copyright.... 100 years ago

[PPH]

LV - are you going to say you'd rather program for a living instead of make music and music apps for a living?

What I would rather do hardly matters in the more long term question of incentive to create. What I am trying to say is that my goal is to be able to do my projects. Whether making a living out of it will help the matter or, on the contrary, disrupt it - is an arguable question. And this is what I am trying to say - that the wish of trying to profit from you art is far from being obvious and universally good. And that I personally do not quite understand how it connects with an incentive to create.

Another interesting thing to note is the stereotype today - that musicians get a lot of money. And so profiting from your art will give you enough to buy expensive equipment. But in real non-MTV life musicians actually make less money than your average office worker. And being a full time musician would only make your chances of being able to afford things less. No?

As for time, I have addressed this issue in the topic above. It comes from my experience. And it is a matter of priorities. And often your priorities will shape life around you in ways that would facilitate your art.

In other words, if you want to be a musician, profiting from it is not a necessity and in many individual cases would actually be a disruption.

I think most people here would rather do music for a living if they didn't have to compromise their art.

Yes, maybe this is a preference for some people. It has nothing to do with necessity though - that mythical necessity upon which the whole copyright argument lies.

I do not wish to be perceived as a person who tries to put forth arguments that shine with originality and anti-stereotypism. But having studied the question and learning from personal experience as an artist, I think that copyright is not an incentive at all and might only be acceptable as a limited industrial regulation. It has some sense in economics in certain specific situations which deal with publication of physical objects, like paper books. Copyright has nothing to do with authors and their incentives. Years of copyright have actually shown that this artificial idea is not as helpful as it was sought to be - in fact, countries with powerful copyright law suffer from many lawsuits and not many good books and music. The authors are just too busy in courts.

I agree with at least the vast majority of this.

[Louigi Verona]

If you could make money from your art, you wouldn't need your job. You would probably produce more works of art.

This could be the case. Then again - I do not feel the lack of time. And I do not want to produce more. I am quite happy with the amount of things I do now - in fact, if I am left with limitless time, it really defeats my discipline and vacations and times in between jobs are usually the most unproductive periods of my creative life.

And the fact that money is not an incentive for you doesn't mean it's not an incentive for others.

Money shouldn't be an incentive to do art just like money shouldn't be an incentive to be a doctor or a priest. Art is not craft like, say, making chairs. It is a much more delicate activity that directly influences and touches upon people's souls. I do believe that the obviousness of such an influence is generally not noticed in our modern society.

This: " consider my job to be supporting what I do in art"
contradicts this:

"Also, I do not see how having money helps you do art."

Well, those are two different contexts. In the first phrase I was speaking about priorities and that one can use his job to get money to do art if he really needs it.

The second phrase should not be perceived in an absolute sense. We of course all require money in our society to survive - to eat, have food and a place to live. What I meant is that to do art you do not need any special profits.

I hope I cleared my views on this matter a bit =)