The argument over how much piracy actually affects livelihoods is plagued by obvious strawmen on both sides ("Every artist would be a millionaire if piracy didn't exist!" vs "Piracy never hurt anyone's career at all! Artists are richer than ever!")
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
The thing is that people actually seriously defend the latter POV to a really shocking degree - to the point of saying that copyright is the *reason* more writers aren't able to make a living and if everyone embraced the Creative Commons philosophy they'd be thriving
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
Whereas no one actually seriously defends the former POV that I can see Really the argument is that piracy doesn't make earning a living impossible but it raises the barrier to entry greatly There used to be a "middle class" of creators that doesn't exist anymore
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
*Everyone* gets pirated at all levels of the ecosystem but the giant megacorporations - Disney and EA etc - have ways to survive this Indie randos just have to sigh and say "This is effectively free and I'm effectively living on tips no matter what I decide"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
Like whatever, fuck Disney's billions of dollars from Marvel movies I'm thinking more about indie film producers who are like "Hey if we get a good review that goes viral a few thousand people might rent our movie and we can pay off our credit card debt from the shoot"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
But instead the brief flurry of downloads during their 15 minutes of online fame is all free downloads shared illicitly on Vimeo or wherever and they get bupkis
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
The number of downloads is, indeed, *higher*than the number of people who would've rented if piracy didn't exist That much is certainly true But the latter number is not zero And the amount of money they get from the higher number of downloads IS zero so who the fuck cares
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
Like the way people talk about this is really condescending and really obviously stupid "Piracy is free PR, it helps you go viral" Okay but nobody actually goes VIRAL viral How many indie films do you think become massive national fads so everyone involved gets rich off merch
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Replying to @arthur_affect @authkdcarrillo and
Yeah, I think a big part of the problem is that most rhetoric is just rehashed from the music industry. Which is a very different animal. Authors generally don't have the same kind of alternative revenue streams that musicians do.
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Replying to @KidThorazine @authkdcarrillo and
"You make your real money on your anyway, the album is just a promo for your career playing live sets" was always kind of a high-handed thing to say, and something that greatly privileges certain genres of music, artists who have the temperament and stamina for live shows, etc
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The hottest take on it is that this is bluntly a fuck you to popular artists who've gotten old "Your album you did when you were 20 years younger still slaps but why should I have to pay for that How good are you NOW? What have you done for me LATELY"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @KidThorazine and
But anyway It is obviously absurd to try to translate this to books and argue authors should go "on tour" doing readings, not just to promote their book release but for the rest of their lives as long as they need a paycheck
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Replying to @arthur_affect @KidThorazine and
And that they should sell T-shirts or whatever
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End of conversation
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