31–40 of 245 posts
For a visual form of the same argument, but more about music and film, see everything is a remix: https://www.everythingisaremix.info/ It's been submitted to HN many times but has never spawned any discussion: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=everything+is+a+remix
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The “artists need to make a living” narrative against piracy is pure deception. Truth is that most artists want nothing more than for their messages to spread as widely as possible, as that is also the most naturally profitable path for them in the long term. It’s only when managerial types get involved the need to turn a quick buck by denying the natural flow of information becomes a primary concern. So pirate away,…
I self-publish my books. The audience is decent, I publish shortened audiobook versions for free, but frankly, I like the fact that the paper books themselves are copyrighted and no one can print them extremely cheaply and flood the market with them at my expense. It would have been natural, but also depressing.
Amazon has a book piracy problem ( 219 points by tosh on July 8, 2022 | 120 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32026663 https://x.com/fchollet/status/1550930876183166976 (and via Threadreader - https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1550930876183166976.html ) - also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32210256 ( 665 points by jmillikin on July 24, 2022 | 193 comments )
Pirated books thrive on Amazon — and authors say web giant ignores fraud - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35761641 ( 87 points by vanilla-almond on April 30, 2023 | 79 comments ) https://nypost.com/2022/07/31/pirated-books-thrive-on-amazon...
Amazon caught selling counterfeits of publisher’s computer books—again - https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazo...
Having something that is paper doesn't mean that no one else can print them cheaply and flood the market. While it might not be at your expense - it certainly isn't something that is making you any money.
> As a designer, I feel the need to be original. If you’re a designer, or even if you’re just interested in design, you probably feel the need to be original, too. I've been a professional designer since 2006, and I got over that thinking pretty quickly. A designer trying to be strikingly original is rarely acting in service of the design. If you want to be strikingly original, you probably want to be an artist inste…
I was a UI/UX guy for about 5 years and worked for a company that pumped out thousands of sites a year. A bunch of their designs won awards and I saw their model and thought I could do that, it seemed easy.
The hitch was that I was going to design really cool sites, with all kinds of animations, huge text, have really cool navigation menus, etc. In short, I had a very romantic idea that I would dictate some incredible design to my clients. I thought I was like the Frank Lloyd Wright of design and whatever I showed people they would swoon and then go with whatever uber cool thing I showed them.
Reality set in with my first client. Same thing, they didn't want cool shit, they just wanted their potential clients to find information about their work and contact them to hire them. After another 4-5 clients, I suddenly realized that web designers aren't some artist creating ultra cool, ultra rare stuff that your clients must absolutely have like a Banksy piece, they have more fundamental problems they're trying to solve and want you to solve them for them.
I got my ego checked in a hurry, but it was a good lesson to learn. You're not selling art, you're selling a solution to their problems.
Go further. If you model ideas mathematically, you will see that societies plagued with IPDD ( https://breckyunits.com/ipdd.html ) will become extinct, because they prolong the lifespan of bad ideas, and those with intellectual freedom, where bad ideas rapidly evolve into good ideas, will rise to the top of the food chain. The equation is simple: ETA! ( https://breckyunits.com/eta.html ) Question whether we should ev…
Is there any evidence that the equations in the blog post model the real world? I ask, because these intellectual property protections are intended to incentivize creation. If that incentive overwhelms these models of information sharing and testing frictions then the model is incomplete.
Judge something not by what people say it does, but by what it actually does.
> If that incentive overwhelms these models of information sharing and testing frictions then the model is incomplete.
Agreed. But try as I might, I can't find any way theoretically or empirically to model copyrights and patents that show a positive impact on innovation.
Nature's survival of the fittest already provides near infinite incentive to innovate.
Now, I think patents and copyrights had a positive side-effect effect in the early days of the United States because it created a centralized library in the District of Columbia containing all of the latest information across the fledgling nation. But with the Internet, we don't even need that anymore. All the other parts of those laws are harmful and a drain on innovation.
Look at what happened with Windows/Crowdstrike-ultimately another harm caused by closed source, under-evolved "IP protected" ideas. Ironically Microsoft calls Windows their "Intellectual Property" when collecting money, but when that IP harms people, suddenly it's not their property.
> Is there any evidence that the equations in the blog post model the real world?
Depends on where you live. If you live in America, evidence is all around you. :)
But here is some hard data, thousands of programming languages ranked by languages most used to build other languages (which gives an objective measure of idea quality):
https://pldb.io/lists/explorer.html#columns=rank~name~id~app...
Utterly dominated by open source langs. Closed source, IP ones are headed for extinction.
Originality is overrated in art, painting restoration usually entails repainting large sections of the original. The image and the ideas far transcends the "original" which is usually reserved for bragging rights for uber rich collectors. The best art is the art you get to enjoy everyday.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I self-publish my books. The audience is decent, I publish shortened audiobook versions for free, but frankly, I like the fact that the paper books themselves are copyrighted and no one can print them extremely cheaply and flood the market with them at my expense. It would have been natural, but also depressing.
> I like the fact that the paper books themselves are copyrighted and no one can print them extremely cheaply and flood the market with them at my expense. Amazon has a book piracy problem ( 219 points by tosh on July 8, 2022 | 120 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32026663 https://x.com/fchollet/status/1550930876183166976 (and via Threadreader - https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1550930876183166976.ht…
I can make cheap, small-scale facsimiles, fangzhipin, to demonstrate some quality of the original. I can make exact replicas, pixel-perfect fuzhipin, to learn how the originals and their creators work. Or I can create shanzhai, unsolicited redesigns, commenting and riffing on the work of others. All these copies have an important role to play in the process of design. Whether you believe that it’s worthwhile or worth…
As long as there are new ideas, those without such ideas will copy them
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The “artists need to make a living” narrative against piracy is pure deception. Truth is that most artists want [...] I'd like to offer a more moderate option--or perhaps just radical in a different direction. Artists would like to make a living, and the "deception" comes from how that slogan is used to falsely present the powers-that-be as able, willing, and actively delivering on that goal.
Thanks for the clarification - I do not claim that artists don’t want to make a living. My point is that, too often, the “artists need to make a living too” narrative is used by the system that exploits artists.
On why they copy the shape and size, that is the part where you can be more artistic, and it seems they have no taste.
(Affordance meaning using what people already is familiar with so they don’t have to relearn an interface)
You sorta want to use affordance, when Apple creates a new type of UI, it’s usually because the introduced new tech. Like recent Samsung copy cat AirPods, they cannot invent a new UI because they are not the innovators, so they need to borrow affordances from Apple. On why they copy the shape and size, that is the part where you can be more artistic, and it seems they have no taste. (Affordance meaning using what peo…