[Nettime-bold] <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy [mr.bad,sandborn x2]

[handsome_digestresse <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Table of Contents:

   Re: <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy                                     
     "Mr. Bad" <mr.bad@pigdog.org>                                                   

   Re: <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy                                     
     Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com>                                                

   Re: <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy; a summing up                       
     Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com>                                                



------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 2001 17:27:14 -0700
From: "Mr. Bad" <mr.bad@pigdog.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy

>>>>> "KS" == Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com> writes:

    KS> Dear Mr. Greed: Why would anyone WANT to re-sell the work? Why
    KS> not just point people to the url so they can get it for free?

Dear Mr. Zero,

All kinds of reasons. Say I run a small university theater in CA and
it costs me $3500 in electricity to stay open one night. I just want
to show a couple of those movies -- why is it so bad to charge $2/head
to defray costs?

Or if I put together a CD with some movie on it. I'm providing a
service to people who don't have the bandwidth to download movies. Why
can't I offset the few dollars' cost of that by charging people for
the CD?

Here's the deal: if the key is to get the movies to people, and not to
worry about who gets credit and who gets money, then it's stupid to
put a no-sale clause into the license. It's basically a selfish move
by the archivers -- "It would be NO FAIR TO US for you to make money
off of OUR WORK! So you CAN'T!" Gift culture is about GIVING, not
about FAIR.

This is the way Free Software works. You can't really charge for the
information itself, because nobody would pay -- they can just download
it off the Web. But if you're providing ancillary services like
getting the info to someone in another medium, then it makes sense
that you could sell the medium.

The cool thing is that it's usually so easy to do, that nobody can
really exploit the system -- if they try to, someone else will come
along and undercut them on price. Prices for Free Software CDs tend to
hover around the $2-5 price range.

~Mr. Bad

- -- 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Mr. Bad <mr.bad@pigdog.org> | Pigdog Journal | http://pigdog.org/ 
 freenet:MSK@SSK@u1AntQcZ81Y4c2tJKd1M87cZvPoQAge/pigdog+journal//
 "Statements like this give the impression that this article was
  written by a madman in a drug induced rage"  -- Ben Franklin
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 02:11:10 -0400
From: Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy


Dear pseudonymous individual:

Are you giving hypothetical examples or are you in business?

Even in California it doesn't cost $3500 in electricity to stay open 
one night; if it did, every movie theatre in the state would go dark. 
Kill some lights on the marquee already.

It's kind of ironic you demand to defray your costs, but think 
nothing of cutting into the support mechanism that provides the free 
stuff to begin with. And then you get self-righteous about it like 
you occupied some moral high-ground by wanting to violate the terms 
under which the stuff is released.

And what if you did? Do you think they're going to send the copyright 
police after you?

If your programming for the evening doesn't cost you anything why not 
make the admission free? That's what potlatch is about. Generosity 
should inspire generosity not the demand to exploit what you got for 
free. You'd probably sell more popcorn that evening anyway, if you're 
worried about it.

Gift culture is about competitive gestures of expenditure. Why not 
make the cd's available for free? the mailing costs less than 1/2 a 
dollar? cd's cost about .10 a piece. You're not being foiled in your 
efforts at generosity, you just don't have the imagination to build 
on this gesture of generosity in a non-destructive way. Maybe you 
can't afford that kind of generosity. I couldn't myself.  Try to 
organize putting up a mirror site or something.

And I don't buy that public service bandwidth argument; it sounds 
like a pbs fundraiser. Almost anyone likely to hear about the stuff 
that you could reach on the net to sell it to them probably has the 
bandwidth to download it at their local library.

Why not make a lavish public gift which exceeds someone else's in 
generosity instead of trying to call someone to account about the 
terms of their generosity? It only makes you look like you want to 
get paid. This is not about entitlement it's about imagination.

Keith Sanborn





------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 04:25:46 -0400
From: Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Sounds like it could be handy; a summing up

Dear pseudo:

It actually does make a difference whether the examples are real or 
hypothetical and whether we are talking about films in an archive and 
software released into the ether of the internet. I know a bit about 
how films and film screenings are made possible in more and less 
commercial venues. It does make a difference when you use real 
numbers instead of fantastic ones.

If someone chooses to give away software they create with their own 
creative imagination, it costs them nothing but their time. His/her 
overhead, assuming they have no exotic requirements to induce states 
conducive to coding, is realtively low. If someone maintains a 
filmarchive it costs an astonishing amount of money. Rick Prelinger 
spends a great deal just to keep his collections at the right 
temperature and humidity conditions; this says nothing about rental 
and additional storage costs, etc. etc. or his own personal needs.

If you attack the source of his overhead costs, he can no longer 
function and the archive goes on the street, or is sold to image 
speculators who are about as generous as drug companies in South 
Africa or Brazil. Just as if you had no ancillary services to sell 
with your, or someone else's "free software," you wouldn't be able to 
stay in business.

If you want to stay in the purely hypothetical realm, my response 
remains the one I posted previously, which you chose to edit out in 
your response: why not emulate the gesture by charging no admission. 
That would fall within the guidelines as I understand them and would 
probably make the theatre owner a hero/ine and they would end up 
selling pop corn like crazy. The numbers you use are completely 
fantastic and have the psychological effect of: well, gee, you can 
hardly blame the theatre owner for charging something; afterall his 
costs are so high and his admission receipts nominal at best. My 
guess is you haven't been to the movies lately. You can't have an 
overhead of $3500 a night a charge $2 for admission and stay in 
business for one day unless you sell a hell of a lot of popcorn. 
There aren't a lot of 1750 seat theatres in operation. But to return 
to the "hypothetical" realm of realpolitik (a bit of any oxymoron 
no?) a theatre owner could give away the movies which are not his and 
still make money on his value added ancillary services (popcorn).

The problem is that "distribution" in alternate forms--such as 
theatrical venues--is the source of Mr. Prelinger's income. That's 
the reality of the film archive business: high overhead to maintain 
the collections requires some fairly substantial income.

I don't think you're going to get any closer than that to free 
content. These films are of inestimable cultural value, at least for 
those interested in the pathology of American Capitalism and the 
accompanying social structures in the 20th century.

To sum up my point of view: there's no such thing as free content any 
more than there is a free lunch. It's a question of how hard you want 
to look for self-interest or disinterest. I don't think you'll find a 
more disinterested example of "free content" anywhere on the net.

Keith Sanborn


>  >>>>> "KS" == Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com> writes:
>
>     KS> Dear pseudonymous individual: Are you giving hypothetical
>     KS> examples or are you in business?
>
>Hypothetical examples. I'm in business as a Free Software developer.
>
>     KS> Even in California it doesn't cost $3500 in electricity to
>     KS> stay open one night; if it did, every movie theatre in the
>     KS> state would go dark. Kill some lights on the marquee already.


>It was a wild guess at what it costs to keep a theater open for one
>night. What would you estimate? $800? $200? Does the principle of
>charging for costs change if it's only $1?
>
>     KS> Why not make a lavish public gift which exceeds someone else's
>     KS> in generosity instead of trying to call someone to account
>     KS> about the terms of their generosity? It only makes you look
>     KS> like you want to get paid. This is not about entitlement it's
>     KS> about imagination.
>
>Hey, I have no problem with people giving the goods away. Hell, people
>give away CDs of Free Software all the time. The thing is: if you want
>to get the info distributed, you have a better chance if you let
>distributors defray their costs. That's the realpolitik of the matter.


>I couldn't care less about getting paid, personally. What I care about
>is Free Content, of which there is a sad dearth on the Web.
>
>The best part about the Archives is that they're SO CLOSE to being
>copylefted -- just the no-sales provision makes them outside a truly
>copyleft license. There are so many good copyleft licenses for open
>content, for example:
>
>         http://www.andamooka.org/licenses.shtml
>
>It's a damn shame that the Archives aren't learning from the
experience of Open Source software, and I'd love to see that changed.
>~Mr. Bad
>



------------------------------

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold