Updated -- This week in The Slacktiverse, January 21/22 2012

The Blogaround

Sarah reports: In the past two weeks, I've posted on music and poetry and Yeats's "The Stolen Child". I also posted some bits of Martin Luther King's speeches on war and poverty.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: Playful Animals, Platonic Allies
We’re one chapter away from the end, and time for Aslan to gather the allies and join the battle. But I object to the conflation of “deformed” with “evil” and I am distressed that the “good” Giant in the Witch’s garden is good because of his family connections and not because he simply chose to be. Come explore classism and ableism in Narnia this week.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Hunting Rapists, Condoning Rape Culture
Edward Cullen has lived his life as a rapist-hunting vigilante. He is uniquely poised to understand rapists, because of his telepathic talents. So why does he use the same techniques and tactics to abuse isolate, gaslight, and control Bella, and why does he condone his romantic rivals doing the same?

This week MercuryBlue posted a writeup for Affairs Magazine of the SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/Megaupload situation and the Black March boycott-the-media-industries meme that's going around.

Kit Whitfield continues her analyses of famous first sentences. This week: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. She also explained why Among the many, many reasons I'm angry about the Stop Online Piracy Act.

This week Laiima wrote about: what to say when you don't have words, yet and using what's on hand to color fabric easily.

Chris the Cynic reports: This week I wrote about the police's multiple absurd and disturbing responses to theft and vandalism targeting Occupy Maine, and started a series of posts that will take an extended look at the videogame Deus Ex.

I made an introduction to Deus Ex, in which I completely derailed myself into trying to correct an old misconception, a post about the game's backstory, and a post explaining why I'll be using the original graphics when a better version exists). Then I started going through the training mission of the game. First I noticed how the future looks and a lack of exits, then I noticed some of the game mechanics and a lack of female characters. After that I talked about books in the game and my first coworker. Finally I discussed how very wrong the things being done for training actually are.

Storiteller started out the week with a seasonally-appropriate, hearty recipe that originated from throwing together some random ingredients in the fridge. After tweaking it a bit, she shares it in Vegan Umami for Beginners. After participating in the Great Internet Blackout against SOPA/PIPA on Wednesday, she explains why freedom of speech is so important to her personally and for society in "No Such Thing As Public Liberty, Without Freedom of Speech".

Coleslaw writes: This week I took an Excerpt I had deleted from a previous post and turned it into its own post. (Trigger Warning: mention of murder/suicide.) While shelving my Mikasa Fruit Panorama dinnerware, I recalled my late mother-in-law, who gave it to me (with pictures). I wrote about the losses of an important game and a local radio station in Scoreless. Finally, I have a new hobby, creating outfits (Such as thisSummer outfit) I can't possibly afford using online clip art (more pictures).

The former conservative blogger reports: This week I wrote an article wondering whether I should participate in the Republican primary, I wrote about robocalls from Mitt Romney, I continued my series about why I'm no longer conservative and I wrote a couple of fun posts about geeky stuff (Geeky stuff I’m excited about, I’m tired.)

Michael Mock writes: This week at Mock Ramblings, I posted some questions to keep in mind when reviewing scenes, described possibly the weirdest dream I've ever had, and revealed my latest invention: self-heating tea. I also added sections to two of my ongoing writing projects: Apocalypse River and They Are Legion.

rejiquar writes: Though posted to rejiquar.com & my tumblr a week ago, I only just managed to get x-posted to lj (which has the advantage of easy commenting): Kingdom Come intro and essay, which are xposted (though without the links) to livejournal and tumblr.

From the intro:
Fred over at slacktivist had a post on the upcoming superhero movie, and J Enigma urged Fred to check out Kingdom Come, saying he would love it.

I'd be curious indeed to see what Fred would make of it, but in the meantime, here's my reaction, in which I attempted some of the sort of thing Fred and Ana Mardoll do so well.

J. Enigma reports: First up, Human Black Box (Trigger Warning: Transhumanism, Language, Uplifting, Child Abuse, Violence, Disturbing Imagery.) I haven't updated Human Black Box in a while, but today, I finally managed to collect all of the posts relating to the first 8 parts into one PDF document, complete with pictures and character stats at the end. As it's released under the Share and Share-alike license, the content is free for anyone to edit, remix, or incorporate new content into, so long as you credit me first. You can find that post here: Human Black Box now a PDF. For those conscious about it, there's mild nudity in some of the pictures.

(Trigger Warning: Transhumanism.) I made a post a while back about Transhumanism and the ethnic identity. It's a tricky subject to write about, but an interesting one to explore. I also wrote a post about a couple of new technologies, including one that targets certain aspects of aging and slows them, and a look at some potential post-singularity technology, (Nanotech is so 21st century.)

I've spent some time busting up poor critical thinking lately, so I started with this whole 2012 nonsense, considering that's the big thing. I made a post about how Homer Predicted Air-conditioning (technically just an image) as a lead into a larger post about the fallacies that one finds when dealing with Bible code seekers, prophecy believers, and conspiracy theorists. I also took strong offense at the ableist notion that children with AD/HD are somehow "psychic" and "special" - and dismantled the entire notion of "indigo children", including how much harm it does to deny these children treatment, (Trigger Warning: discussion of ableism, discussion of negative attitudes toward ADHD and austism) (I am apparently an indigo child).

(Trigger Warning: Language, Bigotry, Homophobia, Extreme Misogyny, Theofascism.) Lastly, I took a look at the rewritten "Constitution" according to the fascists at the Liberty Council in "The New Christian Sharia". It's a very scary thing.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Bad Thoughts... Bad People?
I think a lot of the reason why people dislike Bella is because she thinks very negative things about people. And now she has Edward and they can be negative together! But does her persistently negative thoughts make her a bad person/character, or are they meant to be something more cathartic or... what? Come help me decide.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: Why Your Well-Intentioned Advice Was Called 'Victim-Blaming'
(Trigger Warning: rape and rape discussion, racism.)
Written in response to the “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” opinion piece in Forbes.

In case you missed this

From MercuryBlue: the writeup, from a not-a-lawyer-but-very-familiar-with-applicable-law perspective, of the Megaupload situation. tl;dr: Megaupload did a laundry list of stupid things, but SOPA et al are not necessary to deal with them because existing US law does the job just fine.

According to an article in The New York Times a New Definition of Autism Will Exclude Many, Study Suggests: Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests.
The impact of these changes is further discussed in another New York Times article, A Specialists’ Debate on Autism Has Many Worried Observers

This week The Toronto Star published an article, Afghan schoolgirl Roya faced down police in Kandahar airport, about a seventeen-year-old woman from Afghanistan coming to Canada to get the education that she hopes will allow her to return, one day, to Afghanistan. Roya Shams's father, a district police chief, was assassinated by the Taliban last July.

Later in the week the same newspaper published a piece written by Roya Shams about her first days in Canada.

How the Internet blackout affected congressional support for PIPA/SOPA

MercuryBlue writes: Shattering the Stigma is a resource for the Venn intersection between folk with mental health issues and nonreligious folk. I don't know how helpful it'll be, but it's a start.

Things you can do

From Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières: Humanitarian negotiations are life-and-death issues for people in need, but they also raise troubling political and ethical dilemmas for the organizations that are engaged in them....Please join us for a live online discussion of these issues featuring several experienced MSF aid workers, who will share their first-hand experiences from past assignments. They will describe the often complicated process of negotiating with governments, armed groups, public health officials, international actors, community leaders, and local officials; as well as the struggle to define what compromises are acceptable in order to run programs in crisis zones.

Those who are interested in the discussion can register (online and free) for this live online event.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

---

The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)

Comments

[MercuryBlue]

Did Disqus change something overnight? Because last night on Slacktivist I was commenting away and today I'd like to subscribe to the new thread and yet neither that function nor commenting is available. It looks like what happens when disqus.com is NoScripted, but that script is allowed, so is patheos.com, nothing changed on my end between when I was commenting last night and when I woke up to find commenting not possible.

[Mmy]

@MercuryBlue: I use TypePad to sign in and it is functioning as usual (form me at least.) We haven't changed anything at our end.

*Wonders what is going on*

[MercuryBlue]

...possibly nothing, because I refreshed on a whim and it's fine now.

[Ross]

On SOPA/PIPA:

I am increasingly of the opinion that it is not actually true that "Artists need copyright to survive." Rather, I think, artists need *something* to survive, of which copyright was one example -- one that evolved out of an era where "to copy" meant something very different than it does now.

In the era of the internet, when the very process of my reading a web page consists, of at the least, six copies of the web page being made (1. From the server's disk to it's memory. 2. From its memory to the network. 3. From the network to my computer's memory. 4. Through Trident to be turned from HTML into an image (Derivative work!) 5. From my computer's memory to video ram. 6. From video ram to the screen), I think that trying to patch and legislate copyright is just untenable, and leads inevitably to attempts like SOPA and PIPA to use regulation to force digital media to behave under constraints that are inherent to physical media -- it's like demanding that we make our cars run off of oats so that there is a clear rate of fuel equivalence to horses. If we could decouple the idea of protecting the rights and livelihood of authors from the notion of a "right to make a copy", we might be able to come up with some kind of reasonable protections that accomplish the actual thing we want, rather than cripling technology in order to defend a business model.

I'm not sure what such a model would look like because this is not my actual area of expertise. Copyright doesn't really protect all that much -- primarily the *right* to make *copies*. This is increasingly not even the protection artists (and even in large part distributors, though their concerns are different) actually want: what they want is really more control over *distibution*. They'd welcome the money, but no one's really hoping to make a revenue stream off of coercing me into buying two separate copies of a book or song so I can have it in both hard and soft copy -- they don't actually care for the most part how many copies I make. What they care about is that I not *create any more consumers* without involving them. It is not the *copying* but the *distribution* that they seek to protect, and copyright protections assume a congruence between these things which doesn't exist.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Cool news:

Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, was speaking in Uganda when he was asked about the proposed anti-homosexuality bill there. He compared it directly to Apartheid South Africa.

Mr Mbeki said apartheid South Africa prohibited sexual relations “across the colour line” aided by The Immorality Act which handed the police legal ground to raid “people’s bedrooms” before dragging them to court for prosecution.

“I mean what would you want? It doesn’t make sense at all. That is what I would say to the MP. What two consenting adults do is really not the matter of law,” he said.

TRiG.

[Anonymous]

There's also the fact that when Radiohead released their latest album, instead of making CDs, they put it up on their website and said "pay us what you think is fair." And some people only gave them a dollar, which is how much they would've made if someone had bought a $20 CD anyway, and some people paid them several hundred dollars, and some people paid nothing. They made more money that way than they had on any previous album.

And here's what Cory Doctorow, an author whose sales have improved since putting up free copies of all his books online, has to say about it http://craphound.com/makers/download/.

Why am I doing this? Because my problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity (thanks, @timoreilly for this awesome aphorism). Because free ebooks sell print books. Because I copied my ass off when I was 17 and grew up to spend practically every discretionary cent I have on books when I became an adult. Because I can't stop you from sharing it (zeroes and ones aren't ever going to get harder to copy); and because readers have shared the books they loved forever; so I might as well enlist you to the cause.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Ross,

Trident? I prefer Geko, usually. (I occasionally use Presto and WebKit too, but that's because I'm in web development and have to use a lot of different browsers.)

I love the Creative Commons licenses, because they acknowledge that different authors (and different works) suit different license structures. Some are very free (CC0, CC-BY-SA), some restrict derivative works (probably not good for technical writing, but probably useful for persuasive and certain types of artistic writing) (CC-BY-ND), some restrict commercial distribution (CC-BY-SA-NC, CC-BY-ND-NC). There's a mix and match, and many people can find one to suit what they're doing at the time.

My blog uses none of these. I want to keep more control over most of what I write. So my stuff isn't licensed for any form of redistribution. (I still love the CC licenses, I just don't use them, because they don't suit my use-case.)

TRiG.

[hapax]

It is not the *copying* but the *distribution* that they seek to protect, and copyright protections assume a congruence between these things which doesn't exist.

But isn't that the theory already behind DRM?

Admittedly, in *practice* DRM is terribly engineered, but the idea is basically to control distribution, through encryption keys and watermarking and the like.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

If you are going to stick stuff free online, don't just throw it up there. Check out the licenses, and pick one. (If you really don't care what people do with your work, use CC0.) The Creative Commons site includes a license picker.

TRiG.

[Esther B]

I don't comment much on Slactivist, but I do follow it, and I wanted to make a general comment that I think every time I see these link-collection posts:

I love, love, love how you use "trigger warnings." It's the kind of thoughtful detail that I wish everyone used, but I hardly ever see. This blog really is my model of how to lead discussion of difficult and often-triggery issues in a way that doesn't shy away from them, but gives people the choice of respecting their personal limits.

Basically, I <3 you guys. Keep up the wonderful work!

[Ross]

@hapax: Yeah. That's why I bring it up. the existence of DRM is evidence that what they *want* is distrubution controls, not copy controls. But what the law gives them is copy controls, so they bind the two up using crypto and use the law to enforce *that binding*.

And part of the reason that DRM is broken is because it's a technical solution to a legal problem: copyright laws don't actually protect them from unwanted distribution, so they have to engineer a way to connect the two. And digital copyright laws are broken because they are trying to add legal force to a technological solution to a legal problem -- don't say "It's illegal to redistribute without permission", say "It's technically legal to redistribute-absent-of-copying, and it's technically legal to do certain kinds of copying, but it's illegal to circumvent the copy protection, and the copy protection will use technomancy stop you from both legal copying and redistributing"

@TRiG: I prefer webkit, but I gotta use what's on this machine.

[Froborr]

@Ross: I think what you may be getting close to is the distinction between private and public goods and how the arts are in the process of transforming from one to the other.

Brief econ lesson (and anybody who has more than econ 101, please feel free to correct any errors or oversimplifications):

Rival goods are ones where, if you take one, there's one less for everyone else. A car is a good example: If GM makes 10,000 Gas-Guzzler XLs, and you buy one, there are now only 9,999 Gas-Guzzler XLs on the market. Non-rival goods are, um, goods which aren't rival. Air is a good example: No matter how much air you breathe, you are simply not capable of breathing enough air to cause a noticeable reduction in the amount of air available to other people.*

Excludable goods are ones where it's easy to control who has access to them. A car is again a good example; if I don't want you using my car, I just have to keep you from getting access to my keys. Air is a good example of a non-excludable good; it is really, really hard to declare a patch of air mine and prevent other people from using it. Or at least, it's hard if I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a hermetically sealed bubble.

Rivalry and excludability are both spectra; something can be very rival or a little rival, very non-excludable or somewhat non-excludable. Nonetheless, they allow us to divide goods into categories. Private goods are both rival and excludable, like that car. Public goods are both non-rival and non-excludable, like air.**

The arts are in the process of transitioning from private goods to public goods. Music went first. A record is clearly a private good; it is rival (there are only so many copies of a given record manufactured, and if you buy one, that's one less on the shelves) and excludable (you need physical possession of a copy of the record to listen to it, and making copies is very difficult for anyone but the manufacturer to do).

Tapes are starting to drift in the direction of common goods, still nearly as rival as records, but less excludable (copying tapes is easier; if I sell you a copy of my album on tape, you might make copies and give them to your friends, which I have no control over).

MP3s are full-on public goods. They are not at all rival (if one or five or 50,000 people download an MP3 off the same server, the data is still on that server for other people to download) and almost completely non-excludable (you can easily and quickly make more copies for your friends; even if I put on DRM, it is pretty easy to circumvent).

Other arts are moving in the same direction. Film is an odd case--it is unusual to buy a digital version of a film on its own, but that has become the dominant model of film rental, and I'm sure purchase will follow suit soon enough. E-books are slowly overtaking regular books. At this point, it's really only the static visual arts that are left as private goods; everything else is public.

Problem is, historically speaking, capitalist industry is really bad at producing, distributing, and rewarding the creation of public goods. It's why they are called "public"--all but the most absurdly far-right of right-wing economists agree that government ownership and management is usually the way to go with them. Which, um... kinda clashes with that whole First Amendment thing we have going with the arts.***

So... yeah. That is my view on what the problem is. Solutions? I got nothing. I've just been wanting an excuse to unload these thoughts for a while, and Ross gave it to me.

*Clean air is a different story. Absence of pollution is a rival good; every time someone consumes some (by polluting), there is that much less absence of pollution for everyone else. Unfortunately, it's not an excludable good; lack of pollution is a common good, and therefore subject to the Tragedy of the Commons, and we are now *way* out of the scope of this discussion.

**There are two more categories, club goods (non-rival and excludable, like a country club membership) and common goods (rival and non-excludable, like most natural resources), but they're not really relevant right now.

***Random, very nerdy aside: I suspect that replacing physical with digital distribution transforms any private good into a public good. This explains Star Trek neatly; the minute you have their apparently unlimited energy reserves and matter replicators, nothing is rival anymore. Private industry and the Tragedy of the Commons both become irrelevant, and suddenly you're living in an environmentally friendly Popnerian utopia.

[Froborr]

Oh, btw, the derogatory econo-speak term for things like DRM, which try to artificially privatize public goods: "air meters." Imagine walking around with a meter attached to your face that measured how much you breathe, so that the air company could bill you for it. That is what DRM effectively is.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Not exactly sure where to begin in my response to your post (which bothered me at a number of levels):

So, to take this: The arts are in the process of transitioning from private goods to public goods. Music went first. A record is clearly a private good; it is rival (there are only so many copies of a given record manufactured, and if you buy one, that's one less on the shelves) and excludable (you need physical possession of a copy of the record to listen to it, and making copies is very difficult for anyone but the manufacturer to do).

You mention the "creation" of goods in a way that suggests that creation lies in the mechanical reproduction and distribution of a good but without discussing the fact that an artist had to first create that is being mechanically reproduced.

So, for example, music isn't a record -- a record is means by which a piece of music is stored in a manner that allows it to be distributed and reproduced. You can have all the pieces of vinyl, strips of magnetic tape and so forth that you like but without musicians you will have nothing to record.

Similarly you talk about books and e-books without talking about the writers of those books.

Everything you are discussing seems to be about the rights and economic interests of the people/businesses who make a profit by distributing the works of artists (writers, musicians, painters, etc.) to an audience -- or about the audiences who want to have access to those works of art.

I am more interested in thinking about how to build an economic system that protects the artists so that they are motivated to continue to create things I enjoy.

Which takes me back to the reason that SOPA/PIPA angered me personally -- they were pieces of legislation designed to protect the interests of those who profited from the work of artists rather than pieces of legislation designed to protect the interests of the artists themselves.

[Will Wildman]

You mention the "creation" of goods in a way that suggests that creation lies in the mechanical reproduction and distribution of a good but without discussing the fact that an artist had to first create that is being mechanically reproduced. [....] I am more interested in thinking about how to build an economic system that protects the artists so that they are motivated to continue to create things I enjoy.

I don't think Froborr was seeking to imply that art is a mechanically-reproduced thing; only that art has historically been distributed through media that can be readily treated as mechnically-reproduced things, and so the economic system we've been using was functional for motivating artists to create the stuff we like.

One of the things that I like about ebooks is that they have the potential (though no guarantee) to dramatically improve the compensation to artists for their creations, because we all seem to be okay with paying X amount for a book, and if we're paying a fraction of X but almost all of it is going to the author instead of having to fuel the printing industry and suchlike, that's not generally a problem for the reader.

(It is a problem for the printing industry, but so it goes. I'm sure people will always want paper books, and there are undoubtably cases where having a hardcopy is definitively more useful, but as technology spreads, I suspect they're going to shift towards being a kind of luxury good in many cases - the physical book itself being emphasised as a work of art interdependent with its text, which seems to rarely be the case with most books now.)

[Mmy]

@Will Wildman: I don't think Froborr was seeking to imply that art is a mechanically-reproduced thing; only that art has historically been distributed through media that can be readily treated as mechnically-reproduced things, and so the economic system we've been using was functional for motivating artists to create the stuff we like.

Well Froborr was using/accepting a framing that is not centered about the artist and conflates reproduction with production. I would argue that is that framing of the issue that creates many of the problems we are now facing.

I would also argue very much with the statement that "art has historically been distributed through media that can be readily treated as mechnically-reproduced things."

Art, as far as we can tell, has been around in some form or another just about as long as there have been sentient creatures. And it was only very, very, very, very recently been distributed through media that can easily be mechanically reproduced -- hence the incredible intellectual impact of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Printing (at least printing as it developed with movable type in Europe) did not develop until after the mid-1400s. Photography didn't really develop (pun intended) until the late 1800s. Vinyl records (and then magnetic tapes) are basically creatures of the 1900s. Paintings and carvings could not be mechanically reproduced.

The "model" for distributing art did not until very recently even allow for mechanical reproduction.

One of the things that I like about ebooks is that they have the potential (though no guarantee) to dramatically improve the compensation to artists for their creations, because we all seem to be okay with paying X amount for a book, and if we're paying a fraction of X but almost all of it is going to the author instead of having to fuel the printing industry and suchlike, that's not generally a problem for the reader.

Check out Charlie Stross (among others) on this. Part of what we pay for when we buy a book is the work done by editors and proof-readers and many other people whose salaries are presently being paid by the publishers that you now want to cut out of the system. Who will pay them for their work in this new system? Is that supposed to come out of the author's hide?

[MercuryBlue]

Problem is, historically speaking, capitalist industry is really bad at producing, distributing, and rewarding the creation of public goods. It's why they are called "public"--all but the most absurdly far-right of right-wing economists agree that government ownership and management is usually the way to go with them. Which, um... kinda clashes with that whole First Amendment thing we have going with the arts.

What I'd like to see is artists getting paid at least a living wage by the government to create art, with no way for the government to control the artistic expression.

Of course I'd also like to see parents getting paid at least a living wage to do the very important job of raising the next generation, and people who refrain from adding to the planet's population burden getting paid to do that, so my opinion may be invalid.

Also, a professionally published writer educates folk on copyright. Life + 70 years is NOT REASONABLE.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

MercuryBlue,

The argument that piracy increases sales is all fine and dandy, as long as sales is what the author wants. Which it quite likely is, but not necessarily. Some artists value control over there work. I may prefer a more open distribution, but that's their right as a producer. If I write a story which can only be read on my website in the hours between 10 p.m. and midnight on the first Tuesday after a full moon, that's my right. (The most unlikely aspect of this scenario is me actually writing something, to be honest.)

If you want your work to be distributed free online in the hope that it might increase sales, there are ways to do that. Legitimate ways. (Hint: Creative Commons. It's worked for quite a few tech writers, and I see no reason why it shouldn't work for artists.)

TRiG.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Maaaaaaaaaah! there/their.

How could I do that to myself?!

[hapax]

if we're paying a fraction of X but almost all of it is going to the author instead of having to fuel the printing and suchlike, that's not generally a problem for the reader.

Depends what you mean by "suchlike."

Hard number on book-production costs are notoriously difficult to obtain, but most estimates only put a small fraction of the cost of a book in the *materials* -- paper, ink, glue, etc. Distributing those physical books costs considerably more than making them.

But there are other associated values that come from the publisher, not the artist, that I cheerfully pay a hefty premium for. Gatekeeping is a big one -- you couldn't pay me enough to read anybody's slushpile, which is essentially what all those "free books for your Kindle!" are. Decent editing -- not just copy-editing, although the good Lord knows that's priceless, but the kind that shapes and prods and makes it possible for authors to tell the story they're trying to tell.

And all the marketing and production that gets airily dismissed by the "death of traditional publishing" types -- well, I personally like to have my expectations managed. Especially when I just want a fun genre read, I very much want to know ahead of time what to expect -- to be inspired, to be creeped out, to heave a happy sentimental sigh at the end. I don't want to crawl into the bathtub and open a book introducing Darina in her lacy nightdress without knowing by the end of the book whether she will have had lots of hot sex with the mysterious bandit, been eaten by the marauding zombie hordes, or converted the syndico-anarchists to become elected First Citizen of the space station. And it is the beautiful cover art, the artfully crafted blurb, the clever book trailer, yes even the typefont and paper (remember paper?) that will tell me that.

And someone needs to get books into the hands of reviewers and booksellers and librarians; and because we don't have TIME to familiarize ourselves with the thousands of books coming out each month, information about what's out there needs to be highlighted and promoted and digested and tailored to our interests and needs, so we can managed to cram in what we (and our customers) need to know.

Meanwhile, e-books still need to be typed and coded, and formatted, and sent back for revisions. And there need to be agents and lawyers and accountants for publishers *and* authors, because the skill set for one profession doesn't necessarily overlap into the other.

All of these "suchlikes" take time, and skill, and talent, and professionalism, and darn well deserve financial compensation. Most readers aren't aware of what they add to the books in their hands, because if they do their jobs well, they're practically transparent.

But I for one certainly notice their absence, which is why it takes a very heartfelt recommendation from someone I trust to get me to pick up a self-published book.

TL;DR -- it's a little more complicated than a Luddite preference for "dead tree" books.

[Deird, who thinks editing is kind of important]

One of the things that I like about ebooks is that they have the potential (though no guarantee) to dramatically improve the compensation to artists for their creations, because we all seem to be okay with paying X amount for a book, and if we're paying a fraction of X but almost all of it is going to the author instead of having to fuel the printing industry and suchlike, that's not generally a problem for the reader.

*raises eyebrow*

As I understand it, the costs of creating an e-book are quite similar to the costs of creating a physical book. The main expense is in editing, formatting, designing, and so forth - which is the same for either.

[MercuryBlue]

Some artists value control over their work.

Define, please.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Control over work:

Well, the example I gave (making a story available to read only at a specified time) was pushing it to perhaps a ludicrous extent, but authors do want control over how their product is presented. The best real-life example I can think of is Bill Watterson, who refused to allow Calvin & Hobbes calendars, T-shirts, etc.

For authors who are producing just writing, not graphic art, that sort of control is perhaps less common (though I imagine some writers have strong opinions on typesetting). However, let's look again at the CC licenses. Some allow derivative works. Some allow commercial redistribution. Others don't. And those distinctions matter. They matter a lot, to many writers. (If you honestly don't care how your words are reused, or even whether they're attributed to you, use CC0.) And with these licenses or others like them, the author is expressing a clear preference for how the work should be used. The problem with "piracy" is that we don't know what the author is happy with. We're guessing. And maybe it will increase sales. So what? That should be the author's choice; we don't have the right to make that decision for hir.

(I'll reiterate that the CC licenses, much as I love them, do not cover every situation. I've written a fair amount under the CC-BY-SA license on the Stack Exchange network and a little under the same license on Wikipedia. If I ever wrote a novel or a even a short story I probably would not choose a CC license. Others might.)

TRiG.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Vaguely relevant: "The Right to Read", Richard Stallman. It was published in 1997, and some of its predictions began to come true in 2005.

TRiG.

[Froborr]

Um, wow, yeah, no, that was not my intent at all. Historically, art was still a private good before the invention of mechanical reproduction. Mechanical reproduction made it more readily available, but a book is still rival and excludable whether it is hand-lettered by a monk or run off a printing press.

Artists have been getting screwed by the art-distribution industry for a long time now, and it sucks, don't get me wrong. But at least there was an art-distribution industry. There most likely isn't going to be one in a couple of generations, and I believe that will suck even worse for both artists and people who love art. Book publishers, to use the example I'm most familiar with, do provide a lot of services to readers and writers alike--editing, marketing, providing information to library and bookstore buyers, everything that was mentioned upthread. With them going the way of the dinosaur, there doesn't seem to be anyone else stepping up to the plate, and so all of that will be lost.

I really do worry that we are headed for a future in which it is impossible to make a living as an artist. It has always been very, very hard, always been a glamor industry, but I worry that it will become nearly impossible.

There will still be art, of course. There was art before there were professions, let alone professional artists, and there will be art after, as long as there are people. There will be very good art. But the artist who makes that very good art will make it very much slower, because they will also be working full-time in some other job, and therefore they will make a lot less of it in their lifetime.

That is where I fear we are headed. And unfortunately, it is largely the change in distribution methods, which has nothing to do with the art itself, and which in many other ways is an improvement, that is causing this change.

[Kit Whitfield]

But the artist who makes that very good art will make it very much slower, because they will also be working full-time in some other job, and therefore they will make a lot less of it in their lifetime.

That's an overly optimistic scenario, in my opinion. You're assuming that the artists will be able to support themselves working in a single full-time job that's close enough to their home, of limited enough hours, and not so exhausting or dispiriting that they'll still have the time and energy to write. And that's far from probable. Writing isn't like knitting; you don't just turn it out stitch by stitch. It takes a high level of mental energy to project yourself into a different state of mind, plus a major feat of memory to keep a sense of where you are, plus the ability to manage your own emotions. Some jobs I've had, it wasn't about writing quickly or slowly; it was about writing at all.

And that was when I didn't have children. It's female artists who will lose out most if art ceases to be profitable.*

But publishing is not going the way of the dinosaur. Trust me. I work in the industry, and so do other people I know. It's adapting. 'Publishing going the way of the dinosaur' is a myth promulgated by happy people who are over-excited about the new technology and angry people who are pissed off that they couldn't get their writing published.

And if you think writing is a glamour industry, I've got a bridge to sell you.

*And male artists who are primary carers. But most primary carers are female, so it's female artists who would go off the map in bigger numbers.

[Anonymous]

The paperback was supposed to kill the hardcover book. Back when it was new. Everyone was all "No one's going to buy hardcovers any more!" But people still buy hardcovers if they can afford them, because hardcovers last longer.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Historically, art was still a private good before the invention of mechanical reproduction. Mechanical reproduction made it more readily available, but a book is still rival and excludable whether it is hand-lettered by a monk or run off a printing press.

No, actually that isn't a good way of thinking about it at all. But it does lead to oversimplifications that are so broad as to be misleading.

For example, it is not true that the book is still "rival and excludable whether hand-lettered" or not.

Caveat #1: As often as not "hand-lettered" books were often custom ordered. Monks didn't sit around and copy manuscripts and stockpile them against the Christmas run. They were either "ordered" (as in a particular book was requested) or they were created for a specific purpose (for example, so a church would have a copy) or they were made to protect scarce originals from vanishing (if there are three copies of this work of Aristotle in Christendom there is less chance that an abbey fire will wipe it from existence.)

Caveat#2: Books in those days were often used in a way that was by intention "non-excluding." Of course most people couldn't read so a book would be read out loud at a church service and in many religious institutions a book would be read out loud in the refectory while people ate.

The idea of reading as a private, silent activity is a quite modern concept let alone an activity.

Artists have been getting screwed by the art-distribution industry for a long time now, and it sucks, don't get me wrong. But at least there was an art-distribution industry.

Dare I say "two wrongs don't make a right?" Or rather -- since there wasn't, in any modern sense, an art-distribution industry it would be more accurate to say "artists have historically not been paid adequately for the work they did." To which statement you are adding "so let's go on not adequately paying them but now in a way that allows more and different people to enjoy the fruits of the artists' underpaid labour."

There most likely isn't going to be one in a couple of generations, and I believe that will suck even worse for both artists and people who love art. Book publishers, to use the example I'm most familiar with, do provide a lot of services to readers and writers alike--editing, marketing, providing information to library and bookstore buyers, everything that was mentioned upthread. With them going the way of the dinosaur, there doesn't seem to be anyone else stepping up to the plate, and so all of that will be lost.

I am not exactly sure what you mean by "anyone else stepping up to the plate" here. What you seem to be arguing is that "since the system that I favour will so underpay an entire proportion of the people who are part of the publishing industry -- well, my bad I guess a world in which I don't pay artists for their labour is a reasonable pay-off for actually destroying a particular type of art -- which is what will happen.

I really do worry that we are headed for a future in which it is impossible to make a living as an artist. It has always been very, very hard, always been a glamor industry, but I worry that it will become nearly impossible.

Exactly what part of the "art" are referring to as a "glamor industry" because as someone who has taught the history of it most of it right now (and historically) has never been a glamor industry. Never. Not. No how.

There will still be art, of course. There was art before there were professions, let alone professional artists, and there will be art after, as long as there are people. There will be very good art. But the artist who makes that very good art will make it very much slower, because they will also be working full-time in some other job, and therefore they will make a lot less of it in their lifetime.

Oh, how many ways of responding.

#1...Well thank you for taking so calmly the destruction / diminution in number of forms of art that I cherish. Because your "a lot less" is robbing not only artists of their livelihoods but the people who enjoyed that art of the works they cherish. So thanks.

#2...Well, thank you for stealing the time of artists (and their families) for your own benefit. Other people, after they come home from a hard day of work watch tv, play games, visit friends, get drunk and watch football games. Artists come home and work to create art. Unless of course you want all art to be the product of wealthy people or people who are patronized by wealthy people. (Which was one model of art in the past and which historically worked to limit the type of art created and the type of person who had access to it.

#3....Well, thank you from excluding from your consideration any type of art that cannot be created in the narrow confines of the "extra time." The type of art that required (as some does) hours and hours and hours of practice before performance.

#4....Right, that will work well in an United States in which the hours of work are getting longer and the conditions of work are getting more onerous for many people. Not only will they have to manage to fit their art into their spare moments of time but they will be asked to do at an historical moment when "spare moments of time" are becoming fewer and fewer.

#5...When you have a moment go back and read about the tremendous fight that people like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo engaged in to create / develop the modern concept of copyright. The development of modern printing press was accompanied by an upsurge in theft of intellectual property that looks amazingly similar to that which is going on right now. And as Hugo and Dickens argued (among other things), is that such behaviour left art as something that would only be practiced by members of the wealthy classes or those who had wealthy patrons. It upheld the existing inequities of the economic system.

#6...women as a group were major beneficiaries of the new "payment for intellectual property" system because women have historically been either underpaid or not paid at all for the work they did. The intellectual work of women has historically been unrespected and women have historically been told to do their art in a few snatched moments between cooking, cleaning, washing, tilling the field etc. This is just more of the same.

That is where I fear we are headed. And unfortunately, it is largely the change in distribution methods, which has nothing to do with the art itself, and which in many other ways is an improvement, that is causing this change.

Tell me for whom these changes are an improvement?

The artists who cannot make a living from their work?
The audience who are robbed of the chance to even experience / witness the art that won't get created?

There are things that I think (rather passionately think) need to be improved. The current system does not adequately recompense artists. Yes I think the system could be and should be tweaked.....but not and never by simply declaring the fruits of someone else's labour a public good and therefore making the artist at best the indentured servant of the consuming public.

Always, and ever, these arguments seem to come from people who enjoy a certain form of privilege and who are willing to trade in the rights and opportunities of others in order to protect and enlarge those privileges.

[Mmy]

Added to clarify: When I typed Exactly what part of the "art" are referring to as a "glamor industry" because as someone who has taught the history of it most of it right now (and historically) has never been a glamor industry.

I meant I taught the history of some of the distribution industries not the history of the art. So I have wonderful (hey, I thought they were wonderful) lectures on the history of the internet, television, photography etc.

I also taught about some of the content of a few of those industries (that is, some of the art) but that is a story for another time.

[MercuryBlue]

And with [Creative Commons] licenses or others like them, the author is expressing a clear preference for how the work should be used. The problem with "piracy" is that we don't know what the author is happy with. We're guessing. And maybe it will increase sales. So what? That should be the author's choice; we don't have the right to make that decision for hir.

(1) Not seeing how increased sales is a bad thing, particularly in light of the way creators of art are perpetually underpaid.

(2) Can't actually stop the signal derivative works from being created. And again, trying to do so hurts sales. I refuse to buy Robin McKinley books, much though I love her work, because she doesn't permit fanfiction. I'm not the only one, either. And as long as there are no McKinley fanworks, there will be no one going 'Hm, the world of that fanwork fascinates me, I shall consume the canon!' and toddling off to the nearest bookstore that carries McKinley works.

My understanding is that as long as the derivative work is transformative in some way and not for profit, the not-for-profit part apparently being more important (though I agree that the judge should have credited the photographer whose photo got added to the judge's opinion), it's fair use. And if the derivative work can be called parody or satire, there's no way to argue that it's not fair use. (Sucks that there's more legal protection for crackfic than for serious attempts to fill in gaps in canon or to emulate the canon creator's style.)

I don't know what the solution is to the problem of artists being underpaid, but trying to stop file-sharing and transformative work is not it.

[Kit Whitfield]

Not seeing how increased sales is a bad thing, particularly in light of the way creators of art are perpetually underpaid.

Personally, I have left alone pirated copies of my stuff in the past and hoped that it might work as advertising. I very much doubt my work lends itself to fan fiction, but if someone wrote a non-profit piece of fan fic based on my copyright, I don't think I'd particularly care as long as they didn't bother me with it.

However, that is my choice. A different artist may consider that lowered sales is a fair price to pay for retaining control of their copyright, just as Robin McKinley (who I do not know and cannot speak for with any authority) might consider lower sales a fair price for refusing to permit derivative work. And if they consider it a fair price, that's their choice. Because it's their copyright.

People have the right to make what you consider a bad financial decision regarding their own property.

I left my example of piracy alone partly because I thought it might help advertise me. But I left it alone more because I couldn't face being hated as much as authors who keep a close control over their copyright get hated by copyright thieves. Maybe you aren't boycotting McKinley because you hate her, but I bet some people are: people who are involved in the copyright wars are quick to label an author an enemy. There's an atmosphere of blackmail and entitlement about the whole thing that I like not at all.

[Mmy]

@MercuryBlue: Can't actually stop the signal derivative works from being created. And again, trying to do so hurts sales. I refuse to buy Robin McKinley books, much though I love her work, because she doesn't permit fanfiction. I'm not the only one, either. And as long as there are no McKinley fanworks, there will be no one going 'Hm, the world of that fanwork fascinates me, I shall consume the canon!' and toddling off to the nearest bookstore that carries McKinley works.

I can think of a number of reasons why an author might not "permit" fanfiction.

1) The fanfiction may be using the created world of the author in which to propagandize for/popularize some beliefs the author feels abhorrent / antithetical to their work.

2) The author has a vision / plan of the direction in which their work / characters / created universe is moving. The fanfiction is grooming / training the readers to expect another direction. The author knows that readers, groomed and prepared by the fanfiction will get angry at what the author does (see Harry Potter fans who became abusive when Rowling didn't take relationships in the direction they expected / desired.)

3) The author may believe that fanfiction set in the universe of hir work is undermining the sales of other authors. That is, fans instead of going out and buying other writers in the same genre are "getting their fix" from fanfiction.

4) The author may feel that the quality of the fanfiction is undermining the author's own work (sales, literary reputation, willingness of particular editors or publishing houses to work with hir.)

5) The author may feel that to personally make more money because some small percentage of people who write/read fanfiction go on to buy more from the authors who created those universes is rather like being a pawnbroker who doesn't check to see if the items being brought in are actually stolen. (In other words, the author may see permitting fanfiction as something that would transform hir from a pawnbroker to a fence.)

I am sure there are a lot of other reasons I haven't thought of.

[Lonespark]

The idea of reading as a private, silent activity is a quite modern concept let alone an activity.

This!

[Kit Whitfield]

2) The author has a vision / plan of the direction in which their work / characters / created universe is moving. The fanfiction is grooming / training the readers to expect another direction. The author knows that readers, groomed and prepared by the fanfiction will get angry at what the author does (see Harry Potter fans who became abusive when Rowling didn't take relationships in the direction they expected / desired.)

I read an interesting essay on that subject:

http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp51.htm

I should state that I haven't seen the show or read the fan fiction it's talking about, so this is just one person's opinion and that person is not me. That said, the essayist describes a situation where that happened:

It changed as Sentinel fandom changed, hardening and becoming bitter and more polemic as the show didn't deliver what fanfic had led us to expect. The Smarm Movement declared war on the series and on slash and polarized everything into opposing camps. Smarm became louder and shriller and restrictive, and the moderates drifted away.

Of course, people who 'declare war' on something because it doesn't resemble its fan fiction are probably not the most dependable consumers anyway, and if they declare war for failing to resemble fan fiction they'll almost certainly get pretty pissed off if fan fiction is prevented ... but it is, if an accurate account of events, an example of fan fiction creating a problem.

[Ross]

I can think of a number of reasons why an author might not "permit" fanfiction.

One of the ones you omitted which I have heard most often is "Author is afraid that if she coincidentally later writes a work which is similar to some existing piece of fanfic, she will be accused of plagarism."

----

However, that is my choice. A different artist may consider that lowered sales is a fair price to pay for retaining control of their copyright, just as Robin McKinley (who I do not know and cannot speak for with any authority) might consider lower sales a fair price for refusing to permit derivative work. And if they consider it a fair price, that's their choice. Because it's their copyright.

The idea I was trying to express at the beginning of this was that I agree that it is their right, but I dispute that it is their right *because* it is their copyright. Rather, I think it is a separate moral right from copyright, which is legally shoehorned into the umbrella of copyright despite not really belonging there. I think presenting that right as proceeding from copyright _is_ the thing that leads us down the path to SOPA.

(I'll also note that the US implementation of the Berne convention does _not_ provide robust protection of the moral rights of authorship as something separate from the assignable economic rights of copyright. Which sucks.)

[Ross]

Incidentally, MPAA chairman Chris Dodd says the "problem" was that SOPA and PIPA didn't get pushed through fast enough -- everyone was bought and paid for, but they made the mistake of letting the little people find out about it before it was too late for the internet to "abuse its power" to, yknow, make sure the will of the people was actually considered.

(This reminds me a lot of how my alma mater changed its name. They wanted to change the name of the school in order ot make themselves more attractive to trhe wealthy executives they were courting for their MBA program. Unfortunately for them, they let the students have a say, and the students voted OVERWHELMINGLY against it. Five years later, they "commissioned a task force to decide if the name should be changed" and this time, they took the precaution of *not letting the students vote*. Their explanation for why this time they decided to change the name despite the fact that last time they'd been very face-saving about how it would have been wrong to change the name was just a lot of obfuscation of "but we *really wanted to*")

Dodd has also gone on Fox News to, essentially, threaten lawmakers who won't stay bought. More or less said "If you don't pass this bill, we will stop giving you money."

[Mmy]

@Ross: One of the ones you omitted which I have heard most often is "Author is afraid that if she coincidentally later writes a work which is similar to some existing piece of fanfic, she will be accused of plagarism."

Oh, that is a very good one. I have actually known of writers who had to stop going to conventions / reading usenet because of that issue.

I'll also note that the US implementation of the Berne convention does _not_ provide robust protection of the moral rights of authorship as something separate from the assignable economic rights of copyright.

That was (if I remember correctly) among some of the earliest concerns with the way in which copyright was being implemented.

Of course, part of the problem is that for much of the last 1000 years copyright law has been more a matter of the government / church controlling who had the right to copy a book (that is, make the book accessible to others) in an effort not to recompense the authors but to control the dissemination of ideas.

This ties into the history of the concept of truth being a defense to charges of libel. In the case of seditious libel -- the fact that something was actually true could make the crime of libel WORSE.

[Kit Whitfield]

I think presenting that right as proceeding from copyright _is_ the thing that leads us down the path to SOPA.

The two have nothing to do with each other. SOPA is about two things:

1. The right to control information the American government finds undesirable.

2. The right of the film industry to maintain its grip on the copyright of artists.

Writers, which is what we are talking about here, have practically no power in the American film industry. Look back just a few years: they had to go on strike for months because DVD sales were giving a bigger cut to the people who made the DVD boxes than to the scriptwriters. It's studios who benefit from SOPA, and studios as an industry respect writers' moral rights about as much as...

...oh, say, somebody who thinks writers shouldn't have any control over derivative works.

That's the real similarity. Pirates get control over distribution by breaking the law; SOPA gets control of distribution by changing the law. Neither of them has any respect for art. Anti-copyright consumers and SOPA studios are coming from the same place: they're viewing the work of artists as a product to be maximised for their own benefit no matter what the effect on the artist, and the difference is in their power, not their respect.

To say that an artist who wants to control their copyright on their own work is the same as a studio that wants to control copyright on the work of other people? That is to say, in effect, that artists have no moral right at all. You're putting people who get copyright through work, creation and talent on the same level as people who get copyright because they buy it.

And I find that incredibly insulting.

[Mmy]

@Ross: And cries of "information WANTS TO BE FREE" actually play into the hands of the industries who want limit / censor the internet.

It gives them (the people for whom Dodd is lobbying) cover. Because instead of having to defend themselves for extracting the maximum amount of money from consumers while underpaying the artists whose works they profit from (I am looking at you RIAA) -- these industries get to pose as defenders of the rights of the writers/musicians/artists.

[Kish]

You know, I was curious enough about why Robin McKinley wouldn't allow fanfic to Google search for it, briefly, because briefly was all I needed to.

I thought http://www.robinmckinley.com/faq/faq.php?q_id=20 was interesting reading; I'm pasting it here in case other people do, too.

[Mmy]

@Kish: Good sourcing.

Now (here is a piece of lovely "irony") -- I liked the way McKinley made hir point in this piece, wondered about hir books (none of which I have read) looked through the list of books on hir blog page, found one that looked interesting, checked that it was available in Kindle form and just downloaded a sample of it from Amazon.

If the sample chapters capture me then McKinley will have another reader.

[hapax]

I refuse to buy Robin McKinley books, much though I love her work, because she doesn't permit fanfiction.

I did not know that.

Well, hurrah! to McKinley, for being brave enough to stand up against the massive entitlement and nasty tirades of much of the online fanfic community.

Updated: I just read the FAQ Kish posted. Yes, yes, and YES.

[Froborr]

All right, so... I say that I believe things are going to get even harder for artists than they already are because of economic shifts triggered by technological change, and that somehow makes me an enemy of art and ally of the industry that profits by exploiting artists? Where did I say anything to give that impression? Hell, as Kit pointed out, I downplayed the impact on artists of having to work day jobs (which I know all about, I have completed all of one short story since I graduated college), because I felt like my comments were already verging on alarmist!

And yeah, unless I have terribly misunderstood either the art world or the definition of the term, art is a glamor industry: Most people who try to make a living as artists either fail or make very little money at it, a tiny fraction make it really big, but the general public only ever really hears about the big names.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Yes, Froborr. Somehow some people seemed to get the impression that you approved of the changes. I didn't get that impression at all. I thought you were lamenting them.

Re: "Information wants to be free"

I would make a distinction (I think, an important one) between "information" and "art", which is why I'm a little uneasy about "database copyright" (a concept in EU law), and about the expense of academic journals.

TRiG.

[Froborr]

Also, you asked in what ways is this change in distribution method an improvement?

Well, digital distribution can provide artists more control over their work and allow niche art that most distributors would pass over to find an audience. Webcomics are an excellent example of this working out reasonably well, though there are also plenty of examples of it failing.

From the perspective of the audience, well, my Nook can hold an entire small library in an object the approximate weight and size of a single book without killing any trees, and I can carry it with me everywhere I go.

If we could solve the economic problems it creates and ensure that artists are still able to create and get reasonably rewarded for their work, digital distribution seems to me to actually be overall superior to physical media for most arts.* That's a huge if, though, and I thought I was pretty clear that I recognized how huge an if it was. If not, I apologize for that.

*I doubt it will be possible in the foreseeable future to digitally distribute sculptures, or books like House of Leaves or Griffin and Sabine where the physicality of the book is integral to the art. Right now, digital media are not adequate to displaying the static visual arts in general, though that seems likely to be just a matter of time.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: I say that I believe things are going to get even harder for artists than they already are because of economic shifts triggered by technological change, and that somehow makes me an enemy of art and ally of the industry that profits by exploiting artists?

Well, first of all because in your initial post you wrote about the PRODUCTION and DISTRIBUTION of art almost to the exclusion of the artists who created the things produced and distributed.

Also: There will still be art, of course. There was art before there were professions, let alone professional artists, and there will be art after, as long as there are people. There will be very good art. But the artist who makes that very good art will make it very much slower, because they will also be working full-time in some other job, and therefore they will make a lot less of it in their lifetime.

ignored the fact that what will happen to many artists is not that they will create art slowly -- they will be robbed of the ability to create art at all.

You write as if art is a hobby that people play at in the evening not a vocation that consumes their lives.

, I downplayed the impact on artists of having to work day jobs (which I know all about, I have completed all of one short story since I graduated college), because I felt like my comments were already verging on alarmist!

Well what the hell is wrong with alarmism when what one is concerned about is the theft of people's time, effort and creativity. One SHOULD be alarmist. Your comment verged on accommodationalism.

And yeah, unless I have terribly misunderstood either the art world or the definition of the term, art is a glamor industry: Most people who try to make a living as artists either fail or make very little money at it, a tiny fraction make it really big, but the general public only ever really hears about the big names.

Yes, you have terribly misunderstood both the art world and (I would argue) the definition of the term. The first thing that almost anyone who tries even vaguely to get involved in the art world is that it is hard, that most people fail and that the cards are stacked against one. By the FSM -- the jokes of the people I knew who were trying to get into acting were all about the fact that learning how to wait tables was the first and most important skill to learn when embarking into a career as an actor.

I really do worry that we are headed for a future in which it is impossible to make a living as an artist. It has always been very, very hard, always been a glamor industry, but I worry that it will become nearly impossible

The art industries are only glamourous to those who are not part of them. So, yeah, the consumer might think they were but no one lasts for more than a few days/hours actually trying to create art while still thinking of it as a glamourous activity. So --- right now books are being written by people do not find the activity glamourous, and the same was true yesterday, yesteryear and yestercentury.

So 40 years ago it wasn't glamourous to be a writer but one could make a living as one -- and now it isn't glamourous but now you can't make a living at it.

There will still be art, of course. There was art before there were professions, let alone professional artists, and there will be art after, as long as there are people.

Not all art there won't be. And not types of artists. Working class artists, female artists, artists who are POC are all being impacted more heavily by these changes. And some of these changes might almost completely wipe them out.

And some of the forces that are working to silence their voices/visions are not coming from the industries who are trying to pass SOPA/PIPA -- they are coming from the people who want "information to be free" and who are fundamentally undermining/challenging the concepts of copyright.

[Froborr]

Well, first of all because in your initial post you wrote about the PRODUCTION and DISTRIBUTION of art almost to the exclusion of the artists who created the things produced and distributed.

Because I was talking about causes more than outcomes in that post, and the distribution is where I believe the cause of these issues lies.

You write as if art is a hobby that people play at in the evening not a vocation that consumes their lives.

Well what the hell is wrong with alarmism when what one is concerned about is the theft of people's time, effort and creativity. One SHOULD be alarmist. Your comment verged on accommodationalism.

Generally, when I make an argument, I try to anticipate and deflect criticisms from the people I disagree with, and especially to prevent strawmanning--I didn't want anyone to accuse me of being a Luddite who regards everything about new technology as inherently terrible, or that I'm saying these changes are going to completely kill art forever.

Apparently this makes me an accommodationist.

The art industries are only glamourous to those who are not part of them. So, yeah, the consumer might think they were but no one lasts for more than a few days/hours actually trying to create art while still thinking of it as a glamourous activity. So --- right now books are being written by people do not find the activity glamourous, and the same was true yesterday, yesteryear and yestercentury.

So 40 years ago it wasn't glamourous to be a writer but one could make a living as one -- and now it isn't glamourous but now you can't make a living at it.

Glamor industries, as I have encountered the term used in economics, are not actually glamorous for the people working in them. They are exactly what you describe--an industry that may look glamorous from the outside, but that is because from outside you only see the most spectacular success stories. Like I said, most people in a glamor industry either fail or make very little at it; for every J.K. Rowling there are hundreds or thousands of people who have been unsuccessfully sending their work out for years or living in near- or actual poverty on their writing income or, yeah, struggling to put together enough energy to write after their day jobs drain them dry.

Not all art there won't be. And not types of artists. Working class artists, female artists, artists who are POC are all being impacted more heavily by these changes. And some of these changes might almost completely wipe them out.

And some of the forces that are working to silence their voices/visions are not coming from the industries who are trying to pass SOPA/PIPA -- they are coming from the people who want "information to be free" and who are fundamentally undermining/challenging the concepts of copyright.

I agree with every word of this.

Again, I feel like I'm being attacked for saying "This is bad," because I didn't say it was bad enough.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Generally, when I make an argument, I try to anticipate and deflect criticisms from the people I disagree with, and especially to prevent strawmanning--I didn't want anyone to accuse me of being a Luddite who regards everything about new technology as inherently terrible, or that I'm saying these changes are going to completely kill art forever.

Apparently this makes me an accommodationist.

Which is actually rather missing the point. You certainly didn't anticipate MY arguments -- so you either didn't see them OR didn't think we would notice them ourselves.

And yes. I most definitely call you an accomodationalist -- because you are accepting the framing of those who are working to undermine the moral and economic rights of artists in the name of some type of technological imperative. You are, at the very least, ceding to the them the choice of the ground were are fighting on and the terms of the battle.

The fight going on right (artists rights in the new world of digitization) is amazingly similar to the fights that took place in the past with each technological / distribution change.

This is not the first time (nor do I suppose it to be the last) that this particular fight was / will be waged.

Glamor industries, as I have encountered the term used in economics, are not actually glamorous for the people working in them.

That is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether material will continue to be created. If things are to be created then the artists have to be given an incentive to continue -- they either get outside perks or appropriate recompense. And the vast proportion of people who create most of what we consume don't get the glamour so we need to give them the money.

Put another way -- you may think of the movies as a glamour industry but you probably don't go around telling cinematographers that they should hold down day jobs and work on films in the evening. Yet the rhetoric you are repeating would make that reasonable.

In the real world of economic theory people only do work for recompense. And if you undermine the value of a job so much that people are not adequately paid for it -- well then that job no longer gets done.

Again, I feel like I'm being attacked for saying "This is bad," because I didn't say it was bad enough

No, I am upbraiding you for first talking about the arts as if they could be meaningfully discussed without even acknowledging the existence of actual creators

and

then returning and framing all your arguments from the point of view and logic of those who are trying to undermine the hard earned advances that artists have made over the last 200 years.

So if you would prefer not to be called accommodationalist you might consider yourself to be economically and technologically naive about the underlying imperatives of the "culture industries." (About which there have been some incredibly brilliant books written although most of them are not, as far as I know, much studied in American undergraduate courses.)

[The Board Administration Team]

One of Froborr's comments was stuck in the spam trap and just now rescued. This might lead in a discontinuity in the conversation.

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[Mmy]

mmy takes of the slackmod hat to point out that this "job" -- the work of running the board -- falls within the category of work that many people (for some strange reason) think somewhat glamourous and which is inadequately recompensed (as in -- not at all.)

The present distribution / production system for the culture industries only runs because there are tens of thousands of people who work hard to make things run smoothly. You know that writer people are expecting to write more slowly under our new corporate masters? When the writer finally manages to finish the book who will edit it? Who will alert libraries of its existence? Who will make sure that good translations are made?