Michaelwagner Wrote: > > With no intellectual property rights, many performers, writers of > computer programs, designers, etc, would have no income stream and no > incentive to do what they do other than altruism, which only goes so > far putting bread on the table. > Your Bach analogy has problems. Bach had a rich sponsor, several > actually. But his music was only for the rich, so almost no "popular > with with the poor" music has survived from that time, because no one > paid for it to be written down. > > If we give up performance royalties, we get only music suitable for the > rich and powerful. > > Personally, I don't want to listen to "The War on Iraq, an incomplete > sonnet in 3 parts, commissioned by G. W. Bush" for the next 50 years.
That's an interesting argument, but your doomsday scenario is far from the only possibility. For example, suppose copyright was abolished entirely and replaced with an "art tax" paid into a fund. The tax might be on blank media, or simply be part of an income tax, and the fund would support artists, perhaps based on popularity of their work. Of course things like that already exist, for example any institution which supports the arts and recieves government funding, but imagine it on a larger scale, and more formalized. Of course artists could continue to make money via live performances, sponsors, etc., just as they do now. Does anyone really think that such a system would result in less music/art being available to the public? I think quite the opposite. The fact is, nobody really knows - but one thing is clear, that art has always existed, long before copyright laws, and was accessible to rich and poor. I don't think that's going to change. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23869 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
