Freedom or Copyright? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation(FSF)

[David Picón Álvarez]

> Sure, but "mutual consideration" doesn't mean "this is what your labour
> is worth". A consideration can be much less than the actual value of
> something.

Sure, but then it's not like workers in general receive the full fruits of 
their labour either, but rather the reproduction cost of their labour power, 
so, that is life under current economic conditions.

> For example, even the cheapest independent film is realistically going
> to cost ~$100k. Nobody is going to buy a copy of that film at that
> price. They probably would spend $10 on a copy, but that's not the true
> value of the film and therefore someone spending $10 on a copy of the
> film shouldn't expect to have the right to do what they wanted with that
> film as if it were theirs.

As I see it, if you want to do something as complex as a film, you're going 
to have to get funding in advance. You should charge the production costs 
for the first copy. How this is to be done is not yet clear, it could be 
through advertising, it could be through user-based grants for films where 
people put money aside and a board allocates it to projects in advance, or 
it could not even be possible and not happen at all. After all, under 
current economic conditions, pyramids are not possible either, such is life.

Speaking of which, this model of funding before, and not after, the work, 
seems to work well for architecture, so it might end up working for films in 
the future, or it might not.

> I'm not saying that anyone has a right to be able to do this kind of
> thing profitably, but there is a balance here: if it's not possible to
> do something viably for a living, then few people if any will do it.

Yeah, few pyramids being built today, or large scale cathedrals. 
Architecturally a pity, but such is life.

--David.