What would be a reasonable price?

 

Wow Naishou, I'm surprised. Why are the fruits of yours and my labour worth something but not those of an artist (with the possible exception of Shaggy)?

And don't you actually work for a company that profits from selling a license for a technology (for the music industry no less). How is that different?

I've often considered this. There has been an amazing imbalance in the music industry in favour of the record companies that has spawned the pirate music phenomenom. And so far all the attempts to stop it have been through legal and technical restrictions which primarily benefit the record companies.

I've had an idea in embryo about a service where any band can publish their work and any netizen can download it free of charge. The only revenue stream being advertising. The more a bands songs get downloaded the more advertising they get credit for. Hey presto, no record company, and lots more artists get exposure.

 

naishou,

You did say that artists don't deserve money for their recordings:

You're certainly correct that physics doesn't impose intrinsic value on the order of some bits -- once again, I didn't claim it did. In fact, I don't think I've even mentioned physics once. We're talking about art and economy -- why do you keep bringing up physics?

Thanks for paraphrasing me.

You made an astounding comment a while back:

and reiterated it here:

Naturally, no consumer would ever pay money for anything if they didn't have to -- I mean, I'd love to just give the electric bill to the dog every month. People normally only pay for things because they HAVE to, either because legislation or someone else's ownership forces them to. Of course, given the choice between free music and music you have to pay for, people will choose free music. I think it's largely irrelevant whether or not the consumer WANTS to pay for the music -- because, naturally, they won't -- but they should HAVE to pay for it.

I'd like to see you try to make a product that people WANT to pay for.

So your customers are not paying for the IP itself, but rather for your excellent, reasonably-priced support? So you're just giving away the information? Can you please mail me a box of CDs with all your information on them? After all, it's just free bits, right?

Yes, you did say that musicians don't deserve to be paid -- twice. What I'm talking about IS some kind of morality, NOT the intrinsic nature of information and the laws of physics. I don't think the philosophical nature of information of the laws of physics have ever bought a starving jazz musician a hamburger. Have they?

I think I said my bit about the evil record companies and the RIAA quite literally a while ago. Reading is fundamental. Thanks for agreeing with me, though.

I thought the information had no value because of the laws of physics? (Which law(s) of physics, by the way -- I'm curious.) I thought you weren't arguing about some kind of morality. I would also much rather have not paid for my car... or my computer... hell, I'd like to stop paying rent too. I guess my car, my computer, and my apartment are also of zero value, then.

And by the way, if your claim that information has no value is a valid argument, then ipso facto my claim that information does have value is equally valid.

Nothing I said was really meant as a personal attack -- my sincere apologies if it seemed that way. And no, I don't know you -- but I certainly do know what you think and how you behave -- you've been so kind as to tell all of us all about your thoughts and behaviors.

- Warren

 

AusS2000,

Another excellent idea! Maybe we should get a server set up.

- Warren

 

Oh I've got the servers, the technology and the know how (although I hear that bit has no value ). It's the promotion that I need help with.

 

I know Naishou and know him to be a very reasonable person. Seems the two camps here are arguing different things. CHROOT is arguing that copying music is illegal and immoral. Naishou is arguing that copying music is unstoppable. Both points are correct and neither excludes the other IMHO.

But I would say this: Imposing copyright schemes and encodings (ala Sony) only gets in the way of consumers and artists (the good guys) whilst favouring the record company (the bad guys).

Suggesting that information has 'no value' because people can illegally copy it is incorrect. People can steal cars too, doesn't make them worthless. The value of a product or service is set by the figure legitimate consumers are prepared to pay, not what thieves are prepared to pay (almost always $0).

And the best example here is the book one. It is very easy to copy a book, yet we all seem to acknowledge that the author has a right to profit. Even crap books. And if you don't like Britney Spears or Shaggy, exercise your consumer rights and don't buy their stuff.

 

It seems like after all, nobody is actually disagreeing. As is often the case we're talking at crossed purposes. I'm saying that ones and zeros don't have intrinsic value, only their application, and others are saying artists deserve to get paid for their efforts. Not really the same thing is it? If you like yes, I am talking about the philosophical nature of information, and there's a whole science of information theory and thermodynamics to back me up. As far as nature is concerned no bunch of bits is any different from any other. AusS2000, I never artists don't "deserve" reward for their efforts, I'm merely making a point about the dynamic forces governing how they obtain that reward. I'm not disagreeing with anyone who says that people should pay the musicians who make the music they listen to. I try to do that myself! I'm just explaining why you can't just expect that to happen automatically.

The point is that no matter what you make or do, it has no "value" in a capitalist economy save what people will pay for it. No matter how much you argue about how it should be or how you would like it to be you can't change that fact. I never said anything about what is fair, how I would like it to be, or how it ought to be, just how it is. Rules and regulations imposing a concept of "intellectual property" are a construction of human beings. They are foreign to nature and therefore fragile. Put your information in the public domain and you are fighting an uphill battle to retain control of it. Keep it secret and sell the proceeds and you do a lot better. Is this fair? Does this promote progress of technology for the benefit of all? Does it give artists an income stream? Hell no. Not fair is it? Still true though. Why is Microsoft slowly winning the battle over piracy? Because you can't even use their OS now without registering it directly with them. They aren't selling you the bits, they are selling you the ability to use them, a commodity that people will pay for because the supply and demand equation is balanced the right way (from their point of view). Back in the old days it was impossible to make good copies of analog recordings for many reasons, not least because you needed expensive equipment. Back then the record industry had a good business model. Then they went and gave everyone the bits and others gave us the means to copy them. Suddenly, bad business model. Consumers don't seem to value fairness, how sad (but is it surprising?). So the record industry tries to come up with copy protection schemes and good luck to them. If they can do it they will be selling something where the supply and demand equation is right again - not the bits, but the ability to use them for something people want. You see, it's not the bits you can own, it's the practical means to do something useful with them. You can give me the score to a great symphony, but I can't play it. The value in that particular information is only evident when you get an orchestra to make beautiful music out of it.

By the way, the concept of ownership of knowledge (information) might seem natural to you if you've grown up with it, but not even all human cultures share that view. In eastern civilisations it is quite foreign, which is partly why "piracy" is rife in asian countries. Only we westerners think they are doing something wrong. The Australian Aborigines don't (didn't) even have a concept of personal ownership of actual objects. These ideas are not absolute. In some ways it might be better if we didn't try to possess the unpossessable. What if everyone just shared their ideas for the benefit of all? The open source community seems to believe in this. Sadly with our current society if we tried that the artists, programmers, inventors or whatever would probably have nothing to eat.

Somewhere out in the universe is a gas cloud that interpreted the right way contains the complete works of the Beatles. Does Paul McCartney own that? Does Shakespeare own the monkeys who type his complete works? Take any piece of information and apply the appropriate transform and you have another arbitrary piece of information. Something that is a Picasso in a JPEG file might just happen to be a Michael Jackson song when interpreted as an MP3. So who owns that one? What if I subtract one from every byte in the file. Who owns it now? The concept of owning ideas is even more strange. How does anyone know that a thought they have has not been thought before? If I have an idea that someone else thought of before me do I have to excise the corresponding part of my brain because it doesn't belong to me? How the hell can anyone claim to own what goes on in someone elses head? Try that for absurd. This is all I have ever been saying. Those who interpret my words as meaning that artists are worthless are making an unreasonable extrapolation of their own accord.

 

This is such an outrageous claim that it can't go without comment. You quote words of mine that say nothing of the kind. Where did I say "musicians don't deserve to get paid". I didn't even imply it. I said the mechanism by which the record industry tries to make money by selling recordings is flawed. YOU imposed alternative meaning on it. Don't try to attribute it to me. Not once in this context did I use a word synonymous with or even related to the concept of deserving.

 

You can't steal a car and leave it where it was. Sort of like having your cake and eating it too. Not so with information and ideas. If I "steal" someone elses information, they still have it!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by naishou
[B]You can't steal a car and leave it where it was.