Quote from: Dire on August 31, 2015, 07:44:43 PM

Quote from: Carlton Banks on August 31, 2015, 07:23:27 PM

What do you think might happen if people followed the logic I am presenting? New digital goods producers/artists would not be able charge anything, no-one will buy/fund a product blindly.

are you suggesting we all go back to hard analog products or simply allow all digital work to be completely free and never charge for it?

No, I would say that if that was what I meant Huh

Quote from: Dire on August 31, 2015, 07:44:43 PM

Quote from: Carlton Banks on August 31, 2015, 07:23:27 PM

But once they are established, what do you think they could get as a single "release fund" for each product they produce? Could it be a similar total figure to what they might achieve selling it as individual copies, or perhaps more?

How long is a piece of string Carlton? It would depend on the popularity of the artist and the potential/actual popularity of the product. If you're suggesting crowdfunding as a better model, then there are artists in various fields already doing that, but then they also charge for their product from the general public when they release it afterward.

And that is exactly what I meant. The difference being that the corwdfunding platforms that exist now are businesses in their own right that take a cut, plus those payment processors too. Cryptocurrency lets the artist set up their own website, and crowdfund completely independently. The whole show can be independent, for the first time in the history of the recording industry. The ability to take the money yourself was the last obstacle.

Quote from: Dire on August 31, 2015, 07:44:43 PM

Quote from: Carlton Banks on August 31, 2015, 07:23:27 PM

I say all this because I believe it fits reality best. Artists funding their work like that cannot have their hard work undermined, because it's impossible to reproduce something that no-one else has a copy of.

Well, there's the curve ball right there Carlton. It's never been proven that piracy actually harms an artist in the long run. There is in fact some weight to the argument that exposure wins more fans/customers.

The arbitrary figure of billions of dollars of loss from large corps due to piracy is based on the false assumption that everyone would pay to download if they couldn't get it free, which has never really been proven to be true. You can hear Rihanna on the radio, or on Youtube for free, yet people keep buying.

Indeed. "Give everything away, it will be returned to you in kind". Can't remember where that quote comes from, the Buddha probably