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diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/funding-art-vs-funding-software.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/funding-art-vs-funding-software.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d6a0ff --- /dev/null +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/funding-art-vs-funding-software.html @@ -0,0 +1,189 @@ +<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> +<!-- Parent-Version: 1.84 --> +<title>Funding Art vs Funding Software +- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> +<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/funding-art-vs-funding-software.translist" --> +<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> + +<h2>Funding Art vs Funding Software</h2> + +<p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/"><strong>Richard +Stallman</strong></a></p> + +<p>I've proposed two new systems to fund artists in a world where we have +legalized sharing (noncommercial redistribution of exact copies) of +published works. One is for the state to collect taxes for the +purpose, and divide the money among artists in proportion to the cube +root of the popularity of each one (as measured by surveying samples +of the population). The other is for each player to have a +“donate” button to anonymously send a small sum (perhaps +50 cents, in the US) to the artists who made the last work played. +These funds would go to artists, not to their publishers.</p> + +<p>People often wonder why I don't propose these methods for free +software. There's a reason for that: it is hard to adapt them to +works that are free.</p> + +<p>In my view, works designed to be used to do practical jobs must be +free. The people who use them deserve to have control over the jobs +they do, which requires control over the works they use to do them, +which requires the four freedoms (see <a +href="/philosophy/free-sw.html"> +http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html</a>). Works to do practical +jobs include educational resources, reference works, recipes, text +fonts and, of course, software; these works must be free.</p> + +<p>That argument does not apply to works of opinion (such as this one) or +art, because they are not designed for the users to do practical jobs +with. Thus, I don't believe those works must be free. We must +legalize sharing them, and using pieces in remix to make totally +different new works, but that doesn't include in publishing modified +versions of them. It follows that, for these works, we can tell who +the authors are. Each published work can specify who its authors are, +and changing that information can be illegal.</p> + +<p>That crucial point enables my proposed funding systems to work. It +means that if you play a song and push the “donate” +button, the system can be sure who should get your donation. Likewise, +if you participate in the survey that calculates popularities, the +system will know who to credit with a little more popularity because +you listened to that song or made a copy of it.</p> + +<p>When one song is made by multiple artists (for instance, several +musicians and a songwriter), that doesn't happen by accident. They +know they are working together, and they can decide in advance how to +divide up the popularity that song later develops—or use the +standard default rules for this division. This case creates no +problem for those two funding proposals because the work, once made, +is not changed by others.</p> + +<p>However, in a field of free works, one large work can have hundreds, +even thousands of authors. There can be various versions with +different, overlapping sets of authors. Moreover, the contributions +of those authors will differ in kind as well as in magnitude. This +makes it impossible to divide the work's popularity among the +contributors in a way that can be justified as correct. It's not just +hard work; it's not merely complex. The problem raises philosophical +questions that have no good answers.</p> + +<p>Consider, for example, the free program GNU Emacs. Our records of +contributions to the code of GNU Emacs are incomplete in the period +before we started using version control—before that we have only +the change logs. But let's imagine we still had every version and +could determine precisely what code contribution is due to each of +the hundreds of contributors. We'd still be stuck.</p> + +<p>If we wanted to give credit in proportion to lines of code (or should +it be characters?), then it would be straightforward, once we decide +how to handle a line that was written by A and then changed by B. But +that assumes each line as important as every other line. I am sure +that is wrong—some pieces of the code do more important jobs +and others less; some code is harder to write and other code is +easier. But I see no way to quantify these distinctions, and the +developers could argue about them forever. I might deserve some +additional credit for having initially written the program, and +certain others might deserve additional credit for having initially +written certain later important additions, but I see no objective way +to decide how much. I can't propose a justifiable rule for dividing +up the popularity credit of a program like GNU Emacs.</p> + +<p>As for asking all the contributors to negotiate an agreement, we can't +even try. There have been hundreds of contributors, and we could not +find them all today. They contributed across a span of 26 years, and +never at any time did all those people decide to work together.</p> + +<p>We might not even know the names of all the authors. If some code was +donated by companies, we did not need to ask which persons wrote that +code.</p> + +<p>Then what about the forked or modified variants of GNU Emacs? Each +one is an additional case, equally complex but different. How much of +the credit for such a variant should go to those who worked on that +variant, and how much to the original authors of the code they got +from other GNU Emacs versions, other programs, and so on?</p> + +<p>The conclusion is that there is no way we could come up with a +division of the credit for GNU Emacs and justify it as anything but +arbitrary. But Emacs is not a special case; it is a typical example. +The same problems would arise for many important free programs, and +other free works such as Wikipedia pages.</p> + +<p>These problems are the reasons I don't propose using those two funding +systems in fields such as software, encyclopedias or education, where +all works ought to be free.</p> + +<p>What makes sense for these areas is to ask people to donate to +<em>projects</em> for the work <em>they propose to do</em>. That +system is simple.</p> + +<p>The Free Software Foundation asks for donations in two ways. We +ask for <a href="https://my.fsf.org/donate/"> general donations to +support the foundation's work</a>, and we invite <a +href="https://my.fsf.org/donate/directed-donations"> targeted +donations for certain specific projects</a>. Other free software +organizations do this too.</p> + +</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> +<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> +<div id="footer"> +<div class="unprintable"> + +<p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to +<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. +There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> +the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent +to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> + +<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, + replace it with the translation of these two: + + We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality + translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. + Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard + to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> + <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> + + <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of + our web pages, see <a + href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations + README</a>. --> +Please see the <a +href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations +README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations +of this article.</p> +</div> + +<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to + files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should + be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this + without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first. + Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the + document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the + document was modified, or published. + + If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. + Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying + years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable + year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including + being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system). + + There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers + Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> + +<p>Copyright © 2013, 2017 Richard Stallman</p> + +<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" +href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative +Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> + +<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> + +<p class="unprintable">Updated: +<!-- timestamp start --> +$Date: 2017/08/27 14:56:06 $ +<!-- timestamp end --> +</p> +</div> +</div> +</body> +</html> |