Artists Should Be Compensated For Their Work
questioncopyright.org
questioncopyright.org
I received my (pounds)100, in advance, with profound delight. It was a positive and most welcome increase to my income, and might probably be regarded as a first real step on the road to substantial success. I am well aware that there are many who think that an author in his authorship should not regard money,--nor a painter, or sculptor, or composer in his art. I do not know that this unnatural sacrifice is supposed to extend itself further. A barrister, a clergyman, a doctor, an engineer, and even actors and architects, may without disgrace follow the bent of human nature, and endeavour to fill their bellies and clothe their backs, and also those of their wives and children, as comfortably as they can by the exercise of their abilities and their crafts. They may be as rationally realistic, as may the butchers and the bakers; but the artist and the author forget the high glories of their calling if they condescend to make a money return a first object. They who preach this doctrine will be much offended by my theory, and by this book of mine, if my theory and my book come beneath their notice. They require the practice of a so-called virtue which is contrary to nature, and which, in my eyes, would be no virtue if it were practised. They are like clergymen who preach sermons against the love of money, but who know that the love of money is so distinctive a characteristic of humanity that such sermons are mere platitudes called for by customary but unintelligent piety. All material progress has come from man's desire to do the best he can for himself and those about him, and civilisation and Christianity itself have been made possible by such progress. Though we do not all of us argue this matter out within our breasts, we do all feel it; and we know that the more a man earns the more useful he is to his fellow-men. The most useful lawyers, as a rule, have been those who have made the greatest incomes,--and it is the same with the doctors. It would be the same in the Church if they who have the choosing of bishops always chose the best man. And it has in truth been so too in art and authorship. Did Titian or Rubens disregard their pecuniary rewards? As far as we know, Shakespeare worked always for money, giving the best of his intellect to support his trade as an actor. In our own century what literary names stand higher than those of Byron, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, Macaulay, and Carlyle? And I think I may say that none of those great men neglected the pecuniary result of their labours. Now and then a man may arise among us who in any calling, whether it be in law, in physic, in religious teaching, in art, or literature, may in his professional enthusiasm utterly disregard money. All will honour his enthusiasm, and if he be wifeless and childless, his disregard of the great object of men's work will be blameless. But it is a mistake to suppose that a man is a better man because he despises money. Few do so, and those few in doing so suffer a defeat. Who does not desire to be hospitable to his friends, generous to the poor, liberal to all, munificent to his children, and to be himself free from the casking fear which poverty creates? The subject will not stand an argument;--and yet authors are told that they should disregard payment for their work, and be content to devote their unbought brains to the welfare of the public. Brains that are unbought will never serve the public much. Take away from English authors their copyrights, and you would very soon take away from England her authors.
This may be hard to hear, but: many artists who claim they just want to eat and pay rent are lying (perhaps to themselves). Most artists don't want a living wage — they want to win the lottery. Suggest to most filmmakers and musicians that "success" is about $75,000 a year, and they'll turn up their noses. You call that a jackpot? They're only in it for the millions, baby. If that means working a day job and remaining obscure, so be it. Millions need to be poor so that one can be rich; they're willing to do their time being poor, so that one day they can be rich at the expense of others. Their turn will come, they think.
I suggest playing a different game entirely, because the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. But those kinds of artists want to play the lottery more than they want their art to reach people.
I've had similar thoughts about startup culture. Do people want to run some obscure online business for the rest of their lives and make a decent wage or do they want to make a big splash and retire at 25? You can make similar arguments about decisions to work on open source or proprietary systems, do you want a living wage or a lottery ticket?
It really is more like a lottery. Sure, Brin & Page had talent. But they also had the power of a major university behind them, and they were able to hire a virtual army of brainpower.
People that want to get rich before they turn 30 are, for the most part misguided.
But some of them will make it.
And because to some extent you are in control of your destiny in this respect the feeling of achievement is a powerful drive. I know it drives me (even if I don't hope to make it before I'm 30, I'm well past that anyway ;) ).
So, we plod away on our little schemes to dominate the world, scoff at Gates and Jobs while admiring them. Read the advice from those who have already 'made it' as though it would somehow rub off on us. And for some it will...
I'm sorry but the section you quoted is utterly fatuous, without any kind of figures to back it up. I could quite as easily say that the vast number of painters, poets, authors, actors, musicians and sculptors that I personally know would be estatic to be earning $75,000 a year (or equivalent depending on location). Especially since most of them are currently struggling on a minicule percentage of that amount year after year after year without any certainty that they will eventually be able to use the skills they've honed to pay their way in society.
As far as I can tell her entire argument seems to boil down to 'Art is special and people should give money to artists because it's special'. I'm not entirely sure how that can be taken as any kind of argument.
Art of any kind is a skill, it takes years of hard work and dedication to hone that skill. Her intimation that 'Art' is the domain of the muse and inspiration utterly ignores the enormous amounts of effort every single artist commits to honing their craft.
This kind of idiotic talk just makes me so damn furious. Segregating artists as some kind of 'special needs cases' that should rely on the goodwill of others in order to do normal things like want to raise a family or buy a house or pay for dinner out is a disgusting suggestion, not worthy of consideration.
If your friends were buggy whip makers in the age of motor cars you'd tell them to give it up. If they responded "but buggy whips are my life" then you'd be well within your right to say suck it up. Just like if someone wanted to work 2 or 3 days a week to spend more time with their kids, or take 6 month holidays every year to wander in the Andes. Everybody makes career and life choices, everybody gets to live with the consequences.
That's her final sentence, I don't know what the take away from that is if it isn't 'People should give money to artists out of the generosity of their heart.'
Your solution on the other hand seems to be that art is outdated and artists should give it up if they aren't making money from it? Art = Buggy whips in your argument apparently? Not sure what motor cars are supposed to equate to but I'm sure most 'artists' would be willing to move towards making them if you could explain to us what they are in your analogy.
Everybody makes career and life choices, everybody gets to live with the consequences. This is true, except that in the case of artists it's incredibly difficult to assume personal responsibility for their own success. Let's say some struggling writer's day job is a programmer (a not uncommon situation). If this person dedicates a good amount of time towards programming, enjoys it and sticks with it, honing their craft day by day then it's a pretty sure thing that those choices will pay off in the form of a decent job and comfortable salary.
There is nothing he can do to guarantee that his writing will pay off no matter what career and life choices he makes.
Now here's my main point: there is no fundamental difference between the process required to become a good programmer and the process required to become a good writer. The personal choices, decisions and personal(* ) rewards required to stick with and become capable at both are almost identical.
Why on earth is this woman trying to maintain that 'Art' is some esoteric special case that should be treated any differently from so many other identical processes?
(* ) By 'personal rewards' I mean that the level of self worth and enjoyment for engaging in any classically 'artistic' process is often exactly the same as that enjoyed by scientists thinking about new theories, architects thinking about beautiful design, programmers having a eureka moment with code or any number of similar experiences across any number of professions.
EDIT: I'll also just take a second to respond to this part of your comment: Just like if someone wanted to work 2 or 3 days a week to spend more time with their kids, or take 6 month holidays every year to wander in the Andes.
The comparison between taking a holiday or spending time with the kids and engaging in some artistic process - as if 'doing art' is the same as taking a holiday is exactly what I think this woman is promoting and it's exactly what I think is so moronic about the article. Being good at anything artistic is f'ing hard work. Full stop.
I don't think looking after kids or climbing remote mountains is easy, but I think they may be rewarding in ways other than monetary. I also think society benefits from these things but if we're talking about society's benefit then copyright is the wrong tool to reward artists.
But I stand by my point, doing something artistic that may not pay off financially,regardless of your hard work or skill, is a choice just as buying many lottery tickets is a choice. Many people choose careers that they know in advance will not provide financial security (and this includes some artists). Save your sympathy for them, not the ones gambling without understanding the odds.
Same with writing. Textbooks, manuals, reference, PR, maybe even journalism are all writing professions - a piece written for a predetermined salary. Work.
What sets work and artistic expression apart is that 'art,' as she's defining it, is whatever the f* you want it to be.
That's what you can't 'expect' to get paid buckets for.
While authoring a text book takes skill and practice, it is a process. The same could be said of a Brittany Spears album. They are carefully crafted to appeal to a wide audience.
Art serves no one other than the creator. Try to tell Picasso realism is more popular, or Charles Bukowski that he needs to tone it down. Not gonna happen. Because they weren't doing it for money, but simply for the pleasure of doing it - living; satisfying that itch to create something exactly as they wanted to.
Obviously, sometimes artists happen to strike a chord with society. Their vision becomes mainstream, their work becomes collectible, lots of money trades hands. But this didn't happen because an editor said "Bukowski, go write something these damn hippies will like and I'll pay you $$$"
More often, an artist strikes a chord with a few people. They make a little money. They keep their day job. Maybe they get a grant.
Why would a publisher pay an artist to create a work? What does the publisher need it for? The answer: to sell it. How can the publisher profit from this arrangement? Without the exclusive right to that work (i.e. copyright), they can't.
Luckily for everyone, most people's goals include factors other than profit. Hence symphony orchestras and philosophers exist despite lack of potential upside on their time investment.
How about this: When you produce something without having negotiated a payment in advance, thus establishing its value to somebody, you have no right to complain when nobody finds enough value in the work to give you money. You are free to produce all the art, buggy whips, windows, or any other object you want, but you are not free to demand that people give you money afterward. You are free to try to convince them to do so (marketing), but insisting that people MUST appreciate your art with money is actually an infringement of other people's rights to have their own valuations of things, as you are imposing your valuations on them.
(That's a critical point there, BTW; "right to have your own valuation" may not be a right frequently talked about but it's really quite fundamental to many of the other much flashier and popular rights.)
If I produce a Feist album, put it on a store shelf, and demand $15 for it, you are entitled --- in fact, advised --- not to pay for it. But you are also not entitled to copy it.
I do not understand what is so hard to understand about this situation. The music labels suck. A lot of artists suck. When something sucks, you don't do business with it. You get no other rights and privileges. They can charge $15 or $75,000. They can give you FLAC files or .EXEs that play music by hijacking the scheduler loop in your kernel. Your options: (1) agree to their terms, or (2) stay away from them.
If you do produce a buggy whip and price it for $75,000, nobody is entitled to thereby take it, but, well, while you have every right to whine about how nobody values it, I have every right to call that a terrible argument.
It is impossible to express opinions about law without (at least implicitly) assuming some basis for discerning between good and bad law.
Whatever you assume will either look like Natural Rights or Unfounded Personal Opinion.
There is an Economics and Law movement, partly inspired by Coase's Theorem, http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/The_Swedes.html, that has high hopes of economic efficiency as a basis for discerning between good and bad law.
Not everyone will like a particular work of art. I don't think people who dislike a work should be obligated to pay for it.
Copyright doesn't do this! I don't like country music. The fact that it's copyrighted doesn't force me to buy it!
This article hurts my head.
The article hurt my head too, by the way, but that is because of the Weird Capitalization.
I think there's a bit of conflation across several questions going on, both here and in most discussions on the topic:
* Is an artist entitled to compensation merely for creating art?
* Is an artist entitled to compensation by those who view their art?
* Is an artist entitled to compensation by those who redistribute her art?
But the problem with the lottery ticket mentality is that I think it mostly stems from the fact that the 'greedy and seedy suits' exert so much control over other peoples art on top of collecting all/most of the profits (even more so in the past).
Examples are ample: musicians not owning the actual music (in the past not even owning the actual recording masters), not able to decide how/when to (re)release albums, directors/creators of movies not owning 'video rights' and as such not in charge of how crappy a DVD is put together, comic book artists/writers not even having control over a character they invented from scratch...
The only reason you would ever put up with such ...ahem... 'fascism' is that you get compensated beyond a 'living wage'.
Also: I don't equate control/copyright over your own art/work with being able to control weather someone can get a hold of your art without paying for it.
That kind of thinking is completely obsolete this day and age and again only serves one purpose: maximize profits by ripping of (cfr. Nine In Nails album pricing in certain countries) or pestering consumers (cfr. DRM & unskippable 'do not steal' intros on DVD's you just bought)
Once the control problem goes away, new and equally profitable means of monetization can and should be created without feeling cheated (cfr. Radiohead In Rainbows)
We all know how it feels to work a job that has a crappy commute or crappy hours/people but happily put up with it if you're compensated more than enough.
When it comes to losing control over your art, only billions are 'more than enough' it seems ;-)
The mean has already been created thousands years ago, it's called performing.
And even then the issue of control comes to play. I know for a fact that if you want to play a certain big festival in my country you have to agree that t-shirts can only be bought at the designated stand, for a price that's higher than the price you decide and they take a cut of the profits.
Again, maximising profits by ripping of customers beyond your control...
Anyway, I wouldn't mind paying for a 3 hour live performance of Apocalypse Now (but only with the original actors, director and in the original location ;-)
And sites like Etsy are doing exactly this. By empowering artists to sell directly to their followers, we can help.
Theoretically, what if you are exactly as good as a bank CEO? What if you sing and dance and compose exactly like Madonna?
Then do you deserve to be paid after the fact?
When an artist happens to make a piece of art that someone puts value on, what's wrong with the artist receiving money? Especially if the "buyer" were going to pay someone else instead (a shrewd middle man). Perhaps this money is supposed to be thought of as a donation?
Still, people want to own art. When an artist randomly makes art and then goes to a market to sell them, is that more like a comission? What about all the farmers and other folks at a market selling wares that weren't pre-comissioned? It's a natural exchange, though. Or maybe I'm brainwashed by culture.
Finally, why not just say that "Artists should be compensated for good artwork"? Who cares if it is art or work or whatever. People should pay where they see value and do their best to pay smartly; eg, pay the artist so they produce more and are rewarded, and don't pay, eg the record labels more than their fair share (damn extortionists!). Technology seems to be helping in this area.
Sometimes work doesn't have a lot of value for other people. That's ok, too. It doesn't matter whether it is art or serious. Honestly, my best projects are those that merge the serious and artistic, but that's a whole other story and cultural perspective.
ps - this reminded me of KickStarter http://kickstarter.com
Incidentally, I started watching these interviews because when I got to the end of Sita Sings the Blues, I was a little miffed to see the following note while the credits flashed: "it took me a long time to make, so please tell me what you think."
I thought the use of "I" was a little jarring, though possibly reasonable. Nonetheless, it gave me pause. I don't expect "fairness" [see interviews] to be possible until everyone uses "we" fairly.
For something like this to work in a sustainable way, the means of managing liquid value need to evolve.
Some say that the difference between your "work" and your "job" is that you would do the former if you were paid for it or not, keep this in mind.
Are artists entitled to compensation for creating art? Of course not.
Are consumers entitled to access to any given artist's art? Of course not.
Where does that leave us? Same needle, same thread.