Hard News: Rough times in the trade
223 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 9 Newer→ Last
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
Whatever the limitations of copyright and the old publishing models, at least there was a pretence that what was rewarded was craft, skill and innovation, not naked self-promotion. The idea that the most successful writers, musicians, journalists and photographers are going to be the ones with the best online reputation is chilling, to put it mildly. (As is indeed most of what Kevin Kelly writes.)
I'm no great fan of Kelly either, but I think what Mark is saying about what you bring to the job is valid. I'm guessing there's a good deal less value in stock photography than there used to be -- there's so much that's legitimately available for free or cheap now. If I want a pic for the feature spot on the site, a "commons" search on Flickr is my friend. A photographer who wants to ply her/his trade may have to do more than that.
But this isn't entirely new either -- a Magnum photograph has long had value not only in its own right, but because it's a Magnum photograph. Anyone can knock up a screen print, but not every screen print is a Warhol. And for centuries, visual artists have marketed themselves and their reputations to patrons.
If we had a foolproof system for recognising and rewarding creative works on their innate merit, all this stuff might be less necessary, but we don't have that.
Authors face a more difficult transition than most; they have fewer alternative revenue options. But it's a little surprising we haven't seen more innovation. Dickens wrote novels as magazine serials -- why don't we see that now? And don't get me started on the availability of ebooks ...
-
nzlemming, in reply to
you can put your brilliant work out there and no one will ever find it.
I missed this. My point is that you need to become responsible for getting it found. Which is where/how social media can enable you.
Jonathan Coulton comes to mind as someone who has completely done this without a label:
In May 2011, Coulton was interviewed on NPR’s popular economics-related program Planet Money. He disclosed that he makes about $500,000 a year from his music despite lacking a record label contact. He expressed gratitude towards his fans for his surprise success, the degree of which he called “absurd”. In a broader discussion of whether or not the internet is good for musicians, Coulton answered in the affirmative, while journalist Frannie Kelley described him as a “fluke” such as the Snuggie. Coulton posted a tongue-in-cheek response on his blog about the comparison, saying “to which I say: snarkity snark snark!
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Giovanni called it "your brave new world" but it's not mine - it's here and it's not going away.
Sorry, that doesn't cut it. Copyright law is not a naturally occuring phenomenon, it's a legal framework. The people who came up with it could have said well, unregulated print media is what there is, and it's not going away. And so too in our time if we decided to create an international framework for taxing the proceeds of the likes of Google, or changing the way that the traffic of bits is paid for, we could - there is nothing in the technology that prevents it. It's politics.
Saying that what there is is all that there could ever be, adapt or die, nobody is owed a living, etc., is not a pragmatic response, it's an ideological response. - one that is very popular because Californian-style libertarianism has a stranglehold on the discourse on digital media and because it serves the interest of corporations that are much more powerful than the old media dinosaurs that we paint (not always unfairly) as the enemies of the people.
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Authors face a more difficult transition than most; they have fewer alternative revenue options. But it's a little surprising we haven't seen more innovation. Dickens wrote novels as magazine serials -- why don't we see that now?
Lanier would retort that we are not seeing a lot of innovation in music or literature themselves, let alone in the way that they are packaged for consumers. And we are always being sold innovation as one of the upsides of this technological revolution. So where is it?
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
If we had a foolproof system for recognising and rewarding creative works on their innate merit, all this stuff might be less necessary, but we don't have that.
We have never had it, but that's no reason to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
We do however now have a system for measuring the readership of blogs and how many times a YouTube video has been watched and we could probably meter peer-to-peer quite effectively, not to root out infringers, but to see what people reward with their time, or through citation/reuse. So we could begin to think of a system that directs resources to the makers of that content. Even if it happens to be Warner Brothers or Cameron Slater.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
I’d hate to use the word bullshit again, but… it’s not up to me. Were it up to me, I would aggressively tax the corporations that are benefitting from the traffic of bits and the new economic models for selling content – the Verizons, the Apples, the Googles of this world – and use the money to fund a system of micropayments and reward media organisations that operate in the public interest.
You'd want to be careful breaking something that works, though. Via the iTunes Store Apple has paid out $16.6 billion to content owners and $14 billion to music companies. Its system actually favours independent artists. A tax that increases the cost of the equipment favoured by the creative community might also produce perverse outcomes.
I would also urge governments to make the delivery of information outside of the commercial arena a top priority, whichever form that might take (ie not just state-owned radio and television). But it takes the political will of governments and international organisations to even make this conversation possible.
I think the public sector is extremely important in the new world.
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
You'd want to be careful breaking something that works, though. Via the iTunes Store Apple has paid out $16.6 billion to content owners and $14 billion to music companies. Its system actually favours independent artists. A tax that increases the cost of the equipment favoured by the creative community might also produce perverse outcomes.
I'm not saying we close down iTunes or Google, just that we take some of their money away. But yes, I don't claim to have a ready solution, just saying that we need to broaden the conversation beyond the "partner, innovate, diversify, self-market, sell shirts" stage, that puts the onus of navigating the transition entirely on authors.
-
nzlemming, in reply to
Copyright law is not a naturally occuring phenomenon, it’s a legal framework. The people who came up with it could have said well, unregulated print media is what there is, and it’s not going away.
Actually, they did:
Copyright has changed over time to include other creative works but the industrial milieu it has operated in has been largely the same, where the costs of becoming a publisher of material for the mass market have ensured that there are only relatively few of them. Now, everyone can be a publisher and make their work available to a mass audience. Whether the audience wants it is an entirely different matter.
And so too in our time if we decided to create an international framework for taxing the proceeds of the likes of Google, or changing the way that the traffic of bits is paid for, we could – there is nothing in the technology that prevents it.
Never said there was. You're making men from straw again.
It seems to me that you are fundamentally misunderstanding me here. You are arguing, I think, about people not paying artists for their work. I am talking about the artist taking responsibility for their career and finding new ways to get paid for their work.
And there are new ways. If you can put aside your distaste for Kevin Kelly and scroll through the comments on that article I linked to before, you'll find a number of artists referenced who are going it alone and being successful, on their terms and on society's, if money is the measure of success.
It also seems to me that you are misunderstanding the nature of the technological change that has occurred. It's not about getting stuff for free, as the anti-piracy brigade portray it, though that can be a part of it and even a successful part of your business model (cf Cory Doctorow). It's about the fact that you can make stuff available for much lower cost than was previously the case, where you had to buy the paper or vinyl and the press and hire the technicians and the truck drivers and persuade shop owners to stock your output yadda yadda yadda. The computer that you use to consume content is the same tool that you can use to create your own content and market it and sell it. The how that you do all that is what becomes your business model and I believe we've barely scratched the surface of what will be possible.
Frankly, it seems to me that the means of production are finally in the hands of the workers, which should be something to celebrate.
-
recordari, in reply to
And we are always being sold innovation as one of the upsides of this technological revolution. So where is it?
Unrelated I know, but I'd say this pretty much qualifies. Airbus 2050.
-
nzlemming, in reply to
And we are always being sold innovation as one of the upsides of this technological revolution. So where is it?
You're posting on it. You host your blog on it. Innovation is what you do with the technology, not what is done for you.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
Lanier would retort that we are not seeing a lot of innovation in music or literature themselves, let alone in the way that they are packaged for consumers. And we are always being sold innovation as one of the upsides of this technological revolution. So where is it?
In a purely business sense, we’re seeing very substantial changes. According to the IFPI’s 2011 digital music report (3.5MB PDF), the value of the digital music market grew by more than 1000% between 2004 and 2010. It now accounts for 29% of record company revenues worldwide.
More particularly, last year saw some intriguing initiatives in Europe, especially in ISPs offering legitimate access to music as a premium for customers. The Danish ISP TDC offers unlimited music downloads, others free (to the customer) music streaming.
And Apple’s Cloud Music service heads in a fascinating direction – effectively rehabilitating everyone’s dodgy downloads by offering music companies a cut of the fee charged for the cloud service itself. A revenue stream from pirated music? That’s pretty clever.
And innovation on an artistic level? It feels pretty good out there to me. James Blake and Jamie Xx are bringing me sounds I haven’t heard before. For all that the music industry is a perennial whipping boy, I think it’s way ahead of most other creative and media sectors.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
It’s about the fact that you can make stuff available for much lower cost than was previously the case, where you had to buy the paper or vinyl and the press and hire the technicians and the truck drivers and persuade shop owners to stock your output yadda yadda yadda.
I've started buying vinyl again. Actually spending extra to buy lovely 180gm vinyl that comes with a redemption code to download the MP3s.
Not that that's perfect, though. I bought the Foster the People album, which advertised its MP3 redemption code on the front -- and then discovered that it could be redeemed only from a US IP address. So yeah: I just pirated it.
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Actually, they did:
No, they didn't. They regulated it.
...the how that you do all that is what becomes your business model and I believe we've barely scratched the surface of what will be possible.
That's a lot more reasonable, it seems to me. But aside from the fact that that we're still here scratching surfaces may give us some pause (again: where is the workable business model that can be replicated?), there is a fundamental problem I think in the idea that we should give up on making the work itself being the thing that gets rewarded.
And Apple’s Cloud Music service heads in a fascinating direction – effectively rehabilitating everyone’s dodgy downloads by offering music companies a cut of the fee charged for the cloud service itself. A revenue stream from pirated music? That’s pretty clever.
That's the kind of thing I want to see - precisely in that it rewards the content.
And innovation on an artistic level? It feels pretty good out there to me.
If you haven't read You Are Not a Gadget, you might enjoy it for the contrary views therein expressed. And I give Lanier credit as a musician and music critic, more so than in other areas.
-
And as far as innovation in writing goes? Fanfic. Hooray!
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
And I give Lanier credit as a musician and music critic, more so than in other areas.
Heh. His views on contemporary pop music are where I think he's really out of touch.
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
His views on contemporary pop music are where I think he's really out of touch.
I happily defer on this one.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
I happily defer on this one.
Oh, I'm not saying I'm right, I just don't agree with him.
-
Twenty years without a new genre. If you listen to him.
-
Actually, to clarify, I think Lanier makes a number of sound points, including with respect to the constricting effect of the machines.
The thing I loved about seeing Holy Fuck play this summer was the way they resist being locked in by machine rhythms -- using a film spooler as a hand-operated, wholly analog instrument for example.
I just don't buy the "it's all fucked" conclusion.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
Twenty years without a new genre. If you listen to him.
The thing is, the last three major new popular musical genres — modern dance music, hip hop and punk rock – didn’t come along at evenly-spaced intervals. They all emerged in a single period of remarkable ferment and, to some degree, in a single place: New York City. It had been a long time between drinks before they all turned up.
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
I just don't buy the "it's all fucked" conclusion.
No, neither do I - although I find his bitterness quite... interesting, for want of a better word.
-
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Not that that's perfect, though. I bought the Foster the People album, which advertised its MP3 redemption code on the front -- and then discovered that it could be redeemed only from a US IP address. So yeah: I just pirated it.
No export for us, eh? I hate to necromance the issue, but it's all the more reason why the Skynet Act completely misses the point.
-
recordari, in reply to
I've started buying vinyl again. Actually spending extra to buy lovely 180gm vinyl that comes with a redemption code to download the MP3s.
+1.
Just on the digital download thing, isn't previewing an album by streaming it online pretty much the same as giving it away?
Can't we record a 'broadcast' for personal use? In this sense how do we define 'broadcast'?
This is in relation to a local act streaming a preview right now. I intend to buy the album, even on vinyl if I can get it, but as it would be relatively straightforward to record the stream in acceptable quality, it did raise the question.
Feel free to mansplain, as I really have no knowledge of how this works.
-
I don't think there aren't new genres. It's just that there are so many, that none of them seem so titanic as they used to. It's rather like how there don't seem to have been any scientific breakthroughs like what seemed to be happening when Einstein was around. The truth is that there's more science happening than ever before and our expectations have shifted. Also, that body of knowledge is so mature that making a titanic shift involves a titanic effort now. Similarly with music, it seems like every conceivable sound has been turned into music, and every genre has 10 times as many artists as it used to. To seize a huge piece of that requires a revolution much larger than anything that's ever happened before.
-
Kumara Republic, in reply to
The same seems to apply to video games too. In all cases, the trends would likely be further refinement and convergence.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.