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Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

pluralistic.net

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Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#81

Post by erikerikson »

> Do you really think that Getty Images likes paying photographers and wants to give them a single penny more than they absolutely have to?

Extended, this is how we shut down our economic engines until we all starve.

The problem is the acceptance of an adversarial nature in the relationships of economic actors. Yes, locally optional and "rational" in a mind destroying manner, so on, and so forth...

> Our path to better working conditions lies through organizing and striking

Doctorow says just pick the right side side of the scaled adversarial conflict.

It turns out we need to stop being adversarial but that's a hard coordination problem. The scalable and acceptable solution to that is the next industrial revolution scale advancement.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#82

Post by financltravsty »

zogrodea wrote: post #56
Dalewyn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should non-creatives go along with this? We shouldn't. Art has historically been vastly overvalued and I like that its perceived/demanded value has been sharply declining over the past several decades and especially now with the advent of "AI". I'm sorry if anyone reading this is an artist and I just twisted your pantaloons, but artists don't serve any valuable role in society. Artists exist strictly because soc…

I think you would enjoy reading this which seems to agree with you somewhat. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1cCymY7GRLn-PDwh948WC...

Refreshing. Where can I find more -- do you know who the author is and title of this work?

Edit: Found it. The Principles of Art by Robin George Collingwood

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#83

Post by lovethevoid »

anukin wrote: post #62
tom-_- wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the author is saying the share of revenue the distributors (tech, music industry) are receiving is misaligned with the value they're adding. Compare content creators with a SWE. They both produce the product being sold, what percentage of the revenue should they receive?

Majority of the so called creatives or influencers in the tech platforms produce sub standard material. There are cases of people like sssniperwolff etc whose entire content is rehashing on other peoples work and making money of it. And then there are people who produce life vlogs and shopping hauls. Are they worth more than a software engineer or a farmer who produces actual tangible assets for consumption?

You speak as if software engineers are different. Vast majority are nothing more than marketers who know python. In essence, the same value as shopping haul video makers.

Yet their compensation is very different. It should be obvious to most that what you are paid is nothing about value or efforts or risk.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#84

Post by pdonis »

ip26 wrote: post #59
mdorazio wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “people should be paid based on the value they create” myth comes up a lot on HN. Compensation is only tied to value creation as a maximum level. The actual compensation level is whatever people are willing to work for while doing good-enough work. If you want to price your work based on value, you need to run your own business.

It’s a thought experiment. What are the reasons you aren’t paid for the value you create? Can you fix some of them? In this case, it’s postulated the biggest single factor is a monopsony.

Yes, and the only way to fix the monopsony is for creators to own their own distribution channels so they can sell directly to their customers instead of selling to middlemen who take the vast majority of the profits and pay them peanuts.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#85

Post by xboxnolifes »

pfdietz wrote: post #76
mdorazio wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “people should be paid based on the value they create” myth comes up a lot on HN. Compensation is only tied to value creation as a maximum level. The actual compensation level is whatever people are willing to work for while doing good-enough work. If you want to price your work based on value, you need to run your own business.

Markets are how economic value gets defined. Trying to define it otherwise is fraught with often disastrous difficulty. This is one of the reasons central planning fails. I think one of the reasons so many creatives feel cheated is there's far too much creativity, so the marginal value of more is low. In that situation of overabundance, some other step in the value chain will deliver most of the value, and reap the r…

If economic value is defined through markets, how then does one argue against markets' ability to assign value? What words should be used other than value?

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#86

Post by pdonis »

Dalewyn wrote: post #14
pfdietz wrote: post #4

What this is saying is that creativity is privileged and (unlike other forms of labor) should be given more than the market says it's worth. Why should non-creatives go along with this?

>Why should non-creatives go along with this? We shouldn't. Art has historically been vastly overvalued and I like that its perceived/demanded value has been sharply declining over the past several decades and especially now with the advent of "AI". I'm sorry if anyone reading this is an artist and I just twisted your pantaloons, but artists don't serve any valuable role in society. Artists exist strictly because soc…

> artists don't serve any valuable role in society

I assume then that you don't listen to any music, don't watch TV or movies, don't read any books, don't have any pictures on your walls, live in a concrete box with no artistic design applied, and so on? In other words, that you get no value from art in any form?

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#87

Post by pfdietz »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #85
pfdietz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets are how economic value gets defined. Trying to define it otherwise is fraught with often disastrous difficulty. This is one of the reasons central planning fails. I think one of the reasons so many creatives feel cheated is there's far too much creativity, so the marginal value of more is low. In that situation of overabundance, some other step in the value chain will deliver most of the value, and reap the r…

If economic value is defined through markets, how then does one argue against markets' ability to assign value? What words should be used other than value?

You want to do something that makes no sense? You figure it out.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#88

Post by rayiner »

portaouflop wrote: post #46
rayiner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s especially hard to defend given that the barriers to entry for creatives today (thanks to cheap editing equipment and Internet distribution) is extremely low.

The barrier to getting paid is significantly higher though, so in the end it’s more or less the same: if you want to make a living off creative work you’re going to have a hard time

What are the barriers to getting paid, in this era of online streaming and PayPal?

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#89

Post by djoldman »

A fantastic economist-sniping article with lots of spicy invective, proletariate vs bourgeoisie fun, and undercurrents of protectionism.

All economic agents (producers, consumers, companies, living people) all want to pay nothing and get everything.

There is little new or special here. 1+1 = 2 and generally the sky is blue.

That being said, yes, the way for creators to capture more of the economic pie is fairly simple if not easy: join up and negotiate en-masse. Especially in industries with powerful entrenched oligopolies like music.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#90

Post by rayiner »

pjmorris wrote: post #53
rayiner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s especially hard to defend given that the barriers to entry for creatives today (thanks to cheap editing equipment and Internet distribution) is extremely low.

Yes, tools are cheaper, but the big barriers to entry remain the hours invested in learning whatever creative craft is at hand.

I mean barriers in the sense of market access. Studios used to be able to gatekeep the market because they controlled expensive studio time and distribution networks. That’s not true anymore.
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