any manner whatsoever. I personally love it when people do their own takes on stuff I've done, to see it in a different style, or even better when they can do it better than I can.
I've seen too many artists actively grind other people's ambitions to dust because they get insulted by the quality of the stuff they see, or because someone who obviously enjoys their content dared to copy it.
This sort of thing makes sense when there is still a system in place for creativity and originality to be rewarded, but once a system of free reproduction is widespread where do the new ideas come from?
Is there not a danger of creativity being completely stifled in this situation? Why bother to create, much less spend the time, heartache, and associated failures that come with LEARNING to create, if you will not be rewarded for it?
Consider the manufacture of new drugs. There have been some high profile examples recently in which companies have acquired the rights to drugs and ramped up the price for personal gain. This is perceived as cruel and plays upon our fears of large companies squeezing the "little guy" for lifesaving treatment options. In many cases it is wrong to do so, but it leads to an important topic of discussion.
The problem is that drugs cost a lot of money to develop. Many drug manufacturers are deeply focused on research into genetics and the basic interaction of the body's cells, which requires large amounts of man-power, man-hours, and complicated technology and computer systems to develop. In our current copyright system the reason they spend all this money is because they know once they develop a drug that works* they will have a limited time monopoly to profit on their invested time and funds. After that time the copyright expires, and the manufacturing process for the drug can be sold to other companies who will then produce the drug as well, lowering the price. Also consider that not every drug researched is effective, so these profitable drugs need to cover the cost of the unsuccessful experiments as well.
Without the promise of protected rights on the products they have invested in there is no impetus for new, more effective drugs to be created. It would be too easy for another company to reverse engineer the product and introduce it as a lower cost, which would be easy since this second company would not have to cover all the research and development of the first company. Therefore a system of protected intellectual rights fosters creativity by promising a more secure profit in return for investment.
This can be used to craft a rather effective analogy for artists. Art is a talent that requires time, time which could be spent profitably in other ways. Developing a unique style and becoming proficient with your tools is a gradual process. If there is no implicit protection for creativity it cuts into the motivation a budding artist may have to continue to develop their talents. There is also the need for an artist to create an enthusiastic and profitable fan-base, which requires further time and effort to foster.
When an artist makes a picture, or a sculpture, or a chair, or whatever, and then puts it up for sale that is supposed to be their reward for their invested time and effort to create the piece. Not just the time making the actual piece itself but the time spent developing the skills necessary to create the piece. Reproduction of this work is therefore not victim-less. You're not just taking away the profits from the artists investment, you are actively disenfranchising them from continuing to create.
It can reasonably be argued that someone who goes through the effort of acquiring and reproducing a work may never have actually paid for said work in the first place. Therefor the loss on each reproduced piece is not directly tied to the original cost of the item. This argument is valid, but would only work if everyone who pirated the work was definitely under no circumstances willing to pay for the work in question. I find this rationale unrealistic.
Where is their motivation to continue to develop what has effectively become a profitless talent? I suppose it could be argued that that there are immaterial rewards from creativity such as fame, recognition, and marketability (branding) received for creative works. Sadly these rewards rarely put food on the table by themselves, except perhaps in the case of high celebrity, or an endorsement tied to a product.
I'd be terrified of a world with free reproduction and absolutely no protection for creators. Such a world would stagnate. Why bother to make something new, and waste valuable time and effort, when there is no promise of reward? Better to just serve the reproduction system to continue to get free things with no effort. Anyone who would bother to make something new in such a system is a chump.
*Which, even after it works, they must demonstrate its effectiveness before the FDA which is EVEN more time and money.
I firstly want to mention that absolutely nobody gets paid to develop their artistic ability. In many other aspects of life paid training is widely available. Art is not one of those jobs. Even the loftiest of goals for artists in the professional space start as internships. The point being that the money as motivation idea is a fantasy in my experience. Every single artist I have ever met (and that's a lot of people) poured hundreds or thousands of hours into practice and study for nothing more than a sense of personal achievement, and perhaps praise. The pay came later, and was a welcome but unnecessary addition at least as far as desire goes. I was encouraged as I'm sure many people were to stay away from art as a career choice. I did it anyway. That's what passion is.
The idea that this stops because one day copyrighted works have become outdated is preposterous. Even if all I had to do to survive was bother to chew my food, the idea that I would stop producing art is almost as insulting a proposition as calling me a 'chump' for it (I know you were being hypothetical, it's all good). The ability is it's own reward. Then again, maybe that's the optimist in me. I'd like to think we learn to draw to express ourselves. I'd like to think we learn languages to communicate and share culture. I'd like to think we learn to play piano because it's satisfying. Not because any of those things look good on a resume.
It's for these reasons that I do not and likely will not see the logic behind your motivation argument. I'm still listening, but what's been brought forward isn't all that compelling to me.
Bold is mine, obviously.
The issue is that while I agree many artists have STARTED and WORKED HARD with no financial motivation. This same approach applies to many non-artistic jobs. My buddy is a mechanic because he loves cars. He studied (well, was a fan of) different makes and models long before he spent the money and invested the time required to become a mechanic. It also cost him to develop his skills. I just texted him and he admitted that he would not have pursued auto-repair as a career if he knew there was no money to be had in the field. This is ancillary to the issue, but telling.
My major qualm is with you saying that in art the financial incentive is "unnecessary." There are myriad struggling artists on this site, some of whom I know personally. If they lost all financial incentive for their work their talent would not be as developed as it is. They would be forced to work harder on better paid, but less talent-based, careers. This especially applies to artists who use their talent as their sole income. Its not necessarily the starting point I am quibbling with, but the fact that talent and innovation need incentives to continue to develop past a certain point. I think you can admit that if there were no financial reward for artistic endeavors this site would be a much less vibrant place to visit, no?
The idea that this stops because one day copyrighted works have become outdated is preposterous. Even if all I had to do to survive was bother to chew my food, the idea that I would stop producing art is almost as insulting a proposition as calling me a 'chump' for it (I know you were being hypothetical, it's all good).
Thank you for not taking my hypothetical slight personally. Are you claiming that if you received no financial incentive to pursue your talent you would still have as much time and effort to spare to devote to said talent? (which by the way I think is pretty spiff.)
Copyright may not protect all avenues of financial reward for use of talent but it does provide some sense of protection and piece of mind for artists. I would argue that this sense of protection from perceived theft, even if that theft could be argued to be entirely immaterial, is a good thing.
Then again, maybe that's the optimist in me. I'd like to think we learn to draw to express ourselves. I'd like to think we learn languages to communicate and share culture. I'd like to think we learn to play piano because it's satisfying. Not because any of those things look good on a resume.
I think that, yes, in a perfect world of unlimited resources that such artistry and talent would be encouraged for the pure enjoyment of itself. They problem lies in the fact that, though in ways outdated, copyright provides a sense of security and perceived protection of profits for artistry and innovation in a world were people are required to balance time and financial constraints as part of their daily lives.
I am not saying copyright is perfect and is not in need of a good tweaking, I just think its a sound system in concept. I'm also not saying there would be no art without copyright. I am saying there would be less breadth and depth of art if you removed the perceived sense of financial protection that copyright provides.
Though modernization and digitizing data added huge cost savings to music and movie companies there savings were not passed on to end users. It became far easier to mass produce and distribute content and the price difference was kept wholly to the industry. This was rather shameful in hindsight. Instead of learning to adapt and making their copyrighted material more accessible to users (as services such as Pandora and iTunes do now) they went on their mad tear of lawsuits and cease and desist orders, generating hordes of negative press and displaying their incompetence on a global stage. I say this only as a starting point, not because you are unaware of this information.
They have learned to a large degree now. Music is now sold by the song rather than the album and is easily accessible online for purchase. The same goes for movies. Even with my not-inconsiderable tech savvy it is easier for me to spend a small sum to purchase songs, or movies, that I desire rather than finding them on the less lawful websites in which they are available (along with various trojans, keygrabbers, and assorted digital dreck and tags.) This is how I see digital revolutions happening. Not by abolishing copyright but by passing cost savings down to the end user.
To use your above example of the mantle piece. Why could I not do the same mentioned scan with my smartphone, find the creator, and purchase plans to 3D print my own copy? It would be a more modest sum than ordering a piece and waiting for it to be shipped for me, and I would incur the costs of production and reap the benefits of time and cost savings that comes with it. It would also be more accurate to the original, at least until the technology with smart-phone 3D scanning becomes VASTLY more high fidelity than it is at this stage. This would incentivize the artist to make further works and would provide them with direct feedback of which of their designs works and which do not.
When it's reuploaded, the artist gets nothing. Most times, not even exposure.
A) Have a Patreon or crowdfunding page that they use to finance their videos
B) Advertise their crowdfunding page during the video so even 'stolen' views see it
C) Have merchandise stores and other rewards for supporters of their channel
AdSense has been going downhill for a long time. The money per ad creators get continues to go down because AdBlock adoption continues to go up and advertisers are increasingly unwilling to pay Youtube for adtime. Complaining about the direction the entire internet economy is going is a waste of a creators time. Realize that your work is part of the public sphere when you upload it there. Educational shows in particular seem particularly shady when they get angry about their content reaching large groups of people that they didn't get paid to reach. Do you see the ethical dilemma with hoarding educational content?
Again, I feel the pain that a lot of these creators may or may not be going through, but that doesn't mean I can't point out the flaws in the model.
How is someone who makes any content supposed to make anything from it if the people watching it don't even know who made it?