Hacker News Reader

Comment by leephillips | Hacker News Reader

It's great if you want to make something and put it in the public domain. But I detect a normative undercurrent here, a suggestion that the author feels that restrictions on copying are bad, or at least not as nice, as her love-based approach.

I would like to live in a world where people can support themselves through creative work. And online culture has failed to come up with a replacement for strictly enforced copyright that doesn't involve de-facto monopolies, rampant advertising, and spying on people through their computers. Jaron Lanier goes into these issues in insightful depth in his book You Are Not a Gadget.

View on HN

>I would like to live in a world where people can support themselves through creative work.

With automation increasingly replacing many jobs, creativity remains the last area left where mankind can be successful in capitalism.

If creativity has no worth as well then we are descending into a reality where nothing has value – including individuality itself.

"And online culture has failed to come up with a replacement for strictly enforced copyright that doesn't involve de-facto monopolies, rampant advertising, and spying on people through their computers"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_One

You do not need copyrights if you are willing to say, "Pay us for the next installment, or else we will not make it." No spying, no advertising, no monopolies.

Right up until you get a bunch of self-entitled pseudo-fans wailing about blackmail, ransom, and passive-aggressive behavior.

All right, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I've thought about this a bit as I'm self-producing my own cd. I feel like doing something like this would set up something of an adversarial relationship with my fans.

This is really interesting - I'd never heard of this. But glancing over the page you linked to, it looks like 4 million downloads netted about $20,000 to fund the next several episodes. So they are massively popular, but barely covering the cost of production of an extremely low-budget series. This is therefore a labor of love and not paying anyone's mortgage or feeding any families. But they seem to have a lot of love.

Sure, though it is worth pointing out that they must compete with people who are using copyrights to their advantage. Even competing against the businesses that benefit from copyright, Pioneer One is able to survive; I suspect that in the absence of copyrights, Pioneer One would be more financially viable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com