On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 17:27:33 +0100 Peter Gannushkin <shkin@shkin.com> wrote:
Why on earth somebody who writes or plays music, writes texts or acts in a movie should be paid by the number of sold copies or tickets? Nobody else except these categories of people are paid that way and that's why nobody else can become a billionaire just because he happened to have pretty face or managed to compose popular tune. Lets say I'm cleaning some path in the park, should I charge every person who passes this path some money?
Hmm... ever heard of sales commissions? Bridge tolls? Camping fees? Under capitalism, as practiced (for better or worse) here in the US at least, a whole lot of the economy is based on such per-person fees. And don't discount "having a pretty face" as a factor in getting people to buy just about anything that someone visible happens to be selling. Is it shallow? Yeah. Is it nonetheless common? Hell, yeah. -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |