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by joshuas 2653 days ago
I don't know about you, but I'm paid to perform(much like a live musician I suppose). I don't get residuals on my performance. I don't list myself as the writer or composer of my code and receive payment if someone uses or derives their own work from mine. My employer might.

I haven't seen anyone here saying musicians shouldn't get paid when they perform for an audience or for a certain purpose (let's say a commercial or soundtrack)

1 comments

Not a great comparison. We are talking about musicians getting paid for composing music, not for performing. If you want to go with this analogy, then you would note that you DO get paid for the composition (of the software) but not its performance (when it runs on people's computers). Musicians, on the other hand, cannot make money composing anymore, but they can still make money for performing it.

And if you are an indie dev, you probably do make money from the software in its commodified form. And if you are not an indie dev, then your high salary is because someone else makes a lot of money from the software's commodified form (even if that form today is as a service). The point of the article is that musicians can no longer make any money from the commodified (in this regard meaning recorded) form of their music.