Doug Jones wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > Any creation of art should be credited to those individuals who created
> > it, in proportion to the degree of their original creative contribution
> > to the final result, and any financial gain from the sale of said art
> > should be in proportion to their respective degree of contribution.
>
> Maybe so... but if you've ever been fortunate to work with a really good
> creative team, the lines and proportions blur so much that accurate
> attribution is impossible. This doesn't prevent distribution and shared
> ownership though, just that some of that ownership is sold to outsiders
> to raise the money to bring the concepts to fruition. Without the
> corporation, the imaginations of its participants could not have been
> put to use.
>
> I don't have a problem with this...
Actually, outside investors invest in mechanisms/systems that increase
the productivity/reproductivity of that which is created. Their return
on their capital is based on the 'added value'.
While multiple creators working in a team may apportion their credit to
each other as they see fit, you don't create anything original by simply
plonking down a wad of cash. While a corporation may own the rights to
reproduce as licensed to it by a works creator(s), it, even today,
cannot be listed as the 'artist' or 'inventor' on a patent or copyright
registration. The problem is that artists are not protected sufficiently
from those who claim to be the artists greatest benefactors. In the
music arena, you have the record companies, for example, who generally
treat most of their artists like crap, and use all sorts of accounting
tricks to evade royalty payments. Those companies then go on the warpath
to 'protect' their artists rights from pirates, when there would be no
piracy if the companies had fulfilled their responsibility to the
artists to technologically secure their works.
However, no work can be fully protected if it is to be fully enjoyed by
the public. Hi definition releases make piracy assured of occuring, in a
low trust environment. So, in the end, we are reduced once more to the
problem of high trust vs low trust. IP laws work in a high trust
environment, but not in a low trust one. Unrestricted immigration has
diluted the formerly high trust milieu of the US market, and expansion
into other low trust markets has likewise fed additional piracy.
So we are left to deal with why piracy occurs. Outside of skinflints who
don't want to pay for something, and spoiled brats who think that
everything should be free, you have a core audience of the economically
disadvantaged that the first two groups piggyback on. Perhaps with the
expansion of micropayment schemes, there could also be instituted a sort
of micro-financial aid, where those on public assistance and those in
school would get a hefty discount or even waived fees in electronic
music distribution. Instituting such a program would eliminate much of
the piracy propaganda, while at the same time attaching a stigma to
getting 'free music', which would imply that you are on an economic low
rung, something that peer pressure concious youths try very hard to
avoid.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:17 MDT