Hard News: The Casino
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Please do elaborate on why you don't rate the analogy.
I don't rate the analogy because the death of the horse as a primary means of transport largely killed the associated trades. Saddlework, smithing, etc, went from common trades, to being very uncommon. And the people that had done them slowly went out of business and their families took their skills and moved onto similar fields of work, but doing something different.
Which isn't a problem with those trades, they're not needed anymore.
If the world suddenly changes, and we suddenly only provide enough income for 10% of the current number of professional writers, I think we'll have lost a lot of culture.
The analogy doesn't work because 1. people argue that in the 'new world' writers will still have income, that doesn't match up with what happened to the horse industries, and 2. if that's not true, losing the writing industry doesn't compare to losing the saddlemaking industry.
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The key problem with the analogy is that the actual trade of writing will be mostly unaltered. It will still be the job of putting one word after another, unlike the blacksmith who simply became mostly redundant as his wares were no longer wanted. The question is not whether writing will be lost. It will not. The question is whether good writers will be lost. Will these people, who specialized in putting one word after another, be crushed by a tidal wave of mediocrity?
Or will they, as jon knox's "how to charge" link suggests, just have to lift their game? Is it akin to fashion, in which it is of course possible to buy cheap knock off clothes, and most people do, but really stylish trendy stuff still sells at colossal premiums, and keeps a thriving industry in business? Writers will still be a brand, whatever the delivery mechanism. People have a lot more clothes than they did just from when I was a child, but do they have less quality clothes? Talking to young girls I don't get the impression that they consume quality clothes any less than they did when I was a kid, they just have a lot more now, and quite a lot of junk. My bookshelves are about 5 times the size of what my mother remembers her bookshelves being, but is there more or less quality in there? I think there is more total, and probably less proportionally. Which is a net gain, IMHO.
But personally, I find these bookshelves a pain in the arse, they're wasting a ton of precious storage space, which I now need with another baby on the way. I can't bear to part with all those books, and would really like it if there was a way that I could do the obviously possible - put the entire damned lot on an SD stick and keep it in my wallet. Unfortunately, the entire world of copyright stands between me and that entirely possible and extremely practical outcome. I can't see that humanity is served by the billions of tons of paper and cardboard that our legal system insists on having slowly sequestering in bookcases and boxes all around the world.
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The question is whether good writers will be lost. Will these people, who specialized in putting one word after another, be crushed by a tidal wave of mediocrity?
I keep thinking of Oprah Winfrey.... If she says the book is good, that should guarantee 1000000 copies sold. Diversify or die or you could specialize and survive.....or (thinking....)
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Ben, I think music sales have increased despite DRM and not because of it. Barriers to getting music to people have fallen hugely. However as others have noted it is harder to make money from that when the economic models have not kept up and when the industry's efforts have gone into clutching their old models tight and keeping out the infidel.
Why go through the same palaver with the written word? Banning T2S is not the answer, but I guess it means people are paying attention to the questions.
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And let's not go the other way and confuse the interests of all the players in the process of creating and consuming entertaining literarature with those of writers.
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Some good critique of the saddlery analogy, thanks. I guess the first loser in the literary arena might be the bookshop, and I'm not sure there was ever that layer in the world of saddles or horseshoes was there?
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And let's not go the other way and confuse the interests of all the players in the process of creating and consuming entertaining literarature with those of writers.
Indeed. I sometimes lament that I can't make a million bucks writing a 4KB computer game, the way it was possible to do in the 1980s. Now it typically requires a colossal team, and can be as expensive as a big budget movie. But there are still lots of people writing 4KB games and making money out of them. They just can't make the colossal fortunes that were possible when such things were bleeding edge. But who out there apart from old programmers is lamenting that, when they get their hands on the latest PlayStation extravaganza?
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And this from Jon's "how to charge" link speaks to the underlying problems with s92 and other developments being dominated by narrow interests:
there has to be much more to a pay strategy than a publisher’s desire to want to be paid.
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I'm not sure there was ever that layer in the world of saddles or horseshoes was there?
Saddlery, Tack Shop, or should I say Tack Shoppe (not to be confused with "Tuck Shop" or Brownlee's Buffet and Bistro)
I thought the analogy was quite good. There is still quite a lot of work out there for the horsey types but not as much (when you take population growth into account) as there was before the invention of the Horseless Carriage, you will note the use or the word Horse in Horseless carriage, it means that a horse is not part of the conveyance, it is horseless, sans chevaux if you will.
That is not to say that all horses will be led screaming, nay neighing, to the glue factory but natural attrition through the passage of time would be ample to eradicate the surplus sufficiency of equine excess.
It may be said that those galloping guardians of gracious carriage would have desired the continuance of their labours to be passed down to a next generation of tremendous trotters towing tanks of tardy travellers toward desired destinations.
To embrace the pursuance of progress we must all, and that includes artists of all colours, creeds or formats, to encompass the concept of a continuance of their craft to include the complexity of a future unknown. A future committed to a commonality of consciousness a world wide web, if you will, of plagiarised publishing of poetry and prose with a paucity of profit for people of purpose.
Yes, people. It is not what we a re writing, it's how we are writing.
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I want what he's having. :)
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I want what he's having. :)
What, a cup of tea and a lie down?
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However. When one is diversifying in a downturn and decides to deliver added value to a venture, employing professionals to design your web presence is preferable to DIY.
Three Horse Shoe Farm has a site offering such delights as a " complete set of heavy duty breast harness with a pre- oiled finish" for only £100.00.
You may also have a cup of tea and a lie down while the page loads. -
I won't ask what search words got you to that site.. :)
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e-books also in all likelihood dilute the share of royalties to the author, unless the author is also the person who performs the reading.
Jon, I think you're confusing ebooks with audio books. Not the same thing.
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More email is currently being written than ever before. A colossal proportion of it is spam. But that doesn't mean that the non-spam isn't getting written, or that it's become spammy, or in any way less valuable.
The reverse, in my view. Until the mid-90s, people wrote to one another two or three times a week, if they were really keen.
Now, they're writing to each other several times an hour, and they've had to learn to express their own thoughts more effectively, to be more mindful of the impact of their words, and to present themselves through their written English.
There will always be idiots with keyboards, but noob horrorshows are much rarer than they were (the "think before you hit send" message was a staple of my Listener column in the 90s). The internet hasn't hurt the average person's written English, it has demanded much more of it.
Further, it is possible for an ordinary person to gain respect through writing good prose. That's quite cool.
We won't discuss texting here.
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k :)
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Further, it is possible for an ordinary person to gain respect through writing good prose. That's quite cool.
I reckon. In fact, it's possible for ordinary people to get all kinds of respect from things they add to the net. I found the services of various amateur documentary makers on YouTube invaluable recently when I resolved it was finally time to own an electric bike. I saved a heck of a lot of time and money (and heartache) that way.
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We won't discuss texting here.
Y nt? txtg iz a nw frmt cr8tvty z nt cnfnd 2 cnvntul lngwg luv n h8 cn b xprst fru meenz over n spshl wrdz nown bi sphl ppl wiv spshl edjakashn mng kn b xpst wvut crekt sht. init?
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The geek in me wanted that last word to mean "initialise". Innit.
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That's because you write in code. Eh?
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The analogy isn't strictly comparable, as Giovanni points out, but the economic driver is the same.
The author's income stream is dependent on what the market will pay for their work, not the nature of the publishing. Perceived value is what will drive that, not copyright. In that sense, copyright just means that no-one else can derive that income stream.
The analogy falls because there is no physical product that is analogous to intellectual property. You've been resisting the comparison between breach of copyright and stealing for that very reason, no? But you can't really talk of fair market value with a technology that makes it possible to reduce the cost price to zero by opting to get the product for free from a p2p network - and with the exact same effort as accessing a paying service. The simple existence of that possibility obviously interferes with the concepts of fair value and market value (people used to say that CDs were too expensive - but too expensive in relation to what?) and has the potential of turning the whole "paying for music and books" thing into one giant honesty box. There really is nothing that is analogous to that.
There will be people who will lose work the way of the saddlemakers, though: the printers, the paper and pulp millers, and so forth. These guys will be fine.
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(there is no physical product that is analogous to intellectual property)The simple existence of that possibility obviously interferes with the concepts of fair value and market value and has the potential of turning the whole "paying for music and books" thing into one giant honesty box. There really is nothing that is analogous to that.
That assumes that there is no difference between market value and fair value. The concept of fair value depends on limited markets and market value depends on nothing more than the demands of the market. If the market demands that what can be taken for nothing must be paid for then the market value is nothing more than that. Fair value, on the other hand, demands nothing other than that the limited market wish to pay.
Say, for instance, someone wanted a menu written in Italian.
It is a limited market and you, Giovanni, could charge like a wounded bull for such a service. So please stay away from a market driven model for creative endeavors.
I would, with the greatest respect, direct you to this article and its comments as a way of expanding my point.
Patents and Monopolies -
Say, for instance, someone wanted a menu written in Italian.
It is a limited market and you, Giovanni, could charge like a wounded bull for such a service. So please stay away from a market driven model for creative endeavors.All I was meaning was that speaking of fair value or market value is simplistic if it ignores the fact that a technology has come about that allows to do away with both. I'm not suggesting that an exclusively mercantile approach to creative endeavours it's the way to go - although your hypothetical is funny. Who needs to see the Rolling Stones? Nobody. Yet they can and do charge like wounded bulls for the privilege.
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That's cool, we all agree.
Steven, I feel like a right click some times too but it is better than being called a CLINT (sorry, it only works when you shout)
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That's because you write in code
Nope. Read it a bit, dream it even less..
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