Sharm -
I've tried to read your post, Hian, but I'm just getting too upset. All I can see is someone trying to explain to me that my art is not mine and that all my friends who've permanently given up art or gone bankrupt because of pirates shouldn't exist.
I'm sorry if you feel that way, but I'm not going to assume responsibility for you feeling that way, since nowhere in my post did I say any of those things, nor did I imply them.
I am not defending breaches of intellectual property rights, I am pointing out that breach of copy-right and redistribution/downloading of materials is inherently different from conventional theft, and the statement "piracy causes monetary loss" is difficult to judge, and often wrong.
How do you qualify that your friends have gone bankrupt from piracy, as opposed to bankrupt from the fact that nobody was willing to buy their art to begin with?
You can't, and that's why I get annoyed at people who make that claim.
Again - you can't assume that the people who pirate work would have bought it otherwise. You just can't.
(unless your friends had their art copied, and then used in projects without their permission, in which case they have my condolences, and you can rest assured I addressed that kind of issue in my previous posts, and in this.)
whitesphere -
Here's a bit of insight for how the music industry looks for the millions of struggling artists. I heard this third hand from a woman who has been in the industry for over 20 years and has 2 published CDs to her name and who gets her songs on the radio from time to time. So she has been "discovered" and indeed has thousands of very passionate fans scattered across the country:
The income from her songs is generally very small. Even with, say, 20,000 fans who buy every CD religiously, she might earn $300 or so. The vast majority of the income goes to the record label.
Which is sad, and I never said nor implied that I don't have sympathy for struggling artists. My advice to her would be to spend time searching for other labels, or alternative methods of distribution. I have several friends who produce and make their own music, who make more than this woman do, despite having less exposure than your friend from this example (if you want, I can get into touch with my industry contacts, and she can have a sit down if she wants).
This isn't a piracy problem - this is an industry problem born from greedy production companies that abuse their artists.
whitesphere -
What is her view of pirates? Of the "free exposure" theoretically it should earn? She is furious with them. Why? Well, the problem is people who pirate her music are the least likely to bother to pay actual money to see her perform live. So all they are doing is in effect taking away some of her meager CD income. Now, keep in mind to produce a song takes quite awhile, hours of practice, composing and the likes.
Seriously, how many times do I have to reiterate this?
You can't take away something that was never there. Again, you are making the mistake of assuming any of these pirates would have bought if piracy wasn't an option for them, and that assumption has yet to be justified despite all the emotional and reactionary blow-back in this thread.
whitesphere -
Now, clearly the pirates who download her music want her music enough to take it for free, so they clearly DO like what she produces or they wouldn't even bother pirating it.
Yes, but "like" is a feeling that expresses itself on a spectrum - You're assuming that "liking enough to pirate" = "likes enough to pay for it if piracy wasn't possible", which is flawed.
whitesphere -
I agree nobody has a "right" to be paid to pursue their dream. But, if you like what they produce, buy it. If you don't, then don't.
I agree. I never said anything to the contrary - I said, "piracy is not the same as theft, and you can't justify the assumption that pirates would buy if they didn't pirate, hence you cannot assume that money is lost due to piracy by default.
whitesphere -
Don't do the "Well, I like her work enough to pirate it but not enough to pay for it." That is just hurting the artists.
I don't, and I never said I support that kind of thinking. You still insist on assuming that those who do, would buy under different circumstances though, which is what I object to. Don't conflate the two.
Are you seriously so emotionally invested in your stance that you really fail to see the difference here, and the fact that you're constantly randomly asserting the negative effect of piracy on sales without a single piece of argument or evidence to support it?
whitesphere -
And I agree that most artists may not be able to do their creative work full time. But, as Sharm points out, many independent artists, I'm sure many of them quite good, had so many people fall into the "I like the work enough to pirate it but not to buy it" box, that they completely stopped their creative work.
Which is sad, but to my mind, it speaks more to the emotional frailty of the people who ended up giving up.
Again, you can't assume that you aren't selling because people are pirating as opposed to people aren't buying your stuff because they just don't find it appealing enough to justify its price.
The thing is that, baring actual statistical evidence monitoring the rationale of pirates, it ends up looking to me as if these people are giving up because they aren't achieving, and then blaming it on piracy because it's a convenient emotional blanket against the harsh reality that your art (or your method of distribution/marketing) doesn't cut it in face of competition.
If that's the case, you aren't cut out to be an artist. That's the brutal reality of the world of artists.
(
and again, I'm not talking about artists that have had their resources copied, and the used in other projects without their permission - that's a different beast entirely, and I oppose that as well)
whitesphere -
Besides, how would you like it if you spent years and thousands of dollars producing a commercial game, only to find that, yes, you had some sales, but your game was #1 on Pirate Bay? So your efforts earned you, say, $300, but millions of people were enjoying your game?
I honestly can't say, since I've never produced art with the idea of it earning me a living, or making me rich. That never even entered my mind. I make art because it enjoy the act of creating, and look forward to the reactions I get from people I care about.
I don't think the piratebay ranking would effect me at all. What I would consider are the sales though - if my game sells poorly, regardless of whether people pirate it or not, I'd consider myself as having failed in a sense for not making a product that the consumers find worth the price, but I guess that realization is too much for most people to bear.
whitesphere -
Now, if I were producing a game for free, I'd love the exposure. But if I were trying to make any money from the game, I'd be pissed too.
And if that's how you react my friend, I probably consider that a psychological defense-mechanism for running away from the uncomfortable fact that your product wasn't well received.
That is the core of your problem - you're claiming that creating artwork is not real work and that artists should get other jobs to pay for their living.
No, I am not. Where are you getting this? I double-dare you to find anything to that effect in any of my posts without some serious re-interpretation of what I wrote.
My point is that artistry is a problematic profession because the value of work is, in much larger degree than in almost any other profession, at the complete behest of the consumer.
You can paint a picture and set a price on it to 500.000 dollars, but that doesn't mean that anyone is going to buy it.
Artists have to take into account the possibility that nobody ends up liking your art. Whether people like it, and to what extent they like it is what decides to which price you'll be able to sell it. You can ignore consumer feelings, but to what extent your in touch with your consumer base is going to impact your success.
I'm saying that the statement "People who pirate makes it harder for artists to succeed" is, unless demonstrated otherwise, probably out of touch with the consumer base, because it assumes that these people would buy under other circumstances, and as I've said a billion times already, that assumption is never justified.
I've never seen it justified by statistics, and I've never seen it justified in arguments - and, I've never seen it justified in this thread.
By all means though, keep on rowing though.
1) Art, as with anything, requires experience and training. No one starts off as a master artist, everyone who wants to be an artist needs to work on his/her skills. That takes time - some art schools require you to train and study full time for five years before you could even start to take the tests for passing. And you will see the difference between a trained and a self-taught artist, believe me.real work and that artists should get other jobs to pay for their living.
2) If that study time cannot be paid by art, then either only rich people can become artists, or they need to spend years training for a different job before they can start making art - and some people would never get to that, because there are a lot of jobs that don't pay enough to live comfortable. You need to work for your food, then you need to rest from that work (or you would risk breakdown), and only after that you can start doing art (if you have no family, because otherwise you would have to assign time for that as well).
How long do you think it would take them until they can produce a decent piece of art under those limitations?
At your first point - This is relative. There is no objective standard to what an "art master" even means.
At your second point - This is complete and utter BS.
Firstly, a lot of artistic endeavors are cheaper today than any time before, and most people living in the modern developed world have more time on their hands than ever before.
Secondly, in either case, find my anyone credible who claims making art is a human right.
I guess art schools, and producers of tools used to make art, are thieves as well by that logic, since their costs make it impossible for lower-class citizens and poor people to pursue a life of art?
And thirdly, yes, making art requires time and dedication (and money), yet countless artists world-wide throughout all of history have plowed through the hard road towards become successful artists from scratch, working full-time jobs, while caring for families, taking up loans, using ****ty low-end materials.
You would denigrate the hard work, experience and suffering of these artists by acting like an entitled little kid who thinks these things should land in your face because you made the decision to become an artist and feel like it's hard work?
Tough luck. I work full-time, with night-shifts, have ****-loads of student loans to take care of, a wife, and a child not yet turned 3, yet I use what little time I have to read up on music production, digital design, and creative writing, while producing content free-lance for both indie-productions and AAA projects.
Moreover, I still spend time on this forum, sometimes (albeit seldom) adding content for other users for free.
When I was 16 years old, I worked for minimum wage on a god damn pier, mixing cement and cleaning debris, in order to afford my first guitar and an AMP.
When I got my first computer, with my first DAW, that was out my part-time job as a waiter while being a full-time university student (not in the arts btw).
People who can't compete and blame piracy for their own lack of success needs to seriously start evaluating whether they're cut out for arts or not.
3) Who are you to decide that artwork is not real work? In almost every larger country the legal laws allow to claim artwork as a way to make a living. Those laws had been written by hundreds of people who knew what they were doing.
Except I never did. Seriously, learn to read, of take off your over-emotional reactionary mantle.
And as for laws - hundreds of people also wrote laws banning gays from getting married. You sure you want to make a retrograde argument like that?
Besides,
I have never argued against copy-right laws, I am arguing that you can't assume loss of income based on piracy without first establishing whether pirates would buy under other circumstances or not.
OK, a bad artist will have a lot of problems trying to get better because he/she cannot charge much and still sell the work - but to require them to learn a different trade before starting as an artist is something that stands nowhere in those laws - on the contrary the freedom of choice what to work as (within limits of paying for living cost) is something the laws try to guarantee (not always successful, but that's something else).
And nowhere in any law will you find guarantees to your success in your chosen profession.
Imagine if prospective lawyers who've spent tons of cash on law-school but couldn't find work because of bad grades, or poor performance in earlier positions, made the argument you're doing here, to justify not working in a different profession to survive.
Yes, finding a profession to feed your passion isn't mandatory - it is however very god damn prudent if your passion is an uncertain source of income, and artistry is always going to be that, because guess what? It's a work for which value is always going to fluctuate based on the whims of consumers.
And on another side where you made wrong assumptions:
There is a hidden staff topic where we report and discuss specific cases of piracy. And that specifically includes even cases where some people have illegally copied resources to use them in commercial games, which already had been sold on several portals. That is not some hypothetical case, that is a multiple fact - people made money from artists here on the board without ever paying them.
You claim that people who copied resources without paying do not like them enough to pay for them - would you use those resources in your own commercial game (and make money from them) if you didn't like them? And independently of liking them or not - don't you think that the artist should get paid if his resources are making money for someone else who used them?
Those cases are the proof that the company is loosing money due to illegal copies of the resources - you are the one who is wrong to claim that there is no proof of lost profits due to piracy.
Seriously man, are you really this lazy? Do you realize I explicitly made the point to write down this kind of piracy as problematic in my previous posts?
No, then maybe you should read the post of people you respond to before responding?
The definition of stealing is taking something that's not yours in a manner that's wrong or illegal. There is nothing in the definition about "something" being a tangible piece of matter.
Someone above mentioned that if he built and Audi A6 from scratch, he wouldn't be stealing, but Audi could still sue you for building their machine. Their engineers designed it, and they most likely hold a patent on that design. Your still taking their design, which is in fact stealing.
Have can you take something that isn't tangible?
Think about it for a while, and then think about it again. Unless you're some sort of substance dualist, or believe like ancient Greeks that ideas exist in some sort of separate reality, then this is a non-starter.
If I "take an idea", what have I taken? Is the idea now gone from your head?
No it isn't. It's been duplicated.
That's why it isn't theft - it's duplication. That's why it's called "copy-right violations" not "idea thefts". Just saying.
Again, I'm not saying it's okay to copy people's work, or okay to illegal download it - I'm saying it isn't theft, and it certainly isn't theft in cases where no people have actually pirated instead of buying, or where no profit has been made on the copy-right violations, such as in cases where the "stolen idea" is then used to make a profit.
Also, I was the one who made the Audi A6 example - also, I made a following example stating that if I were to sell such a product, I would in fact be stealing profit, and therefore that would be theft, so I'm unsure why you included this in your post.
Seriously people (at thread in general), how about you read the arguments from start to finish before you reply assuming I am defending piracy and stop your over-emotional responsiveness to perceived "threats against us poor artists" mind-set?
I'm not defending people who'd come unto these forums steal your resources and put them in their commercial projects -
I'm talking about the folly of assuming that the random dude/dudette who downloads Sia's new album on piratebay, would have bought it if the internet was down or whatever, and that Sia has therefore lost 20 dollars of the download.
That is an inane assumption to make, so stop making it already.
