Maybe creative stuff is special because it lives on.
I'm not convinced by this argument. Creative stuff does not live on any more than, say, science, engineering, political or military things. I can name a few greek playwrights, more greek philosophers, mathematiciancs and scientists... But the method of remuneration is surely historical accident rather than because "creative stuff lives on". After all, at other periods in history the artist or creator would be a wage slave too. Most of the great musicians of the 18th and 19th C would be paid a wage by a sponsor.
the chances of failure and scraping by on the breadline are far higher than hitting the big time
That is true for many many people and ideas. People running start up companies, trying to get a start in politics... (funnily enough, I saw a play the other week about the trial of Dan White who shot Harvey Milk... part of the evidence given in his trial was the stress induced by his struggles to get by on the low wage he could get while trying to be elected as a San Francisco supervisor, a post he previously held).
I do find it harder to justify footballer money, though - that doesn't live on as such.
Well, I think that's it encapsulated. It's about historical accident and who we sympathise with. You happen to sympathise with "creatives", I imagine because you rather like their work. I can imagine others taking the opposite view that a footballer deserves to be rewarded well for the entertainment he brings to millions whereas who cares about somebody churning out obscure books or poems that not so many people read.
I just have no time whatsoever for people who somehow think that a "creative type" is uniquely different. They're in a business like anyone else.
I still think it's a bit different. Philosophers and scientists contribute to something that goes on and develops. Musicians and writers have products which sit on shelves (or hard drives) and get reused over and over.
There's no model for paying 79p towards a scientist's efforts and getting to use his work over and over again, but that's exactly what you get from a musician.
That's a historical accident of the times we live in. It used to be there was no way of paying a musician for a "product" as the musician would write a composition and after transcription it was "out there". I very much doubt J. S. Bach or Mozart could make the money to survive by being paid "per performance". In another universe, where near zero cost digital reproduction happened earlier, we'd probably think it a bit weird to pay a musician a fee to "own a copy" of their work in the same way we would think it weird to pay Gustav Eiffel a percentage for a plastic model or to look at a photo of his tower.
I don't think we should be guided in our opinion of what "should be" by the accident of where we happen to be now.
Time was there was no such model for a musician -- maybe in further time we will forget there ever was such a model. There still is really no such model for a painter (well, you can buy a print I guess) or a sculptor (they can sell a piece once but not usually repeated copies -- with the possible exception of Warhol's soup cans). As someone else has pointed out, there's a partial model for some such scientists (who can get a patent). When you think about it, some musicians are "waged" -- if they play in certain types of orchestra they are paid per performance regardless of the crowd. Does that make them less "creative"? Writers again fall into both camps. Some writers don't get paid per "sale" (for example journalists) but are simply waged and some have a mix taking both types of job.
I don't think the existence or otherwise of such a model tells us anything about how such a person *should* be paid though. In the end I don't feel too strongly about whether someone is paid a fixed amount or by selling individual copies of their work. I do feel pretty strongly about people making cases that their particular type of work is special and deserves exemption when we consider what is right or fair for people to expect.
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andrewducker) wrote2012-02-09 01:22 pm
no subject
I'm not convinced by this argument. Creative stuff does not live on any more than, say, science, engineering, political or military things. I can name a few greek playwrights, more greek philosophers, mathematiciancs and scientists... But the method of remuneration is surely historical accident rather than because "creative stuff lives on". After all, at other periods in history the artist or creator would be a wage slave too. Most of the great musicians of the 18th and 19th C would be paid a wage by a sponsor.
the chances of failure and scraping by on the breadline are far higher than hitting the big time
That is true for many many people and ideas. People running start up companies, trying to get a start in politics... (funnily enough, I saw a play the other week about the trial of Dan White who shot Harvey Milk... part of the evidence given in his trial was the stress induced by his struggles to get by on the low wage he could get while trying to be elected as a San Francisco supervisor, a post he previously held).
I do find it harder to justify footballer money, though - that doesn't live on as such.
Well, I think that's it encapsulated. It's about historical accident and who we sympathise with. You happen to sympathise with "creatives", I imagine because you rather like their work. I can imagine others taking the opposite view that a footballer deserves to be rewarded well for the entertainment he brings to millions whereas who cares about somebody churning out obscure books or poems that not so many people read.
I just have no time whatsoever for people who somehow think that a "creative type" is uniquely different. They're in a business like anyone else.
no subject
There's no model for paying 79p towards a scientist's efforts and getting to use his work over and over again, but that's exactly what you get from a musician.
no subject
I don't think we should be guided in our opinion of what "should be" by the accident of where we happen to be now.
no subject
I don't think the existence or otherwise of such a model tells us anything about how such a person *should* be paid though. In the end I don't feel too strongly about whether someone is paid a fixed amount or by selling individual copies of their work. I do feel pretty strongly about people making cases that their particular type of work is special and deserves exemption when we consider what is right or fair for people to expect.