I can't believe you can say this seriously. Have you not played an instrument or drawn before? Art is in many ways relatively, but objectively, quantitatively more people enjoy listening to Mozart than Cage's 4'33", and more people enjoy Picasso than a 5 year old's finger painting.
Those art things require training just like any other profession.
I don't think GP's argument hinges on art enjoyment being 100% relative. Whatever kind of art you happen to enjoy, be it Mozart's string quartets or Cage's 4'33'', someone out there is making exactly that kind of art for free. The difference in quality is tiny compared to the difference in popularity.
Yes, making good art requires training, but so what? These people are willing to get training, create art, and give it to you for free. You might say that it's immoral to take stuff from them for free, but that's what already happens. The overwhelming majority of artists lose money, rather than make money. If you removed artist compensation completely, fewer people would go into art hoping for the pie-in-the-sky chance of success. The overall societal loss in terms of smashed hopes etc. would become smaller. And the quality of art you consume might become higher, because you'd lose the cookie cutter commercial crap. That's how the argument goes.
cousin_it|10 years ago
Yes, making good art requires training, but so what? These people are willing to get training, create art, and give it to you for free. You might say that it's immoral to take stuff from them for free, but that's what already happens. The overwhelming majority of artists lose money, rather than make money. If you removed artist compensation completely, fewer people would go into art hoping for the pie-in-the-sky chance of success. The overall societal loss in terms of smashed hopes etc. would become smaller. And the quality of art you consume might become higher, because you'd lose the cookie cutter commercial crap. That's how the argument goes.