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Permalink Reply by Joey on July 5, 2010 at 1:16pm

Like a Netflix for the Unknown.

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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on July 5, 2010 at 4:57am

Another thing I forgot to meantion about Cory is he frequently points out that the musicians themselves are making more money than ever doing live performances, and this is due to the fact that they have found a larger audience through file sharing. He and many other copyright abolishionists think that this is the way of the future for our artists and entertainers will have to make money.

The thing is, though, not everyone in the arts and entertainment industry is a performer. Writers, for example, aren't performers (as it so happens I'm an aspiring writer, myself). Cory is also a writer (and fortunately for him books haven't really caught on as an electronic medium, so he's making a living as a writer) and he also gets paid for live appearances where he gives lectures on copyright reform. The problem I see with this is that this will only benefit the superfamous writers. They are the ones that audiences are interested in to want to pay to see (maybe). In contrast, a relatively unknown writer that receives royalties of about 10% from the sale of their books only needs to sell about 20,000 hardcovers or 50,000 paperbacks to earn just enough money to get by. You have to think, though-- that unknwon writer may only have 20,000-50,000 fans, and it's highly unlikely that there would be a lot of them living in just one area. So that guy won't be able to make a living making live appearances.

And what about those people who aren't in the entertainment industry and who aren't celebrities yet make their living by selling their intellectual property, like software engineers, web/graphic designers, and photographers? Do you really think somebody is going to pay to hear a graphic designer talk about the jobs he has done in the past?

It only gets worse, because if the copyright abolishionists were to have their way, we would only end up with more uninspired, corporate-sponsored media, not the other way around (as they insist). The celebrities would make a living with their second job doing live appearances, and after them the second most marketable (but not necessarily talented) artists, musicians, filmmakers, etc. would have to make a living developing content for large companies to sell advertising (which is just about the only way the music industry can make money these days; no wonder we're seeing more of an onslaught of tween pop stars). If I didn't know any better, that sounds a lot like patronage. The rest of them (no matter how talented or well known) wouldn't be able to make a living.

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Permalink Reply by Joey on July 5, 2010 at 2:11am

Agree to what?

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Stark on July 5, 2010 at 12:14am

No more piracy?! I'm fucked.........

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