• kinkles@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Soooo people shouldn’t get paid for taking time to create books, movies, music, textbooks, newspapers?

    • rdri@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      There should be means that would allow fans and appreciators donate money to creators. And it looks like we already have a lot of those.

      Also, culture and art should be promoted by governments. Therefore taxes could go that way too.

      Anyway, it’s not like people say it’s fine for everyone to not pay. But at least we know it’s fine for many to pay much less than the rest, see regional pricing and discounts. Creators are totally fine with those. Nothing prevents it from being extended further to people who have a hard time trying to become potential customers.

      • Gigasser@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I think a good compromise is to allow for sale for a period of years, and then when it’s no longer making as much profits, for a creator to give permission for it to be ok to be pirated, which basically means that they’ve sorta kinda maybe ceded legal consequences to pirating their work.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        What of there were a model for video games where the games themselves were free to download and play, but things like cosmetics, weapons, stat boosts, and character unlocks were sold piecemeal to those willing to pay?

        That model certainly wouldn’t become a cancer on the entire industry and ruin online gaming, making us beg for the days when you could just buy a fucking game and play it.

        • rdri@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          In a reality where there are no paid games (I assume Witcher-tier single player games would be free), those wouldn’t necessarily become a cancer. It all depends on what games you must compete with. Also there are many ways how you can implement cosmetics and other DLC. FOMO enforcement is not something that should automatically come with any game. Deep Rock Galactic handles paid dlc, free seasons and cosmetics brilliantly in my opinion, and I don’t see why other games can’t have success if they did it the same way. Maybe it’s a combination of original financial decisions, game quality, players reactions and overall current situation/background.

          Also I can’t get rid of the thought that there is an underestimated connection between spending money on a game and desire to spend time on playing it. It seems that if developers of good games would be suitably rewarded according to players satisfaction, there will be no need to pursue financial success by pushing cancer on players.

      • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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        6 months ago

        It’s not always that simple. If I write a song, then I don’t want my song to be used in a big budget Hollywood production without me getting a dime.

      • Godort@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Copyright is generally a good idea. There has to be some level of restriction, otherwise infinite copies of your art immediately show up and you cant make a living.

        On the flipside, it harms the industry at large if the copyright is too long. There is no reason why a corporate entity should be making royalties on something long after it’s creator has died.

        So, where is the middle point? What is a good length of time to let an artist exclusively sell their art without fear of someone undercutting them as soon as they make something? Personally, i think the US figured out the sweet spot before all the changes. 14 years, plus a single 14 year extension you have to register. 28 years is enough time that you can make a career, but also not long enough to harm the creative process or prevent art from reaching the masses while its relevant.

        • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Consider the following:

          One day we manage to reach the pinnacle of invention - we create the replicator from Star Trek. We can suddenly bring immense amounts of anything we want for everyone in the world, for very little energy (caveat: I don’t know enough about Star Trek lore to know this to be true).

          Now, this machine would certainly make a whole lot of business models redundant - farming, factory work, you name it - they would all no longer be able to make a living doing what they did before this invention existed.

          Now for the moral question - should the fact that this invention will harm certain groups’ way of life be considered enough of a motivation to prohibit the use of this invention? Despite the immense wealth we could bring upon the world?

          Take a pause to form an opinion on the subject.

          Now that you’ve formed an opinion on the replicator - consider that we already have replicators for all types of digital media. It can be infinitely replicated for trivial amounts of energy. Access to the library of all cataloged information in the world is merely a matter of bandwidth.

          Now, should the fact that groups relying on copyright protection for their way of life be considered reason enough to prohibit the use of the information replicator?

          To me, the answer is clear. The problem of artists, authors, actors, programmers and so on not being able to make money as easily without copyright protection does not warrant depriving the people of the world from access to the information replicator. What we should focus on is to find another model under which someone creating information can sustain themselves.

          • Godort@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            That’s exactly the problem.

            Under the current system, people that produce creative works as their job are forced to monetize them. Until we live in a post-scarcity world where everyone’s needs are met, like Star Trek, we have to deal with capitalist problems. To say otherwise is to ensure a system where artists and authors are unable to survive. Currently, the copyright system is good enough™ that creating art can be profitable enough that they are not destitute.

            Simply because the technology exists to endlessly replicate and distribute art, regardless of the wishes of the artist (for which it is already frequently used, if you look at piracy channels) does not mean that it should be used with reckless abandon.

          • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            If replicators existed in our universe, they would probably have some sort of DRM built-in and make you pay a fee to the people who made the patterns it replicates whenever you use it. This would naturally progress to bundles and subscriptions, just like how we went from digitally “buying” movies to paying for streaming services that give us access to a large bundle of media. There would also be no way around this because whoever invented the technology would be the only one selling it and the DRM would likely be hardware-level.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          the good thing about copyright is that it’s the only thing that might protect an individual against a giant company to steal someone’s work and drown it with an insanely more marketed version to make money off of someone else’s work without compensating them. i mean they already do that as best they can but it would be worse without copyright protections.

          on the other hand i would severely limit copyrights in general, and even more for publishers and companies. I’d much rather individuals retain rights to IP than companies.

          i realize there are some problems that might arise from such a system but it would be much less significant than the BS we have today.

          but wait, oh no, that means Sony shouldn’t have exclusive rights to churn out another vaguely spider-man-related shit stain! how will our culture survive this?

          it’ll be fine.

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
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      6 months ago

      Eh, there’s a difference between compensation for work and using laws and legislation to sew up something tighter than a cats arse for personal exploitation

      • kinkles@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        I would argue that someone saying “every piece of media” doesn’t care about that distinction.