Art? Data? Information? Profitable Product?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
21

Wow…I’m surprised. Never would’ve guessed!

I was just reading that that guy who made the song “gotta get through this”, Daniel Beddingfiled, recorded that in his bedroom with a mic plugged into his PC. I wonder what kind’ve trend will follow as more and more things go open source. Then when combined with the power of modern computers, I think an independant artist, with a little money (or some good credit), could produce something of relatively good quality.

This is one thing I am interested in watching. As more programs go open source, that could actually fill gaps between free and propreitary expensive software, how the market will react. Will more people get creative and try to adapt to the free stuff? Or will the studios and software companies be the frist to adapt?

22

I really enjoyed reading your post waffler, alot of points worth the pointing and thoughts worth thinking.

I agree that in a perfect world we could all work toghether and everyone would get what he/she’s entitled too. [pofo goes all dreamy for a moment]

Too bad we are the way we are :wink:

I think I too may have been staring at the screen for too long.

  1. pofo
23

Ok… now I’m over on this one too, hehe

I voted ‘no’, the original post wasn’t nonsense.

I am a libertarian… I view personal freedom as the most important thing in life. Now, what you’re speaking about approaches communism. Though certainly don’t agree with any current or past implementations of it, it does have it’s own utopian nobility. Where I don’t agree is when people are forced into it, by copyright infringement or by totalitarian governments.

I think everyone should be free to contract their assets or services as they see fit. If you want to produce music then sell it, fine. If you want to give it away, great! Either way, they own it, and if they decide they want to be paid for it, then making a copy and not paying is stealing.

As for artwork (brush and canvas)… Yes, artists often showcase their art on their websites. You don’t get the ‘whole’ though. They usually make their money by selling the originals and/or reproductions. Plenty of those websites where you can see a pic of the art for free link to an offer for large reproduction in an e-shop. Also, they still have the copyright, and you usually can’t dl the pic and use it elsewhere.

It’s been gone over and over the costs of production. Still, if the artists intend to make a career out of their art, they still must charge for their artwork. I’m a computer science student, if there wasn’t commercial software, how could I support myself? Would I have to flip burgers at McDonald’s to pay the rent, and code in my spare time? Doesn’t seem to me to be a very happy life.

All this said… it’s great when artists or anyone else gives their work for free. Many people donate money and their time to charity and to their community… it’d be better if more people did so as well. But you can’t expect everyone to give everything away for free.

I no more expect a farmer to slave in the fields all day and give me meat and potatoes for free than I do a coder to slave over a keyboard and CRT all day and give me software for free.

And despite the fact that I currently make little money and am still learning to be a good programmer, I gave money to the foundation, and I would love to give some of my time to the project… but I’d still like a nice coding job with a good salary too, and I’m free to do both :slight_smile:

So, the post wasn’t nonsense, but it was idealistic… there’s room in this world for both commercial and non-commercial works.

Imp

24

Surprising. I was kind of watching my post for a while, but nothing was happening. Now that I was away from the keyboard for a little while, a whole bunch of replies popped up.

IMProvisar, you seemed to percieve what I ment most (although all the other comments were also good). I didn’t actually have in mind that all of a sudden everything should change to make art free. Of course what an artists art would be used for (selling, sharing, whatever) should be left up to the artist. If someone does want to get money that is fine.

Also, I think if a company wants to profit from art, that is also just fine – especially concidering these are things that are not necissary for survival. Artwork is more a luxury than a necessity, anyhow. A lot of people seemed to think my ideas were kindof communistic … that wasn’t my intentions. Imagine if we lived in the 50’s!

What I was saying was perhaps somewhat idealistic. Maybe should look into themselves to concider their motives for actions. A lot of people are well motivated and do things because they love doing it. Others, however, seem more motivated to earn money. It wasn’t as much an everyone as a whole type prompt, but a spark for questions each person might ask themselves.

Of course, the people around here (it is a Blender forum after all), are, for the most part, well motivated. Each person likes to use Blender, and many share works that they are very proud of. It is not a greedy pursiut, nor one for fame. I’m not saying people should not try to earn money, it is just that I think business dealings should remain somewhat honest and fair, and individuals (although anyone is entitled to) should maybe concider not making a profit a primary goal, but the service.

… man, it seems that the more I type the more the world seems pretty much fine as is concerning these sorts of matters.

As for recording expences - I’m not sure how much it would be, but my uncle, who is the drummer in what was voted the best band in the Pittsburg area, managed to have their music recorded. I don’t know if they have any music on the internet to download though. The CDs were more a gift for family and friends.

25

… maybe it’s just me. If someone wanted me to do something, I would give it my all and charge nothing. It’s the work, and appreciation of it, that I love, not money. I guess I’m wierd that way.

Oh yeah. Actually, in being more of a hobby programmer, my programming projects don’t cost me anything. I think somebody mentioned something about that. I guess paper and pencils, for sketching out ideas, and electricity costs something, but that’s not too much … I guess there really wasn’t any reason in mentioning this.

26

Hrm… the biggest reason for supporting proprietary software, and other non-free works: It allows people to do what they love full time.

If anyone here listens to Rush Limbaugh, one thing he often says is, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I believe that.

You mention the costs (paper, pencils, etc). But, if a single programmer makes a small program and makes it shareware or gives a limited-time or limited-feature demo, and charges more than those costs, perhaps he/she can make enough to quit their job, and do what they love. Same goes for musicians, artists, etc. Or, if they already do what they love, perhaps they can make enough to do what they love, but without a boss.

At this point, I’d like to put in a plug for my favorite Windows text editor, EditPad. Earlier versions were just a single exe that you renamed “NotePad”, and chunk the windows version. It’s gotten a bit fancier, including syntax coloring. (Syntax schemes available for many programming languages, and an editor is available to create custom schemes, you need some regular expressions knowledge though, I created a custom scheme for the LambdaMOO language). The earlier versions were Shareware, and expected payment if you liked and used it was a postcard (he collected them). I made sure to pay for every computer I used it on, and then some, hehe… I got a small book of postcards from here (hawaii), and mailed them all. This version is still free (and I think he no longer wants postcards, lol) as EditPad Classic, a new version is available for payment (around $40), EditPad Pro, with a limited-feature version as freeware, EditPadLite. I never tried EditPadLite, being a user of the old EditPad, I had no problem paying for a newer version without checking the “lite” first. I think the only difference is Lite doesn’t have the syntax coloring or the spell checker. You can find it at Just Great Software. He’s got some other tools there, I think a windows helpfile editor and a software installer tool, but since I haven’t needed them, I haven’t tried them. Enjoy.

Imp

Disclaimer: I do not know the author personally, nor am I involved in any type of “associate” kickback program, just a satisfied customer. :slight_smile: