The ethics of enjoying large collaborative works of art and entertainment

[Travis B.]

In the FLOSS world, as I presume you already know, the typical answer to this question is paid support, and I'd consider it for zeptoforth if it weren't so niche by its nature -- after all, I spend my spare time supporting people's issues with zeptoforth even when they are not bugs in zeptoforth at all, so one could argue that I ought to be compensated for this time spent. I don't do this because zeptoforth is niche, and I would rather encourage its use by helping users out even if it is using my spare time, than potentially drive people out of a relatively small userbase away, when there are other alternatives, by asking for money in return for support.

Software, though, is very different thing from art. Free software offers an answers to questions, such as 'what does it mean, exactly, to own a piece of software?' which really doesn't apply to art.
Although I use and promote free software wherever possible, I'm still not sure the economic model makes sense. I can't say I'm entirely happy with the idea that programmers should code because they love it, not say, to pay rent, or the expectation that coders should keep coding even in their free time, but that's another issue entirely.

The big issue with free software versus proprietary software is that proprietary software has major issues with it which are reason to avoid it even though for creators it may be a more sound economic model. In particular, there is the matter that software effectively dies once it is no longer being maintained (unlike, say, a book, which is a completed work once written), and proprietary software means that software cannot, in most cases, be picked back up by someone else once it has been discontinued -- which happens all the time in practice. This means that relying on proprietary software, as a user, becomes a major liability. For instance, if zeptoforth were proprietary and I were hit by a bus tomorrow, it would mean that all my users would be up a creek without a paddle, whereas as things are, if I were hit by a bus, my users could take my software and continue its development themselves (or hire someone to do it for them). And this to me is reason to avoid proprietary software more than abstract ideas about "freedom" and whatnot.

[Travis B.]

And yes, I recognize that large corporations can arrange for terms to be put in licenses for software they license for them to receive the source code for software if it becomes unsupported. (This actually happened with a vendor of a product that my employer uses.) However, for the little guy such is typically not feasible, making avoiding proprietary software the only option if one wants to avoid this scenario.

[Ares Land]

And this to me is reason to avoid proprietary software more than abstract ideas about "freedom" and whatnot.

I use FLOSS as often as possible for very practical reasons. I work as a sysadmin/devops. When there is a choice between a proprietary solution and a free software one, the free software option almost always turns out to be the better product.
Though this is connected to the abstract/philosophical case for FLOSS; if I run into a bug, and that happens occasionally, implementing a quick fix myself is often way less of a headache than reaching for the support team.

The few exceptions being Linux on the desktop (manageable but has issues), LibreOffice (ditto.), and most of the Adobe suite (though Gimp is as good as Photoshop; Inkscape is arcane but powerful.)

[Travis B.]

And this to me is reason to avoid proprietary software more than abstract ideas about "freedom" and whatnot.

I use FLOSS as often as possible for very practical reasons. I work as a sysadmin/devops. When there is a choice between a proprietary solution and a free software one, the free software option almost always turns out to be the better product.

I have to agree that usually FLOSS, provided it is not in a freemium relationship with a proprietary product, is generally the better option from a quality standpoint. (There have been exceptions, though -- at my last job I found that IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, which is proprietary, is bar none the best Java IDE, while the FLOSS Eclipse from my experience is a POS.)

Though this is connected to the abstract/philosophical case for FLOSS; if I run into a bug, and that happens occasionally, implementing a quick fix myself is often way less of a headache than reaching for the support team.

I've also ran into cases where I've run into bugs in FLOSS, where I could just hack up the software to make it work rather than have to beg the original developers to make a fix, which may or may not happen, and even if it does happen who knows how long it'd take.

The few exceptions being Linux on the desktop (manageable but has issues), LibreOffice (ditto.), and most of the Adobe suite (though Gimp is as good as Photoshop; Inkscape is arcane but powerful.)

I have been using Linux on the desktop for the last 23 years and have had no regrets. To test something out on Windows, I booted my home laptop into Windows for the first time in years to test something so I could claim it worked under Windows (it came with Windows, which I kept installed on it alongside Linux just in case I would for some reason have a future need for it), and was amazed by just how awful doing what I took for granted under Linux really was.

[Travis B.]

One thing I should note is that I have not made zeptoforth FLOSS merely to attract users -- I have also done it out of a sense of obligation (and note that by this I do not mean social pressure), that because I have personally benefited from millions of person-hours of work on FLOSS I personally use every day that I have barely paid a cent for (the only case in which I have paid for it was when I bought a LinuxPPC distribution circa 2001), so I should at least give something in return to the world given that I do have something to give in the first place.

[Torco]

The printing press came into use in Europe in the 1400s and 1500s, and made it much cheaper to produce books. As there was initially no copyright law, anyone could buy or rent a press and print any text. Popular new works were immediately re-set and re-published by competitors, so printers needed a constant stream of new material. Fees paid to authors for new works were high, and significantly supplemented the incomes of many academics.

Given most authors won't make a significant amount of money off royalties whether copyright is five or five hundred years (citation: I mean, the 2022 survey I posted earlier, but also you tell me, zomp, you're a published author) this would suggest struggling artists should want shorter and laxer copyright if their motivation is getting compensated for their work.

Not sure how you conclude that. No copyright basically means you don't get paid for your work. Pirates don't pay you anything

except right above you have an example of people getting paid under a no copyright system. granted there's many differences between today's society and 1500s europe but, then again, one of those differences is that we have the current copyright laws and back then they didn't. again, do we have data about how culture workers were worse off before copyright, or do we just take it as a given that they were?

I have been using Linux on the desktop for the last 23 years and have had no regrets. To test something out on Windows, I booted my home laptop into Windows for the first time in years to test something so I could claim it worked under Windows (it came with Windows, which I kept installed on it alongside Linux just in case I would for some reason have a future need for it), and was amazed by just how awful doing what I took for granted under Linux really was.

in fairness, being used to the workflow and knowing the system you're working within is a big part of that. I don't think many windows people could get a lot done on linux without extensive getting to know it and its ecosystem.

[WeepingElf]

The big issue with free software versus proprietary software is that proprietary software has major issues with it which are reason to avoid it even though for creators it may be a more sound economic model. In particular, there is the matter that software effectively dies once it is no longer being maintained (unlike, say, a book, which is a completed work once written), and proprietary software means that software cannot, in most cases, be picked back up by someone else once it has been discontinued -- which happens all the time in practice. This means that relying on proprietary software, as a user, becomes a major liability. For instance, if zeptoforth were proprietary and I were hit by a bus tomorrow, it would mean that all my users would be up a creek without a paddle, whereas as things are, if I were hit by a bus, my users could take my software and continue its development themselves (or hire someone to do it for them). And this to me is reason to avoid proprietary software more than abstract ideas about "freedom" and whatnot.

Fine - I haven't really thought much about this argument in favour of free open-source software before. But if Microsoft went belly-up (which doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon, but nobody knows), the world would have a problem. When Linus Torvalds dies (which is sure to happen within this century), it won't be that big an issue.

[Travis B.]

I have been using Linux on the desktop for the last 23 years and have had no regrets. To test something out on Windows, I booted my home laptop into Windows for the first time in years to test something so I could claim it worked under Windows (it came with Windows, which I kept installed on it alongside Linux just in case I would for some reason have a future need for it), and was amazed by just how awful doing what I took for granted under Linux really was.

in fairness, being used to the workflow and knowing the system you're working within is a big part of that. I don't think many windows people could get a lot done on linux without extensive getting to know it and its ecosystem.

This wasn't something that required doing anything special that would have required special knowledge or anything. It was just getting the OS to recognize a USB-serial dongle. Under Linux it is recognized immediately, no driver installation or anything. Under Windows it took at least 15 minutes before the OS would recognize it (I don't know how long because I stopped counting).

[Travis B.]

Fine - I haven't really thought much about this argument in favour of free open-source software before. But if Microsoft went belly-up (which doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon, but nobody knows), the world would have a problem. When Linus Torvalds dies (which is sure to happen within this century), it won't be that big an issue.

While it is unlikely that Microsoft will disappear any time soon, look at what they're trying to do with EOL-ing Windows 10, which will eventually mean no security updates, without providing an upgrade path to countless Windows users whose computers' TPM modules do not support TPM 2.0, which Microsoft has arbitrarily mandated for Windows 11 for no good reason. Contrast this with how I have only ever needed to install Linux from scratch once on any computer system I have owned, and have been able to continually upgrade after that point*. (Full disclosure: my software is on GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft.)

* The only times I have had hitches with this is when Debian renamed the NVIDIA driver package for a system I was using for no good reason, which resulted in a major headache, and when the gdm or lightdm packages were broken (which required switching from gdm to lightdm or vice versa).

[Travis B.]

Getting back to copyright, the big thing I was thinking of w.r.t. advocating non-transferable copyrights is copyrights on music -- very often rights to recordings are owned by labels, and rights to lyrics are owned by publishers. By making copyrights non-transferable, and expropriating purchased rights and returning them to the original creators, copyrights on music would be owned by their rightful owners, the original creators, i.e. rights to recordings would be owned by artists, and rights to lyrics would be owned by songwriters.

[keenir]

Getting back to copyright, the big thing I was thinking of w.r.t. advocating non-transferable copyrights is copyrights on music -- very often rights to recordings are owned by labels, and rights to lyrics are owned by publishers. By making copyrights non-transferable, and expropriating purchased rights and returning them to the original creators, copyrights on music would be owned by their rightful owners, the original creators, i.e. rights to recordings would be owned by artists, and rights to lyrics would be owned by songwriters.

That makes sense...though it raises what i think may be an important question: how are the recordings getting out there under those conditions? Some might upload their songs directly to online, in which case they may or not be able to paywall them (is errecting a paywall something most songwriters and singers know how to do?)

...so, would publishers and labels get a percentage in return for making and distributing CD and other such recordings of the songs and art? if not, what exactly are they being offered for such services?

[Travis B.]

Getting back to copyright, the big thing I was thinking of w.r.t. advocating non-transferable copyrights is copyrights on music -- very often rights to recordings are owned by labels, and rights to lyrics are owned by publishers. By making copyrights non-transferable, and expropriating purchased rights and returning them to the original creators, copyrights on music would be owned by their rightful owners, the original creators, i.e. rights to recordings would be owned by artists, and rights to lyrics would be owned by songwriters.

That makes sense...though it raises what i think may be an important question: how are the recordings getting out there under those conditions? Some might upload their songs directly to online, in which case they may or not be able to paywall them (is errecting a paywall something most songwriters and singers know how to do?)

...so, would publishers and labels get a percentage in return for making and distributing CD and other such recordings of the songs and art? if not, what exactly are they being offered for such services?

I would presume what would happen is that they would be paid a percentage in return for such things by the creators, but the key thing is that the rights would be solely owned by the creators, and publishers and labels would only be paid for their services (e.g. if the creators view them as inadequate they could always change publishers or labels, or they could very well (as is made possible in this day and age of the Interwebs) distribute copies all by themselves without them).

[Torco]

I think the thing about users being left up shit creek without a paddle kind of *is* about freedom, no? the freedom of someone to use, fix, and improve upon the stuff they use and benefit from.

This wasn't something that required doing anything special that would have required special knowledge or anything. It was just getting the OS to recognize a USB-serial dongle. Under Linux it is recognized immediately, no driver installation or anything. Under Windows it took at least 15 minutes before the OS would recognize it (I don't know how long because I stopped counting).

Oh, yeah, no, drivers. balls those things are a nightmare.

[keenir]

Getting back to copyright, the big thing I was thinking of w.r.t. advocating non-transferable copyrights is copyrights on music -- very often rights to recordings are owned by labels, and rights to lyrics are owned by publishers. By making copyrights non-transferable, and expropriating purchased rights and returning them to the original creators, copyrights on music would be owned by their rightful owners, the original creators, i.e. rights to recordings would be owned by artists, and rights to lyrics would be owned by songwriters.

That makes sense...though it raises what i think may be an important question: how are the recordings getting out there under those conditions? Some might upload their songs directly to online, in which case they may or not be able to paywall them (is errecting a paywall something most songwriters and singers know how to do?)

...so, would publishers and labels get a percentage in return for making and distributing CD and other such recordings of the songs and art? if not, what exactly are they being offered for such services?

I would presume what would happen is that they would be paid a percentage in return for such things by the creators, but the key thing is that the rights would be solely owned by the creators, and publishers and labels would only be paid for their services (e.g. if the creators view them as inadequate they could always change publishers or labels, or they could very well (as is made possible in this day and age of the Interwebs) distribute copies all by themselves without them).

and if the publishers/labels view view the proposed payment as inadequate?

[Travis B.]

That makes sense...though it raises what i think may be an important question: how are the recordings getting out there under those conditions? Some might upload their songs directly to online, in which case they may or not be able to paywall them (is errecting a paywall something most songwriters and singers know how to do?)

...so, would publishers and labels get a percentage in return for making and distributing CD and other such recordings of the songs and art? if not, what exactly are they being offered for such services?

I would presume what would happen is that they would be paid a percentage in return for such things by the creators, but the key thing is that the rights would be solely owned by the creators, and publishers and labels would only be paid for their services (e.g. if the creators view them as inadequate they could always change publishers or labels, or they could very well (as is made possible in this day and age of the Interwebs) distribute copies all by themselves without them).

and if the publishers/labels view view the proposed payment as inadequate?

Well no one is forcing them to promote works, so they could always refuse to do so if they view the compensation as inadequate.

[keenir]

snip.
double-post by accident...did the Delete function go on vacation? i hope it enjoys that time away.

[keenir]

I would presume what would happen is that they would be paid a percentage in return for such things by the creators, but the key thing is that the rights would be solely owned by the creators, and publishers and labels would only be paid for their services (e.g. if the creators view them as inadequate they could always change publishers or labels, or they could very well (as is made possible in this day and age of the Interwebs) distribute copies all by themselves without them).

hm, yeah Kickstarter works for a lot of people...but not every project there hits the goal line, as I've witnessed.

and if the publishers/labels view view the proposed payment as inadequate?

Well no one is forcing them to promote works, so they could always refuse to do so if they view the compensation as inadequate.

Weird; thats what I used to hear about artists - that nobody's forcing them to sign bad contracts or to work with labels that underpay.