I think many proposed solutions to the creator compensation problem end up glossing over a fundamental difficulty: once an easily-distributed work (like anything digital) is in a consumable state (and thus copy-able), it becomes basically free.
The idea that $10 for a digital copy of an album that is already on youtube (or a friend's harddrive) should be a viable business model is weird to me in this day and age.
I have recently been wondering about a threshold-based "media economy" where creators don't actually show us anything (except for clips or samples or low-res versions, etc) until they are guaranteed a certain amount of income. It's basically kickstarter. A musician makes an album, goes on kickstarter and asks for $10,000 to release it. Once $10k is reached, the songs go up on a server, or are released on bandcamp, spotify, or any of the usual channels. Additional money beyond the threshold can be made, but it will be as difficult as it is now. But they have already reached $10k (set by them) so everyone can feel good that the musician has earned what they feel they deserve.
I'm sure there are many problems with this. For one, many artists aren't creating just for money. They want to show us their creations, and with a threshold, they would have to hold back until it is reached (in the case of musicians, they might not even be able to play a new song at a show until the threshold is reached, b/c smartphones).
There may be a critical mass problem, too. If two artists are similar and one releases immediately while the other waits for the threshold payment, the latter may drift into obscurity. There must be some allure to the withholding, though?
What other problems kill this approach?
Could it work for open source software, too? Make your thing, don't share it. Demo it, ask for the release payment, then put it on github.
>Could it work for open source software, too? Make your thing, don't share it. Demo it, ask for the release payment, then put it on github.
I think it would be far more reasonable to put the source into escrow, to be released when a threshold is met. I've seen closed source vendors do that when they're smaller to ensure a large customer is not left high and dry should they go bankrupt or be acquired by someone who kills the product.
I don't foresee anyone being willing to see a demo of a piece of software, then writing a check for it before using it. In the closed source world you pretty much ALWAYS have to do some sort of POV/POC before anyone will buy your stuff.
Artists (especially music) are currently navigating a very tight legal landscape where the works they are producing might get flagged as infringing even if they took every reasonable precaution. For example: sounds that sound similar to an existing sample, or note progressions that are fiercely defended by companies who use the residuals as their primary income source.
This can cause an issue if the artist releases a work and does not receive enough to defend themselves in court, especially as the work would now be very hard to take down and the artist may even have trouble stopping the income from coming in.
Source: I’ve been thinking about this “everything is released for free once the artist is paid” approach for a while and I think there are some notable wins esp. around the Patreon model where artists can know the eventual payout before they start making. I think it has amazing potential as most content becomes “free” anyway and it would make it so much easier for fans to share openly netting in more plays, more likes, and more fans.
> Source: I’ve been thinking about this “everything is released for free once the artist is paid” approach for a while...
You should start a "media label" then. Take a cut of the threshold payment for (1) vetting and reviews of unreleased art, (2) distribution costs of the digital media, and (3) legal assistance for artists against copyright trolls.
Plenty of creators make a decent living selling their content digitally. Once you democratize the tools and distribution, you remove the media companies that traditionally take the lions share of all the money. In the traditional setup a few business people and a few artists get rich and everyone else is broke. In an economy where the creator distributes directly via digital then a bunch of people get decent incomes. The second option is the better one, IMO. Once we do away with the notion that creating art could make you rich, then it become less necessary to make sure that we have some centralized way to collect money for art.
Agreed!
Direct distribution will completely re-shape the content landscape, I believe. Probably starting with the most dysfunctional industry of "producing" music. The intermediaries are borderline parasitic there.
We now have "Decentralised AI" working in the lab last month. So also the new music discovery, recommendation, fuzzy keyword search, spam filtering can be realised with full decentralisation (in principle). See live demo of our toy example [1]. Broad writeup [2]
I think I agree with you, but democratizing distribution is still orthogonal to the piracy problem. On the one hand, I'm more likely to pay an artist if the only official way I can get their art is to purchase from their website. On the other hand, the first digital download from an artist's website may go right to a torrenter, or youtube. Is self-distribution accompanied by the task of chasing youtube takedowns? Sounds not fun.
A pre-release payment directly addresses the issue of piracy. Piracy just doesn't exist if the content isn't out there.
No one is going to want to buy pre-releases of things they haven't experienced yet. We buy things we like and most people tend to be ambivalent about things they are ignorant of. When you democratize distribution as a side effect you end up with a saturated marked. If you went on youtube and had to find new things to watch, but were required to pick out things you think you would like based on a short preview and description, then wait days or weeks for it to release, I doubt you would visit it very often.
If we just accept the fact that piracy exists and that people are going to pirate and then ignore that aspect completely and carry on, I think you would be surprised how many people are willing to pay for things they want if the price is reasonable, regardless of whether they can get it for free via another method.
> I think many proposed solutions to the creator compensation problem end up glossing over a fundamental difficulty: once an easily-distributed work (like anything digital) is in a consumable state (and thus copy-able), it becomes basically free.
You've re-discovered the purpose of copyright laws.
Yeah, it might be easier with digital, but once Mickey Mouse gets drawn and becomes popular, drawing him again is super easy for the random artist who can say it is "theirs" and draft off of the millions of dollars Disney spent marketing. Hence the need for copyright.
I'm mostly thinking about creations that are already done and can somehow be vetted, either by demo, samples, trial version, or by a reputable reviewer that gets a sneak peek.
The idea that $10 for a digital copy of an album that is already on youtube (or a friend's harddrive) should be a viable business model is weird to me in this day and age.
I have recently been wondering about a threshold-based "media economy" where creators don't actually show us anything (except for clips or samples or low-res versions, etc) until they are guaranteed a certain amount of income. It's basically kickstarter. A musician makes an album, goes on kickstarter and asks for $10,000 to release it. Once $10k is reached, the songs go up on a server, or are released on bandcamp, spotify, or any of the usual channels. Additional money beyond the threshold can be made, but it will be as difficult as it is now. But they have already reached $10k (set by them) so everyone can feel good that the musician has earned what they feel they deserve.
I'm sure there are many problems with this. For one, many artists aren't creating just for money. They want to show us their creations, and with a threshold, they would have to hold back until it is reached (in the case of musicians, they might not even be able to play a new song at a show until the threshold is reached, b/c smartphones).
There may be a critical mass problem, too. If two artists are similar and one releases immediately while the other waits for the threshold payment, the latter may drift into obscurity. There must be some allure to the withholding, though?
What other problems kill this approach?
Could it work for open source software, too? Make your thing, don't share it. Demo it, ask for the release payment, then put it on github.