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Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

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Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#11

Post by feralchimp »

Jun8 wrote: post #8

The title compares all the money given out by Kickstarter (including non-art projects) to NEA's budget, which as of now is not a fair comparison. However, I think this is a technicality, since at the rate KS is growing, the comparison will be valid very soon. The second apples and oranges point is stronger though: Look at the types of projects that NEA funds, e.g. translation projects in 2011 ( http://www.nea.gov/gra…

> NEA is doing this as a public service, funding people who wouldn't have been funded otherwise.

Many would argue that "taking taxpayer money to fund something that no one would pay for" is a coherent definition for "public disservice."

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#13

Post by adestefan »

vibrunazo wrote: post #4

What does this do to the whole "but art will cease to exist if artists can't have absurd monopoly rights over copyrighted material" argument, which the MAFIAA seem to love so much? If people are willing to fund arts regardless of legal obligation. Then the number one pillar sustaining the copyright "morals" gets easily destroyed. Crowdfunding demonstrates that if we completely remove copyright laws: art will survive.

I have no idea how you're making that connection. It also doesn't help your argument when you use "MAFIAA."

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#14

Post by kikocherman »

feralchimp wrote: post #11
Jun8 wrote: post #8

The title compares all the money given out by Kickstarter (including non-art projects) to NEA's budget, which as of now is not a fair comparison. However, I think this is a technicality, since at the rate KS is growing, the comparison will be valid very soon. The second apples and oranges point is stronger though: Look at the types of projects that NEA funds, e.g. translation projects in 2011 ( http://www.nea.gov/gra…

> NEA is doing this as a public service, funding people who wouldn't have been funded otherwise. Many would argue that "taking taxpayer money to fund something that no one would pay for" is a coherent definition for "public disservice ."

Absolutely right, this point is crucial. Kickstarter funds projects by voluntary and democraticly (by which I mean by citizens) means, while the government does it forcefully (taxes) and undemocratically (politicians deciding).

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#15

Post by astrange »

hnal943 wrote: post #10
prolepunk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just your opinion, in an excerpt from the article Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler stated: As Strickler explained, the milestone is “good” in the sense that it means that Kickstarter may now reach a point where it will funnel as much money to the arts as the federal agency primarily responsible for supporting them, effectively doubling the amount of art that can get funded in the country.

Except the problem with the NEA is that their funding source is taxpayers, many of whom are "contributing" to art against their will. The kickstarter model is much more direct and is funded and controlled by the people that want the art. It stands to reason that getting rid of the NEA would result in better art and a freer society.

You think better art is the same as art people want? Even that's not the same as art people think they want ahead of time.

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#16

Post by grannyg00se »

guan wrote: post #2

The headline is misleading. Kickstarter expects to provide more funding overall than the NEA, but not all of Kickstarter is arts projects.

But the article says:

"Kickstarter does restrict the kinds of projects it will allow to be posted on its website to “projects with a creative purpose.” "

So it could be said that all of Kickstarter projects are in fact art projects.

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#17

Post by tomjen3 »

Jun8 wrote: post #8

The title compares all the money given out by Kickstarter (including non-art projects) to NEA's budget, which as of now is not a fair comparison. However, I think this is a technicality, since at the rate KS is growing, the comparison will be valid very soon. The second apples and oranges point is stronger though: Look at the types of projects that NEA funds, e.g. translation projects in 2011 ( http://www.nea.gov/gra…

A writer has to write a book I want to buy if he expects to make money of it. A cook has to make the kind of food I want to eat.

Why shouldn't an artist?

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#18

Post by ajross »

feralchimp wrote: post #11
Jun8 wrote: post #8

The title compares all the money given out by Kickstarter (including non-art projects) to NEA's budget, which as of now is not a fair comparison. However, I think this is a technicality, since at the rate KS is growing, the comparison will be valid very soon. The second apples and oranges point is stronger though: Look at the types of projects that NEA funds, e.g. translation projects in 2011 ( http://www.nea.gov/gra…

> NEA is doing this as a public service, funding people who wouldn't have been funded otherwise. Many would argue that "taking taxpayer money to fund something that no one would pay for" is a coherent definition for "public disservice ."

That's a distortion. You don't mean "no one would pay", you mean "no one would pay enough", which is a very different metric. No one would pay enough to build a nice mural or sculpture in a poor neighborhood, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Likewise the translation projects in the grandparent post aren't going to appeal to the mostly English-speaking, wealthy technolibertarians like yourself. But they still have value to a lot of people.

The straightforward corrolary to what you wrote is that the artistic desires of the wealthy are inherently more valuable, which seems a little unethical to me.

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#19

Post by simonsarris »

vibrunazo wrote: post #4

What does this do to the whole "but art will cease to exist if artists can't have absurd monopoly rights over copyrighted material" argument, which the MAFIAA seem to love so much? If people are willing to fund arts regardless of legal obligation. Then the number one pillar sustaining the copyright "morals" gets easily destroyed. Crowdfunding demonstrates that if we completely remove copyright laws: art will survive.

> Crowdfunding demonstrates that if we completely remove copyright laws: art will survive.

Yes, though I think all that was sufficient to reach that conclusion was all the art that lived long before copyright laws ever existed in the first place.

(And I hope copyright lovers admit that Shakespeare, if there was copyright in his day, would have probably created fewer works, not more. In fact it's possible he and others produced so many works precisely because there was no copy protection!)

Re: Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

#20

Post by Jun8 »

feralchimp wrote: post #11
Jun8 wrote: post #8

The title compares all the money given out by Kickstarter (including non-art projects) to NEA's budget, which as of now is not a fair comparison. However, I think this is a technicality, since at the rate KS is growing, the comparison will be valid very soon. The second apples and oranges point is stronger though: Look at the types of projects that NEA funds, e.g. translation projects in 2011 ( http://www.nea.gov/gra…

> NEA is doing this as a public service, funding people who wouldn't have been funded otherwise. Many would argue that "taking taxpayer money to fund something that no one would pay for" is a coherent definition for "public disservice ."

There's quite a bit truth about your comment but I think it is somewhat simplistic. To better analyze your objection, let us remove the taxpayer part first: Should art projects be funded (by whatever means) that the general public sees no value in, i.e. this is how I parsed your "no one would pay for". This goes into deep discussions about "what is art", "how do you define the value of an art object" etc. Without going into detail, let us observe that in almost all art fields it frequently happens that even the educated public's taste lags the appreciation. I don't know much about painting/sculpture etc. but examples abound in literature (one of the most famous is The Great Gatsby) and film.

So, the mechanism here is very much similar to entrepreneurship: an artist producing work of dubious value asks for support, there's considerable risk in this, i.e. the work is most probably is junk but you might as well have discovered the new Warhol or Banksy. Therefore, it's not a case of funding works "no one would pay for" but how to manage the risk.

The bigger question is: should the state be in this business, with its clueless, bloated and generally ineffective machinery? Again, avoiding the long discussions about how controlling government should be I propose (the obvious but somewhat naive) solution: government should fund some reasonable amount but the works so funded should be under joint ownership of the artist and the public, i.e. the artist should own it but the public should have perpetual view rights, at least from a web site. Continuing the NEA example I gave above, the text of those translations should be available from the NEA site. The public should get value in return, other than the moral feelgood effect of supporting artists.

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