Sharing ones intellectual property or creative works openly and perhaps licencing it for perpetual sharing is an admirable thing and may even be a Moral Imperative, as Dean Shareski puts it, if you’ve already made your millions or if you have a secure profession, or even if you’re fighting to get noticed by the public, but what about someone who’s trying to earn a living recording music albums, writing books, or creating online resources for educators, shouldn’t they be able to profit from their creation, maybe even to earn a livelihood from it? Why should they give it away freely and why should others feel it’s okay to use it themselves to make a profit or even just for their own pleasure? In the online world of sharing and “free” resources how can a person earn a living from their intellectual property or creative works?
In this frame of mind I was struck by the title of this article: “Business models for digital goods in the face of the ‘culture of free’? “. The article includes a link to an excellent video (well worth the 12 minutes) produced by RetroReport.org about the history of the rise and fall of Napster, the originators of illegal music file-sharing, the role of Apple music store in meeting the consumer desire for single title acquisitions, and the advent of streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora (now restricted). The music business has had to evolve with the “generation of people who expect their music for free” just as the advent of video streaming services like NetFlix and shomi are affecting the movie and television industries , and have caused the demise of the video rental business. David Byrne of Talking Heads fame contends that the exploitation of musicians by digital streaming services and record levels will hamper creativity in the field. He notes that digital music streaming makes millions for Spotify and the record labels but the artists may get as little as 15-20% of what the record label receives from the streaming service.
“For a band of four people that makes a 15% royalty from Spotify streams, it would take 236,549,020 streams for each person to earn a minimum wage of $15,080 (£9,435) a year. For perspective, Daft Punk‘s song of the summer, “Get Lucky”, reached 104,760,000 Spotify streams by the end of August: the two Daft Punk guys stand to make somewhere around $13,000 each. Not bad, but remember this is just one song from a lengthy recording that took a lot of time and money to develop. That won’t pay their bills if it’s their principal source of income. And what happens to the bands that don’t have massive international summer hits?”
An up-and-coming artist might see some benefits from the exposure available through streaming but if they can’t yet make a living from live performances and licensing they better have a day job.
The new paradigm for commercialization of some intellectual property might be the payment by the discretion model I’ve seen this on a number of websites recently, particularly blogs specializing in information analysis, like the Donate to Downes.ca button on Stephen Downes website. This method of acquiring funds might work because I realize I’m doing this already when I “donate” each year to the free income tax software provider whose updated program I use each year. Is the business model for profiting from intellectual property in the time of a generation that expects music and movies to be free, or almost, one of discretionary profit rather than prescribed profit?