Comment by Ace17 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ace17 | Hacker News Reader

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> It's a bad argument. It ignores the fact that humans progress by division of talent and labour.

I suspect the "bad" argument is actually compatible with division of talent and labour. Could you explain the link between this division and income?

> You wouldn't apply it to physicists, engineers, medical specialists, lawyers, politicians [1], financial experts, sports, or software developers. > So why is it fine to apply it to an art?

Because history shows us that "some" art gets done, even when no money is directly involved. And actually, it's the same for physicists, engineers, sports, software developers - not sure about lawyers, policitans, or financial experts.

Now we have to ask ourselves: for all these domains, what's an acceptable amount for "some"?

People are not pirating "some" art, the generally pirate the best art available.

The best art has always been produced by professionals and not by some YouTube narcissists who think they're God's gift to this world.

As a rule, people are pirating the most valuable art, not the best. This is an important distinction, because by conflating them, you are buying into the industry's point that the most expensive art is the best -- and as the monopoly cartel controls the price, that becomes self-fulfilling.

It is true that in pop music and movies the best art does not necessarily win, but even bad movies have some level of professionalism that is absent from indie productions.

YouTube becomes the cartel these days, and tries to drive down the price for "content" to zero.

It is far more evil for artists than any middleman taking 60% or more of a substantial sum of money.

There are pirates who are in it to make money, and pirates who are in it to get the art itself. The former might focus on most valuable art, the latter focus mostly on art that is the best - they're not going to pirate something they don't like (I'm purposefully not taking into account things like downloading that horrible Celine Dion album for dear old mumsy. :) )

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