Let's see if this gets any play...

[sen_no_ongaku]

Proposal: Art should be created without the expectation of material compensation.

True or false?

Commonplace attitude or not?



[EDIT: This is not intended to imply that something created for with such an expectation cannot be art, though I may propose that sometime later.]

Comments

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I guess my real point is that the very existence of trading on PTP networks implies that a large portion of our population feels that what they are doing is not wrong; that (consciously or subconsciously) something about music, or movies, or what have you, entitles them to acquire it for free.

Should this be?

----

Interestingly, no one feels that top-notch gourmet food should be free. Perhaps this is because its material cost is apparent to everyone.

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

I think it's more about people's capacity to get art for free. If folks could download gourmet meals as easily as they do MP3s, you can bet they would and find some way of not having a problem with it. One difference, of course, being that much art is easily reproducible whereas most gourmet cooking cannot be recorded, photocopied, photographed, etc.

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

There is also a question of marginal cost. If the marginal cost of producing food had fallen to nearly nothing, then we would see a whole lot more 'downloading' of gourmet food. Indeed, if the marginal cost of producing gourmet food fell to nearly nothing, current gourmet food venders would have to adapt their business models -- patronage at restaurants would drop off.

One reason we are seeing so much trading of music on PTP networks is beings the economics behind the music industry has radically shifted -- and the industry has spent much of its effort of legislating its old business model into a new world, rather than investing in the opportunities the internet as a distribution mechanism present.

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

Forgot to add, much of the ptp file trading that is occuring today is not necessarily bad for the music industry/musicians. When someone downloads a song, that person is either:

1) Downloading music that he would not have purchased otherwise.
2) Sampling music that he plans to purchase if he likes it.
3) Downloading music in place of purchasing music.

Type 1 has no effect on music sales, and type 2 actually increases music sales. Only type 3 reduces music sales.

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

Let's not assume that because there are three possibilities, they will have equal probabilities of occurring.

I'm no fan of the RIAA, and I would prefer to keep copyright laws loose, and information flowing. And I agree that no one has proved adequately that filesharing hurts music sales; has anybody proved that it helps?

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to imply that they do have equal probability (and in effect, I'm arguing both sides of the coin: that the music industry is not hurting nearly as much as it claims to be hurting, and that their business model is hopelessly outdated).

The only numbers I have seen claiming that the record industry is really being hurt by PTP are those numbers released by the record industry. Most of the independant analysis I have seen show the music industry doing pretty decently -- sales have fallen slightly, but so have the number of different records shipped. That is, the record industry as a whole is signing less new acts and selling slightly fewer total cds.

Now, I would argue PTP networks are really beginning to hurt record labels by providing a viable alternative for aspiring artists, which is enticing them away from signing standard record label contracts.