Life after copyright
As a rule, in disputes on the subject of copyright it is assumed that authors and publishers are on the same side of the barricades. But their interests coincide by no means completely. The death of the music and book industry through the fault of pirates, about which holders shout, is quite real, but it is very likely that the authors will suffer much less than publishers. From the point of view of the latter, the end of their business is equal to the end of culture. But rather, it will be the end of pop music than the end of literature or music in general. I tried to imagine what would happen if the opportunity to make money on distributing copies of copyright works would completely disappear.
Before the invention of printing, the process of copying any information was so time consuming that it was pointless to regulate it with any special laws. Literate people were few, even fewer books. If you do not take into account church and state censorship, any literate person could rewrite something there, or hire a copyist. No serious money in the book-selling sphere was spinning, and the entire system of libraries, scripts and bookstores strongly resembled the good old Fidonet. When the opportunity arose to quickly and cheaply stamp a lot of books, it smelled of loot, the then microscopic market quickly became saturated, and serious competition arose between publishers. Issues were resolved by punching licenses and privileges to print and sell certain books in a certain area from the kings and the church. By regulating the issuance of licenses, the latter successfully resolved the issue of censorship, and booksellers had a guaranteed profit. Interests of the authors and readers were all on the drum.
The first law that defended not only publishers and merchants was the Statute of Queen Anne . This legislation was quite “pirated” in spirit. He limited the time limits for the monopoly of publishers to print books to their 14th or 28th (if the author wishes) years. After that, the work passed into the public domain.
That is, the word Copyright was used more in the permissive sense than in the restraining, as it is now. The statute enshrined the right of the author to dispose of his works and receive money for them. Publishers made some noise, were indignant, but still had to share. Soon similar laws appeared in many other countries. With more or less success, they made it possible to reach a compromise between authors, publishers and consumers. But the balance was slowly but steadily leaning towards the authors and, above all, the publishers. Copyright terms increased, music was included in its scope, then photos, then a movie, then software, and even the hull shape of the vessel. The cultural landscape began to resemble a high security zone. Profit squeezed out literally from each letter and note.
And suddenly tape recorders, copiers, computers, the Internet, Napster, and finally BitTorrent appeared out of nowhere. The debugged system of extracting profits from the heads and hands of the authors suddenly crumbles before our eyes. The whole industry is a thing of the past. To kill free file sharing, you need to severely restrict civil liberties and human rights. The more draconian laws the rights holders lobby for, the more popular the ideas of pirate parties will become, and in the end the new Queen Anne will come to power. So publishers, labels, bookstores, music and video stores will soon remain out of business. Over their centuries-old history, they have brought many benefits to humanity. Thanks to them, the world was filled with books, records, tapes and discs. Thanks to them, now almost every person can read and write. Their fate resembles the fate of horses - these noble animals from time immemorial helped man to survive. And then people invented a car and a tractor, and now the horse can only be seen in a circus. Let us take our hat off to the publishers, and thank them for all that they have done for us.
')
Now put on a hat and look at everything from the other side. Unfortunately, in the existing system of remuneration for the use of works, the authors are entirely tied to publishers. When the latter are in distress, it is bad to be the first. Is it possible to create a new system by retiring art officials and businessmen? How to ensure the free distribution and use of works, while guaranteeing a worthy reward to the authors? In other words, is there life after copyright?
Below, I tried to make an overview of ways to make money in the absence of restrictions on copying.
Suppose, for definiteness, that no long-term compromises between pirates and copyrights (such as a small subscription fee for using trackers) were reached. The Orwellian future, with mass executions and camps for the enemies of the people who dared to download mp3 for free, did not come either. Anyone can download, redo, cut and use a piece of anything for free. In short, the full open source. How to survive in such conditions authors?
The only asset that can not take away from the author the free distribution of his works - this is fame. It is on fame and popularity that most ways of monetizing free content are tied. And the Internet, which on the one hand destroys the possibility of making money on restrictions and prohibitions, on the other hand makes it easier to become famous than ever. Sometimes the only successful movie on youtube is enough to wake up famous one morning. Reputation and fame are the gold of the information age.
The most common way to convert popularity into money is advertising. It is not always appropriate, often annoying, but it works nonetheless. If thousands of bloggers around the world successfully earn their living on a piece of bread (sometimes even with caviar), what prevents musicians, writers and actors from doing the same? Now a typical star site advertises only this star itself, or does not advertise anything at all. What prevents to attach a banner or contextual advertising there? Why shouldn't a musician negotiate sponsorship with a musical instrument store? Why don't the writer lay out his free e-book with advertising somewhere between the title page and the table of contents. Of course, in all you need to know the measure, annoying and irrelevant advertising no one likes. And for such ugly things as product placement and hidden advertising, you generally need to bury it alive.
The most familiar way for people of the humanitarian professions is live performances. Here the easiest way to theater actors and directors, they have never had other ways. Musicians will also have to go back to basics, but it is much more difficult for writers and poets to collect a few thousand people for an author's evening, and even for money. The cinema, though not at all alive, due to the huge screen, high-quality sound and 3D, is quite capable of competing with home viewing. This method is quite bad for those who create in technical areas, because entertainment and a lively emotional connection with the audience in the process of creativity in this case is impossible. Programmers, technical writers, photographers - in the span. However, many of them can earn lectures, trainings and seminars.
The next proven method for centuries is work to order. The situation is almost completely opposite to the previous paragraph. Just for techies, this is one of the most familiar and natural ways. Freelance, or full-time work - the principle is the same. Although artists, musicians and writers can work to order, but this greatly limits their freedom and often turns out to be a tedious routine. In the context of theater and cinema, despite the fact that almost all the participants in the process are full-time employees or work under contract, the producer or director, who is the main author of the work, works on his own initiative, at his own peril and risk. A custom-made play or movie has more to do with advertising and propaganda than with art.
If you cannot sell the works themselves, then why not make a profit from related products - posters, badges, t-shirts, souvenirs, limited editions of hits in the form of paper books or CDs autographed by the author? Any famous football club raises millions on it. And how many walks on the streets of teenagers in T-shirts with the name of a famous group? And how many of them would like to wear a T-shirt with the name of another, much less well-known group, in order to emphasize their elitism and rich inner world? In addition to direct sales revenue, it is also a walking advertisement. This method is suitable for almost everyone.
Finally - donations. The donate button on the site is one of the most inefficient ways. In my case, he is associated with a street beggar. Something like this:
We are all lazy, and we all do not want to pay for something that we already have. Well, it will be necessary to drive in the card number, or enter the password, jump from page to page to confirm the payment ... well, it is in FIG, besides, they worked somehow earlier, and now they will be killed without my pennies ... I am ashamed, but approximately such thoughts come to me at the sight of the donate button.
But the potential of this method is much greater. Here is flattr.com - you register, deposit money once a month, and then just “click!” At the place you like, and you're done. After all, this is heaven and earth! If instead of this:
it was necessary to fill out a form each time and enter a password to mark the post or site you liked - there would be no talk of any Web 2.0 and sociality until now. Flattr is still very young and little known, but I hope that someday buttons of such services will hang on every hand on all torrent trackers.
And here is another interesting example - kickstarter.com . Despite the consonant title, the project is related not so much to startups as to creating content — music, movies, photos, books. Successfully funded projects with a budget of up to several tens of thousands of dollars. It would seem - the same donations, but it is also unknown whether they will like the result. But when people help create what they need themselves, they feel ownership, and then they see the finished product, which was also created for their money, and this motivates them to pay more next time. But if the result is already there, and it can be downloaded for free, then there is nothing to pay for. You never know where the author now spends this money, can drink at all.
Finally, the author can benefit not only from monetary reward. After all, he is not in a vacuum, he listens to music, watches a movie, reads books, uses software. Now wherever you spit - everywhere you have to pay - for the characters, for the music, for the illustrations, for the video. It is very expensive to do all this to order, and take ready-made - down! Transferring all author's content to open licenses will significantly reduce the costs of derivative and modified works. Want to make a video on your favorite music - please! Cinema for an interesting book - please! Write a book on your favorite movie - no problem! Moreover, if the derivative, the secondary product becomes more popular than the original product, it will serve him as a good advertisement, and fame will be the main capital in conditions of free distribution.
What is the result? It turns out that any talented author has much more opportunities to earn money than any blogger has, and therefore he will not have to starve. But this is all small fish, what about projects with millions of budgets? Why not. Jimmy Wells swung at 16 million, most of which have already been collected. For a couple of months. For such money, you can easily remove the cool fighter or write a very large and complex software level of Adobe Photoshop or MS Office (well ... maybe almost that level ). And the budgets themselves can greatly lose weight due to the active participation of volunteers sympathizing with the project. If we talk about the movie, it is - distributed rendering effects, extras, assistants, location scouting. If it's about software, I recently moved to Ubuntu, and I feel quite normal, despite the fact that I have never been a Linux player. The age of Linux roughly corresponds to the age of Windows, and the system created by the community is not much less than the system created by a huge corporation (and in some ways surpasses it).
Sometime around the printing press, passions boiled worse than the current ones, around file sharing. Someone will be worse, someone better, but the story does not turn back. There is life after copyright, and life is quite good. At least I want to believe it.
Before the invention of printing, the process of copying any information was so time consuming that it was pointless to regulate it with any special laws. Literate people were few, even fewer books. If you do not take into account church and state censorship, any literate person could rewrite something there, or hire a copyist. No serious money in the book-selling sphere was spinning, and the entire system of libraries, scripts and bookstores strongly resembled the good old Fidonet. When the opportunity arose to quickly and cheaply stamp a lot of books, it smelled of loot, the then microscopic market quickly became saturated, and serious competition arose between publishers. Issues were resolved by punching licenses and privileges to print and sell certain books in a certain area from the kings and the church. By regulating the issuance of licenses, the latter successfully resolved the issue of censorship, and booksellers had a guaranteed profit. Interests of the authors and readers were all on the drum.
The first law that defended not only publishers and merchants was the Statute of Queen Anne . This legislation was quite “pirated” in spirit. He limited the time limits for the monopoly of publishers to print books to their 14th or 28th (if the author wishes) years. After that, the work passed into the public domain.
That is, the word Copyright was used more in the permissive sense than in the restraining, as it is now. The statute enshrined the right of the author to dispose of his works and receive money for them. Publishers made some noise, were indignant, but still had to share. Soon similar laws appeared in many other countries. With more or less success, they made it possible to reach a compromise between authors, publishers and consumers. But the balance was slowly but steadily leaning towards the authors and, above all, the publishers. Copyright terms increased, music was included in its scope, then photos, then a movie, then software, and even the hull shape of the vessel. The cultural landscape began to resemble a high security zone. Profit squeezed out literally from each letter and note.
And suddenly tape recorders, copiers, computers, the Internet, Napster, and finally BitTorrent appeared out of nowhere. The debugged system of extracting profits from the heads and hands of the authors suddenly crumbles before our eyes. The whole industry is a thing of the past. To kill free file sharing, you need to severely restrict civil liberties and human rights. The more draconian laws the rights holders lobby for, the more popular the ideas of pirate parties will become, and in the end the new Queen Anne will come to power. So publishers, labels, bookstores, music and video stores will soon remain out of business. Over their centuries-old history, they have brought many benefits to humanity. Thanks to them, the world was filled with books, records, tapes and discs. Thanks to them, now almost every person can read and write. Their fate resembles the fate of horses - these noble animals from time immemorial helped man to survive. And then people invented a car and a tractor, and now the horse can only be seen in a circus. Let us take our hat off to the publishers, and thank them for all that they have done for us.
')
Now put on a hat and look at everything from the other side. Unfortunately, in the existing system of remuneration for the use of works, the authors are entirely tied to publishers. When the latter are in distress, it is bad to be the first. Is it possible to create a new system by retiring art officials and businessmen? How to ensure the free distribution and use of works, while guaranteeing a worthy reward to the authors? In other words, is there life after copyright?
Below, I tried to make an overview of ways to make money in the absence of restrictions on copying.
Suppose, for definiteness, that no long-term compromises between pirates and copyrights (such as a small subscription fee for using trackers) were reached. The Orwellian future, with mass executions and camps for the enemies of the people who dared to download mp3 for free, did not come either. Anyone can download, redo, cut and use a piece of anything for free. In short, the full open source. How to survive in such conditions authors?
The only asset that can not take away from the author the free distribution of his works - this is fame. It is on fame and popularity that most ways of monetizing free content are tied. And the Internet, which on the one hand destroys the possibility of making money on restrictions and prohibitions, on the other hand makes it easier to become famous than ever. Sometimes the only successful movie on youtube is enough to wake up famous one morning. Reputation and fame are the gold of the information age.
The most common way to convert popularity into money is advertising. It is not always appropriate, often annoying, but it works nonetheless. If thousands of bloggers around the world successfully earn their living on a piece of bread (sometimes even with caviar), what prevents musicians, writers and actors from doing the same? Now a typical star site advertises only this star itself, or does not advertise anything at all. What prevents to attach a banner or contextual advertising there? Why shouldn't a musician negotiate sponsorship with a musical instrument store? Why don't the writer lay out his free e-book with advertising somewhere between the title page and the table of contents. Of course, in all you need to know the measure, annoying and irrelevant advertising no one likes. And for such ugly things as product placement and hidden advertising, you generally need to bury it alive.
The most familiar way for people of the humanitarian professions is live performances. Here the easiest way to theater actors and directors, they have never had other ways. Musicians will also have to go back to basics, but it is much more difficult for writers and poets to collect a few thousand people for an author's evening, and even for money. The cinema, though not at all alive, due to the huge screen, high-quality sound and 3D, is quite capable of competing with home viewing. This method is quite bad for those who create in technical areas, because entertainment and a lively emotional connection with the audience in the process of creativity in this case is impossible. Programmers, technical writers, photographers - in the span. However, many of them can earn lectures, trainings and seminars.
The next proven method for centuries is work to order. The situation is almost completely opposite to the previous paragraph. Just for techies, this is one of the most familiar and natural ways. Freelance, or full-time work - the principle is the same. Although artists, musicians and writers can work to order, but this greatly limits their freedom and often turns out to be a tedious routine. In the context of theater and cinema, despite the fact that almost all the participants in the process are full-time employees or work under contract, the producer or director, who is the main author of the work, works on his own initiative, at his own peril and risk. A custom-made play or movie has more to do with advertising and propaganda than with art.
If you cannot sell the works themselves, then why not make a profit from related products - posters, badges, t-shirts, souvenirs, limited editions of hits in the form of paper books or CDs autographed by the author? Any famous football club raises millions on it. And how many walks on the streets of teenagers in T-shirts with the name of a famous group? And how many of them would like to wear a T-shirt with the name of another, much less well-known group, in order to emphasize their elitism and rich inner world? In addition to direct sales revenue, it is also a walking advertisement. This method is suitable for almost everyone.
Finally - donations. The donate button on the site is one of the most inefficient ways. In my case, he is associated with a street beggar. Something like this:
We are all lazy, and we all do not want to pay for something that we already have. Well, it will be necessary to drive in the card number, or enter the password, jump from page to page to confirm the payment ... well, it is in FIG, besides, they worked somehow earlier, and now they will be killed without my pennies ... I am ashamed, but approximately such thoughts come to me at the sight of the donate button.
But the potential of this method is much greater. Here is flattr.com - you register, deposit money once a month, and then just “click!” At the place you like, and you're done. After all, this is heaven and earth! If instead of this:
it was necessary to fill out a form each time and enter a password to mark the post or site you liked - there would be no talk of any Web 2.0 and sociality until now. Flattr is still very young and little known, but I hope that someday buttons of such services will hang on every hand on all torrent trackers.
And here is another interesting example - kickstarter.com . Despite the consonant title, the project is related not so much to startups as to creating content — music, movies, photos, books. Successfully funded projects with a budget of up to several tens of thousands of dollars. It would seem - the same donations, but it is also unknown whether they will like the result. But when people help create what they need themselves, they feel ownership, and then they see the finished product, which was also created for their money, and this motivates them to pay more next time. But if the result is already there, and it can be downloaded for free, then there is nothing to pay for. You never know where the author now spends this money, can drink at all.
Finally, the author can benefit not only from monetary reward. After all, he is not in a vacuum, he listens to music, watches a movie, reads books, uses software. Now wherever you spit - everywhere you have to pay - for the characters, for the music, for the illustrations, for the video. It is very expensive to do all this to order, and take ready-made - down! Transferring all author's content to open licenses will significantly reduce the costs of derivative and modified works. Want to make a video on your favorite music - please! Cinema for an interesting book - please! Write a book on your favorite movie - no problem! Moreover, if the derivative, the secondary product becomes more popular than the original product, it will serve him as a good advertisement, and fame will be the main capital in conditions of free distribution.
What is the result? It turns out that any talented author has much more opportunities to earn money than any blogger has, and therefore he will not have to starve. But this is all small fish, what about projects with millions of budgets? Why not. Jimmy Wells swung at 16 million, most of which have already been collected. For a couple of months. For such money, you can easily remove the cool fighter or write a very large and complex software level of Adobe Photoshop or MS Office (well ... maybe almost that level ). And the budgets themselves can greatly lose weight due to the active participation of volunteers sympathizing with the project. If we talk about the movie, it is - distributed rendering effects, extras, assistants, location scouting. If it's about software, I recently moved to Ubuntu, and I feel quite normal, despite the fact that I have never been a Linux player. The age of Linux roughly corresponds to the age of Windows, and the system created by the community is not much less than the system created by a huge corporation (and in some ways surpasses it).
Sometime around the printing press, passions boiled worse than the current ones, around file sharing. Someone will be worse, someone better, but the story does not turn back. There is life after copyright, and life is quite good. At least I want to believe it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/110890/
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