From: Adam L. Beberg (beberg@mithral.com)
Date: Sat Jun 17 2000 - 04:23:03 PDT
Looks like this got eatten (not in archives), so I'll try again...
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Mike Masnick wrote:
> At 09:44 PM 6/14/00 -0500, Adam L. Beberg wrote:
>
> >Didn't communism fail (first) because of this removal of rewards?
> >Hmmmmm...
>
> The thing I find most amusing about any argument of this nature (and I've
> been having them for many years now) is the second people start giving away
> stuff for free it starts getting compared to communism. Is there a
> corallary to Godwin's law for this?
Only if they are giving. Which is not what's happening.
People are just taking. HUGE difference.
> Why is it that people who are normally rational thinkers who understand
> basic economics, assume that basic economics goes out the window when the
> market points out the price equals zero. This isn't communism, this is
> pure capitalism. Economics says that the price of a good should be equal
> to the marginal cost to produce the good, and for a digital good, well,
> hell, that's $0. Therefore, in a perfectly competitive world with no
> artificial boundaries to make things inefficient, the price should head
> towards the marginal cost, and it looks like it has.
Capitalism is BASED on artificial barriers. So critical is this that
they even wrote it into the original constitution. The alternative is
not good.
Without the prospect of reward from creation in field XYZ, the smart
people will simply go create things in another field instead. Over time
XYZ will disappear, as the next generation marginalizes it. Simple
evolution. We all know people behind the curve ... "why would you major
in _that_"
> I also find it amusing that people start assuming that it's up to us, the
> consumer, to figure out the way to compensate the artist. That sounds more
> like communism to me...
Heck no, it's up to the consumer to try to get everything they can for
free. It's definately up to the artist. Courtney gets it, but I wonder
if the industry (meaning all the artists) can get it in time. Probably
not, prerecorded music is probably on the way out as a form of revenue
for the artist.
Personally I wouldn't mind at all if music returned to a completely
local thing. Local bands making their money in local venues, using MP3's
as no-quality bait to get people to pay for a concert. All the bands I
ever ran sound for kick ass musicly over any label-backed band you can
find on MTV or the radio. And none of them lip sync'd while dancing
around like people with a neurological disorder either.
Steven King is also getting it.
http://www.stephenking.com/download.html
Being something of an optimist about my
fellow creatures, I have the idea that most
people are honest and will pay for what they
get. I'm therefore willing to try selling The
Plant on an honor system. Episodes would
not be encoded. If you wanted to download
the stuff to your printer, you could do that.
But you gotta kick a buck; a dollar an
episode seems fair enough to me. If it seems
fair to you, e-mail the website and say so. If
it seems heavy, say that. My purpose here
isn't to skin anybody but to have some fun
and try out a concept so old it may seem
new; call it "honesty is the best policy.
This is worth watching closely. If Steven King cant pull this off
with his mega-mega-celebrity, it's a bad bad thing. He will set the
high-mark for what artists can expect, since people are more willing to
pay the more familiar they are with an artist.
Too bad VISA/Mastercard will get about $0.75 of that dollar. If the
distributor gatekeeper can't screw you, the money gatekeepers will.
This too shall change *cackle*
> Just trying to stir up some trouble.
Join the club ;)
- Adam L. Beberg
Mithral Communications & Design, Inc.
The Cosm Project - http://cosm.mithral.com/
beberg@mithral.com - http://www.iit.edu/~beberg/
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