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0 pointsdoawoo1y ago0 comments

> all made brands for themselves

Ah there's the magic word! You shouldn't have to be a "brand"... the people you listed are not who I would call "independent".

Capitalism is the root of evil to all this. Sorry.

0 comments

echelon1y ago

Every single indie band I like is a brand.

Pardon my French, but get the stick out of your eye and lighten up a little bit about this.

Not everything should be "kumbaya, my lord" neighborhood arts and crafts, string beads, hillbilly woodworking, or stay at home mom Etsy finds. You can enjoy things that have their own distinctive brand identity. Where the artist becomes inseparable from the art.

Web comics, their own brands. Fan fiction authors, their own brands and followings. YouTubers and Twitch streamers, even the smallest of the small - duh. Brand. Bloggers. Columnists. Photographers. Even illustrators have their own brands. They don't want to be generic fungible goods. They want to be unique. That's what it is to be an artist and the name of the artist carries recognition, accolade, and following.

So sorry there's an element of marketing and self promotion involved, but that's the name of the business for everyone. If you don't like it, you can work for somebody else and follow their brand guidelines and direction.

ToucanLoucan1y ago

> Every single indie band I like is a brand.

because they have to be.

> Not everything should be "kumbaya, my lord" neighborhood arts and crafts, string beads, hillbilly woodworking, or stay at home mom Etsy finds.

False dichotomy.

The commenter is not bemoaning that it is impossible to make a living as a creative (though it is difficult); they are bemoaning that the mechanisms of enforcing, in law, that what is yours is yours requires a substantial amount of capital and legal expertise. If Ubisoft, for example, were to steal the IP of an indie developer and integrate it into their own game, is there a realistic path for that developer to take to get the dividends of their creation from Ubisoft? Yes, technically. But how much money, time, and work will it take? And how can it possibly be fair, when Ubisoft has an entire legal division at their disposal who's job it is to make sure they don't have to pay, and the indie developer has to take time away from their job to do all of the same things?

chefandy1y ago

Reasoning about the universe of commercial art based solely on the tiny consumer-facing facade doesn’t work. It’s even more detached than speaking confidently about restaurant management because you go out to eat a lot. At least 90% of the moving parts are totally invisible to the consumer. The markets for indie bands, fan art commission artists, product photographers, architecture photographers, VFX artists, comedy writers, 2D animators, beachside caricature artists, branding and identity designers, textile designers, industrial designers, technical artists, industrial jewelry designers, independent jewelry artists, live TV producers, motion designers, and fine art painters, just to name a few, share many challenges, but are far too different from each other to fall under your sweeping generalizations based entirely on your assumptions about the tiny slice of it that you see. Like most “common sense” oversimplified understandings of complex problems, the simplicity you see in this topic is rooted in your lack of understanding and knowledge rather than some unique ability to find a simple solutions to complex problems.

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