The real problem with unpaid content "appropriation" is that it drives professionals off the playing field. After which things such as music, motion pictures, art, news reporting, and literature once again become the exclusive domain of amateurs. Much like it was prior to the 20th century.

Before that, most creative expression was the province of the idle rich. With the result that virtually all art reflected the attitudes and preferences of a very small and disengaged part of the populace. Which in turn shaped social attitude and institutions. Often with disastrous results.

Modern art marketplaces allowed people from all walks a life to participate in creative expression once there was no longer a need for personal financial independence before people could pursue it. The possibility of making a living off creative works opened the doors and tore down the walls economic necessity put up. And removed the need to secure patronage - which allowed for a far greater freedom of expression and subject matter than had existed before.

And with that came new ideas and art forms, new institutions, and new understandings. And all because creative expression no longer relied upon the wealthy to provide or support it.

We're now in danger of losing that because people want to consume but not give back.

Eventually it will lead to fewer choices and lower quality as creative production only remains affordable to large businesses that can give a lot away in order to get the opportunity to make money in a tangental rather than direct fashion.

If genre-mill fiction books, YouTube, and shows like Dancing with the Stars and America's Got Talent strike you as being the epitome of artistic expression, then bootleg books, movies, and music off the torrents as you will.

But if people want and expect better than that, they're going to need to give something back to the creatives before they have to quit - and leave nothing behind but commercial hacks and amateurs to fill the void.

ACTA/SOPA/PIPA isn't the answer to this problem. But neither is the "Why should I have to pay at all?" mindset many people now have.

I'd suggest we start by dumping outmoded and unnecessary parts of the distribution system, since it's the distributors and their trade practices that are the biggest part of the problem right now. Digital downloads have pretty much rendered most of the old industry models obsolete or inapplicable anyway. Much like how telco regulations are designed to protect the quality of analog voice signals even though we're now fully digital - and voice communications only make up about 15-20% of the data packets the telcos are currently sending down their lines. And that percentage is steadily dropping with each passing year.

Once the crud gets cleaned out of the distribution pipes we have a better chance of putting artists directly in touch with their friends and fans. And maybe out of that will come a new awareness of why it's necessary to actively and financially support the arts people are most interested in. And hopefully the people will act on their awareness without the need for givernment (not a typo!) to continue to propose crazy and unworkable laws and other regulatory nonsense.

At least it's worth a try. Because what people and governments are currently doing isn't working. And never will.

Interesting distinction...I like it.

Wait, 40hz, weren't you recently advocating *not buying anything* rather than buying from independents, as I suggested? Isn't that the opposite of "giving something back to the creatives"?

As for the roots of this problem, let us be clear, there will always be special interests and they will usually have money, and as long as money is involved in the political process it will bias the results towards moneyed interests. There are two possible solutions I see, one more effective than the other but also less likely.

That first approach is to literally remove money from the process, from life in general if possible, but (only slightly more realistically) at least from politics. This is about as likely as me flying around like superman. Even if you could get the system to outlaw campaign contributions, then you're just sending it underground; instead of public lists of who the biggest campaign contributors are as we now have, you have the same - or even larger - amounts of money going from god knows who to whatever politicians, in exchange for no doubt even firmer allegiances, all of it undocumented and untraceable. Remember that outlawing anything that people (or corporations, for that matter) really want to do never stops it, sometimes it even in strange ways encourages it. Look at prohibition or the modern drug war.

Anyway, failing that option, there is something you really *can* advocate for that can make a real difference and actually has a chance of happening. I'm going to put this in bold and underlined so people read it instead of my largely useless preamble above:

Instant Runoff Voting

Instant Runoff Voting is one of a number of alternative voting systems that have a statistically demonstrable and mathematically provable advantage in obtaining fair voting results. It is one of the single most important of possible reforms to any democracy that doesn't already use it. More important than campaign finance reform, more important than redistricting issues, electoral college reform, even Citizens United.

The single biggest threat to the effectiveness of our democracy is our (literally) broken method of electing leaders. Believe it or not it is actually statistically and mathematically demonstrable that a Plurality voting system like the US uses is one of the least fair and effective ways of electing candidates which the majority of voters desire. Think about that for a second. One of the most powerful nations on Earth uses one of the least effective voting methods!

This system has resulted in the widely lamented "2 party system" we have today, in which voting for a "3rd party" ("independent") is almost always seen as useless, "throwing your vote away". This is obviously a very dangerous attitude for the majority to have if we're to have any hope of change. It means that moneyed interests have fewer targets and a much easier time creating consensus for their interests. What we desperately need are more choices, a greater variety of options, diffusion in the political process such that money can concentrate less effectively, and candidates with differing views can at least have the possibility of winning major grass-roots support (which can be incredibly powerful - if there's anything we've learned from the likes of Kickstarter, not to mention the Obama campaign and more, it's that "the people" can really do a lot when inspired). Campaigns like Ralph Nader's have sadly and ironically actually reduced people's hope and desire for 3rd party candidates, because circumstantially many felt that votes for Nader cost Gore the presidency. This is just one example, but a relatively recent and powerful one. Imagine if Instant Runoff Voting, or at least some other more representational system, had existed at that time. The results would have been very different. Simply knowing that your *desires* will *always* be reflected in your vote can dramatically change *how* you vote. From fear-driven to aspirational, hope-driven voting.

The beauty of all this is that IRV has already been implemented in some local governments and has even come close to passing at the state level (Alaska, I believe). It will necessarily start small, just like this, but if we each support IRV or similar ranked voting options in our local and state governments, we can eventually move it up to a national policy vote. If IRV could be made national law for voting on our presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial candidates, I believe we would see a lot of change for the better. If nothing else we would know that the will of the people was being much better reflected, even if that will may manifest sadly in the realization that everyone is stupid after all.

- Oshyan

It's little more than queen's pawn to queen's pawn 3 so far. An opening move. The real battle hasn't even begun yet. And the gloves won't come off until some time after that.

Stretching the chess analogy beyond safe limits:
So the Media Lobbies, with the advantage, are playing White? What's their meta strategy? To play the Queen Pawn systems a tempo down so that we get lulled into thinking they're beaten, or are they playing a King's Indian Attack aka a reversed defense as an offense? 

Quote from: 40hz on February 08, 2012, 04:15 AM

It's little more than queen's pawn to queen's pawn 3 so far. An opening move. The real battle hasn't even begun yet. And the gloves won't come off until some time after that.

Stretching the chess analogy beyond safe limits:
So the Media Lobbies, with the advantage, are playing White? What's their meta strategy? To play the Queen Pawn systems a tempo down so that we get lulled into thinking they're beaten, or are they playing a King's Indian Attack aka a reversed defense as an offense?  

I think their "meta strategy" is to make a totally bizarre move, and then - while we're staring at the board and trying to figure out exactly what that BS is all about - have somebody else (really big) sneak up behind us, bash us over the head with a brick, and then take our wallet and smartphone!!!

Um...I don't know what you'd call that gambit. Or how you'd show it with standard chess notation.

40!  Stretching out the legs in this thread!  Loving it!