Second-hand items

As you will note from the links on the right hand side, I make use of second-hand options such as Green Metropolis, Amazon Marketplace, and E-bay. I feel that buying second-hand is a positive thing. It reduces waste by encouraging people not to throw things away, and also by reducing the market for new items, and reducing the need for wastefully large print runs which can end up destroyed untouched.

I also try to be as strict as possible about not illegally copying material, be it CDs, games, books, or essays. Whilst I am happy to accept the disgusting greed of the music industry and the poor treatment of the writing and recording artists, I still feel that stealing music (for example) is not only illegal, but probably does have a negative knock-on effect on the artists themselves.

I realised the contradiction in these positions the other day. I try to buy items second-hand. This means I am usually buying from an individual who bears no relation to the original source of the book or CD in question. No royalties will be paid to the author of the book, there will be no boost up the charts for the musician.

From the point of view of the artist, I may as well have acquired an illegal copy. The sole direct beneficiary of my second-hand purchase is the existing owner. In some cases, for example Green Metropolis, there are additional benefits to the second-hand purchase, such as a portion of my money going towards other beneficial projects.

So what is more important to me, the reduction of waste by buying second hand, or supporting the artist for their work?

How are games developers paid?

Whilst ruminating on the issue of artists being paid for second-hand sales of books and CDs, I started to think about how games developers are paid.

As I understand it (and I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong, I really don't know that much about it), a musician or band will be contracted by a record label to produce a set number of works, and be paid an amount for that contract. They may also receive a share of royalties or gig income.

Similarly, an author will be contracted by their publisher to write a novel, or multiple novels, be paid for that contract and possible share royalties.

In both fields there will also be the small, independent artists who will carry their own publishing and management costs, and the profit they turn from sales and gigs is what they earn.

In games, there are the small independent developers who operate in much the same fashion. They design and write the games, and what they can sell is their income.

There are also the development teams maintained by the major publishers. Do they operate on a similar contract basis? Publisher X offers a development team a contract to produce a specific game. Are the developers paid direct salaries, do they receive an amount from the project coffers, do they receive a share of royalties?

This is all just idle wondering, but could it have an effect on the way games are developed? Has it had an effect on the way that books are written and music composed?

The Master and Margarita

Here is a copy of the Amazon review that I posted for this book (mainly added here to remind me to point the person who recommended the book to me to the review).

***

I had The Master and Margarita recommended as a literary classic and great. Unfortunately, I have been unmoved by it.

I have the Glenny translation suggested as superior by many of my fellow Amazon reviewers. I shudder to think what I would have made of the alternatives. While of course the English is well formed, I found the styles to be inconsistent and irritating. Unfortunately, I am unable to comment on the accuracy of the translation.

The bulk of the book was a confused mess. The vast majority of the characters were dragged out of nowhere for no particular reason and with no seeming point. Almost all of them were shallow and vapid. Yet this doesn't seem to be a constant fault of the author. He made one or two people come alive with the tiniest amount of effort. Some characters could be explicably empty, but some really missed a real existence to attach them to the reader.

This left the book hanging on to the story to redeem itself to me. Which is a shame as although there are some events that happen one after the other, there isn't much of a point to them. There is nothing more than a series of ideas strung out after each other with little connection or intent. Some individual scenes are magnificent in their potential, but wasted in this setting.

The political satire is well formed, and for me drags the book to two stars rather than one.

I can only assume that I have totally missed the point and that when I come to read The Master And Margarita again in twenty years time I shall go 'oh, so that is what he was trying to say'. For now, I shall stick to Pasternak and Dostoevsky for my Russian literature; they may be much harder work but at least there is reward for the effort.