> Alright, the people behind do something unethical. However you haven't
respond to that part of my message yet. Shouldn't be avoided just because you
have a good reason to considered it unethical? (you have one, right?)
I'm sure a lot of the products I use were made, designed, or distributed by
people who did unethical things. That doesn't mean I have to reject the
products.
> As far as I know, no. It's not if you (the author) are the one who gave
them the freedom to commercially distribute your work in the first place.
You're confusing copyright and trademark laws, which are fundamentally
different. Please don't do that.
Trademark law is a limited monopoly on a particular image or name which
identifies something, designed to prevent misleading consumers. For example,
"GNU" is a trademark. It is illegal to use the name "GNU" in a way that would
be likely to confuse people into thinking that something that isn't GNU is
GNU.
Copyright law is a monopoly on distribution of works, designed as an
incentive for authorship.
> Oh, so you have to let everyone sell your work while you receive nothing or
else you're against competition and doing unethical things?
This statement makes no sense. I never said that I was against competition.
It's essential in a capitalist economy.
> What does that have to do with anything? The issue that we should be
handling is how are this people going to make a living while doing what they
like. I think that if you just give non-commercial distribution then you have
a chance to make money in a "pay what ever you want" system. If you don't
make money from your work at least no one else can, legally.
Firstly, no one necessarily has a right to make money doing something just
because they like doing it. I like watching certain shows, but it would be
absurd for me to expect to be paid to do that. Heck, I haven't made much
money from all of my programming, either (the only money I made was $50 when
someone decided to sell one of my games in a bundle, and then decided to send
me some of the money he made).
Secondly, why do you suppose that other people distributing gratis copies has
no effect on your ability to distribute paid-for copies, but that other
people distributing paid-for copies completely ruins your ability to
distribute paid-for copies? Both of these are competition. If anything, the
latter is much stronger competition.
Honestly, if there were two people selling a work and a few dozen people
giving away copies of the same work gratis, you would have to have a damn
good reason to pay for the copy sold by one of the two commercial
distributors. That reason might be a higher-quality print than you can easily
manage, for example, or just a desire to support the author. If you don't
have such a reason, you're going to go with the gratis copy every time.
> So because you can easily make copies then the value of my work is 0?
The value of copies is 0, yes. If you're an artist and want to be paid for
the work, you should probably be paid up-front, in full, not expect to get
that money by selling copies. If you can't do that, then I'm sorry, but
again, it's not justified to expect to be able to make money doing everything
you like to do.
> On videogames you can't do live performances.
I'm talking about art in general, not just video games.
> So that's one less from 3.
Those three were just examples, not an exhaustive list.
> And with donations you would be lucky if you get enough for the servers,
food and an almost decent roof. I haven't seen not even one game developer
that made money (and a living) from donations, so I'll be thankful if you
could give some examples.
I also never claimed to know that these methods would work. These are just
possibilities to try.
I'm hoping to try crowdfunding myself, hopefully later this year. We'll see
how it goes. But if it doesn't go well, that doesn't give me an excuse to
restrict people from distributing copies of my work.
> Do you resort to this because you recognize that it is not possible for
Akira Toriyama to make money from Dragon Ball if he put his work under CC
BY-SA, so then he has to do Drangon Ball in his free time while he get his
money from say, drawings for advertisings?
Actually, I think Dragon Ball is so huge that he wouldn't have any problem at
all making money from it without copyright. Even ignoring the fact that
crowdfunding would be more likely to be successful, there's the possibility
of sponsorships.
> Videogames is kind of the exception
No, they're not. Commercial video game developers get paid very little
compared to other programmers, somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 a year
IIRC. People get into video game development because they like it, not
because of money.
