🚀 go-pugleaf

TarlaStar <!!!bmy...@ionet.net> wrote in article
<5rspae$e3r$1...@ionews.ionet.net>...

 If it were so easy
> to create, no one would have to steal.

I don't know as if anyone has to, but my point was
if in a world where it is so easy to steal ideas, enforcing the
law is going to be extremely difficult.  Laws that
are unenforcible are often counterproductive.  Look at
the Prohibition experience.
> 
> It would be a theft of someone else's concepts and work, yes. It would
> not be a theft of the materials.
>  
> >> Without protection of copyright, no author or artist in software,
> >> literature, or other media, would be able to make a living from their
> >> work.
> 
> >And this is a valid point - it would be very difficult.  However,
> >99% of writers, artists, musicians do not make a living
> >at it anyway.
> 
> Horseshit. You haven't got a clue as to what you're talking about.
> Just because someone CLAIMS to be an artist, that doesn't mean they're
> worth a shit. 

And just because someone doesn't make their money as an artist
does not mean they aren't.  Nor does someone who makes a lot
of money at it necessarily an artist.  It would seem that you
consider the salability of a piece of work the only point worth
considering.  I don't say that's unimportant.  Nor do I say that
anyone considering it is not a real artist.  But it cannot be the first
consideration.

> >Therefore, if you wish these activities to
> >> proceed, society must provide a way for people to make a living at
> >> them.  Hence copyrights, patents, etc.
> 
> >But society does not provide a way for 99% of the creative
> >people to make a living at it.  There's a lot of
> >tremendous talent out there that doesn't get hired.
> 
> There are any number of people who call themselves "artists" who never
> lift a fucking finger to actually try to work at their jobs.

And there are many who do.
 
> Who do you think makes all that kitsch that you see in tourist traps?
> Artists, believe it or not...ones that were able to see that working
> is better than whining. Some of the best artists I know spent years
> working as commercial artists in order to be able to finally work in
> as fine artists. But they were artists all along. They simply changed
> the market that they wished to approach.

Yes, but how many of them make a living at it?
 
> >However, I would ask this.  How much money did Emily Dickenson
> >want to make from her poetry?  And how many poets, not
> >counting money earned from teaching as professors, actually
> >make their living from poetry?
> 
> I don't make a "living" from it, but I do make an income from selling
> books/ poetry competitions/ invited readings. So do many others. It's
> not the goal to starve, man. The problem is that poetry is not a real
> desirable commodity in our current society. There was a time when a
> poet COULD make a living and maybe there will be again. 

I believe you have proved my point.  You are among the 99%
that don't make a living from it, as am I.  Neither one of us
would want to be considered unworthy because of this.
 
> >Answers - none and hardly any.  When it come to the artistic
> >impulse, money is often the last thought of the artist, and
> >certainly cannot be the first.
> 
> Wrong. Artists don't make crap to look at.
Often they do.
They make it for OTHER
> people to look at.
Often they do, but often their first audience is themselves.

 "Can I sell this?" is OFTEN the first thought in an
> artist's mind.

Do you mean to say that when you're confronted with
a blank screen or piece of paper, you think "What
can I write to make money, today?"  At some point
it's appropriate to consider this question.  But there
should be another purpose behind the project, entertainment
being one.

 They also separate their "sellable" items from stuff
> that is made purely for the sake of making it. Even with that, you
> hope that someone will come along and see what you saw and BUY the
> damned thing. 

Agreed.  I'm not into the starving artist syndrome, nor am I
going to put anyone down just because they happen to make
millions at something.  The whole point of my participation
in this thread is to point out that with new technology, new
laws are going to have to be written to deal with intellectual
property, and they are going to have to accomodate reality,
not the world as we wish it would be.

> Tarla
> ***Tarla Star***
> "If the Pope pushed over Howdy Doody in the woods and there was
> no one around but one hand clapping, would Rose Kennedy get 
> bear shit on her black dress?  I think I've made my point."
> --Thaddeus N. Gunn
> 
>-- 

Michael Egan