One of the Jerry Mander's aphorisms on technology is, "Never judge a technology by the way it personally benefits you. Seek a holistic view."
That's what Ms. Nina here needs to understand. That It's so selfish to advocate a system simply because it is working out for you, and ignore its faultiness that is in fact, wreaking havoc for every other middle class artist, as Jaron puts it too.
I just hoped Jaron could be more assertive and clear in making his point. Nonetheless, he was completely right about it.

For those of you who find Mr. Lanier's comments about 'creating scarcity' just, somehow distasteful, but you cant quite put your finger on why...

Might I suggest visiting thevenusproject.com, and listening to some of the talks given by Jacques Fresco(Nearly all of this is available for FREE).

He often talks about art, creativity and about the difficulties that arise when generating this kind of artificial scarcity. I think many of his ideas hold especially true in a world of the ever increasing wealth of knowledge and technical access.

Nina's film had a budget of almost 300k and has recouped a little over 50k since being released, with the abundance of that recoupment coming from charity (This, all per Nina's own figures).

So yeah "She's making money" alright. Unfortunately she's doing it by turning dollars into dimes. It's hilarious listening to her trying to dodge the direct questions that would immediately discredit her if answered honestly..."Well, I don't have children..."

And this is the BEST spokesperson the freetopia crowd can send forward to defend their unproven theories and rhetoric? A filmmaker who lost over 200K (trying) to embrace free?

What a joke.

There's a way to fund artistic entreprise that lets the produced contents be free and open to sharing.. This is by removing the middlemen and letting banks directly lend money to artists.

The banks can evaluate the potential of an artist based on how many *fans* and good-will the artist has. This can be measured automatically on the web, by software.

The banks can be reimbursed for their investment by (a) a portion of tax collected by the government (b) donations of money by consumers who enjoyed the work of art.

The current economic model creates artificial scarcity and produces barriers for the sharing of art. This not only discourages creativity, but also creates middle-men who profit but not do any work.

I side with Nina on this, but I think Jaron and Nina's ideas can work in tandem. It's as simple as this:

Freedom of content allows for more creative freedom.
Good creative content creates exposure/prominence.
Popularity and good reputation leads to corporate creative jobs.
Money from jobs creates the ability to invest in self-published free content.
Rinse, repeat.

The traditional pathways to making money off of creative content(TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) are closing quickly. To adapt you have to be able to accept the corporate world AND the free world and play them against each other.

Don't place value on your work. You're an artist, work can always be made. Place value on the connections your work makes with your audience. Connecting with a loyal audience will always bring you satisfaction(and MONEY!).

it is about appropriation and class - the upper classes feel comfortable appropriating the efforts of others, particularly the underclasses.
This will become evident to all "creators" in the next decade when they are unable to gather any value from their legacy creations- and the value has been migrated and dispersed up the value chain - the winners are the huge companies who you pay to have access to bandwidth.

To:Sundar Raman

Yeah, the broken business model is they're giving their content away which they used to charge for.

LOVE YOU JARON!

And music has been a business long before radio. Let's not forget, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven didn't write their beautiful music exclusively to express their innermost soul--they wrote it for cold-hard cash.

Right on TED!

Jaron speaks truth -
Unfortunately I am an artist designer and musician - every design I have ever done has been knocked off by other designers who are the worst thieves. I can't make a living on what I am famous for - it is not digital but it speaks to the culture of "artsy" type thievery where my content migrates to wealthier individuals who can give away my designs'

Jaron is ahead of his time!

The issue of course isn't a matter of culture disappearing, it's a matter of whether or not it will be financially viable for artists, and whether certain business models (a la Hollywood) will be viable. Perhaps we'll move back into a folk culture model.

I think you guys need to differentiate further between artists who make work for fun, and creative people who make a living from their creative endeavors; I agree with the cranky old guest; I'm 41, and I'm not giving work away for free anymore.

If the product pushes the sale of merchandise: that doesn't sound free, but like a Loss-Leader. I'm on Jaron's side.

Your last phone caller gave me a headache with his inanity. "Giving away your stuff for free is a much easier way to get people into your music than trying to sell it." OF COURSE IT IS! Putting your hard-earned money into producing CDs, and then being proud that you're not getting anything back from it? Bloody brilliant... Last time I checked, this was still a business...

This discussion leaves out visual artists who are asked to provide free cultural content for non-profit & for-profit institutions that have budgets and pay all their other workers and collaborators. Visual artists are paid by these institutions in "exposure", whether those artists ever sell work through commercial entities or not. There must be a consciousness WITHIN the community wherein you are working. See www.wageforwork.com

I don't get the mechanics of Nina's work. What is free and what do we pay for. Please back up a step and explain exactly where she makes money from her work.

Thanks

I don't get the mechanics of Nina's work. What is free and what do we pay for. Please back up a step and explain exactly where she makes money from her work.

Thanks

Sita Sings the Blues is animated!!! She didn't use real actors (yes, she may have used voice-over actors), or real locations. Jaron is arguing on behalf of the fact that you have real people behind these works and they should be compensated for time spent, if the work is novel, not recycled and regurgitated. Our monetary currency may be the problem.

how did Nina support herself when she was spending long periods of time animating this film?

Artists making money as artists is a relatively recent Western phenomenon. In many societies everyone created art and music as part of the community. That may be the future.

Alternately there is the Lawrence Lessig concept of various copyrights some open source and some not.

Everyone has the 100pct. right to put anything they OWN or MAKE on the internet for free if they desire! Wahoo!!!!

HOWEVER, if they DID NOT make it or OWN the rights to it, then that person has no right to obtain or distribute the property, like it or not all you freeloaders! Think of the simple argument here extrapolated to, say, a car lot. There are cars there, you want one... why not just go take it? Someone made it, they took their time and effort to create something you desire. Why don't they offer it - for free? Why don't you just go take it, since you want it?

So of course, like any thing of value, those who create the item want compensation for it. If you give it out for free, then you want exposure for it. If you don't want people to liberate what you made, you will seek to protect it, with door locks, with a storefront, with DRM, or something. If the door locks don't work, and the money dries up for one reason or other, the auto dealership closes and goes elsewhere... maybe you've seen this occur near you, I have.

What the guest and callers seem to be saying are saying is the FREE part is an INVESTMENT. This is different. Most people surely want free things, and many artists want to give things away - but it's to get a long term gain, I honestly think, not to go broke spending time on work that is stolen.

What is online doesn't come near the quality of a live performance, an actual painting, or even a CD. John Cage said a recording of Beethoven's 5th ain't Beethoven's 5th.

I'm not buying Jaron's argument about artificial scarcity and copying money. Money is nothing without artificial scarcity, but content is always content, regardless of scarcity.

There is a vital question of public interest that needs to be addressed - corporatism and increasingly arcane laws are diminishing the public domain to the point that all culture is becoming completely corporate owned. What is left for the public to derive from when a person can live their whole lifetime and never participate in the culture they're born in? I may never legally be able to do anything with any Beatles song in any capacity, even if I live to be 80 years old, even though their songs were made decades before I was born!

To ManhattanMusic:
re: I hear her argument but the one thing we're not hearing is how does nina make money from her film??? And how does she see this paradigm working again for her next project after the novelty has worn off?

I tend to purchase more Free content than non-free. Yeah, I'm probably an anomaly. But then again people interested in an animated Ramayana are probably anomalies too. There are a number of artists on Jamendo.com whose music I've purchased even though I initially downloaded them for free. The transaction is not about "give me money before I should you my work", but rather "let me share with you and you can support my creativity if you respect it".

To Gabriel from NY: Newspapers are not dying thanks to free content online. They're dying because of a broken business model. This has been argued endlessly online.

As a filmmaker myself I have posted countless videos to be viewed for free online. This may work as a calling card to get people interested in you as an artist. But if at a certain point people are not paying to view your content how do you progress as an artist, making work of increasing complexity and scale? I love free culture but as things are going now, the only way to make money will be to cover art with advertisements - which is not an attractive alternative.

The Gratefull Dead routinely allowed bootlegging of their concerts. Didn't seem to hurt their bottom line.

For all those who want to download free music, how about we download their paychecks from their online banking accounts for free?

I'm so sorry. I can't hold myself back. I'm totally into the idea of American Youth getting over being famous because its no longer lucrative but don't call out Lady Gaga as an example. Black Eyed Peas...yes. Lady Gaga no. We don't need anymore Black Eyed Peas but Lady Gaga is a truly talented artist that builds bridges. There are plenty of disposable musicians these days but Gaga is not one of them.

Jaron is right. You get what you pay for. If people refuse to pay a small fee for musicians' work, the only thing you'll hear is endlessly recycled music, like: Spice Girls to Britney to Lady Gaga back to Spice Girls back to Britney back to Lady Gaga.

What we have here is music becoming an art again instead of a business.

So small a percentage of people who make music and love it have been able to make a living from it, at least since radio and recording began (20th century) that this is not much of a loss.

Nothing has really changed or been figured out since I wrote this back in 1981:
http://retiary.org/ls/writings/music_and_media.html

Amazing to hear this discussion this long after..

If we continue to give work away for free, no one will be able to pay their bills anymore, period. Whether you're a fine artist, musician, or in my case, a photographer, once you get past the rookie age where you're still learning your craft, you need to be compensated for your work.

How is she making money on her film? How much more is it than what the traditonal release would grant her?

She had to sell her soul somehow; who was it to?

One of the most famous instances of Free music making for more than just a piddling income is the Grateful Dead. John Perry Barlow speaks to this point in more than one interview - in summary, he says that TGD made more money after they allowed and encouraged bootlegging than they ever did prior to that.

But they still had to fight against their studio to make it happen.

On the comment, made by the panelist, about the "co-opting" of "black" music by "white" industry: Where is the boundary between cultural exchange and "co-opting"? "Black" Music in America was created by Africans after they were exposed to Anglo-Saxon ballad tradition, thus, the "blacks" "co-opted" "white" music to make the blues, which was then "co-opted" by "whites."

With over half the American youth holding ambitions of fame rather than useful occupations perhaps it's good that there's less money to go around now.
What do we really need, 10,000 doctors and teachers or 10,000 more Lady Gagas

Look at newspapers. Giving away IP will kill an industry. Giving too much away seems to kill quality. Just because it's difficult to police the digital world doesn't mean that's a reason to make all things digital available for free. Copyright and offering things free are separate issues. Disney, among others have ruined what a copyright is supposed to be. Thank you Sonny Bono.

I hear her argument but the one thing we're not hearing is how does nina make money from her film??? And how does she see this paradigm working again for her next project after the novelty has worn off?

John-- that bit about patents is not even *close* to true. Copyrights, on art stuff, are WAY, WAY longer than patents. US Patents of most types last 17 years. A late 19th century machine has been public domain for a century.

Its an important point: the patent system has twin goals; incentivizing intellectual labor, like copyright, and also PUBLISHING INVENTIONS. The fear was that otherwise people would rely on trade secret and we'd lose the valuable cross-pollination of ideas. There's no similar aspect to the copyright system. To this day, one of the standards for being granted a patent is that the patent 'teaches' a new thing to someone who is skilled in the relevant art.

As a content creator (illustrator), I make my living off of people purchasing the right to use my work- and this includes re-use, aka stock.

It's one thing if the person is dead for 75 years, another when people who create art/music today are less able to make a living off their work. Just because something is online, doesn't make it free for the taking.

Seriously, why do people still listen to Jaron Lanier? He is a professional gasbag.

Jaron's statement that free media will denigrate society is deliciously ironic. Figuring that today's youth are more likely to have ambitions of fame than say science and engineering, perhaps the reality of Rock Stardom being less lucrative nowadays might actually save our society. And note this is coming from a musician who now sees such pursuits to be largely frivolous in the bigger picture.

I think the basis of the argument is what we want life to be like, not what it is becoming.

In my opinion, what it is becoming is more like what creation was like in the deep past. Folk music, the blues, oral storytelling and all things before were generated via appropriation and iterative modification.

Maybe it's not so much about retaining wealth, maybe it's about creation.

There's an interesting piece in the Readings section of this month's Harper's that touches somewhat on what this discussion is about.

1. If the content is digital, then it is already free, whether you like it or not. Digital media can be copied without loss and stored and distributed at negligible cost. Copy protection schemes and increasingly draconian copyright laws are merely doomed attempts to prop up obsolete business models.

So, it's not a matter of pros and cons. Deal with it.

2. That doesn't mean that you can't make a living with free content. One approach is the NPR model, giving away content that attracts donations and grants. Another approach is to treat digital content as an advertisement for a analog experiences, such as live shows.

3. I believe that the creative potential vastly outweighs the cost. Free content may hurt a smallish number of big sellers (that we'd be just fine without in my opinion), while opening up opportunities for armies of obscure artists.

As a side note, copyright laws don't make much sense as they are now: Disney is at the center of many efforts to expand copyright law, especially for Steamboat Willie, a parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr., which would have been impossible with the copyright laws that were passed to protect Steamboat Willie.