this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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People already make memes and mods for free. Humans are a social species and will continue to create and share things until the end of time. Making money off of creation is a privilege for only a tiny few.
I see you make art. What if I said to you, I'd like to give you some money for that art, for maybe a print of it. Not just so that I can own some but because I want to support you.
And then someone just copies your art and gives it to me free. You get no money for it.
Are you genuinely OK with that? Are you saying that everything you make is copyright free?
I do not make art, I just post it here on lemmy. I'd be OK with that. People freely create, copy, and iterate on memes, and they are the greatest cultural touchstones we have. First and foremost, people create because they have something to say.
I'm sure astronauts love their work too, but they still get paid. Artistic endeavours cannot be reserved solely for the idle rich.
Art isn't work, it's speech. It's part of the human condition. Art is useless, said Wilde. Art is for art’s sake—that is, for beauty’s sake.
Art, as the old adage goes, is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. It certainly is work, if you've ever sculpted an eight foot block of marble, or memorised one of Beethoven's piano sonatas. And it doesn't leave much time for paying the rent. The question is whether we compensate people for art, such that they can keep doing it. Does society invest in it, so that people of limited means can participate and have their voices heard? This debate has existed for thousands of years.