Wasn't this exactly the point of the other author's article? He was irate with people saying they would like to take the photo for free in exchange for promises of "exposure" or because taking photos are something anyone can do these days. What isn't being addressed is those asking him weren't copying the photo for the love of photography; they were suggesting they take the photo for free and to print it in a magazine or advertising which does make those producers money. Is that a fair exchange? Do we as creative people on HN value this exchange?
We can argue the merits of making a living off being a photographer, but photographs are a creative work like any other. In the world of easy digital duplication, we are fast approaching the inability to produce creative works except with the support of patrons. I worry that this leaves creativity at a social disadvantage to physical commodities, selling Coke or furniture or razors or stocks, which are jobs that provide a steady salary that help people live. That these jobs are entitled to pay money and creative works are expected to be free except for the generosity of their consumers seems like strange social values.
Louis CK had the benefit of one large social push and it remains to be seen if he makes the same amount off a second album; Radiohead didn't give away their next album King of Limbs; and Humble Indie Bundle makes money consistently, but that money goes to charity. I want to be convinced that it is sustainable to produce creative works for free and survive on donations, but I simply think the evidence is too weak so far to support this conclusion just yet.
"I worry that this leaves creativity at a social disadvantage to physical commodities, selling Coke or furniture or razors or stocks, which are jobs that provide a steady salary that help people live" -- you're on to something here.
And you're right. Since anything and everything that is digital can be pirated, if you are trying to make a living only selling digital goods to the masses, it makes it a lot tougher.
The commenter below mentioned developers who put apps out in the app store, and that it would be hard to make a living doing that. That's for sure, it would be. That's why you put out an app in the app store as a side project, and use the leverage that it's popularity gives you to get a more high paying job making custom apps for companies who can't just buy the exact software they need off the app store.
If you are a professional photographer, I would assume that you get paid to do "gigs" - a photo shoot for a magazine, photos for a band's album cover, whatever. The magazine needs an expert to do this custom job just for them - they can't buy what they need for their fashion spread off a stock images store.
That's why making a living only off stock photos is tough. That's why making a living only off app store apps is tough. That's why making a living only off selling stuff in the envato marketplace is tough. And there are only a few of the absolute best and most popular people on these sites that actually do.
That doesn't mean if you're not one of the people doing this that you're not talented. That means you have to realize that putting out works, creative or not, into stock marketplaces or elsewhere in the open that many people could have a use for means that you should stop fighting it and just allow the many people to use them. It will be a good thing on the side, and boost your popularity, whether or not you could potentially be losing a bit of money, technically, by doing this.
If you need to make money, you should find a market where you are producing custom work for people who need it at a professional level. I write code for a living, and I try to make open source stuff as much as I can. I love the thought of people finding my stuff useful, and I code it for the love. But I also have enough money to pay the rent and for food because my main job does not involve writing general purpose code for the public, it involves writing very tailored code for one company at a time.
This is the conclusion I'm generally coming to, with regard to creative works. I think this is reasonable, in the same vein as HN really advocates you form a startup in a space where there is a unique opportunity-- you won't be able to be self-sustaining with your own product unless there are people willing to pay for it. Perhaps this is why being bought is such a common and lauded occurrence. Your startup was a demonstration and valuation of your skills, before finding profitable work in a similar field.
Yet I wanted to draw attention to specifically the hypocrisy of our implicitly boxing things like magazine sales and advertisements together as having 'viable market' and photo licensing as somehow not. In regard to the original article, maybe the photographer is being unrealistic in trying to sell sunset photos per se, but he certainly has the right to not let others profit off of his work in any part (a la the GPL), in his case, at least without compensation.
And in the long run, pure digital copying will change a lot of how we perceive creative works, but also traditional areas like magazines, movies, textbooks, games, etc. We need to accept a world when all these items are free, and understand how they will become sustainable. Let's not assume because small photographers and artists are the easiest to duplicate that we can criticize their marketing strategies and leave these larger industries alone.
We can argue the merits of making a living off being a photographer, but photographs are a creative work like any other. In the world of easy digital duplication, we are fast approaching the inability to produce creative works except with the support of patrons. I worry that this leaves creativity at a social disadvantage to physical commodities, selling Coke or furniture or razors or stocks, which are jobs that provide a steady salary that help people live. That these jobs are entitled to pay money and creative works are expected to be free except for the generosity of their consumers seems like strange social values.
Louis CK had the benefit of one large social push and it remains to be seen if he makes the same amount off a second album; Radiohead didn't give away their next album King of Limbs; and Humble Indie Bundle makes money consistently, but that money goes to charity. I want to be convinced that it is sustainable to produce creative works for free and survive on donations, but I simply think the evidence is too weak so far to support this conclusion just yet.