(no subject)

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Back in the mid-1990s, I was enjoying my weekly ritual of having biked to my neighborhood Safeway, picking up the West Coast edition of the Sunday New York Times and taking to my favorite coffee house in Manoa Valley for a thorough read. I came across an interview with Esther Dyson talking about the new world of digital content that was springing up on the World Wide Web. Dyson, daughter of the physicist Freeman Dyson who is famous for his futurist notions and a noted commentator on emerging technologies in her own right, proposed that in the digital future, no artists would be paid for the creation of content -- such content would be freely available via electronic means. Writers would make their living by speaking and teaching. Artists by paid gallery shows. Musicians by concerts. And so on.

The idea ruined my Sunday by leaving me in a viscerally sour mood. Dyson's ideas were fairly repellent to me on some very personal levels. I was working as a high school English teacher, and many works I included in my curriculum were by writers who were notably brilliant but hardly the kind of people who could make a living by public speaking. My internal argument with Ms. Dyson demanded to know how there could ever be another J.D. Salinger in her world -- it being an imaginary argument, of course, that question stumped her.



There have been a lot of stories -- major and entirely minor -- that show how our world of content has changed in the years between 1994 and 2011. A lot more content is freely available. And by a lot, I mean a staggering amount. More and more commercial content exists in digital formats -- and no matter how much protection content producers put on it, people find a way to copy it and don't need expensive studios and printing presses to do so.

A federal judge recently tossed out the settlement in the Google Books case, setting Google's proposal to make all the world's knowledge available into some trouble. Google was obviously not acting out of pure altruism to make a completely free public library for the entire world -- they had and still have revenue at stake. But the plan was pretty audacious for other reasons -- Google essentially claimed the right to copy any work and provide samples of that work as fair use. Further, they were taking so-called "orphaned works" still under copy protection but with unavailable or unknown authors and made a settlement agreement that required copy holders to "opt out" of Google's content providing scheme.

The road forward is not known, but it seem inevitable that some variation of Google's project has to come into being. This is the same impulse for making content available to people that brought about the free public library systems around the world. Digital content services certainly have the possibilty of connecting authors to audience without the intermediary of a publishing house. Looking back at Dyson's commentary in the 1990s, today I am wondering more about the future of large publishing corporations perhaps more than the future of authors.

Making the world even more interesting is the possibility of really effective on demand printing where a reader can go to a store and leave with a bound paperback book in less than 10 minutes and for less money than ordering from a speciality shop. This is immensely interesting to me as the best text for one of my courses is currently out of print - this technology could help me use such resources without being stuck waiting for a publishing house to make it available again. Authors can use this technology too - Academic writers often have a very narrow audience that is interested in or can understand their work. Writing a book for 50 people suddenly seems much more possible.

The New York Times just recently put up its long awaited paywall and it will be another experiment to see if people will pay for quality content when there are major sources of lower quality free content easily available. History to date suggests that the Times is not making a good bet here.

And just another random example of what is happening to content: if you are American, you might remember the kind of creepy Christmas ads from Hyundai:

Well, it turns out the creepy singer and her back up are Pomplamoose....an indy band that made its entire living last year on Youtube.

For discussion: what IS the future of content in the digital age? Who will be the providers? Who will be the distributors? Who will be the critics? Are content producers in danger in this era or are the major distributors and producers of that content from the past century in much bigger trouble?

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The manager of WHRO FM, the public radio station in Norfolk Virginia, told me that there would eventually be no purely mechanical way to listen to music (he was talking about playback devices), and it happened earlier than he predicted. At that time, the station was already "downloading" content from NPR and recording it onto hard drives for later playback. I can't imagine doing what I do now without the advancement of the personal computer and related software and Internet (i.e. I order music manuscript reproductons, have a PDF within hours and edit the music for an orchestra in Moscow to record later in the week).

BTW, I love Pomplamoose's version of "Mr. Sandman" ;)

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I for one have wondered if copyright is really necessary to secure the interests it is designed to secure. At the very least, right now copyright terms are outrageous in relation to the supposed goal. Do we really think that people will stop writing if their rights to a work die with them? Or *only* twenty years after they die? Right now, it's life of the author plus seventy years. That's three generations of monopoly, because that's what's necessary "to promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts?" Really?

As for the future of content, the provider needs to add new things that improve the content if they want people to pay for it. For instance, Steam is a digital distribution platform for video games, that also functions as unobtrusive DRM (you must log into Steam to play your Steam games). It also brings with it the best update-pushing system in the business, bar none, a great community, highly responsive sale prices, access to free preview weekends and beta events, and now it's even allowing you to backup your save games to Steam's servers and play them on any system. It is the perfect platform, because it gives players and developers both unique and high-value benefits. Developers get DRM, players get unobtrusive DRM. Developers get in-your-home points of sale, players get great deals and the ability to re-download the game easily without discs. Developers get access to the gaming community (the "Your friend is now playing [X Game]" notifications are great free advertising) and gamers get to be part of the community.

So yeah. If you want me to pay, it needs to be value-added that I can't get elsewhere for free.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I also think that there will be more "freemium" content delivery, like Pandora. You can listen for free with restrictions (40 hrs a week, it displays ads, logs you out after periods of inactivity, etc.) or you can pay a small amount, get rid of ads, and the like. Quite a few MMOs are moving to a similar model, where you get basic access for free, but must pay for additional features.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, it turns out the creepy singer and her back up are Pomplamoose....an indy band that made its entire living last year on Youtube.

I fucking love Pomplamoose.

With that said...

For discussion: what IS the future of content in the digital age? Who will be the providers? Who will be the distributors? Who will be the critics? Are content producers in danger in this era or are the major distributors and producers of that content from the past century in much bigger trouble?

I think the reality is that people will buy content they find valuable. The rest will be fueled by freemium-style transactions. The problem is that we're leaving an age where everything made sense - major distributors denoted quality, you needed major distribution to get an audience, etc. Today, that model is completely dead for music and movies. Books will still see a need for the publishing model in some form, but at a decreased cost.

Really, the only model that may survive is longform television, and even that is being lapped by streaming vendors and the like.

It's pretty scary right now, but it's because we haven't figured it out, and because it's rare that technology outpaces producers. Those who produce good content will have nothing to worry about - it's those who ultimately offer nothing memorable and nothing that catches fire that will be left behind.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Depending on how capable our handheld devices become as e-readers, that market may die out eventually, as well.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

Who will be the critics?

For me, this is the most interesting question. I think that creative work will continue to find ways of being profitable some way or another (at least as profitable as it ever has been in the past). But for the first time in history there is no coherent or authoritative mediators of what is high and low culture, what is worth preserving and what is cheap slapstick. Some people think South Park is brilliant social commentary, some people think it is crude and disgusting, and there are fewer outside voices whose opinion matters on the subject. It used to be that educated elites distilled and defined what is valuable, high culture. With the exception of maybe those in academia, these elites no longer have the power and sway they used to.

I am not saying this is bad -- there are definitely lots of opportunities for creative development that will be and is being allowed to flourish and would otherwise have been crushed. There are probably also downsides to this as well though. I don't necessarily buy the "if it is good, it will float to the top" mentality. One advantage of having cultural forces that mediate what is worthwhile and what isn't is that you have a group of people thinking about what is important and why, and then everyone is pretty much on the same page. Back when there were only a few options for news, Walter Kronkite was thought of as highly authoritative and honest. The idea that someone in the media could have the reputation nowadays is unheard of, and I think a lot of that is because the more options you have, the less you are inclined to trust any individual one.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Content will have to adapt to this as it did to everything else. At one point the Western world was still dependent on parchment where China had progressed to paper. The problem with the Internet as it currently is is that it blends anonymity with individuality just enough that it is a more or less anarchic place. And until there *are* consistent rules and regulations of it this will remain a factor that's problematic, especially given the US copyright system that seems to me sometimes overblown so far as what it does to protect said copyrights.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"For discussion: what IS the future of content in the digital age?"

Pretty much as described.

Copyright in it's current form is dead. It won't go quietly, too much money tied up in it but as more and more of the creative types recognize that they can make as much if not more money marketing their art for free without the overhead of a big box publishing house they will walk away from it and embrace the new world.

"Who will be the providers?"

I assume you mean the artists here? The answer is everyone and anyone who thinks they have talent. As publishing costs approach $0 everyone out there who has a modicum of talent but never possessed the drive or ambition to try and make a career out of their art will start doing it as a hobby. Expect to start seeing Web TV shows with production values at least as good as those of 1980's BBC TV series self produced by Ren Faire's and Historical Reenactment groups, there will even be a few of them that will gain enough of a mainstream audience to be profitable. Look for the rise of collaborative storytelling worlds where someone creates the basic idea and they or a comittee sets themselves up as the editor and continuity manager but anyone is welcome to publish stories set in the world and they will publish them, some shorts others full length novels and again a few will gain enough mainstream popularity to make real money. Repeat ad infinitum for all art forms.


"Who will be the critics?"

Facebook.

Youtube.

Digg.

And Bloggers.

Most important one however will be how many "likes" you get on facebook or whatever the dominant social media platform of the say is.


"Are content producers in danger in this era or are the major distributors and producers of that content from the past century in much bigger trouble?"

The talented will always find a way to profit from their talent, maybe not to the extent they have in the past but they will profit from it. The corporations who have mooched off that talent for the last hundred years are the ones who are about to pass into extinction.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

LIKE BUTTON PLS EL JAY.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Digg is a bad model. Facebook and Reddit are better, because it is far harder to game the system. Digg embraced their linkspam and tried to monetize it, whereas Reddit realizes that a good community is not one whose top posts are determined by press releases.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Honestly I don't know much about Digg or Reddit or how they work as I have never used either, I just picked their name at random as being a sample of the various content ranking systems out there.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

One of the books for a class I'm taking is available online for free since it isn't published yet. How's that for a business model? :)

I want the on-demand printing model also, mainly because I would never print them, as long as I can read them on my computer or Nook.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

From my perspective, I don't think artists have been harmed at all, except for those who could afford to be harmed (looking at you Metallica). Artists have always been poor and starving. The days of the artist being at the top of the income tree are really new (and for a few select elite anyway). The way I see it, more artists are getting more exposure; there's more artists out there now who can pay the rent and put a roof over their head, all thanks to the internet. The losses come from the mega-artists who were selling millions of albums, the retailers that sold them and mainly the record companies. Cry me a freakin' river for that mob.

I've got friends now who make enough to get by through selling and exhibiting online; this could not have happened 20 years ago. Yes, there will be another Salinger; we don't risk losing great art like that. What we risk losing is stuff like cookie cutter boy bands and generic pop princesses; you know, people manufactured by the industry that is dying.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I "have" to have a book. But since I'll never read everything I want to, I'm not too fussed about it. But then I'm the guy with an extensive RECORD collection that I listen to more than CDs.....Hmm, maybe I really am a reactionary.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Aside from what's already been discussed, I think we have to realize that piracy is here to stay and that there's no way to get around it. There is no digital copyright format that can't be cracked within at best a week, with the cracking method made publicly available. There's no reason for anyone to pay for any creative work that can be digitized when it can acquired for free.

I happily admit, I pirate like a motherfucker. I am adept in many different methods of doing so; I have no need to rely on bittorrenting or Usenet. I have no moral questions about what I pirate, because it's purely a dollars-and-cents thing to me. Since the advent of digital piracy in all formats, I have been able to cut my entertainment budget by 98%. That right there outweighs any and all other considerations. I am no longer spending $6-700/month on entertainment items. That just plain blots out any moral qualms I have on the subject.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

How would J.D. Salinger have ever been published in the way it actually happened, if he hadn't provided a free copy of his already completed work to a publisher, with no guarantee of either getting paid for it or published?