Apparently If You Explain Many Ways That Artists Can Make Money Outside Of Copyright, You're Against Artists Getting Paid

Too Much Free Time

from the insanity dept

I recognize that it’s easy to jump to simplified caricatures of nuanced positions, but there’s one argument that I find particularly nefarious and disgusting. It’s the idea that folks like myself “don’t want artists to get paid.” That seems to be one of the insinuations in this article, interviewing a noted copyright system supporter, in which I am set up as the foil on the other side. The argument is falsely made that those, like myself, who argue against copyright’s excesses and for people to look at all the new opportunities out there, somehow “get upset when musicians and filmmakers try to earn a living.”

There’s a massive false premise cooked into that claim: it’s that any argument in favor of preventing copyright’s excesses, or any thoughts about how content creators might make money outside of copyright somehow (bizarrely and incorrectly) means that you want artists to not get paid. However, since I’m used as “the example” of that position in the linked article, I’m curious how one can explain the fact that we regularly celebrate example, after example, after example, after example, after example of artists making money (sometimes lots of it).

There’s a complete strawman being set up here, and it’s incredibly frustrating. Those of us who believe that arguing over a mythologized past that never really was and certainly never will be again — in which most artists were completely shut out of the market entirely — is a waste of time, are falsely being branded as being anti-artist. This is bullshit. It’s a more nefarious version of the argument made by the labels and the studios that they represent artist’s interests. The reason this argument is made is because these new opportunities that we see for artists, which we regularly highlight and celebrate, quite often (though not always) involve routing around the traditional gatekeepers. So their response is to falsely attack us by claiming that we’re the ones arguing against artists.

Yet, whenever we bring up all of these examples of artists making money through new technologies and services, rather than celebrating those successes, the folks who claim to be arguing for the artists (when they’re really just arguing in favor of protectionism for gatekeepers) suddenly become insulting towards those artists. They argue that these success stories don’t count or are exceptions to the rule. They quite frequently mock their talents and suggest that the only reason they had to go an alternate route is because their art isn’t good.

I recognize that this is how things work in political fights — where people use facile simplifications based on lies to characterize your position — but I’m hoping we can put an end to the ridiculous claims about folks like myself being upset when artists make money. My position is the exact opposite. I want artists to make money. I want them to make lots of money, and I think there are all sorts of opportunities for them to do so. What I worry about is, if they don’t adapt and continue rely on an obsolete and broken system, that it’s a lot more difficult to make money that way. But to twist that into claiming that we don’t want artists to make money is a ridiculous smear.

No one “gets upset” when artists try to earn a living. What we worry about is when they try to change laws in a ways that harm others, and which don’t actually help them earn a living. Does telling someone that jumping off a bridge is not a good way to fly mean that we’re against people flying? Especially if we point out example after example of people flying in airplanes? I don’t think so, and I think it’s worth calling it out as a lie when people make that argument.

Filed Under: business models, copyright