I'm sure many people are going to disagree with this, but authors should only receive income if people think their work is valuable enough to be rewarded for it. There will always be selfish people that would rather just download a copy rather than support an author. But I don't think simply writing a book entitles you to income. It was your choice to write it, nobody paid you to (if they did, then you are already paid for the work). If you choose to write a book, and nobody wants to pay you for it, then how good actually is it?
I have perhaps a different view of the arts to some people. I see them as good, noble pursuits in and of themselves. They should be done for their own sake. Art and literature was in my opinion, at its highest point, when the motivation for profit was secondary to the motivation for expression and exploration. As such, I see no reason for we as a society to restrict what people can and can't do with the stories, artistic works, and cultural works of our society. They best serve the interests of a society when they are free to spread, free to be shared, and free to be adapted.
I don't believe in artificial scarcity. If the only way for me to get access to a book is to pay a publisher for it, then it's worth has been artificially increased. I value the experience of going to the theatre, so I will still buy a ticket even if I can pirate the film a couple months later. I value seeing a musical artist perform live, so I will pay for a concert even if I can download their album for free. I value possessing hard copies of good works, so I will pay for them to support the author even if I can download the PDF for free. This is how you separate the truly valued works, from the works that have been artificially given a monetary value for the sake of profit raising.
And I hate to say it, but our social media frenzied society has inflated everybody's self worth. Just because you can publish an ebook in 3 clicks, doesn't mean it is good literature, and doesn't mean it is worth paying for. Copyright law which makes bad literature valuable is a bad law. Good literature will always be good, regardless of any laws that exist to protect it from distribution.
> But I don't think simply writing a book entitles you to income.
Writing a copyrighted book today does not entitle you to income either.
Do you really think artists make money just because they publish something?
> I see them as good, noble pursuits in and of themselves. They should be done for their own sake.
Agreed, but unless you are rich or someone supports you, that simply does not work.
I suggest you take a look at universal income instead. One of its advantages is that people could work on non-profitable endeavors if they are fine with a very basic life.
That, or wait until Star Trek becomes a reality :-)
> I value seeing a musical artist perform live, so I will pay for a concert even if I can download their album for free.
How do you do that for books and software which do not have any equivalent to a concert or performance?
> This is how you separate the truly valued works, from the works that have been artificially given a monetary value for the sake of profit raising.
Giving a concert does not mean your work is valuable. Neither publishing it digitally. And neither guarantee any audience whatsoever, much less profit...
> Just because you can publish an ebook in 3 clicks, doesn't mean it is good literature, and doesn't mean it is worth paying for.
This seems to follow from the "copyright entitles you to income", but since that isn't true, this does not follow either.
Someone publishing a bad ebook (actually, not even a bad one, average ones and even many good ones too) is not going to get any sales. Ask any aspiring average author or artist. They will have countless stories of how their endeavors have not paid any bills yet.
> Ask any aspiring average author or artist. They will have countless stories of how their endeavors have not paid any bills yet.
How doesn't this support my argument of reforming copyright laws? If even the (imo flawed) intent of copyright laws isn't doing what it's supposed to do (an economic incentive for creation of work) then what is the harm in reform?
You're right that holding copyright doesn't magically generate sales. People have to value the work in the first place. But I don't see how copyright laws as they exist now, make the work any more valuable.
When I talk about value, I am not talking about something in a supply-demand sense. I am talking about a work being genuinely quality so that it earns some kind of reward for its merit.
For example, I don't see buying a book the same as buying a ticket for entry. I see it as supporting an author. Let me use an example:
I might buy a ticket to a museum, not knowing what artwork is inside. It could all be atrocious, or maybe just not to my taste. Regardless, it could be work I would never buy. Now, the sale of the ticket as been a "fee to see". I made no choice over whether I wanted to support the artists. I believe that copyright laws as they exist now, place books in a kind of imaginary museum. An author isn't deserving of income simply because they produced something. Nobody asked them to. If they were paid by a publisher to, then great. If not, then what makes them entitled to income? The mere act of putting pen to paper? Anybody can do that. If I want to support them I will do so based on merit. And I can only assess merit of I can read what they have written.
> How doesn't this support my argument of reforming copyright laws? If even the (imo flawed) intent of copyright laws isn't doing what it's supposed to do (an economic incentive for creation of work) then what is the harm in reform?
It doesn't because your suggested reform would only make it (even) worse...
It'd imply only rich people could be full-time artists/authors. That is how it used to be centuries ago, by the way.
I know a lot of folks who don't love that they have to choose between charging for their work and starving. You seem to suggest that the first of those options should be foreclosed and replaced with "beg for patronage".
Which is pretty cool, because all else equal, that forces people to keep creating, lest they lose for lack of output whatever patronage they've managed to obtain.
Like, it's fine to say ars gratia artis, but you need to come up with a way for that actually to happen. What you've described here is much more ars gratia affluentium. What ends up getting made is, and is only, what people want to pay for, which at best is no improvement over the status quo, and probably isn't even as good as that.
I fail to see how copyright law as it exists now, removes the need to "beg for patronage". If anything, being able to freely access an authors work may generate more interest for lesser known authors.
I think, as with many industries, there is an unfair wealth divide amongst creative professionals. I don't think JK Rowling is such a better writer than most other writers alive today, that she deserves to have made billions of dollars for her work. The only reason she has made that much is because of copyright law. If anything, copyright law increases the divide between the lucky authors, and the much more talented but much more unlucky ones.
I tend to think the eight-movie deal had something to do with the money. Would it have failed to happen without copyright law? Your analysis should account for that, and it doesn't.
It also doesn't account for how, when there's no option to do anything but give it away, the people who succeed aren't those doing the best work, but those doing the best marketing. What's to stop them from simply finding good work by "talented but unlucky" people, representing it as their own, and getting rich on the back of it?
I have perhaps a different view of the arts to some people. I see them as good, noble pursuits in and of themselves. They should be done for their own sake. Art and literature was in my opinion, at its highest point, when the motivation for profit was secondary to the motivation for expression and exploration. As such, I see no reason for we as a society to restrict what people can and can't do with the stories, artistic works, and cultural works of our society. They best serve the interests of a society when they are free to spread, free to be shared, and free to be adapted.
I don't believe in artificial scarcity. If the only way for me to get access to a book is to pay a publisher for it, then it's worth has been artificially increased. I value the experience of going to the theatre, so I will still buy a ticket even if I can pirate the film a couple months later. I value seeing a musical artist perform live, so I will pay for a concert even if I can download their album for free. I value possessing hard copies of good works, so I will pay for them to support the author even if I can download the PDF for free. This is how you separate the truly valued works, from the works that have been artificially given a monetary value for the sake of profit raising.
And I hate to say it, but our social media frenzied society has inflated everybody's self worth. Just because you can publish an ebook in 3 clicks, doesn't mean it is good literature, and doesn't mean it is worth paying for. Copyright law which makes bad literature valuable is a bad law. Good literature will always be good, regardless of any laws that exist to protect it from distribution.