posted
I was thinking of a short story with a very simple premise: a near-future world in which it's impossible to make money from art.
It's not that there's a law against it, and actually the State makes and tries to enforce laws so that artists can make money. It's more that technology has advanced so far that art products, like books or media or music, are instantly pirated and made into high quality products that are immediately sold for low prices on the black market. There are even mobile theatres with expendable screens and speakers that are as good as any licensed theatre. Concerts won't work because holograms have gotten real enough, coupled with AI programs, that going to a digital show is as good as going see a big artist live. You can't even get money from advertisements because as soon as you put up new content, a hundred other people have stolen it and put it on their own website. Maybe by a worldwide hacker group that truly believes all art should be free.
The point is that there is no way for an artist to make money from his/her art. And the question the story poses is, do people still create art anyway? And how does art change as a result of money being taken out of the equation?
Singing and dancing are probably as old as humans. And once upon a time, oratory story telling was the norm. I won't say that these were more pure times, but I do think personal expression happened for a different reason. Today it's largely monetary motivation. People immediately throw something they've produced online with the hope that it will go viral and make them rich and /or famous. But when that's taken away from them, why do they do it? When their art will only be seen by a handful of people, family and friends, and that's it, do they still figure there to be a point to doing it at all?
And if they actually did go viral, would they be satisfied knowing that they're well known but can't make money off of it? No book sales, no movie sales, no concerts. They can never quit their jobs, they can never make a professional career out of it. All they can do is create for no other reason except personal satisfaction.
The creation of this near-future would have to be meticulous enough so that it's clearly understood that the artist will never make money from the art.
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posted
Hardly the future, more like the present. The implications of downloading and file sharing imply that anybody who didn't have a terrific live act couldn't make a living at music---one couldn't collect anything from recording or composing.
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posted
I think the potential is there for a happy ending if you were inclined. It has been my experience that artistic expression cannot be taken out of the human life experience. After reading your post I immediately envisioned a return to the 'non-technology' nature of pre-tech art and the subsequent freeing of artists from the shackles, etc. They could be the only sane ones left, the only people able to experience true joy... or something. Hmmm, sounds interesting.
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quote:The point is that there is no way for an artist to make money from his/her art.
Really?
I thought about how I'd make money if everything I did is pirated. Whatever I do, it's free. Okay.
What I haven't done --what's still in my head-- isn't free, it's mine.
I don't see why a writer wouldn't serialize their novel and only release a chapter after X amount of money is paid by the readers who want to know how it ends.
The reader would be paying ransom for the next chapter.
When you buy a comic book, you buy just a part of a story. This wouldn't be much different.
Or maybe I'm missing something here?
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quote: I don't see why a writer wouldn't serialize their novel and only release a chapter after X amount of money is paid by the readers who want to know how it ends.
I think the source of material would become difficult to find. You write something and post it, but then hundreds of other people post it on their sites and claim it as their own. So how do you know who the original creator is?
Isn't that how fiction worked a long time ago? We often hear that Shakespeare didn't write the plays, he's just the one who got famous penning them down.
And even if you tried to hold an audience ransom, let's say you're Stephenie Meyers. Well, while you're waiting for people to pay you (though whether or not they'll believe you're the "real" author is questionable), then someone pulls an E.L. James on you and write a 50 SHADES OF GRAY, ripping off from the world you began and spinning off a successful narrative (that's immediately pirated and altered so that, once again, the source material becomes a guessing game).
Fame and fortune being denied you.
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quote: The implications of downloading and file sharing imply that anybody who didn't have a terrific live act couldn't make a living at music---one couldn't collect anything from recording or composing.
Currently, I believe in Japan, a hologram is a major pop artist. .
Again, this being scifi, "live performance" becomes somewhat irrelevant if the tech is advanced enough that a hologram of the artist, produced anywhere, can be set up for a concert.
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quote:After reading your post I immediately envisioned a return to the 'non-technology' nature of pre-tech art and the subsequent freeing of artists from the shackles, etc.
Artists tend to become "shackled" by monetary motivation, I think. No one forces them to sign contracts. It's a pursuit of greatness that tends to be their downfall. But I wonder if, without the pursuit, would most artist bother creating. It's easy to say 'yes', but I wonder how true that is considering the stated endgame of most writers, at least. Publication, whether traditionally or self-published. With that taken off the table, do they put forward the effort?
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quote:Well, while you're waiting for people to pay you (though whether or not they'll believe you're the "real" author is questionable)
Hold on. In addition to all creative works being pirated, identities can be pirated as well?
You can't appropriate content if the identity of the creator can be verified.
quote:And even if you tried to hold an audience ransom, let's say you're Stephenie Meyers. Well, while you're waiting for people to pay you [...], then someone pulls an E.L. James on you and write a 50 SHADES OF GRAY, ripping off from the world you began and spinning off a successful narrative...
Personally, I wouldn't change the work of my favorite author for a fanfic.
However -- I'm shocked I even thought about this, but there it is-- I would change the work of an author I don't know, for a better version of their work.
There are a lot of books that I stopped reading because the execution of the idea was lousy, but the idea itself was fantastic. If a pirated copy of the original were better written, then I'd pay ransom to that person.
But even then, I think that just like writers gather an audience in the present, they would gather an audience in this future of yours. People adapt.
Edited to add: All this wasn't meant to critique or discourage you from playing with the idea. I think it's a nice idea Posts: 93 | Registered: Dec 2014
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quote: There are a lot of books that I stopped reading because the execution of the idea was lousy, but the idea itself was fantastic. If a pirated copy of the original were better written, then I'd pay ransom to that person.
In this story, I'm not sure if your character would be a protagonist. Holding a gun to your audience's head and telling them, "Pay me or I won't produce anymore", feels...brutally honest, but somehow not in the spirit of art, or why it's claimed to be created in the first place.
Edited to add:
quote: Hold on. In addition to all creative works being pirated, identities can be pirated as well?
Identity theft is common today.
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quote:Originally posted by Denevius: And even if you tried to hold an audience ransom, let's say you're Stephenie Meyers. Well, while you're waiting for people to pay you (though whether or not they'll believe you're the "real" author is questionable), then someone pulls an E.L. James on you and write a 50 SHADES OF GRAY, ripping off from the world you began and spinning off a successful narrative (that's immediately pirated and altered so that, once again, the source material becomes a guessing game).
First, the problem of authorship can be overcome. You simply don't release it to the public until after you have registered it with the Copyright Office via hardcopy.
Second, anyone attempting to rip you off has to deal with the exact same problems you do, which, if they are so insurmountable, is a strong disincentive for fraud.
Welcome to the 21st Century. This is the current state of movies, books, video games, and soon-to-be sculpture as 3D printers proliferate and improve in quality, and yet there has been no collapse because there are enough wealthy societies where thievery is an exception, rather than a rule. Those societies where theft is the dominant mode of art trade will find less art produced with them in mind.
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quote:but somehow not in the spirit of art, or why it's claimed to be created in the first place
Hehe. No, it's not.
I took your idea of "can't make money with art" and ran with it. That is the way I came up with money. Many youtube channels thrive on fan donations, it's not a bizarre business strategy.
quote:Identity theft is common today.
This, I know.
I meant the identity of the author and by extension, the authenticity of the work they produce. A person's identity can be stolen to gain money by buying things in their name, for example--I don't believe criminals steal identities and then write novels under a "stolen name". What a master plan that would be.
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posted
I believe that stories arise from complications inherent in the premise. "Impossible" precludes complications.
I understand premise as a reason for action. The impossibility of being paid for art of any kind, as presented, is a static fact within an overall milieu. It might be a complication if it stands in the way of an action, but what character in that world will think of being paid for art as a solution to a problem?
What is meant by "premise"?
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Ah, did I spell this wrong? From Merrian-Webster online:
quote: : a statement or idea that is accepted as being true and that is used as the basis of an argument
Did I not use the word correctly?
quote:First, the problem of authorship can be overcome. You simply don't release it to the public until after you have registered it with the Copyright Office via hardcopy.
I suppose those who care to look can find the source, though it still raises the question of how content would be made if high quality books can be produced, say at home with a version of 3D printer. Or digital content is pirated and spread for free online.
quote: Second, anyone attempting to rip you off has to deal with the exact same problems you do, which, if they are so insurmountable, is a strong disincentive for fraud.
Yet fanfiction persists today. I don't know the whole story, but I *think* 50 SHADES OF GRAY was available free online as a lark by the writer. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. But I do think a lot of fanfiction is free of charge.
But you're right, even those ripping off ideas for profit find they're in the same boat if their writing grows in popularity, because now they're the ones being ripped off. So if you, for instance, find the Harry Potter world interesting, write your own narratives within that universe for public consumption, do you now *stop* if it starts to get popular and you can't figure out a way to make money from it?
quote: It might be a complication if it stands in the way of an action, but what character in that world will think of being paid for art as a solution to a problem?
The starving artist? The woman who earns her living on her back and has written something that can get her off the streets? The cancer patient who can't afford the highest level care, who's written the next TWILIGHT, but can't get it published because publishers have all gone out of business because they can't sell books or digital content.
Or just the person who hates their 9 to 5 job, know they have a gift for gab, but can only amaze their family at home while their soul slowly gets drained dry by inertia?
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posted
Seems to me the proposed scenario is a dystopia; therefore, a social science fiction. The conventions for dystopias are: learn to cope with the contentious social situation, escape the social situation, or, the hardest, change the situation.
The conflict is rags and riches from artistic expression. From that, the complication's wants and problems are want to re-commodify art opposed by problems of technology makes art commodification nearly impossible. A satisfaction then could be develop a technology that makes art a commodity again. All of society will howl and take steps to crush the new technology. In an odd twist of the action, the technology is given away and is eventually defeated though is viral and mutant.
Anyone motivated can personalize the tech so that it is secure due to private mutations. Cryptology, in other words. A Playfair complex-substitution cipher keeps out a few intellectual property pirates. More sophisticated ciphers, like the Cipher Feedback Mode, or a private key cipher, which uses a publicly available document as a privately known key for transposition, further limit access. The private key cipher method has thus far denied deciphering, unless the private key is known. Naturally and necessarily, the cipher would only hold secure so long as insiders protected the key. So a time limit for shifting to another key for distribution to insiders.
Only possessors of software that encrypts and decrypts content and with the aptitude for it can consume and each with a private key. I know how to manage all the above comparatively easily and securely. I've sent private messages in clear that contained secret information only persons in the know know how to interpret, otherwise superficially innocent and not subject to signal a deception. I can illustrate, if interested.
The above motif symbolizes the many ways commerce is a pushmi-pullya tug of war between producers, distributors, and consumers; between law enforcement, criminals, and citizens; the three estates: nobility, clergy, and commoner; the press, secret keepers, and a curious public, etc.; that is, each gains a slight advantage occasionally, until the others catch up. The pendulum swings inexorably along three or more axes. Gyroscopic!
quote:Originally posted by Kent_A_Jones: I understand premise as a reason for action. The impossibility of being paid for art of any kind, as presented, is a static fact within an overall milieu. It might be a complication if it stands in the way of an action, but what character in that world will think of being paid for art as a solution to a problem?
I understand the above points to mean a milieu in which profit from art is impossible is accepted as fact and insurmountable and taken for granted, so no one tries anymore. Thus a thought to be paid for art is mostly unthinkable. Yes, a static fact. Transformation is the opposite of static.
Central tenets behind exclusive-for-a-time intellectual property ownership are so that an artist and an artist's estate may enjoy the fruits of the labor and so that free market forces foster quality products. Cream rises to the top. I imagine a milieu where no artist may profit from art will be so culturally diluted and mediocre that no one will bother to consume or create art. If everyone can stake a claim and contribute to free art ownership, it will be worthless; and no one will.
quote: Cream rises to the top. I imagine a milieu where no artist may profit from art will be so culturally diluted and mediocre that no one will bother to consume or create art. If everyone can stake a claim and contribute to free art ownership, it will be worthless; and no one will.
It wouldn't be a good place for a short story to start because it's, well, boring, but I almost see a scene where the character is surfing the internet and comes upon caveman art.
Like, I think humans did once do art for a reason beyond ownership, claim, monetary benefits, and fame. In a future society (I'm unsure about calling a society where one can't be paid for their art 'dystopia') where ownership, claim, monetary benefits, and fame can no longer be attained through what's supposed to be personal expression of the soul, do we just collectively stop expressing ourselves?
Do the Mozarts stop creating music?
I guess that would be a dystopia. A future world where art no longer exists, not because the citizens aren't free to do it, but because there is no external gain to doing it beyond personal satisfaction. What of that "urge" so many artists today claim to have, that they produce because they *have* to? That there's a fire inside of them that makes them want to do this?
But actually, in thinking about it, I would probably have Captain of my Sheep's character be the protagonist because it's kind of a subversive way of forcing readers to wonder if this guy really is right. And "antagonists" are threatening him and ruining his reputation and life simply because he started a story that he refuses to finish unless he gets paid for it.
This way I could probably throw in some action scenes. So the story begins with the guy running, and the whole time readers are rooting for him until he gets his way and you kind of wonder, "But wait, that was kind of selfish of him. Is that why we do art? Is that why we struggle to produce these amazing expressions of the soul? Just so we can get paid?"
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posted
To me, this is a 'what-if' causality series:
Cause---->Effect---->Consequences
Given the cause: rampant internet piracy and no regard for intellectual property rights, I see that a possible effect could be that, as there is no profit in making something new, at all, all innovation and discovery stops. What would be some of the possible consequences of that? And, why would it only be confined to art?
Most of them are dystopian and not at all nice. They do, however, create ample plot scenarios that can explore deep seated aspects of the human condition revolving around power and control, just to name two of the most obvious.
Out of the six or seven scenarios that occurred to me in the last hour, I have written one such into my little black book of ideas for later development.
Btw. The mass marketing and consumption of 'art', in all its myriad forms is only a recent development: perhaps no longer than 80 years. Prior to that, 'artists' either had other jobs or relied on patronage or travel along the road--the wandering minstrel or bard to name two vocations, food and shelter for entertainment.
quote:I suppose those who care to look can find the source,
Which is all it takes for the knowledge to be disseminated and norms enforced through social shaming. In a fanfiction context I've had my obscure work plagiarized. They thought they'd get away with it because it had maybe a couple hundred hits in an environment where tens of thousands of hits is just getting started. Yet, a third party still pointed it out and brought the community down on the culprit.
quote:though it still raises the question of how content would be made if high quality books can be produced, say at home with a version of 3D printer. Or digital content is pirated and spread for free online.
Again, this condition already exists as regards digital content. It's somewhat ironic that anti-piracy protections on digital media such as video games actually encourage piracy by annoying the customer, making "cracked" versions superior as the protections are no longer around to interfere with the user. Thus, pirating software that you already legitimately own is not an uncommon practice. But note, in these cases, people go through the trouble of obtaining pirated versions of the software and yet voluntarily give money to the creators anyway.
quote:Yet fanfiction persists today. I don't know the whole story, but I *think* 50 SHADES OF GRAY was available free online as a lark by the writer. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. But I do think a lot of fanfiction is free of charge.
True, but fanfiction isn't fraud. No one thinks Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is written by the same person who wrote Philosopher's Stone. And even though there is Star Wars fanfic and dozens of authors who have been officially sanctioned to write Star Wars novels, there is very little confusion about what is official and what is not (it gets a bit more confusing in regards to what is canon, but that's unrelated to the topic at hand).
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posted
Earliest known performance art might be as much or more than thirty thousand years old. Known as the Chauvet Cave in France, the cave's paintings exhibit sophisticated depth, perspective, representational, and abstract techniques artists today struggle to accomplish. Anthropologists believe the cave art was painted as religious rituals.
Art's emergence walked back further in time involves personal identity distinction for apparel, tools, weapons, and grooming items -- self-expressed personal ownership. This is mine; this is me. Graffiti-like etching of stone comes from early times too. Kilroy was here. Anthropologists assign religious rites and personal expression to these material artifacts as reasons for their distinctions.
A bit of a satire responds to the common if not default religious ritual art possibility scholars impose on the past; that is, contemporary culture, if viewed from a far future lens, assigns religious significance, say, to an art gallery exhibit of, say, copra-scatological art. They worshipped copra to be closer to the spirit world. Through making and admiring excrement art, they found a close and meaningful connection to the spirit world.
Likewise, literature of the time -- now -- is looked at as religious ritual. Taken in that context and texture, self-expression is ritual religion, though contemporary expression philosophy intends no or little or often religious connection, generally, maybe. However, self-expression consciously or nonconsciously involves moral value expression, a religious expression of personal human moral values. Those moral values are undercurrents from religious beliefs that span the human opus. The religious beliefs are themselves products of social beliefs with added mystical significance.
In other words, religious ritual worship is an undercurrent and function of self-expression and of cultures as a whole.
Walked back further in time, human self-expression may have been for briefing and debriefing purposes. I believe the proverbial first story ever told in a recognizable and shareable form, oral and gestural and use of props and scratches and marking in and on earth surfaces, is a briefing before a cooperative human activity to satisfy a want and perhaps problems: hunting, foraging, tool making, migration to a new place, locations of resources, an intimate social act, preparations for combat, etc.
Some creative thinker assembled a group's individual expressions into a narrative through shown and told depictions. After the activity was completed, the next story told was a debriefing: shown and told efforts, successes and failures, and outcomes. And language was born.
Anthropologists generally overlook the social briefing and debriefing functions of creative self-expression. A milieu where all art no longer profits artists returns to those primordial functions. De-evolution? Regression? No, a phase technology creates when the technology is unrestrained. Feral, untamed, wild. Naturally and necessarily, taming and commodification cannot be far behind.
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 illustrates. Fireman Guy Montag -- firemen burn contraband books, not extinguish fires -- rebels against the de-individualization of self-expression, a culture artifact material, tradition, and custom which technology destroys for a time. Montag joins an underground colony of readers who memorize contraband, though sacred, literary works of art, that are banned by mass-culture society in favor of diluted mass media expression.
The Bradbury scenario is akin to the proposed scenario, in that mass-culture technology makes personal intellectual property ownership worthless from unfettered mass-culture distribution. Mass-culture and the convenient self-gratification of the milieu's technology place artistic self-expression as selfish vice.
The people have spoken: art's intellectualism hurts less intellectually gifted persons' feelings and they are the majority. Likewise, in a democratic society, the majority rules by caveat of force majeur, and minorities and dissenters be damned to burn.
Bradbury did, though, focus on a duality of culture artifact conflict: specifically, print expression and television in opposition. Focused and, consequently, expansively transcendent.
posted
extrinsic, are you actually trying to ascribe modern philosophical/religious/existential belief constructs to the art of a pre-historical/societal pseudo-culture that we can only imagine from the comfort of our armchairs?
The word 'tosser' (and I'm not calling you one ) immediately springs to mind whenever some intellectual dweeb with a PhD tries to ascribe contemporary meaning to something 80,000 years in the past. While these people may have been Homo-Sapiens, that doesn't mean they were the same as you and me. Just try and reconcile the counter arguments about modern art over the last two decades and compare that idiocy with what you appear to be saying.
All we can be relatively secure in speculating about is this: storytelling among Homo-Sapiens has been with us for a very long time; whether it be in spoken, pictorial, or written form.
quote: Thus, pirating software that you already legitimately own is not an uncommon practice. But note, in these cases, people go through the trouble of obtaining pirated versions of the software and yet voluntarily give money to the creators anyway.
The details of world building in a short story don't have to be so pronounced so as to cover all the bases. In a story, say, 4,000 words long, most of it will be devoted to character development and their interaction with the world around them "as they know it".
So perhaps the current future country is going through a great depression, and we're in the middle of a generation where it's impossible to make money from art. Different anonymous groups have targeted large corporations consistently and effectively, catching them off guard and tanking the economy. A subset of this group believes art should be free, and a national movement develops around them motivated by idealism, but more important, a lack of money.
The masses are broke.
Underground groups pirate any art that seems like it will be successful and immediately dispense it for little or nothing. They say to the artist, "If you love art, if you *are* the artist, do it selflessly. Create just for the good of mankind."
Enter into this world a young man, Captain of My Sheep. He's written a story, and despite the best efforts of the underground movement to pirate it, and despite those who use his world to spin their own fiction, his narrative is so compelling and so unique that people simply know it when they see it. He is truly a wordsmith genius.
Through digging through the internet, people discover the source of his narrative, the author himself. Now he has one more serial/volume/chapter to write: the end. And he writes it a page at a time, edits it, memorizes it, and then burns the page the very same day so that the last volume exists only in his head. Then he announces to the waiting world, "Okay, deposit into this ultra secure account an exorbitant amount of money." He googles the last big author of the previous generation, J.K. Rowling, to see how much she had when she died, and he demands this much money. Only then will he release the last volume into the world.
Now everyone's after him. And the question the reader is left asking him/herself is, "Is this guy the protagonist or the antagonist? Is this really why we do art? To make an exorbitant sum of cash?"
And just to keep the moral ambivalence there, Captain of My Sheep isn't a cancer patient, and he's no more broke than everyone else around him. Perhaps he even has a little bit more money than those around him. But he simply wants to get paid an absurd amount of money for something millions of people enjoy.
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quote:So perhaps the current future country is going through a great depression, and we're in the middle of a generation where it's impossible to make money from art. Different anonymous groups have targeted large corporations consistently and effectively, catching them off guard and tanking the economy. A subset of this group believes art should be free, and a national movement develops around them motivated by idealism, but more important, a lack of money.
Already answered in my very first post:
quote:Those societies where theft is the dominant mode of art trade will find less art produced with them in mind.
The hero of your story, if he's writing for money, is going to learn a second language and immerse himself in the stories of a non-broke nation that retains a cultural taboo against intellectual theft.
quote:The masses are broke.
More problematic to your story's plot is this cannot be squared against this:
quote:He googles the last big author of the previous generation, J.K. Rowling, to see how much she had when she died, and he demands this much money. Only then will he release the last volume into the world.
He's trying to squeeze blood from a rock. His story never gets written as long as he persists in his demand. He starves, because like everyone else, he's broke too. He needs money. Market forces have reared their head. He lowers his demand, which has the benefit of inducing people who have already chipped in to chip in again, sooner, for volume 3. After all, making $10,000 per book is not as good as making $5,000 per book if you're producing the later three times faster than the former.
Or maybe his story has captured the imagination of a 0.1 percenter, and like the renaissance artists of old, he finds a sponsor and lives happily ever after.
The problem with the story is that it's actually a straight forward economics problem with real solutions, and the scenario isn't speculative at all because it exists today. Now, if you were telling the story of a Ferengi writer, where you have a completely alien, profit-driven culture, then you can at least get passed the "people are universally horrible" requirement and throw in ruthless business practices where people will literally stab you in the back. But at that point, the story becomes more about the ruthless business practices than the value of art.
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quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: extrinsic, are you actually trying to ascribe modern philosophical/religious/existential belief constructs to the art of a pre-historical/societal pseudo-culture that we can only imagine from the comfort of our armchairs?
. . .
Phil.
Irony, sir. On the other hand, a subjective perspective from today relevant to today, wild imagination about how past and future cultures express themselves. A writing exercise prompts, imagine the proto or Ur story. I expect each would be wildly, imaginatively unique and distinct.
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posted
[quote]The point is that there is no way for an artist to make money from his/her art. And the question the story poses is, do people still create art anyway? And how does art change as a result of money being taken out of the equation?/[quote]
There are so many people who work diligently on perfecting their art without any thought of making money off of it. Very few artists do make a reasonable living off of their art. Maybe there are a few individuals who are only motivated to create art by dreams of fame and fortune, but I think most artists really enjoy the process, and they would create art no matter what.
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quote: There are so many people who work diligently on perfecting their art without any thought of making money off of it.
In theory, but not in practice. I think if this were true, we wouldn't see so many writers slapping a price tag on their work and throwing it up for sale online.
That's what I like about Captain of My Sheep's character. There's an honesty to it that's often not admitted. People want to get paid for their writing. There's a monetary element important to that, but there's also a narcissistic element to it. People want to feel that there's something special to others about what they have to say.
I agree with Phil that this is a modern phenomenon. But I also agree with Extrinsic that art probably sprung out of religious ceremony, or at least was closely connected to some kind of god/spirits/ancestor worship. Maybe the underground group believes it should return to those "purer" times, whether or not they're historically accurate or not, and the protagonist firmly believes it should be done for modern reasons: profit, fame, and fortune.
I will say, however, that maybe writing stands in distinction to people's belief that it should be able to make money. We'll sing in our car to a song we enjoy, or draw a picture in a boring situation just to use our imagination and stimulate our minds. We'll dance because it's fun, and with a partner because it creates an intimate connection.
But people won't just write a story, show it to their friends and family, and then put it away.
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posted
Maybe not the people you know, Denevius, but they are out there.
Family history stories aren't written for profit, but for posterity, and that kind of writing is possibly more common than fiction writing intended to be sold.
Writing isn't the only "art" either. I knit -- a lot -- but there is no way anyone could pay me what my knitting is worth in time and talent, so I wouldn't even consider asking for money for it.
Ever heard the term "labor of love?"
The idea that art is only created for money is an awfully narrow and cynical perspective on the subject.
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posted
My ability to write, and to be a gourmet cook also, is dependent on having certain levels of neurological hormones in my head. Like most people with what appears to be a simple psychiatric illness, I stopped taking my medication. After six months I lost the ability to write -- this drove me into a stage of extreme clinical depression. It wasn't the thought that I wouldn't get published again, it was simply the fact I couldn't write!
I don't care one wit if I ever publish another story, because I am driven to write them regardless.
posted
Demevius, I think you need to talk to more people. I know a lot of talented people in many different art mediums who just love creating art. Just because people write a story and throw it up on Amazon to make some money, doesn't mean they are only creating art to make money. Many people would write stories or paint pictures whether they could make money at it or not. But if you write a story, why not throw it up on Amazon and see if anyone else wants to read it. You've already done the work.
Seriously, I am astounded that this is even a question. Most people I know have some sort of artistic hobby that they just enjoy doing. They do it because it is fun. Just like people play tennis and golf and other sports with no intention of ever going pro. Creating art is fun, just like playing sports.
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quote:Writing isn't the only "art" either. I knit -- a lot -- but there is no way anyone could pay me what my knitting is worth in time and talent, so I wouldn't even consider asking for money for it.
I agree, which is why I said in the previous post:
quote: I will say, however, that maybe writing stands in distinction to people's belief that it should be able to make money. We'll sing in our car to a song we enjoy, or draw a picture in a boring situation just to use our imagination and stimulate our minds. We'll dance because it's fun, and with a partner because it creates an intimate connection.
But people won't just write a story, show it to their friends and family, and then put it away.
In-particular, writing does seem to be the art that a significant majority of those who do it never think, "there is no way anyone could pay me what my knitting is worth in time and talent, so I wouldn't even consider asking for money for it."
MAP, the contrast between this:
quote: But if you write a story, why not throw it up on Amazon and see if anyone else wants to read it.
And this:
quote:Most people I know have some sort of artistic hobby that they just enjoy doing. They do it because it is fun. Just like people play tennis and golf and other sports with no intention of ever going pro.
Is kind of the point of the story. The antagonistic group wants those who engage in art to do it, as Phil notes, because:
quote: I don't care one wit if I ever publish another story, because I am driven to write them regardless.
Take away money, take away the inclination of throwing it up on Amazon to see if anyone will read it (and let's not be disingenuous, pay for it to read it), and would the artist still do it.
Enter in the central character who has written an epic HARRY POTTER-style narrative that has caught the attention of the world, and the question becomes, "Is he right in holding the eager masses hostage to get the ending of his story?"
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quote:Enter in the central character who has written an epic HARRY POTTER-style narrative that has caught the attention of the world, and the question becomes, "Is he right in holding the eager masses hostage to get the ending of his story?"
I'm having a problem seeing any way the answer isn't "yes." Whether he's smart to do so is another matter. But if he feels the work is worth eleventy bazillion dollars, that's his prerogative. Hopefully the shoebox it's confined to finds enjoyment in it.
I'm missing something to this story: what is making this imaginary narrative so Earth-shattering wonderful that there can possibly be a moral case that he somehow owes it to humanity to release it? That is the interesting question, but being Harry Potter-like doesn't cut it.
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quote: I'm missing something to this story: what is making this imaginary narrative so Earth-shattering wonderful that there can possibly be a moral case that he somehow owes it to humanity to release it?
I don't know, maybe it was my take on it since I never got past the first Potter book. But the craze at the time was kind of intense. I remember even my 50's year old Muslim fencing coach from Egypt was an ardent reader of Harry Potter. People would wait for days outside of bookstores for the next release, and would read the book in hours.
Again, I found the first Potter to be highly derivative of previous better fantasy novels (though I can't say I didn't enjoy it). But Harry Potter, I think, was the most recent example of a worldwide craze where people simply *had* to have it. There was almost a religious fervor to it.
So perhaps there's no "moral" case to make, but if something similar happens again that unites so many different peoples around the globe in their need to simply have it, then even though no moral case, there is something else, right? A sense of entitlement, that the artist belongs to them now, and their work should be given, freely, simply to elevate the imagination and make those around them feel better for having consumed it.
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quote:So perhaps there's no "moral" case to make, but if something similar happens again that unites so many different peoples around the globe in their need to simply have it, then even though no moral case, there is something else, right? A sense of entitlement, that the artist belongs to them now, and their work should be given, freely, simply to elevate the imagination and make those around them feel better for having consumed it. [/QB]
So you're actually looking at more of a parallel to George R. R. Martin rather than JKR: "This guy needs to get off his duff and finish the series!"
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quote: So you're actually looking at more of a parallel to George R. R. Martin rather than JKR: "This guy needs to get off his duff and finish the series!"
quote:Through digging through the internet, people discover the source of his narrative, the author himself. Now he has one more serial/volume/chapter to write: the end. And he writes it a page at a time, edits it, memorizes it, and then burns the page the very same day so that the last volume exists only in his head.
posted
Yes. Obviously, I couldn't have responded to any of the original statements the way I did if that was not understood.
Meanwhile the point remains: your scenario exists and is being played out in real life. Look to that to inform your story. If it's not compelling already, what do you need to tweak to make it compelling?
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posted
The proposed scenario is where profit from art is nearly impossible because, as soon as an artwork is released, the art is indiscriminately disseminated like dust on the wind.
Perhaps a metaphor illustrates. Air is widely available at mostly no cost, though specialty packaging, products, and nuances add value to air and, hence, profit. Vacuum is the most abundant product of the universe; even it has been commodified: the nearly nothing of vacuum as a commodity. Devices that make a partial vacuum commodify vacuum. Nature and commerce abhor a vacuum.
An artist in a world where art is no longer a profitable commodity is a market where art is as common as vacuum, a near infinite supply and a near zero-value demand. Supply and demand and scarcity and need or want are several market force factors that inform value and price.
Figuratively speaking, a direct, one-to-one correspondence is simile: like air, overabundant art availability and free distribution makes art profit-less revenue-wise, though no more and no less priceless than air is for personal survival and emotional satisfaction.
A less direct metaphoric expression relates two disparate circumstances to one another such that a greater truth abides from the comparison than a superficial one. "My love is a red, red rose." (Robert Burns, 1794) A metaphor's correlation is both more abstract and more concrete than simile. "My love" can be construed as a person and an emotional activity and both. "Red, Red rose" can be construed as a flower with thorns and a passionate, thorny affection and both. "Red," too, can be construed as hot, angry, eager, comfort, and many other emotions congruently and singly.
I used an allusion to excrement art above intended as irony from the seeming compressed paradox of an oxymoron. Such art expresses it is made from excrement, is excrement, this artwork is excrement, though expresses a profound if dubious and difficult to accept, misanthropic, nihilist, offensive insult that all art is excrement. An underlaying truth abides, as is apropos of paradox and oxymoron; that is, art is what artists and audiences make of it emotionally and financially: one artist's trash is another artist's cash and satisfying pastime and likewise for audiences.
Frankly, I have not experienced critically acclaimed excrement art that recommends it over infants' diaper-nappy palette finger-painting. Aside from a strong expression that elicits strong, galvanized emotional reactions, the medium, method, and message is shock chock that backstops and violates social taboos. The art expresses little or nothing else that substantiates and distinguishes the excrement medium.
A prompt: consider a less direct, one-to-one correspondence for art and profit, more even than a single degree of separation. Science fiction's persuasive appeals are that more than one and as much as six or so degrees of separation artfully misdirect meaning and message. Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a model story for that rhetorical method; and much ado is made about essentially nothing sold for a handsome profit.
quote:I used an allusion to excrement art above intended as irony from the seeming compressed paradox of an oxymoron. Such art expresses it is made from excrement, is excrement, this artwork is excrement, though expresses a profound if dubious and difficult to accept, misanthropic, nihilist, offensive insult that all art is excrement. An underlaying truth abides, as is apropos of paradox and oxymoron; that is, art is what artists and audiences make of it emotionally and financially: one artist's trash is another artist's cash and satisfying pastime and likewise for audiences.
Frankly, I have not experienced critically acclaimed excrement art that recommends it over infants' diaper-nappy palette finger-painting. Aside from a strong expression that elicits strong, galvanized emotional reactions, the medium, method, and message is shock chock that backstops and violates social taboos. The art expresses little or nothing else that substantiates and distinguishes the excrement medium.
I have no idea what this means.
quote: Meanwhile the point remains: your scenario exists and is being played out in real life. Look to that to inform your story. If it's not compelling already, what do you need to tweak to make it compelling?
I think literary writers can tackle the issue as it exists in real life. However, I prefer to add a science fiction/fantasy element to it. That is what we do as genre writers, right?
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For one, artists will create, even if they don't make any money. It is our nature. Most art is crap, but that is beside the point.
the next point is "where is the governments in this story?" if the government has some strength in law enforcement, they likely would be continuously hunting down the black market sources. Are they in different jurisdictions that one cannot enforce the laws in?
Performance art is a lot different than physical art. I cam make a bowl, a blanket, a stuffed teddy bear, a carving and it would be one-of-a-kind. In order to make copies of it, one would have to, most likely, get your hands on one before you can make your thousands of copies. If I register who purchased the item and it appears on the market, I could then go after that person with the law.
Most art actually copies other art. in the world you describe, millions of similar types of works would already be out there. the market would be too saturated for any individual physical art to be worth copying. There are only a few items of art that are really worthy of faking. One thing also to keep in mind is that most crafts and arts are known best for their flaws, as being hand made, rather than being perfect as in factory made. If I was faking stuff, i would pick something already available that looks great, and add a small random flaw in each one and mass produce it. As long as they are not going to exactly the same market, one would never know they were mass produced.
Performance art is a bit different. One can look at how the cell phone gets quality images of just about any event. One might think the laws and enforcement would keep up with the technology. Holographic people and artists might be countered by everyone having a chip in them that holograms cannot have and everybody has a device to check to see if the other person has a chip.
Now a government that is corrupt would likely allow all this go to on, not enforcing anything. that is how this could crop up.
Now if each artist is registered and has to implant a special chip into each piece of work, it would make it a little tougher to copy. There would be two components to the chip. one that is easily read and one that could be read only by officials or the artist that is authentication.
It would be a fun idea to explore, practices and counter practices and counters to them.
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posted
This is actually kind of interesting. One of the concerns I note often when trying to give critiques on this site is that it seems like the story begins after the opening, and I often guess on the second page. For flash fiction, I see most of those pieces not working because the opening is usually a very, very long buildup when there's limited space it's supposed to occupy.
For a story of about 4000 words, trying to cram in a novel's worth of world building probably is counter-effective. Most of the 4000 words should be devoted to character arch. Where the individual is at the beginning of the story, what events happen in the middle to change them, and where are they at the end of the story.
All of this about governments and commerce and what have you is missing the forest for the trees. The speculative element is a vehicle, but the passengers are what's important. What needs to be established for the moment this story takes place in is that the character has a motivation: money. He has an obstacle: art piracy through an overwhelming idealistic group. And he has a goal: to sell the idea in his head.
Character arch would go like this:
1) Story begins and readers discover what he finds important. 2) Events happen and his beliefs are challenged. 3) Resolution, and he either sticks to his beliefs or changes.
4000 words is limited real estate. Again, perhaps it's my aesthetic, but I keep in the back of my mind when I write, "Keep it simple, stupid."
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