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I Think Your App Should Be Free

blog.earbits.com

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Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#81

Post by earbitscom »

krig wrote: post #79
danssig wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In fact, I don't know many of my favorite musicians today who make a living from their music. They all work day jobs. What a nightmare. You mean I have to do this job I hate for the rest of my life because I should want to do the thing I actually like for free? Is there really no value in it at all?

People are still "making it", whatever that means. But, yeah. Welcome to the reality of 90% of all musicians, actors, artists, entrepreneurs out there.

90% of musicians make music nobody wants that bad. We're talking about people who make music that people do want, and those people not paying for it for no other reason than they don't have to.

People who make products we want badly enough to need one of our own should be compensated for their efforts. They should not have to go out and play it in clubs, or sell you a t-shirt. If you want a copy of their song, you should compensate them. There are always going to be 90% of artists whose art is not popular enough to earn them a living. The problem we're discussing is that of the people whose music is very popular, but is being taken illegally without their permission.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#82

Post by baddox »

epicureanideal wrote: post #48
dekz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nine Inch Nails seem to be one of the few bands who are able to look into the future. They offer most(all?) of their music for free to download and make their money touring and selling other merchandise.

In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been p…

Many people seem to be attacking your statement for being counter-intuitive. I will attack it for going against the observed reality of the past 10-15 years. In that time, piracy has grown significantly. Yet in that time, I guarantee you the rate of software development has increased dramatically by any metric you want to look at. I can't say the same thing for music, because I don't know how you would measure how much music is bring released, but anecdotally I will say that I have discovered a lot of music with a very small fan base through the Internet and small regional labels.

Also, with software we can empirically look at the history of IP law and see that a huge amount of software that is fundamental even today was created before any sort of software patents were awarded (and presumably, before those people ever even considered monetizing software through government-protected monopoly on distribution).

I think it requires a naive and backwards view of human psychology to assume that money is the sole or primary incentive to create quality music or software. In fact, I surmise that anyone capable of producing top notch content would discover a way to do so without current IP protection laws.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#83

Post by earbitscom »

babebridou wrote: post #73
sliverstorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is the message of the allegory supposed to be? It sounded to me like the message was supposed to be "it doesn't sound so awesome when you see it from the other side of the looking glass, now does it". (It felt like it was targeted at people who can identify with developing mobile apps)

The author said in the comments: "The point of the article is that making that choice for someone else is wrong." It's my feeling that in this article at least, the author does not really care about the rights and wrong of copying, piracy, intellectual property, etc. He is scared by relatively few people on the internet being both lawmaker, judge, party and executioner when it comes to the monetization of a digital p…

Actually, I'm scared that we live in a world where people think they're entitled to anything they can take without consequence. The fact that they aren't taking the original means nothing. They have broken a social contract with the creator of content that, ironically, they really enjoy and would like to see more of in the future.

The problem of someone taking copyrighted content and making it available for others is a small one. The big problem is the many millions of people who take advantage of it. If everyone recognized that they're not entitled to anything except their basic human rights, none of which have anything to do with access to MP3s, then others posting that content online wouldn't matter.

The hope with this article was a little empathy from a community that often leans toward not caring about copyright law as it pertains to music. While many chose to go the route of poking tiny holes in parts of the analogy, plenty didn't realize it was an allegory and talked about how messed up it was. Many of them the same people who fight music copyright tooth and nail.

It's just sad to think that everybody enjoys music, just like they enjoy software, and so many other things that can be easily taken, and yet don't care if the people who create it see enough benefit to keep making it for them. It's short sighted and will result in fewer people having the time to become experts in these crafts, which is a loss for everyone. Sure, quantity is at an all time high, but in art that hardly matters.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#85

Post by danssig »

toyg wrote: post #70
cageface wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only reward amateurs then amateur content is all you will get. Some skills take decades to master. The world you describe will never produce a Mozart.

This is quite ironic, considering that Mozart made most of his (relatively little) money by touring and composing for wealthy patrons. Somebody else made much more money out of him: sheet printers, who also ended up being the real force behind original legislation on copyright. Plus ça change...

It's not ironic. He made his living (little as it might have been) by doing what he wanted to do. He wasn't cleaning toilets on the side to supplement his hobby of composing. Other people making more money off his work doesn't change anything. His passion supported him financially.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#86

Post by davidw »

baddox wrote: post #82
epicureanideal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been p…

Many people seem to be attacking your statement for being counter-intuitive. I will attack it for going against the observed reality of the past 10-15 years. In that time, piracy has grown significantly. Yet in that time, I guarantee you the rate of software development has increased dramatically by any metric you want to look at . I can't say the same thing for music, because I don't know how you would measure how m…

> I will say that I have discovered a lot of music with a very small fan base through the Internet and small regional labels.

Meaning that they probably have day jobs and don't produce as much music as they could if they were able to work at it full time. This may or may not have anything to do with piracy, but I think the point of fewer digital goods being produced is one to consider.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#87

Post by danssig »

baddox wrote: post #82
epicureanideal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been p…

Many people seem to be attacking your statement for being counter-intuitive. I will attack it for going against the observed reality of the past 10-15 years. In that time, piracy has grown significantly. Yet in that time, I guarantee you the rate of software development has increased dramatically by any metric you want to look at . I can't say the same thing for music, because I don't know how you would measure how m…

>I think it requires a naive and backwards view of human psychology to assume that money is the sole or primary incentive to create quality music or software.

When will you make it? In the evening when you're off from work? What about my marriage? My kids? They all have to suffer because people think they have a right to my effort for free?

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#89

Post by lurker19 »

briandear wrote: post #36
kylec wrote: post #13

This is nothing more than a thinly-disguised allegory about piracy in the music industry. There are several big differences between the music and the software industry which I won't go into, except to say that: even taking this story at face value, for the developers to then start suing everyone downloading the fake copies of the app would still be a huge dick move.

It's still theft however you slice it.

It is still a highly synthetic violation from a particular and recent legal theory however you slice it.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#90

Post by davidw »

fpgeek wrote: post #65
epicureanideal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been p…

In a future with draconian copyright enforcement, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if we had…

What a lot of people seem to lose sight of is that IP is supposed to be a compromise - somewhere between producers and consumers. It gives producers temporary property rights on something that is not naturally rivalrous or excludable in order to give them an incentive to produce said goods.

These days, that compromise is, in some ways, probably tilted too far towards producers (or some categories of producers at least), but with no intellectual property at all, that would tilt things too far the other way.

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