Hmm, hadn’t thought of the arrow of causality pointing that way.
Of course, if the prospect of making money significantly pushed up the probability of him writing it, then I can’t complain… I’d rather have it exist behind a paywall than not exist at all.
But I’ll have to question if the antecedent is really true. Is the money really more motivating than the prestige of having written an awesome work?
It wasn’t? Why was it not behind a paywall for you and your privileged fellows? My (extensive 4.6 second long) search just showed me a page with a download link that asked for paypal login.
Still strikes me as wrong. IMO, you do not create something based on public domain works and then lock it up and demand people pay for it. The social norm isn’t there because fanfiction is illegal, the social norm is there to prevent a tragedy of the commons. *
… But clearly, not everyone feels that way.
*(not quite; the original work is still there for anyone to partake of, but they’re left with hardly any derivative ones to build upon. It’s like starting with the wheel every time you want to build a car.)
IMO, you do not create something based on public domain works and then lock it up and demand people pay for it.
So… it’d be fine for authors to create something based on still-copyrighted material, which they need to license, and then they can sell their new work? (And what did those authors base their works on, and hence forth to infinity...)
I’d say the only works that deserve to be paywalled are ones that sprang from a vacuum with no inspiration whatsoever.
Of course, such works do not exist. Therefore, nothing deserves to be paywalled.
But there are different shades of gray. Consciously basing your work on two works of free literature and then paywalling it is wronger IMO than paywalling a work that was created by means of unconscious ‘inspiration’ from your general cultural ecosystem.
Consciously basing your work on two works of free literature and then paywalling it is wronger IMO than paywalling a work that was created by means of unconscious ‘inspiration’ from your general cultural ecosystem.
Shakespare based “Hamlet” on the (public domain) legends of Amleth. And yet, I’m sure he “paywalled” it too.
Your argument seems completely topsy-turvy to me. Common sense and common practice is that it’s the things that are copyrighted by other that you must not demand money for—because it’s then that you’re making oney by piggybacking on the work of others that they could still (and should still be able to) profit from.
But the public domain you can profit from, because anyone could have used the same idea as you, so it’s your own contributions that makes it valuable to others.
Shakespare based “Hamlet” on the (public domain) legends of Amleth. And yet, I’m sure he “paywalled” it too.
And ‘Shakespeare did it!’ demonstrates… what, exactly? Is ‘Newton was a Christian!’ an argument for Christianity?
Common sense and common practice is that it’s the things that are copyrighted by other that you must not demand money for—because it’s then that you’re making oney by piggybacking on the work of others that they could still (and should still be able to) profit from.
Oversimplification. Walt Disney can’t profit off Mickey Mouse, yet I’m still prohibited from profiting off that particular character.
But the public domain you can profit from, because anyone could have used the same idea as you, so it’s your own contributions that makes it valuable to others.
Uh.… I don’t get it. Imagine that somehow all laws regarding copyright were abolished overnight. (Probably via a hostile takeover of the Illuminati or something.) Wouldn’t the exact same principle apply to all those suddenly-out-of-copyright works? Anyone could use the ideas (or the characters or the settings) I’m using, and therefore if people find any value in my works, that value must come from the artistic contributions I’ve made.
Now imagine copyright suddenly comes back into force. Of course, I can’t sell my works anymore, but does that mean that their value evaporates? (Monetary value for the author, yes, but what of its entertainment/artistic value for the readers?) Why should the copyright status of the original work have any effect on the value of the derivative work?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you drastically, but your argument seems to be ‘it ain’t wrong ‘coz it’s legal; it’d be wrong if it weren’t’.
And ‘Shakespeare did it!’ demonstrates… what, exactly?
You effectively argued that “Hamlet and Philosopher’s stone” should be public domain because Shakespeare’s Hamlet was public domain. I’m telling you that Shakespeare Hamlet wasn’t public domain at the era it was written, even though it was based on works that were public domain.
This IMO destroys the seeming argument from symmetry and obligation that you were using. If you were not using that argument, then I don’t understand you why you consider it “more wrong” to put something behind a paywall if it’s based on public domain or free works.
Why should the copyright status of the original work have any effect on the value of the derivative work?
We’re not discussing value. We’re discussing rightness and wrongness of charging money. And it was you who were initially arguing that the copyright status of the original work has an effect on the “wrongness” of putting a derivative work behind a paywall.
In truth I’m all in favour of piracy and the piracy party position, but your position seems even further away from mine in the opposite direction than the current corporate-capitalist position of treating copyright-violations as of they were theft.
I sense that there is a severe illusion of transparency on both sides here. I have no idea what your argument is, but whatever you’re arguing against, it’s not something I said. Which just goes to show I haven’t been speaking very clearly, but anyway...
This IMO destroys the seeming argument from symmetry and obligation that you were using.
No it doesn’t. If any of my arguments have been based on obligation, they certainly haven’t been based on obligation to Shakespeare; more like a general obligation to free culture. I don’t see how something Shakespeare did back in his time destroys any of that, because, in the present, (which is where HonoreDB wrote his play) the works are firmly established as a part of the public domain and HonoreDB can access them for free.
And it was you who were initially arguing that the copyright status of the original work has an effect on the “wrongness” of putting a derivative work behind a paywall.
More like whether the work is available for free. HPMoR definitely isn’t a public domain work.
Also, my comment was
Consciously basing your work on two works of free literature and then paywalling it is wronger IMO than paywalling a work that was created by means of unconscious ‘inspiration’ from your general cultural ecosystem.
Bit of an oversimplification to turn ‘specific free works vs amorphous mass of cultural inspirations’ to ‘public domain vs copyright’, isn’t it?
your position seems even further away from mine
Irrelevant. You seem to be replying to
your argument seems to be ‘it ain’t wrong ‘coz it’s legal; it’d be wrong if it weren’t’.
but ‘I actually support the opposing ideology’, isn’t a very enlightening reply. I still don’t know what point you’re trying to make.
I can’t really figure out why you think public domain shouldn’t be something people can profit from. A whole bunch of stuff never gets done unless someone profits from it. Rigorously blocking people from profiting by use of public domain material would really mess up our economy.
Which still leaves the question of whether the readers are the best place to externalize the costs of the endeavour. That is what I’m opposed to, not someone profiting off something.
We had a patronage system in the past, we have Kickstarter today, we probably have a bunch of brilliant ideas lying around in areas of search space we haven’t explored yet.
Of course, I can’t expect HonoreDB to explore the Vast Uncharted Regions when all he wants to do is put out a play; but that’s my reply to your general point.
(In the specific case, I still doubt whether the prospect of prestige was really insufficiently motivating for HonoreDB, that is, whether the prospect of money increased the probability of his writing this play significantly. If that’s the case, I’d rather the work exist behind a paywall than not exist at all, but I don’t think that it is the case.)
If any of my arguments have been based on obligation, they certainly haven’t been based on obligation to Shakespeare; more like a general obligation to free culture.
Even though it wasn’t free culture but “use-public-domain-for-inspiration-then-paywall” culture that actually produced Hamlet? One could just as well argue that he has an obligation to that culture, and he’d betraying the spirit of paywalling if he did not paywall...
I still don’t know what point you’re trying to make.
My points are roughly as follows.
Either one accepts the division between “free culture” and “non-free culture” as an acceptable one, or one doesn’t.
Since you seem to believe in such a division, then you should accept that people are actually freer to put paywalls on things they derive from “free culture” (since it’s free for them to use however they like), but they may suffer restrictions when they derive stuff from “non-free culture” (since it’s not free for people to use however they like).
You seem to be doing it the other way around, which seems inconsistent for what the words “free” and “non-free” actually mean.
Currently I’m favorable to the idea that all culture should be free—I also understand (though I disagree with) the copyright-monopolist position. Your position however is one I don’t understand, as it effectively argues that people can produce words to be paid for, but only if they derive them from non-free works. If such a position became law, it would tremendously increase the power of copyright-holders as they would then possess even more significant power over other future profit-seekers. Future profit seekers couldn’t even begin a work based wholly on public domain ideas, they would have to seek the patronage of a previous copyright-holder.
The idea that derivatives of free works should be required to also be free is arguable but definitely coherent. It’s like the GNU Public Licence applied to works by law or custom instead of by their authors.
It could work like this—for the first 50 years after an original work is published, you have to pay the creator to make copies, including for derivative works. After 50 years you have the additional option of a GPL-like license—you can create free derivatives—but you can still create copy-restricted derivatives if you pay the owner of the original. After the decline and fall of the country, empire or planet housing its copyright registration, or 1000 years, whichever comes first, it becomes public domain.
You seem to be conflating believing that a distinction exists (which it obviously does) with believing that it is acceptable. I believe the former but not the latter.
Your position however is one I don’t understand, as it effectively argues that people can produce words to be paid for, but only if they derive them from non-free works.
Please stop flattening ‘specific free works vs amorphous mass of cultural inspirations’ to ‘public domain vs copyright’. You’re arguing against a straw man here. What makes a difference is the specific (and the implicit ‘with conscious intent’) vs the amorphous. The ‘mass of cultural inspirations’ has enough free works in it.
If such a position became law...
I never argued for that. Many things are better enforced by social norms than by law.
You seem to be doing it the other way around, which seems inconsistent for what the words “free” and “non-free” actually mean.
Caspian notes the existence of sharealike licences. It’s not some radical new incomprehensible idea, it’s an old way to keep the ‘free’ meme propagating. There is no contradiction in imposing restrictions upon future authors to ensure that future readers keep getting free stuff.
Future profit seekers couldn’t even begin a work based wholly on public domain ideas, they would have to seek the patronage of a previous copyright-holder.
This is only tangentially related, but people keep bringing it up so I better address this. I’m not opposing making a profit, I’m opposing making a profit by asking the readers to pay a fee in order to gain access to the work. The two may generally be seen as the same thing, but they really aren’t. (Said the same thing in reply to another comment on this thread right now.)
Ahh, I see—a previous mention. It is of course behind a paywall for me given that I do, in fact, have a bank account but I’ll be sure to buy it at some stage. Just as soon as the trivial inconvenience stops getting in the way.
I’ll buy it when I can figure out how to make an international payment with my account… Knowing banks, there will probably be a very elaborate set of hoops to jump through.
Or you could, like me, just ask the author for a copy, as I already pointed out. If you are feeling guilty, you can contribute a review back (also like me).
My mind responds to that with ‘That is dishonourable!’
I have no idea why it says that; probably some sort of bizarre clash between my identities as a Pirate Party supporter and an LWer. No rational reason, at any rate.
Anyhow, seeing as reading the book isn’t a high-priority action for me, I’ll let this cognitive dissonance slide for a while.
And Hamlet and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Parodies a public domain work, inspired by a free fanfic, and locked behind a paywall.
Am I the only one who thinks that that’s just wrong?
The only one? No. But you’re not in a majority, either. What people can be paid to do, they are more likely to do.
Hmm, hadn’t thought of the arrow of causality pointing that way.
Of course, if the prospect of making money significantly pushed up the probability of him writing it, then I can’t complain… I’d rather have it exist behind a paywall than not exist at all.
But I’ll have to question if the antecedent is really true. Is the money really more motivating than the prestige of having written an awesome work?
Do you consider selling written works in general to be just wrong?
It wasn’t behind a paywall for me or many LWers.
It wasn’t? Why was it not behind a paywall for you and your privileged fellows? My (extensive 4.6 second long) search just showed me a page with a download link that asked for paypal login.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/86m/fiction_hamlet_and_the_philosophers_stone/
Anubhav has 50+ karma, incidentally.
Still strikes me as wrong. IMO, you do not create something based on public domain works and then lock it up and demand people pay for it. The social norm isn’t there because fanfiction is illegal, the social norm is there to prevent a tragedy of the commons. *
… But clearly, not everyone feels that way.
*(not quite; the original work is still there for anyone to partake of, but they’re left with hardly any derivative ones to build upon. It’s like starting with the wheel every time you want to build a car.)
So… it’d be fine for authors to create something based on still-copyrighted material, which they need to license, and then they can sell their new work? (And what did those authors base their works on, and hence forth to infinity...)
I’d say the only works that deserve to be paywalled are ones that sprang from a vacuum with no inspiration whatsoever.
Of course, such works do not exist. Therefore, nothing deserves to be paywalled.
But there are different shades of gray. Consciously basing your work on two works of free literature and then paywalling it is wronger IMO than paywalling a work that was created by means of unconscious ‘inspiration’ from your general cultural ecosystem.
Shakespare based “Hamlet” on the (public domain) legends of Amleth. And yet, I’m sure he “paywalled” it too.
Your argument seems completely topsy-turvy to me. Common sense and common practice is that it’s the things that are copyrighted by other that you must not demand money for—because it’s then that you’re making oney by piggybacking on the work of others that they could still (and should still be able to) profit from.
But the public domain you can profit from, because anyone could have used the same idea as you, so it’s your own contributions that makes it valuable to others.
And ‘Shakespeare did it!’ demonstrates… what, exactly? Is ‘Newton was a Christian!’ an argument for Christianity?
Oversimplification. Walt Disney can’t profit off Mickey Mouse, yet I’m still prohibited from profiting off that particular character.
Uh.… I don’t get it. Imagine that somehow all laws regarding copyright were abolished overnight. (Probably via a hostile takeover of the Illuminati or something.) Wouldn’t the exact same principle apply to all those suddenly-out-of-copyright works? Anyone could use the ideas (or the characters or the settings) I’m using, and therefore if people find any value in my works, that value must come from the artistic contributions I’ve made.
Now imagine copyright suddenly comes back into force. Of course, I can’t sell my works anymore, but does that mean that their value evaporates? (Monetary value for the author, yes, but what of its entertainment/artistic value for the readers?) Why should the copyright status of the original work have any effect on the value of the derivative work?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you drastically, but your argument seems to be ‘it ain’t wrong ‘coz it’s legal; it’d be wrong if it weren’t’.
You effectively argued that “Hamlet and Philosopher’s stone” should be public domain because Shakespeare’s Hamlet was public domain. I’m telling you that Shakespeare Hamlet wasn’t public domain at the era it was written, even though it was based on works that were public domain.
This IMO destroys the seeming argument from symmetry and obligation that you were using. If you were not using that argument, then I don’t understand you why you consider it “more wrong” to put something behind a paywall if it’s based on public domain or free works.
We’re not discussing value. We’re discussing rightness and wrongness of charging money. And it was you who were initially arguing that the copyright status of the original work has an effect on the “wrongness” of putting a derivative work behind a paywall.
In truth I’m all in favour of piracy and the piracy party position, but your position seems even further away from mine in the opposite direction than the current corporate-capitalist position of treating copyright-violations as of they were theft.
what is this I don’t even
I sense that there is a severe illusion of transparency on both sides here. I have no idea what your argument is, but whatever you’re arguing against, it’s not something I said. Which just goes to show I haven’t been speaking very clearly, but anyway...
No it doesn’t. If any of my arguments have been based on obligation, they certainly haven’t been based on obligation to Shakespeare; more like a general obligation to free culture. I don’t see how something Shakespeare did back in his time destroys any of that, because, in the present, (which is where HonoreDB wrote his play) the works are firmly established as a part of the public domain and HonoreDB can access them for free.
More like whether the work is available for free. HPMoR definitely isn’t a public domain work.
Also, my comment was
Bit of an oversimplification to turn ‘specific free works vs amorphous mass of cultural inspirations’ to ‘public domain vs copyright’, isn’t it?
Irrelevant. You seem to be replying to
but ‘I actually support the opposing ideology’, isn’t a very enlightening reply. I still don’t know what point you’re trying to make.
I can’t really figure out why you think public domain shouldn’t be something people can profit from. A whole bunch of stuff never gets done unless someone profits from it. Rigorously blocking people from profiting by use of public domain material would really mess up our economy.
Which still leaves the question of whether the readers are the best place to externalize the costs of the endeavour. That is what I’m opposed to, not someone profiting off something.
We had a patronage system in the past, we have Kickstarter today, we probably have a bunch of brilliant ideas lying around in areas of search space we haven’t explored yet.
Of course, I can’t expect HonoreDB to explore the Vast Uncharted Regions when all he wants to do is put out a play; but that’s my reply to your general point.
(In the specific case, I still doubt whether the prospect of prestige was really insufficiently motivating for HonoreDB, that is, whether the prospect of money increased the probability of his writing this play significantly. If that’s the case, I’d rather the work exist behind a paywall than not exist at all, but I don’t think that it is the case.)
Even though it wasn’t free culture but “use-public-domain-for-inspiration-then-paywall” culture that actually produced Hamlet? One could just as well argue that he has an obligation to that culture, and he’d betraying the spirit of paywalling if he did not paywall...
My points are roughly as follows.
Either one accepts the division between “free culture” and “non-free culture” as an acceptable one, or one doesn’t.
Since you seem to believe in such a division, then you should accept that people are actually freer to put paywalls on things they derive from “free culture” (since it’s free for them to use however they like), but they may suffer restrictions when they derive stuff from “non-free culture” (since it’s not free for people to use however they like).
You seem to be doing it the other way around, which seems inconsistent for what the words “free” and “non-free” actually mean.
Currently I’m favorable to the idea that all culture should be free—I also understand (though I disagree with) the copyright-monopolist position. Your position however is one I don’t understand, as it effectively argues that people can produce words to be paid for, but only if they derive them from non-free works. If such a position became law, it would tremendously increase the power of copyright-holders as they would then possess even more significant power over other future profit-seekers. Future profit seekers couldn’t even begin a work based wholly on public domain ideas, they would have to seek the patronage of a previous copyright-holder.
The idea that derivatives of free works should be required to also be free is arguable but definitely coherent. It’s like the GNU Public Licence applied to works by law or custom instead of by their authors.
It could work like this—for the first 50 years after an original work is published, you have to pay the creator to make copies, including for derivative works. After 50 years you have the additional option of a GPL-like license—you can create free derivatives—but you can still create copy-restricted derivatives if you pay the owner of the original. After the decline and fall of the country, empire or planet housing its copyright registration, or 1000 years, whichever comes first, it becomes public domain.
You seem to be conflating believing that a distinction exists (which it obviously does) with believing that it is acceptable. I believe the former but not the latter.
Please stop flattening ‘specific free works vs amorphous mass of cultural inspirations’ to ‘public domain vs copyright’. You’re arguing against a straw man here. What makes a difference is the specific (and the implicit ‘with conscious intent’) vs the amorphous. The ‘mass of cultural inspirations’ has enough free works in it.
I never argued for that. Many things are better enforced by social norms than by law.
Caspian notes the existence of sharealike licences. It’s not some radical new incomprehensible idea, it’s an old way to keep the ‘free’ meme propagating. There is no contradiction in imposing restrictions upon future authors to ensure that future readers keep getting free stuff.
This is only tangentially related, but people keep bringing it up so I better address this. I’m not opposing making a profit, I’m opposing making a profit by asking the readers to pay a fee in order to gain access to the work. The two may generally be seen as the same thing, but they really aren’t. (Said the same thing in reply to another comment on this thread right now.)
Ahh, I see—a previous mention. It is of course behind a paywall for me given that I do, in fact, have a bank account but I’ll be sure to buy it at some stage. Just as soon as the trivial inconvenience stops getting in the way.
I’ll buy it when I can figure out how to make an international payment with my account… Knowing banks, there will probably be a very elaborate set of hoops to jump through.
Or you could, like me, just ask the author for a copy, as I already pointed out. If you are feeling guilty, you can contribute a review back (also like me).
My mind responds to that with ‘That is dishonourable!’
I have no idea why it says that; probably some sort of bizarre clash between my identities as a Pirate Party supporter and an LWer. No rational reason, at any rate.
Anyhow, seeing as reading the book isn’t a high-priority action for me, I’ll let this cognitive dissonance slide for a while.
Am sure some people think that selling anything is wrong.
Oh, spare me the straw men.
Pretty sure that’s a real position.
But it’s irrelevant to Anubhav’s point.
… but it’s not a straw man.