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Questions I have frequently pondered are...If one could as easily replicate and distribute physical products as we can digital products, what would that do to c

by solson 15y ago

Questions I have frequently pondered are...If one could as easily replicate and distribute physical products as we can digital products, what would that do to creativity and innovation? Say you you could make infinite cheap copies of a car or a TV, would anyone make a better one? With the elimination of scarcity what would we do with all our stuff and our free time? Would we sit around and turn into blobs or would we make things better just for the joy of it? Just for the recognition? Isn't it apparent that IP laws/copyright in the digital age are just a way to impose artificial scarcity where it no longer exists naturally?

billybob 15y ago
"Say you you could make infinite cheap copies of a car or a TV, would anyone make a better one?" There's a flip side: if you could make infinite cheap copies of industrial robots, how many more people would start making cars? Creative output becomes input for other creative output. Rachmaninoff wrote "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" because nothing prevented him from re-using Paganini's work. Today copyright would prevent that. IP laws are meant to help incentivize production of new stuff. But they also raise a barrier that keeps people from using old stuff to make new stuff. We have to balance those two things.
- sudont 15y ago
  I disagree based on the lack of my generation's (millennial) John Waters. Or Maya Deren. John Water's ideal was to flip an idea into a movie in an afternoon. With the prevelance of RED, iPhones, Canon 5Ds, and a few hundred metric tons of mid-2000's mini DV cameras, this has not happened. We're instead moving into a post-commercial era, where we're doing 30 second youtube spots, and watching full-budget long-form. Infinite manufacturing will result in a neighborhood Shapeways or Kickstarter, not a neighborhood Ford.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    Infinite manufacturing will result in a neighborhood Shapeways or Kickstarter, not a neighborhood Ford. I fail to see why that's a bad thing.
    - sudont 15y ago
      I didn't say it was bad! It's just more trivial than a car. Née "Some Assembly Required."
      - Vivtek 15y ago
        Ah! Point taken. Although I've been giving some thought to local automobile production, actually - Richmond (IN) used to make cars and I think we should again. The only problem is it's damned hard to get one certified nowadays.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      Actually looking at the software market, infinite manufacturing would result in a small few creating a neighborhood Ferrari because it suits their admittedly niche interests.
  - r0s 15y ago
    > this has not happened. Would you know if it did? Waters himself wasn't really appreciated for a decade or so. Movies with zero marketing budget don't get recognized immediately.
    - waterlesscloud 15y ago
      I very strongly believe that it has happened. Actually, I know that it has. There are people out there using the technology to make very good films on very low budgets. The problem isn't getting the films made, and it's not distributing them. It's in connecting the viewers to the films. "Marketing" in the past has been the way that's been done. But we need something else now, a new method of film discovery. Good stuff is going completely unseen, and that's a real shame.
nextparadigms 15y ago
What usually happens, is that you take what already exists and build on top of it. Without being able to do that, you'll have to not only recreate that technology from scratch, but you also need to make it different enough so it's not similar to the patented technology. Overall, for the world, it's much better to be able to use prior knowledge without much or any restrictions, the way humanity has always evolved before patents or copyright even existed. Imagine someone patenting the wheel. The others would be forced to re-create the wheel in a different way, instead of focusing on using that technology - the wheel in this case - to create something new, like a carriage, or car.
jonnathanson 15y ago
Here's the problem: scarcity exists on the creative side of the entertainment business, but it's scarcity by way of cost-prohibitive access. What's scarce? Access to $20MM-a-movie actors and $8MM-a-movie directors. Access to $200MM productions. Access to creating the "tentpole" movies and shows that result. All of these things require outrageous amounts of capital, and they're all dependent on the ability to monetize the end result by many multiples of production and advertising costs by way of theatrical distribution, DVD sales, licensing and merchandizing, and various other derivatives of the original work. At least one major revenue stream, DVD sales, is collapsing steadily. This leaves box office and derivatives and licensing. Derivatives have never been huge business, or at least not a sturdy enough pillar to bear the weight that DVD sales have borne. And licensing has always been mere icing on the cake, except in the case of titles perfectly suited to it (such as Star Wars). As the downstream revenue sources dry up, so too will the big production dollars, and so to will the scarcity of access to "Hollywood-quality" creative. At least for most companies. What's going to happen? One theory is that we're going to see some sort of price discrimination at the box office. Big tentpole movies cost more to make than do lower-budget romantic comedies, for example, and so tickets to Transformers XXIV will cost more than tickets to Generic Sandra Bullock / Jennifer Aniston RomCom. (Arguably this is already starting to happen, if you consider 3D to be a price discrimination mechanism. Whether by intent or by accident, it functions like one). Another theory is that we're going to see a hollowing out of the middle tier of the film and TV businesses. You'll have giant studios making giant movies, and you'll have tiny indies making tiny movies. But there will be no middle ground, because it will no longer be profitable. All of this assumes, of course, that production costs hold steady or increase. And so long as there are folks out there willing to pay $20MM for a single actor or $8MM for a director, they will. But the bottom might drop out of that market eventually, too. Or it might stratify dramatically as outlined in the previous paragraph.
- cageface 15y ago
  This point isn't made often enough. The bits of a film or record aren't scarce, but the talent, focus, inspiration and dedication it takes to make arrange those bits are all too scarce. Sit through the entire end credits of a Pixar film and ask yourself if such films would exist without the "artificial" scarcity of copyright paying all those salaries.

by solson 15y ago

billybob 15y ago

"Say you you could make infinite cheap copies of a car or a TV, would anyone make a better one?" There's a flip side: if you could make infinite cheap copies of industrial robots, how many more people would start making cars? Creative output becomes input for other creative output. Rachmaninoff wrote "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" because nothing prevented him from re-using Paganini's work. Today copyright would prevent that. IP laws are meant to help incentivize production of new stuff. But they also raise a barrier that keeps people from using old stuff to make new stuff. We have to balance those two things.

sudont 15y ago
I disagree based on the lack of my generation's (millennial) John Waters. Or Maya Deren. John Water's ideal was to flip an idea into a movie in an afternoon. With the prevelance of RED, iPhones, Canon 5Ds, and a few hundred metric tons of mid-2000's mini DV cameras, this has not happened. We're instead moving into a post-commercial era, where we're doing 30 second youtube spots, and watching full-budget long-form. Infinite manufacturing will result in a neighborhood Shapeways or Kickstarter, not a neighborhood Ford.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  Infinite manufacturing will result in a neighborhood Shapeways or Kickstarter, not a neighborhood Ford. I fail to see why that's a bad thing.
  - sudont 15y ago
    I didn't say it was bad! It's just more trivial than a car. Née "Some Assembly Required."
    - Vivtek 15y ago
      Ah! Point taken. Although I've been giving some thought to local automobile production, actually - Richmond (IN) used to make cars and I think we should again. The only problem is it's damned hard to get one certified nowadays.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    Actually looking at the software market, infinite manufacturing would result in a small few creating a neighborhood Ferrari because it suits their admittedly niche interests.
- r0s 15y ago
  > this has not happened. Would you know if it did? Waters himself wasn't really appreciated for a decade or so. Movies with zero marketing budget don't get recognized immediately.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    I very strongly believe that it has happened. Actually, I know that it has. There are people out there using the technology to make very good films on very low budgets. The problem isn't getting the films made, and it's not distributing them. It's in connecting the viewers to the films. "Marketing" in the past has been the way that's been done. But we need something else now, a new method of film discovery. Good stuff is going completely unseen, and that's a real shame.

nextparadigms 15y ago

What usually happens, is that you take what already exists and build on top of it. Without being able to do that, you'll have to not only recreate that technology from scratch, but you also need to make it different enough so it's not similar to the patented technology. Overall, for the world, it's much better to be able to use prior knowledge without much or any restrictions, the way humanity has always evolved before patents or copyright even existed. Imagine someone patenting the wheel. The others would be forced to re-create the wheel in a different way, instead of focusing on using that technology - the wheel in this case - to create something new, like a carriage, or car.

jonnathanson 15y ago

Here's the problem: scarcity exists on the creative side of the entertainment business, but it's scarcity by way of cost-prohibitive access. What's scarce? Access to $20MM-a-movie actors and $8MM-a-movie directors. Access to $200MM productions. Access to creating the "tentpole" movies and shows that result. All of these things require outrageous amounts of capital, and they're all dependent on the ability to monetize the end result by many multiples of production and advertising costs by way of theatrical distribution, DVD sales, licensing and merchandizing, and various other derivatives of the original work. At least one major revenue stream, DVD sales, is collapsing steadily. This leaves box office and derivatives and licensing. Derivatives have never been huge business, or at least not a sturdy enough pillar to bear the weight that DVD sales have borne. And licensing has always been mere icing on the cake, except in the case of titles perfectly suited to it (such as Star Wars). As the downstream revenue sources dry up, so too will the big production dollars, and so to will the scarcity of access to "Hollywood-quality" creative. At least for most companies. What's going to happen? One theory is that we're going to see some sort of price discrimination at the box office. Big tentpole movies cost more to make than do lower-budget romantic comedies, for example, and so tickets to Transformers XXIV will cost more than tickets to Generic Sandra Bullock / Jennifer Aniston RomCom. (Arguably this is already starting to happen, if you consider 3D to be a price discrimination mechanism. Whether by intent or by accident, it functions like one). Another theory is that we're going to see a hollowing out of the middle tier of the film and TV businesses. You'll have giant studios making giant movies, and you'll have tiny indies making tiny movies. But there will be no middle ground, because it will no longer be profitable. All of this assumes, of course, that production costs hold steady or increase. And so long as there are folks out there willing to pay $20MM for a single actor or $8MM for a director, they will. But the bottom might drop out of that market eventually, too. Or it might stratify dramatically as outlined in the previous paragraph.

cageface 15y ago
This point isn't made often enough. The bits of a film or record aren't scarce, but the talent, focus, inspiration and dedication it takes to make arrange those bits are all too scarce. Sit through the entire end credits of a Pixar film and ask yourself if such films would exist without the "artificial" scarcity of copyright paying all those salaries.