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Comment by jsavimbi | Hacker News Reader

> It was an attempt to influence OTHER photographers not to give away their photos for free.

At some point, photographers will need to understand that their work is not that unique and that the wealth created by the community through sharing is much greater than that derived by a single artist through the licensing and sale of their work.

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Which I'm sure will be a great comfort to them when they're struggling to feed themselves, because they've donated all that wealth to the "community".

Would you apply the same argument to your own line of work?

My line of work operates the same way. Whether I approve of that or not is irrelevant, but I need to recognize it and adapt to survive.

I think most of us in tech do. There are people who rail against how open-source software is "stealing their livelihood", but I think most people realize that there is nothing immoral about people choosing to write open-source software. If the only way you could earn a living is to wish for the non-existence of free software, then you just need to find a new line of work, because you can't wish it out of existence...

At risk of putting words into your mouth, what you're saying here is "some software is open source and that's ok". I couldn't agree more - I've even made a few small contributions to open source projects myself. But the way I read the parent post, it seemed to be saying (the equivalent of) "all software should be open source", which is something quite different and which I disagree with quite strongly.

When the price of copying and disseminating work is lower than the price of the royalty, a royalty is what people will not pay, never mind full price for the original. It's a simple as that.

"""At some point, photographers will need to understand that their work is not that unique and that the wealth created by the community through sharing is much greater than that derived by a single artist through the licensing and sale of their work."""

Spoken like a true I-want-your-stuff-for-free person...

You're assuming that "your stuff" actually has monetary value. Usually it doesn't, but the creator rarely wants to hear that.

Well, if someone "wants it", it has monetary value.

What you're saying amounts to "I'd want it (over other things) if it was free".

Good, move along then, and don't use it because it is no.

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