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Looper's Delight
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Well, since this was sent from someone with an '@adobe.com' mail address, I'm sorry if you took this personally. Maybe I should of picked on Microsoft :-). And, another sorry for keeping this OT going. > >Photoshop LE is about $99. The full version of Photoshop is about $609. >That's roughly a factor of 6. > >Is the full version 6 times better? That depends on what you need. Do you >need CMYK editing for pre-press? Do you need extensive web optimization >options? If so, then arguably the full version is infinitely better since >it meets your needs and LE doesn't. Want something more concrete? Extensis >MaskPro sells for about $199. The full version of Photoshop also includes >professional masking tools -- not identical to those in MaskPro but >competitive or better -- and those features aren't in LE. > >Is the full version of Photoshop's price out of line? A lot of prosumer >digital cameras sell for more. (Let's not even talk about professional >digital cameras.) Those cameras will probably be obsolete in a couple >years >and you won't be able to buy an upgrade for them. > >Now, yes, those cameras cost more to produce per unit than do boxes of >Photoshop. The camera manufacturers probably aren't living that close to >the edge yet, however, since this hasn't become a commodity market. (Even >in the commodity PC market, it's just the systems assemblers that are >getting squeezed. Intel still enjoys quite high margins per chip.) > Okay, I'll back pedal a little here. I don't think that software prices are out of line. I do, though, think that they are excessive for the apparent development and production costs of the software. As for Photoshop, I hardly believe that the Pro version is 6x times better than the LE version. Unless you are working at business that happens to use all of the extra features it seems rather extreme. What if you only happen to need one of those extra features? Your stuck paying the higher cost whether you like it or not. > >That argues that hardware probably has more R & D to recoop. It doesn't >really argue that software has a small amount of R & D. Most software >sells >relatively few copies relative to hardware in the computer industry. A lot >of software titles don't make all that much money once one factors in R & >D. The broad successes like Photoshop pay for the more narrow products. Which narrow products and produced by whom? Adobe doesn't give any money to Steinberg to pay for their 'narrow' product of Cubase VST. >The narrower the niche, and music is pretty narrow, the more important it >becomes for people to pay for the software because there aren't other >sources of revenue available to the software developer. But doesn't that also apply to those who actually crack software? I've never actually been to a warez site, but I would think that the people who crack software would pretty much only be interested in the software that sells in large amounts. So, music software being such a narrow niche, that there wouldn't be a whole lot of cracked music software out there in the first place. > >Where would Linux be if it hadn't had Unix to copy? Where would GIMP be if >it hadn't had Photoshop to copy? > >Yes, there would probably be software even if no one paid, but it would >probably be quite different from what you encounter right now. Yes. I agree. It would be different. But, as long as there were computers, there would be software. And where would any of this be without the pioneers working with room-sized vacuum tube computers and programming with actual binary (which was and is free)? >Or to put it in a music related context, there are a lot of musicians who >perform on the street hoping for donations. Some of them are actually >reasonably good. Would the range of music that exists be different if no >one ever paid musicians or all that musicians could get was donations for >performing on the street? Yes. I would argue that the range would actually be greater because then there are no economic reasons for playing any particular type of music. This list is a prime example. > >So, this automobile manufacturer is looking for some cool electronic music >to put behind an ad and stumbles across a loopers tune on the web. Does >the >automobile manufacturer have the right to just use it? After all, the >musician probably didn't really expect to make any money from it anyway. I don't understand this. How would this apply to a large group of people "stealing" a *hit* song? And how would that be different from the big record company ripping someone off? You don't make much money from a small number of record sales when you are on a big label. You may not even make much money from a large number of records sales. Just ask Johnny Reznick of the Goo Goo Dolls. *You* are just changing out the entity that is doing the ripping off from a big record label to a big automobile manufacturer. >Another analogy: An awful lot of artwork goes for prices a lot higher than >the cost of the canvas. This is also true for lots of reproductions, >photographic prints, etc. which don't have any benefit of uniqueness. Do >you have the right to walk into a photography gallery, steal a print, and >leave cash for the cost of goods? Go paint your own pictures, take your >own >photographs, ... write your own software. Or find someone who is willing >to >do it for you at a price you are willing to pay. I get the feeling you're mad at me... Well, no. You don't have the right to go and take someones artwork and pay for the cost of goods. But, you can go and buy a book filled with pictures of that same artwork or those same photographs. Does that mean that artwork printed in coffee table books and textbooks lacks uniqueness because it has been copied? You see the book, like any software, would be a commercial product. Any true art could not be considered a "commercial product" in most definitions of that word. When was the last time you heard of someone refer to a piece of software as *ART*? Thank you. I will go and paint my own paintings, take my own photographs, write my own software, *and* find someone who is willing to do it at a price I'm willing to pay, too. >In summary, with respect to warez, Napster, etc.: It's the copyright >holder's right to decide how the work gets reproduced and distributed. The >copyright holder can decided to give something away or to charge a price >for it. Yes and no. But what I'm going the very long and highly arguable way around the fact that the copyright laws do not protect the individual, but the big corporations and that does not fit in with the ideals of a Democratic Society, but with the ideas of an autocracy. And you, along with many other people, have bought into the propoganda given to us by these corporations. Most contracts with big record labels make you sign away your rights to them. Then, the record label owns the copyrights to the music, not the artists. And so what do you think they are going to do, give it away, or charge a price for it? One of my favorite artists is Andy Warhol. He made "paintings" by manipulating very identifiable objects in the popular culture. Under today's copyright laws, I don't believe that Mr.Warhol would have been allowed to continue in the way that he did because his subjects would have been copyrighted and he would have had the pants sued off of him after his first and very controversial opening. I believe that he and myself, among others, would argue that once you actually release anything out into the world, it no longer becomes something that you can claim exclusive ownership to. It becomes part of the indicernible ether known as culture. And as such, by releasing *anything* to a wide audience, you are giving up any rights to any "copyright" that you would have. Ben Porter. What are you N2? Choose from 150 free e-mail addresses. http://www.n2mail.com