Interesting Links for 12-01-2012

[fearmeforiampink]

• This Photograph Is Not Free
  Good photos, like anything other crafted thing, cost time and money to make
  (tags: intellectual property money fairness internet via Andrew Ducker photography interesting )
• BBC News - CES 2012: 3D printers
  Open or closed? Designers rights, or free for all to use?
  (tags: intellectual property posttofacebook pos comment 3D printing awesome the future technology interesting )
• The Author of the Stop Online Piracy Act is a copyright violator
  (tags: people suck piracy intellectual property fail posttofacebook hypocrisy interesting America politics amusing )
• Not A Sick Society: A Sick State
  This was submitted to prison magazine Not Shut Up, but its publication was blocked.
  (tags: freedom prison law protest government politics culture comment posttofacebook interesting )

Comments

[chess]

Unfortunately the photography thing was expressed in an unhelpful way. Yes, it's important to recognise that photographers have costs and can't work for free if they're going to spend all their time improving their craft.

But it's also important to acknowledge supply and demand - if there is someone in your 'industry' producing substitutable goods (even if they're not as good as yours, that's often not relevant as long as they still get the job done) for a much lower price (e.g. because they have a day job or a rich spouse), you have to find some way to differentiate your goods (and hence cause people to understand how the cheaper ones aren't a sufficient substitute) or go out of business.

It's fine - and good - to point out to people who are trying to make money in photography that they shouldn't accept the predatory practices of newspapers etc taking their work for free for 'exposure' or 'credit' if they want to make a living out of it, but even if every photographer who would like to make money stopped doing that, there would still be thousands of amateur photographers cranking out lower-quality photographs just because they like taking photographs, whose output is often good enough for newspapers etc.

Claiming that the photo is 'worth' the amount it would cost to produce as a one-off is just petulant, and attempting to determine worth by cost is dubious and bound to fail in areas where subsitute goods are being produced below cost. The way to combat that is things like Demotix which make it easy for people who might not have bothered charging for their goods to do so, or educational / marketing material demonstrating how professional photography is better than amateur photography and how that will translate into better ad revenue / impact for the customer...