Rips off Jay Maisel and gets caught but doesn't think he did anything wrong....

[Jay DeFehr]

Rick,

I'm not sure how "gratis business models" are relevant to the discussion, but I agree they exist and are not new.

People have all sorts of reasons for doing things. If those things cost money, then somebody must pay for it. This is true irrespective of economic model.

People do have all sorts of reasons for doing things, and that's a big part of my point. The "if those things cost money" part is important. Which things cost (there are costs apart from money, too), how much do they cost, and who pays are all important questions. Much of what used to cost no longer does, or doesn't cost as much, or doesn't cost the same people, and the list is growing, and it's the implications of these facts that are important.

Mike,

Many, many programmers have been paid big bucks to contribute to Linux.

How many, and how big?

Lots of corporate money has gone into Linux

How much is lots?

Many people who contributed were not paid..

How many?

The answers to my questions are very important if we're to have a reasonable sense of the differences between Linux and Microsoft. That people have been paid to contribute to Linux is insignificant when gauging the overall effort, and if people were paid to contribute to Linux, they weren't paid by Linux, and that is significant. Microsoft budgeted $9.5 billion for R&D in 2010. Linux budgeted $0. I'm not claiming it doesn't cost anything to develop Linux, just that the way it's funded is completely different than the way Microsoft and other traditional institutional models fund their work. The histories of Linux and Microsoft are well documented, and it's fair to say that Linux was developed overwhelmingly by unpaid contributors, and that Microsoft has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D, and that they are competitors.

Kirk,

Thanks, that's good to know! Still, it doesn't change my larger point about the differences between Wikipedia and traditional charities.

[Kirk Keyes]

Kirk,

Thanks, that's good to know! Still, it doesn't change my larger point about the differences between Wikipedia and traditional charities.

Ah, but's it's good to confirm to myself that the $25 I gave them last year was truly deductable!

[rdenney]

I'm not sure how "gratis business models" are relevant to the discussion, but I agree they exist and are not new.

I don't think either one of us would want to be judged on the basis of whether we were staying relevant to the discussion. The discussion concerns a photographer whose work was used by someone else, and he successfully sought legal redress.

Some raised questions of whether that copyright should be aggressively protected, or whether doing so was mean-spirited and greedy. Both sides were strongly defended. The existence of digital sharing services and the approach used by many modern artists of various media in giving away their work in the digital realm was used as an example of the obsolescence of the notion of intellectual property, and there was some back and forth about whether that was a good thing or not. And that led to a discussion of whether giving any services away at all was good or not. That's how it seemed to me that the thread drifted.

I merely reacted to the already drifted notion that stuff gets done in a business realm without needing remuneration in dollars. Aside from barter arrangements (for which dollars are a surrogate), it seems to me that the very definition of business is that products or services are provided in return for remuneration, and particularly that the remuneration exceeds the value, however the business person chooses to identify that, of the cost of those products or services. That doesn't mean the business person doesn't also derive satisfaction from the enterprise beyond the merely remunerative, of course.

It seems to me that providing products or services gratis is either 1.) part of a business model that returns a revenue stream in some other way 2.) funded surreptitiously, or 3.) not, in fact, business at all but rather a hobby or a charitable act. All three are common. None are unique to the modern world, it seems to me, but they have been presented, perhaps unintentionally, as some sort of a paradigm shift. In the larger scale, I don't think this is the case.

There are people who make things like Linux (and Wikipedia) happen, but they have to eat, too. When they do work without compensation, they have a motive. That motive might be to build tools they then use to generate revenue, which is quite similar to the gratis model of the advertising newspaper. Or, they sneak the work into the workplace (I suspect this happens quite a lot). Or, they are doing it as a hobby or for altruistic reasons. Or, finally, they are giving away some of their professional work for hire, with or without the permission of their employer, who actually owns that intellectual property. Only one of these does not provide a revenue stream, and that one (hobby; charity) requires external wealth to sustain. None of these are creations of the digital world, of course.

No, I don't know what this has to do with Maisel, but threads sometimes drift.

Rick "closely involved in some crowd-sourcing technologies, as it happens" Denney

[Mike Anderson]

...
Mike,
How many, and how big?
How much is lots?
How many?

Here's a report that says from Dec. 2008 to Jan. 2010 2.8 million lines of code were contributed to the Linux kernel. 75% from corporations (by "people paid to do it"), 18% with no corporate affiliation, and 7% unclassified. ("Lines of code" is a goofy metric but it's somewhat useful.)

So recently most of the work was paid work. I don't know what percentage of the current free product is the result of paid vs. unpaid work - I don't know if that can even be determined. But the corporate contribution is significant.

...Mike

[Jay DeFehr]

Rick,

I think you've missed my point. It's not about "modern artists of various media in giving away their work in the digital realm" as much as it's about redefining what an artist is, and not just artists, but all media professionals. You made the point yourself when you said it's hard to to be successful doing something others do for free, or words to that effect. I interpret your use of the word successful to mean financially successful, because competition has little to do with artistic success, nor does others working for free. A professional photographer competing with an amateur is one example, and an open source software program competing with Microsoft is another. It doesn't matter if the amateur photographer pays a lab to develop his film, or if corporations pay their employees to work on open source software, both examples illustrate a confrontation between economic models which is challenging the old definitions of business, and it does represent a paradigm shift. Sharing is changing the world, and it's made possible by being connected.

PickupPal is a ride sharing service that connects drivers with riders. It's 100% free for users. By using GPS and social networking technologies PickupPal has identified and made available a huge, largely untapped resource. It is so effective a lawsuit was filed by a regional bus company to stop PickupPal from operating in its region. The suit was upheld and PickupPal ordered to cease and desist. A petition was launched by the users of PickupPal and the local government reacted by changing the law to allow PickupPal to operate. This is a paradigm change. It doesn't matter that PickupPal is advertiser supported, or that the riders negotiate payment with the drivers, the important point is that the service is based on sharing, and providing people with the opportunity to do so creates value. The bus company was forced to compete with a network of individuals who owned and operated their own equipment, had no employees, paid no taxes, and were subject to no regulation. The irony is that the goal of public transportation is aligned with those of ride sharers but an institution has to defend itself, even against those with sympathetic goals.

In your breakdown of the reasons people might contribute without remuneration you left some important potential reasons out. People could be interested in the project to which they contribute, they might like collaborating with others who share their interests, they might like the recognition/approval of their fellows, or to demonstrate their expertise. The fact is there are a whole range of reasons someone might be willing to contribute without the promise of extrinsic reward. People have always been this way, but connectivity and a low threshold for sharing is providing opportunities that have never existed, and the ramifications of this new condition are widespread and profound.

What does this have to do with Maisel? He's a member of a soon-to-be-extinct profession fighting a losing battle against the very nature of his own work.

Mike,

Thanks for the article. What's interesting to me is that the corporate world has embraced an open source project to the point of assimilation. The most salient part of the article for me, is the last bit:

While some devices such as network adaptors still needed reverse engineering to work under Linux because vendors would not share information about their architecture, Corbet suggested those examples were rare and that alternative equipment was usually available. "The best thing to do is avoid those vendors. We really don't need them anymore."

The players unwilling to embrace the open source concept are being forced out of the market. That's a paradigm shift.

[Frank Petronio]

Anyway....

The little whiney arty assholes are taking revenge:

http://hyperallergic.com/28169/milli...r-artist/?wt=2

[Marko]

There is a huge difference between "approved" and "reviewed".

So, what was the point then of having both sets of lawyers go to the trouble of "reviewing" the article prior to publishing if not to clear - i.e. "approve" - it for subsequent publishing? The article did get published and the author did not get sued, ergo the review seems to have resulted in the approval. De facto if not de iure.

I suppose there is also a huge difference between the hair that was split and the one that wasn't. Or even between the hair that was finely split and the one that was just... well, split.

So as for those "silly quotations marks", it indicates that I am quoting you verbatim. It is common practice. Nothing to do with silly games. In this specific case it was used to correct your quote:

But I think you knew this about the quotations marks, since you have used them yourself many times in this thread.

Actually no, I was talking about completely different sort of quotations marks (bold and red mine for added emphasis):

So at the end of day you have made your "opinion" based on a bunch of assumptions...

You know, the ones you and bdkphoto are wrapping around the word when you refer to my opinion. A method for either assigning it the opposite meaning or to negate any meaning, commonly used in sarcasm, irony and personal attacks. If I remember correctly, it's called "metalinguistic negation" or something along those lines.

That's what made it a "game". Very "smart" but also pretty funny, because as opposed to the two words I just negated through the use of quotes, 'opinion' has no opposite. "Nice" try, though. And "deep" too. Oops, I just did it again…

Are we getting the point yet?

But whatever, if this is the level you want to be at, there's no point arguing about more complicated concepts. I'm gone for the long weekend anyway.

Have a great Independence Day!

Marko

[Alan Gales]

Anyway....

The little whiney arty assholes are taking revenge:

http://hyperallergic.com/28169/milli...r-artist/?wt=2

Yeah, they're mad at Jay Maisel for being rich after years of producing his own art. They look like fools!

[Mike Anderson]

Anyway....

The little whiney arty assholes are taking revenge:

http://hyperallergic.com/28169/milli...r-artist/?wt=2

From the article, talking about the poster they made:

One thing I liked about this is that it is actually another form of appropriation- a second degree copy (with further imperfections) of Andy’s copy of Jay’s work.

...Mike

[Mike Anderson]

Anyway....

The little whiney arty assholes are taking revenge:

They don't seem very arty. Apparently making the poster was a "challenge".

...Mike