10:35 - Making money from content
Source #1: Pay Me for My Content.
Source #2: I, Content Provider
The first article by Jaron Lanier says, in summary:
Like so many in Silicon Valley in the 1990s, I thought the Web would increase business opportunities for writers and artists. Instead they have decreased. Most of the big names in the industry — Google, Facebook, MySpace and increasingly even Apple and Microsoft — are now in the business of assembling content from unpaid Internet users to sell advertising to other Internet users.
. . .
How long must creative people wait for the Web’s new wealth to find a path to their doors? A decade is a long enough time that idealism and hope are no longer enough. If there’s one practice technologists ought to embrace, it is the evaluation of empirical results.
To help writers and artists earn a living online, software engineers and Internet evangelists need to exercise the power they hold as designers. Information is free on the Internet because we created the system to be that way.
We could design information systems so that people can pay for content — so that anyone has the chance of becoming a widely read author and yet can also be paid. Information could be universally accessible but on an affordable instead of an absolutely free basis.
The second article, by D. C. Simpson, quotes much of Jaron's article, and says:
I got this lecture repeatedly. Information wants to be free. Intellectual property is an outmoded concept. Why, I, from my job as a silicon valley software engineer making six figures, sometimes write open source software! So you, as a content provider, have no right to ask anyone for a dime ever for your work.
It never seemed to occur to these people that the quality of art and literature was inevitably going to plummet if we created a society where nobody could ever make a living at them. I'd point this out, then be accused of an "irrational bias against new media."
And I'd walk away sort of stunned at any ideology that considers the desire to be paid a living wage "irrational."
Neither Jaron nor D. C. give solutions, only complaints.
My response comes in two parts: empirical results, and how content-creators will be recompensed.
Empirical Results
Like Jaron, I like to examine empirical results. Unlike Jaron, I examine specific examples.
Jaron published his article in the New York Times Op-Ed section. Jaron might not realise the irony: On September 19, 2005 (Source), the New York Times put most editorials within "TimesSelect", a section that required payment. They stopped putting articles behind payment on September 17, 2007, and talk about it in this FAQ. That happened less than two months ago.
The Wall Street Journal Online right now costs $79 per year, and has around one million subscribers. However, the next owner (subject to shareholder approval on December 13), Rupert Murdoch, has said that he intends to make the website free. (Also see The Economist.)
It's not starry-eyed Silicon Valley "infowmashun wanna be fweeeeeeeee!" hackers who are moving from pay-for content to advertising-driven content; it's hundred-and-twenty year-old media companies. They think they make more money through advertising than through direct sales.
Recompense
We have an amazing technology. The words of one person get transmitted to a myriad of other people. Generations before this technology dreamed about bringing the world together, letting people around the world know about each other in real time -- this technology did it. One of the biggest questions that came with this technology was, "When anyone can get music for free, why would anyone buy music?" Another was that at first, the technology was the "business of assembling content from unpaid [people] to sell advertising to other [people]." The technology, of course, is radio.
In 1922, composers were hearing their music being performed without recompense. In response, they created ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. ASCAP used copyright law to provide a "blanket license": for an annual fee, radio stations could play an unlimited number of works from all of ASCAP's songs. ASCAP then distributes the proceeds among its members according to the frequency of play. (Source: edwardsamuels.com. The chapter is fascinating!)
If you're a content provider concerned about others making money from your work without recompensing you... organise. Create a group like ASCAP to handle residuals. Make it easier to license your work than to get sued.
You probably won't get rich from residuals, but you will make some money.
What do you think? Take care, all.
This post originally appeared on Fluorescent Dreams Wax Cylinders at http://chipuni.livejournal.com. You may reproduce this post provided that you retain this paragraph and the link to the original publisher.
I'm not really a fan of ASCAP, myself, because they've always seemed to be overly badger-like. On the other hand, that's probably exactly what it takes to force publishers and music labels to pay songwriters what they deserve, so I can't complain a whole lot.
Maybe that's what it would take -- say, all the web comic artists start their own web-syndicate. They would then have to get some marketing help to really sell it, to overcome the whole it-should-be-free notion. But that sort of thing has worked before, hasn't it? (This is just off the top of my head, and I have no idea how practical it is. I'm not a web comic artist, I just read 'em.)
The natural state of information, given normal human nature, is simply to not have artificial restrictions on what people can do with it. That's got nothing to do with the creator of that information getting paid for it. It does impose some limitations, for instance people aren't going to pay $50 for a full reference book when a friend who owns it can give them the one small bit from it that they need right now. Any creator who expects otherwise is in for a rude shock. But if I keep needing bits of information from that book, I'll probably end up buying it even if I could keep asking my friend, because it's just more convenient to have my own copy. And yes, people will buy things they could get for free. Ask Baen Books. They publish books in plain vanilla HTML, not a blessed thing keeping anyone who gets one from handing out millions of copies, yet physical copies of those titles still sell and sell better than they did before Baen put them up in a free form (often monetarily free too). Ask Mercedes Lackey what happened to back-list sales of the Arrows books after the first volume went up for free (restriction-wise and money-wise) on the Baen Free Library. Ask RadioHead how much money they got paid when they offered people the chance to download their album for nothing.
And as for the "assembling unpaid content" argument, Google doesn't. Google assembles an index of content. The last I heard, I didn't have to pay an author for the right to make a list of book titles, who wrote them and where you can buy them. I have to pay if I want to publish copies of the books, but Google doesn't publish copies of the Web pages it indexes. As far as advertising, I'd note that Google's ads occur in two places: on Google's own pages, and on my Web pages (generic "my"). Lanier seems to be saying that it's somehow wrong for Google to be able to pay me to run Google's ads on Web pages I created and own the rights to. My immediate response to him is... well, physiologically improbable and very painful if attempted. It's my site, I'll let Google run ads on it if I want to.
And your last suggestion is a good one. The music industry is a case in point. Back when digital music files were just becoming popular and mp3.com was starting up, the labels had a choice. They could have started making albums available in digital form, conveniently downloadable (for a reasonable fee, say $1/track) directly from an official site. No DRM, no proprietary formats, just MP3s like everyone wanted in a clean, high-quality form. Or they could attempt to stamp out digital distribution completely. Had they chosen the former, they could have arranged it so that the common expectation of everyone as they started looking for files was that you got your music direct from the labels, cheap and high-quality and without any fuss. The pirate networks we see now wouldn't ever have arisen, because going to those networks would be more hassle than going straight to the label's sites, the product wouldn't be as good and that's all worth a dollar a song to most people. Instead the labels tried their best to keep people from getting what they wanted and to preserve a business selling things people didn't want. Suprise, suprise, that didn't work very well and now they're stuck with the mess. Authors, take note and learn.
Depends on how much of the cut of the sale they got. Apparently, lots of people paid nothing.
(not that that would not have happened in any case, of course -- I'm not arguing with your point, just adding some data)
Yep, a large percentage paid nothing. But by the same token almost 40% paid $6 each on average for it. And RadioHead didn't get a cut of that, they got all of it. They released this themselves, not through a label. So they got to keep 100% of the money (after paying the bills for the hosting, which aren't even 10% of even the most conservative estimates of the total sales of the download). Yes, they probably didn't sell to everybody. Still, they made a lot more money off this deal than they are through the more restrictive label deals that insure they get paid for every copy. And in the end, isn't the total income the only thing that really matters financially? If I get paid $10,000 with a 0% piracy rate, am I doing better than if I get paid $250,000 with a 90% piracy rate?
I would still have asked for at least a dollar for the album, but, eh. Sounds like they made out pretty well. So long as they still get radio airtime and other things (I expect the labels to work like unions, so if you don't belong, it is hard to get into the marketplace?).
Not to be cynical, but the thing is, information is never free. Someone is always monetizing it - the makes computers, access, programs and energy are making a shitload off that free content. They don't give a shit as to whether content providers get paid or not, though they will throttle bandwidth to benefit big companies. Same as with those who say "Bands will have to make money by touring" as if all venue owners pay fairly and Ticketmaster doesn't exist. As if there isn't a massive writers strike going on right now over how distribution companies are using the "information wants to be free" to game the system.
The idealism behind this is great, but it's also glib, not-really-true aphorisms which doesn't address the real problems of content makers being paid despite a growing insistence by both the legit and black market that they shouldn't get crap.
The Internet is bad as a marketplace. Content will be stolen through the net no matter how you go about it. By not placing Content on the net, you are slightly more secure about what you are selling. Content will make it to the internet no matter what you do. Having a presence on the net makes it easier for people to know about you and your product. You can not expect sales or for people to care about what they take from the net, due to the entitlement people feel for the internet. The Internet is a service that they already are paying for, which makes them feel it is right and proper to take material that they find for their own, as they already are paying for the access. To the common person, there is no connection between content and ownership, as once it is on or in their computer, they feel they own it.
While organizing to collect moneys from agencies for using content is quite possible, and I can encourage that, the problem isn't orginizations. It's the end users, and the money that is generated from those users not reaching the proper people.
Furhtermore, The internet will be dead if everything goes to pay-to-play mode, as that will completely stiffle self expression and the right to speech as we know it on the Internet.
The best solution is to not have your soul material that you offer on the net, and to compel prospective buyers with custom creations for them.
Via DNA Lounge, two links have caught my eye in particular:
You suggest an organization like ASCAP, but in the context of what they're supposed to do, it doesn't work the way it's supposed to (this is from 1993, so keep that in mind).
The EFF proposes a slightly different approach to ASCAP/BMI/SESAC, rolling the fees for licensing content into ISP bills and the like.
The way internet regulations are set up, most of those involved in enabling all this free content - computer companies and ISPs - are insulated from all of this. They specifically exempted Mp3 players and blank discs from the recording device fees by allowing a loophole for "data storage". The FCC is only cracking down on internet broadcasters, the smaller cash cow. And as others have pointed out ASCAP has few regulations making work as it should.
Information isn't free. Money is always being made from the transport and access of info, legal or not, and those making that money are almost entirely big companies who don't care about content providers and, I'd argue, have a vested interest in not protecting them. Just as the RIAA is exploiting the worries of content providers, big computing is exploiting the free content movement.
So it may be time for more organization to get better laws for this, to protect both the artist and the consumer.
Then offset costs by advertising or merchandizing. Broadcast TV is free for us to view, at the "expense" of us having to watch commercials. They get more viewers by making things people want to watch.
Admittedly, the Internet is a different medium and has a different strategy, but the end goal for content creators is the same: Make money for their work.
I think of sites like Homestar Runner, or webcomics like Penny Arcade (viewership in the millions, which generates revenue for advertising to such a large number and through sales of things like tshirts), PvP Online (I think it's well over a hundred thousand, if not more), and even Kevin & Kell which makes money through several means. They wouldn't make a cent if nobody wanted to watch them.
I think in addition to "starry-eyed" "information pioneers" getting a heavy dose of reality, so are content creators. It isn't an easy path to success, Sturgeon's Law applies. The Internet provides a vast playing field in which to enter, unlike having to go through several filters as with TV or print, but you also have to shout louder to be heard above the noise.
There are models that would work for selling content on the Internet. But unfortunately Silicon Valley types are a lot more interested in writing DRM-removal and file sharing software to steal content than they are in coming up with, say, workable micropayment schemes. It's a cultural problem created by all the "information wants to be free" sloganeering. A lot of these people, I think, also believe that intellectual property meant for entertainment is somehow less worthy of remuneration than the software they're paid six figures to write in their day jobs.
D. C. was right: I said nothing about the people who believe that content creators shouldn't be recompensed for their work. Few people honestly hold that belief. Most who claim to believe it about content really have a simpler belief: "I like to get things for free, and I'm not likely to get caught pirating."
I don't think either of them are obligated to provide solutions. For one thing, they didn't create the problem.
I disagree on two points:
1. D. C. never made people believe that piracy was good. But Jaron's article mentioned his previous work, Piracy Is Your Friend. So, I'd say that Jaron was part of creating the problem.
2. Even though content creators did not create the problem, it affects them. If content creators do nothing, then the problem will keep growing.
You say that part of the problem is the culture of programmers: interest in DRM-removal, creating file-sharing software, and the idea "information wants to be free." I disagree that it has anything to do with computer culture. Every person wants to get something for nothing: count how many tax return places promise "the biggest refund" (or will make a loan based on your refund.)
I look forward to your response.
Ah, but it took Internet culture to spin taking other people's work for free as a noble social goal, instead of just naked self-interest.
Further thoughts
One of the points Justin makes is people have gotten used to having content from anywhere in the world available within hours (or even before!) of being officially released. This why BitTorrent, YouTube, and fansubbers flourish. However, media companies are reluctant to change, partially out of fear, and partially for not understanding the extent of their product to go. I can, if I want, now watch an episode of Doctor Who within a day of airing in the UK or watch the latest anime subtitled in as little as a week after airing in Japan. Media companies don't seem to grasp that power, and the effects are amplified in a smaller industry such as anime.
The upshot is niche providers, such as web comics or anime are going to have to take lead in coming up with a model where legitimate content is made available quickly, but at the same time, allowing revenue to flow in, either through subscriptions or advertising.
Re: Further thoughts