Business model for creative writing in a world without IP

[John_James]

@Sphairon

1. posits says that authors should just write more, which doesn’t solve anything.

False. Writing more solves the problem of not generating enough income with one’s current output. It’s just like anything else…greater profit is usually generated with greater productivity.

(Not to mention this means greater output overall…thus having a positive effect for the society besides.)

2. doesn’t say why anyone would pay authors more in advance when published books could be multiplied billion-fold after just one example was sold.

If that’s your view, why would anyone pay anyone for writing anything?

I would also be interested to hear how you explain all the real world examples like this.

3. and 4) argue that authors should either “get a real job” or find a rich guy who likes the cut of their jib.

You mean “people who can’t survive without having a state-granted monopoly should either find another line of work that is legitimately profitable for them or find someone who will pay them for their service directly.”

5. only really works in an IP environment.

Because it’s been so throughly tested in a non-IP envrionment.

@Sphairon

Property is coercive

Oh brother. This crap again?

I’m not disregarding Kinsella entirely, but neither he nor others have so far presented a credible case for why the production of new, original literature would increase in either quality or quantity after the abolition of IP.

Aren’t you the one who just summarized “writers should write more”? Are you seriously suggesting when monopoly privilege is removed there wouldn’t be an increase in innovation and output?

Even in the (to my knowledge) only comprehensive empirical review of the topic, Against Intellectual Monopoly, the authors had to concede that their arguments for an abolition of IP in industry and science do not necessarily apply to literature:

In contrast to shoe factories, even with minimal installed capacity, the copies of a book that can be made over an extremely short period of time may be so many as to essentially flood the market, dropping the price to near marginal cost almost immediately… The resultant difference between price and marginal cost may be so small that, when multiplied by the number of copies, it yields an insufficient rent. The rent is insufficient because, say, the book is very complicated, and it took a long time to complete … Most ideas are not divisible, and there are cases in which the cost required to come up with the first prototype of an idea is quite large compared to the size of the market for copies of the idea. (p. 135)

Then, again, I would love to hear how you explain the increase in sales on books that are released in digital form for free (as also seen in virtually dead titles that see a resurgence in popularity right after the LvMI obtains copyright and releases them)…as well as the “phenomenon” of digital copies (whose marginal cost is quite literally zero) not only maintaining a profitable price, but in many cases a price above that of a physical copy.