>That's why that is a problem. If there is no IP at all, you've limited the set of creators to people who are essentially independently wealthy and simultaneously want to actually invest time to master that domain. That's a small set.
This is a really fruitless way to take the discussion in and it misses the point entirely. I could argue that the way things are now, you've limited the set of artists to people who happen to get chosen by "the algorithm" for whatever reason, which is a similarly small set. We could then go and compare sizes of these small sets just to try and rationalize things. But that doesn't really advance the discussion does it? Groups who want to do bigger things still need to do fundraising to fix the "livelihood problem" and then they need to spend big on marketing in order to recoup the costs. What that means is the same as always: applying for grants, going to investors, running a crowdfunding campaign, etc. It really has nothing to do with copying at that point.
Do you think those investors want to see a return on that investment?
Where do you think that return on investment will come from if the product is free?
For better or worse this is literally what record labels and publishers do - invest in new talent, handle marketing and promotion, spread the investment around and hope to win big on a handful of hits which pay for the misses.
Do you really think tech VCs invented this model?
Publisher/investors/labels/agents/promoters have been doing it since at least the 19th century.
No offense but your whole post is a straw man. I never said anything about anything being free. Although if you want to post videos for free on youtube, that seems to be a popular choice for a lot of people these days.
Anyway this is why I didn't want to discuss things in that direction, because it always leads to people attacking the argument with totally nonsensical conclusions. Of course the concept of patronage wasn't invented by tech VCs or kickstarter or whatever you're thinking of. Can we try to think about this constructively?
You asked " Why does it matter if someone else makes money on something they copied? Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?"
And I answered that question. It matters, because in the context of capitalism, no, you can't abandon the idea of making money for the original creator, because there's investment. Very few people are interested in investments that don't stand a good chance of recouping the costs.
Investors aren't going to give you money if creation is expensive, and copying is zero cost. (See also: Open source business models)
People aren't going to invest time (on the order of many years) in learning skills if there isn't a chance to recoup that cost.
Sorry if the answer to your question doesn't take the discussion where you want it to be. That doesn't make it a less valid answer. If you want a different discussion, maybe you're asking the wrong question?
I never said that. I am not the person you were originally responding to. But I will respond to this assertion:
>Investors aren't going to give you money if creation is expensive, and copying is zero cost.
Yes, they will. The trick is to make each copy generate you money in some other way. Additionally sometimes it isn't even directly about the money -- if the good becomes public and simultaneously brings up the value of all of their other investments, then the amount of copying really doesn't matter.
This is a really fruitless way to take the discussion in and it misses the point entirely. I could argue that the way things are now, you've limited the set of artists to people who happen to get chosen by "the algorithm" for whatever reason, which is a similarly small set. We could then go and compare sizes of these small sets just to try and rationalize things. But that doesn't really advance the discussion does it? Groups who want to do bigger things still need to do fundraising to fix the "livelihood problem" and then they need to spend big on marketing in order to recoup the costs. What that means is the same as always: applying for grants, going to investors, running a crowdfunding campaign, etc. It really has nothing to do with copying at that point.