Posts by Matthew Poole
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Islander, I don't think books are going anywhere in a hurry. I happen to like them a lot, and they're the media on which the most of my purchasing dollar is spent. Please don't think I'm arguing this corner as someone disdainful of the joys of consuming the written word as ink on paper.
With respect, though, you are not the future of writing and I am not the future of reading. What works for you, and your readers, is not necessarily what will work for future authors and their readers. It is the height of arrogance (and I'm not accusing you of having this position) to say that the only way things can be done, and should be done in future, is the way that they have been done in the past and are done by you (in the royal "you" sense). Authors beginning their craft now, or in school, or not yet born, are being raised in a world far, far different to the one in which you, and even I, were raised, as are their future generations of readers. It is those generations to which we must look when we consider technology's place.
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So collectives and new distribution network will be formed that will ultimately be similar to what we have now: there will always be gatekeepers.
Oh, totally. But that's still an adaptation to a new reality, rather than trying to enforce the status quo through statute.
I've already said that I don't quite know how we need to deal with movies. They cost more to make, though quality can be had on a low budget. As much as anything, the current system has so thoroughly entrenched its cost structure that it is impossible to make any steps toward accepting a reality that doesn't involve absolute control of every last eyeball and eardrum. This is the industry that has found it possible to "lose money" on takings of hundreds-of-millions of dollars, for crying out loud.
I also think that you're very quick to dismiss suggestions that consumers will pay for things they can get on the 'net. iTunes lends the lie to that argument. What people want is convenience, and a reasonable price. They don't want endless restrictions and crippling and all the other nonsense that the studios are trying to enforce. Your language implies that you think that anyone who's advocating for the rights of the consumer is pro-piracy. We're not, but we are against having it dictated to us how we will make use of, frequently, very expensive home theatre systems and other crap that the studios attempt to force on consumers.
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I don't agree with Matthew that "artists don't support something that distributors do". I'm in touch with a fairly broad spectrum of creatives - painters, writers, mostly - none of whom wish to relinquish copyright, but nor do they want to see people prosecuted for making music mashups etc.
Kerry, you just supported exactly what I said. The distributors do want to see people prosecuted for mashups. They want those dirty, rotten consumers to use the product exactly as directed and in no other manner. The artists don't, largely, and I understand that. I even said as much.
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Keir, I just went back and read all of my posts. My terminology has been thoroughly consistent, bar one slip where I was parroting you and said "the market" when I meant "a market". I have referred to "the market" and "a market" with absolute consistency, up until I started having to debate semantics with you because you don't appear to have a real argument. I had assumed, obviously incorrectly, that the good burghers of PAS were capable of picking up on that distinction.
If you want to sit there with a stage-one economics text in your hand and wank on about my language, go right ahead. I'll stick to a dictionary, thanks, and use "market" in ways that are perfectly, absolutely acceptable to anyone who's not desperate to play the man and not the ball. -
Keir, we're going to have to agree to disagree. You want to insist on a very strict, narrow definition of a six-letter word. I want to use it as a shorthand for "demand that exists, whether or not it is met by supply", and also want to use it as part of the term "free market". The dictionary allows me to do precisely that. This is the English language, the wonderful beast that gives rise to the question "How many definitions can dance on a single word?"
I am not precluded from using the word in one sense just because I used it in the other. I refuse to allow you to circumscribe my language simply because you don't want to argue the point. -
Yup. But it could change their ability to earn money from their creations, particularly for literature, as there's not much of a live gig as a major source of income.
This is very true. However, the risk with trying to determine impact is that becomes easier to just decide that there will be a negative impact on existing, established authors and that the technology must therefore be curtailed. You cannot get empirical evidence without allowing the tech to flourish, after all. All you can do is model and guess. Guessing isn't a good basis for formulating policy.
So, we come back to how to determine if it's good or bad. If we go from a million dollars a year divided amongst 20 authors to two million divided amongst 50, the existing 20 are probably going to complain loudly but the new 30 will likely be totally stoked. Society will also be culturally enriched to the tune of another 30 published authors. However, until we can find out if that's what will happen...The risk is that people look only at the existing model and say that the technology will be bad for people working inside it, ergo the technology will be bad for all creators of this kind. Except that that's not necessarily the case, and if a technology is forced to remain immature in a particular industry because of fearful reactions to disruption then it is impossible to find ways to make money from that disruption.
If the movie industry had succeeded in knocking back the VCR (cue "Boston Strangler" references from Jack Vallenti), we wouldn't have home theatre. The box office would have remained king, instead of being subsidiary to DVD and merchandising as sources of income for the studios. That is a very real, very recent example of how very, very wrong it can be to try and restrict technology because it disrupts your existing model. -
because in that case a `market' only exists when there is also supply, in which case it can't exist prior to the decision to supply a certain good
I'd buy a legitimate Ferrari for $500. That means there is a market for a legitimate $500 Ferrari. That nobody will supply one doesn't make the demand any less real. Consequently, that means there is a market, based on the "consumer[s] willing and able to purchase the product" definition, for a $500 legitimate Ferrari.
The classic economics definition of market does indeed require both supply and demand to be fulfilled. The ordinary-English definition, however, does not. I demand the good, therefore a market exists.This has turned into a debate on semantics, with you insisting that the only valid use of the word "market" is when it is consistent with the economics definition of a structure for bringing together the supply and demand sides of a transaction.
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Kyle, the technology of distribution doesn't impact on the creative urges of the creators. It doesn't change their desire to produce things for consumption by others. It changes how the consumers access the work, not the work itself. These are separate things, but it is the gatekeepers, the distributors in the current model, that are most stridently fighting to restrict this new technology.
If it was artists supporting, en masse and identifiably, s92A, I might be of a mind to view things differently, but when the artists do not support something that the distributors do it says to me that it is the distributors fighting for their very existence, not for any kind of protection of the creators. The same is seen when one looks at how little money makes it back to the artists in traditional CD transactions, which again says that the labels exist to support themselves rather than for any purpose of supporting the artists.If the government wants to investigate ways to facilitate the commerce of connecting consumers and creators, I'll be all for it. I would consider that to be a much better use of public funds than trying to find an objective measure for the "goodness" or "badness" of the applications of a particular technology.
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Humbly begging the gracious forgiveness of Your Pretentiousness for daring to use "market" as shorthand for "consumers willing and able to purchase the product".
For fuck's sake! -
It became much less plausible once Mr Murphy stated unswervingly that the legal budget hasn't changed, however. Until that point, I wouldn't have wanted to bet either way, because I don't think there's a single person here who's in awe of the quality of "journalism" (churnalism maybe?) displayed by the Granny stable, and most of us realise that that's largely driven by budget cuts eating into the number of journalists and the time they can spend on stories of any real complexity.