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Comment by hirako2000 | Hacker News Reader

hirako2000

Throwing away these abused IP laws wouldn't prevent creators from making a living off their art.

Plenty of ways for artist to monetize. Selling a copy of the art is one way, very cherished by publishers. Creators for the most part don't make money off copy distribution of their art. That was the case with physical copies, still the case with online distribution.

The good old "let's protect the artists" is a fallacy. It's only to protect publishers and distributors. These IP laws, at least their interpretation acts against the public interest, creators included.

Other forms of monetisation of art? Performance, training and teaching, patronage, custom requests, etc.

Ask Taylor Swift where most of her money is coming from, that's not from Spotify.

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> Creators for the most part don't make money off copy distribution of their art Can you back this up with any sources? Besides listing individual artists or only talking about specific industries?

e.g. how many successful fiction authors don't make money off copy distribution of their "art"?

Regardless I don't see how is this a legitimate argument (even if it were accurate), authors/creators should be free to chose their monetization model themselves.

> These IP laws, at least their interpretation acts against the public interest, creators included.

On the whole I certainly don't agree at all (obviously the current system is not perfect and need to be improved. Also could you explain how exactly they act against creators interests?

> Performance, training and teaching, patronage, custom requests, etc.

Yes, let's go back to the middle ages when when you could only be an artist/writer/etc. if you found a rich patron willing to support you

who do you think owns record labels? poor people?

I'm not sure what are you arguing against? Sure, record labels might be exploitative and the share going to the original creators might be too low (no argument there), but how exactly would abolishing IP protections fix that?

If musicians can create and distribute their content on their own (for free) and sustain themselves entirely from donations and/or performances they are completely free to do that. What does that have to do with IP law?

You say "Yes, let's go back to the middle ages when when you could only be an artist/writer/etc. if you found a rich patron willing to support you" like that's not the case today, which is either duplicitous or just naiive.

Donations are exactly that, a rich patron willing to support you.

So you're basically getting upset over some made up reality where currently musicians don't need support from rich people, but that reality only exists in your head.

I'm not particularly upset, just somewhat baffled...

First I was never talking about musicians specifically, secondly modern (Patreon/etc.) style donation model is in my opinion overall much better that being dependent on a small number of rich donors. However that seems besides the point, authors/creators are free to chose how they distribute their content and what business model they want to adopt (obviously different models work better in different industries).

You are somehow implying that denying them that choice would improve something? Can you explain?

> like that's not the case today, which is either duplicitous or just naiive.

Really? Most successful authors are musicians are dependent on 1 or 2 individual patron? Not thousands or even millions of people willing to pay for their content (in some form)?

so you're basically saying you're fine with a creator needing to get a business major in order to sell merch... just so they can give away the thing they real care for? I'd hope premium games would show there's a market where you don't need to become a coporate model just to make ends meet, but I guess when even games are dismissing that it was only a dream.

>The good old "let's protect the artists" is a fallacy. It's only to protect publishers and distributors.

Who do you think is the first to be cut when publishers/distributors are low on money? It's not like they need that money to live. They can shut down the business and still retire comfortably.

>Ask Taylor Swift where most of her money is coming from

okay.

>Swift's income streams include revenue from her concert tour ticket sales, music catalog, streaming deals and record sales. She also owns numerous pricey properties across the U.S. Both Bloomberg and Forbes pin her net worth at an estimated $1.1 billion on the low end, based on analyses of her fortune.

so... either she's really good in real estate or she command enough power to get a fair cut from stuff 99.9% of artists barely get anything out of.

Never thought about comparing Swift to the typical music market but I was expecting something a little bit more surprising.

> so you're basically saying you're fine with a creator needing to get a business major in order to sell merch... just so they can give away the thing they real care for?

What a nonsensical, bad-faith, mis-representation of GP. At this point you might as well start talking about hot air balloons, another thing that wasn't mentioned in GP. If this is what you're going to be doing, you shouldn't be on this website at all. Your comments particularly stand out as always being on the wrong side of the conversation, no matter what point is brought up. It's obvious you just want to be a contrarian for no sake at all.

> What a nonsensical, bad-faith, mis-representation > At this point you might as well start talking about hot air balloons,

To be fair the same could be said about any comment in this thread advocating the complete abolition (as opposed to reform) of IP laws. Ofcourse, Maybe they are not directly "bad-faith", just not thought through at all and/or extremely ideological.

No, that would not be fair, that would be self-serving and unfair, and again a mis-representation of what you're being challenged with.

> mis-representation of what you're being challenged with.

Can you elaborate? I haven't seen a single coherent logical argument explaining why why IP laws should be abolished (instead of reformed) in this entire thread and/or why and how would that benefit creators?

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