kazoo orchestration

raph suggests, as many have before, that:

Nonetheless, it is important for authors to get paid for their work

And, while I can understand that authors certainly want to be paid (don't we all) I do not concur that it is important. Indeed, I broadly disagree with the film, music, book, and magazine industries in their constant affirmation of the supposed right of the "creative person" to get paid for anything they happen to create. A vast, incalculable majority of the material these industries foist on us is utter crap. We consume it because

1. we have disposable income
2. it's better than staring at a blank wall
3. the companies use every known method of persuasion to get us to buy it

That these companies have a right to collect this money, come what may, or that the producers of the force-fed poop we all dole out for have a right to continue to be paid whatever fractional royalty the promoters pass along, is totally absurd. Payment is a function of the skills marketplace, and/or the marketplace for the product the skills happen to produce. If the market conditions no longer favour your industry, your skills, your products, you're out of luck! That's the fundamental optimization rule of a free market, and it's a pretty tough position to argue that the artists/promoter/publisher couldn't possibly have switched to a more profitable line of work when their current honeypot dried up.

There's a word for this in trade policy: protectionism