Once you start thinking about content as free promotion, all sorts of avenues open up. Some of them may turn out to be dead ends, but many won’t.

I think we can see this over and over in history, cells -> organisms -> ecosystems -> Humans -> society & culture -> business -> corporations….(maybe this is not a good order, but you get the point)

With the invention of the internet and computers we will not see music, movies, or books disappear, but start to merge with other things to create something more than what it was by itself.

Your example with WoW also brings up another interesting point. What if WoW had free gold, experience & equipment for everyone? In WoW there is “artificial scarcity” because the game needs it to be enjoyable (i am sure this can be argued too). I wonder if there is anything we can derive from this for the real world? I think the game of WoW will evolve from these “artificial scarcity” economics just like the real world does, i.e. group involvement.

These online games are a great way to study the real world economics. I bet a whole new line economics will develop from these communities. Maybe “MM Theory” or “MMO Theory”?

Thanks,
-Josh Delcore

Seriously, though, let’s take your example of the zillionaire and Charlie Stross. I agree, one person reading the book would suck for everyone except the zillionaire and Charlie (And maybe even for him, since he might feel his hard work was wasted). Did you read “Halting State”, Charlie’s book where major plot points happen inside a MMORPG? It doesn’t matter if you haven’t read it – I just gave you the only really relevant part for my example.

So, rather than an eccentric zillionaire, what if, for example, World of Warcraft paid him to write a novel? It would center around the game, maybe some of it would take place in the game. They could sell raffle tickets for the chance to have your in-game character be a character in the book. They could have a contest for additional chances. Fans could even “participate” in a chapter of the story that happens in the game, and then Charlie finesses it into the story.

Then, WoW pays Charlie, so he’s happy. WoW players get to take part in a cool promotion, and maybe get their character name into the book, so they’re happy. WoW gets great publicity, probably some new subscriptions, and renewed interest from old ones, so they’re happy.

Everyone is happy, and they didn’t even have to sell a copy of the book. They could give away free copies of the ebook at the end of the promotion to help build buzz for the next promotion.

Now, maybe Charlie wouldn’t be interested, or maybe WoW wouldn’t be interested, but it’s a feasible model for making money on creative works without selling the actual content. And it doesn’t depend on strong copyright, or even any copyright at all.

I know I’m putting forward a somewhat extreme scenario. I’m just saying: without sensible copyright laws that allow creative people to make real money by writing, even during the age of the Internet, adults simply won’t spend their time making things with zero value.

The extreme part of my scenario is the ZERO part. Sure, you can run a nice blog these days and let people read it for FREE, and yet make some money off the ads that run with it. You CAN make money – about enough to live in your parent’s basement and still afford a nice car.

I’m not saying that there is no way anyone will ever make money off creative content. I’m saying that there isn’t enough there to raise a family. And that’s what adults wind up doing, because that’s how human beings are.

You might be surprised at how many of the world’s creative artists did what they did for money. Especially writers. Sure, maybe they might have dashed off a short story for free here and there. But a career full of work? Only for money. Because writers have families and families need a regular flow of money.

Hmm. You’ve gotten me thinking. There have been many periods in history when artists made money to live by creating artistic works for the wealthy. The problem is that only the wealthy got to see many of those great works, when they visited each others mansions and palaces.

So, how about this. A really talented writer, just pick Charlie Stross as an example, needs money. So, he writes a novel because a zillionaire paid him $100K to do it. And Charlie prints one copy, that’s ONE print copy, for the zillionaire and then destroys all of his files, per agreement.

Just like the Medici paid artists for beautiful statues and paintings, and then kept those works for themselves, so modern artists – the ones with real talent – will make one-of-a-kind masterpieces for the wealthy.

Pity you and I will never read them.

There was only one way to make money – real money, money to support a family – as a creative artist in Florence in the 1400′s. (In their case, the average person had zero money for art, so there was no other way to get paid.) You demanded a commission from a wealthy patron. From Wikipedia on the Medici:

‘The Medici were responsible for the majority of Florentine art during their reign. Their money was significant because during this period, artists generally only made their works when they received commissions in advance.’

No money, no art.

Like I said, it’s a pity that you and I will never see them.

Because you’re right – the scenarios you explain are not entirely unreasonable. The only unreasonable part of your argument is the assumption that no one will ever be able to make any money from creative content.

At that point, the value of print books will go to ZERO. Not even chumps will pay $25 for a hard cover book, or $6.99 for a paperback, since the book is FREE online and everyone knows it. If the book has any merit at all, someone will scan it and make it available FREE within days of publication. Magazines will be scanned, and the ads removed automatically and the magazine sans ads will be available FREE. News sites will be downloaded, the text and article photos extracted, and made available FREE within minutes of online publication.

If your friend has a book, magazine or news article you like, just put his reader next to yours. Voila! Your friend has all of your stuff, and vice versa, if you want.

There will be NO MONEY in writing.

As soon as the resolution on this virtually free ebook reader gets good enough, they’ll do the same thing for movies, tv shows and every other form of media that can be transmitted electronically. (You’ll listen to it on your Bluetooth headphones.) The day after a movie is released, it will be FREE online.

There will be NO MONEY in movie making, tv shows, documentaries or any other form of media creation.

Oh yes, I know what you’re thinking. Big companies will PAY to have content created, and then it will be released with their branding as a promotion. WRONG! Hard-working content thieves will release versions that have all of that offensive promotional material removed within minutes of release.

Do you like the mashups that the copyleft morons tout as creative? Great! Because that’s all you’ll get.

Do you like quickie blog posts that take just a few minutes of thought (and Internet “research”) to make? Great! That’s all you’ll get.

Because everyone with any brains or talent will be using their brains and talent to support themselves and their families, doing something that makes MONEY, because everyone needs money. (That’s why they call it MONEY.)

“Youre utopian scheme is a pipe dream there is no mechanism for these movies, songs to be created. There is no incentive to create a product people are willing to pay for.”

Without going into detail on whether the ideas are utopian or not, there is nothing in the article to suggest the product should be free. The product can be charged for but there are cleverer ways of doing so than by annoying your customers.

“That is also what is wrong with FOSS, there is no incentive to create “commercial quality” product and services with free and unpaid / volenteer lagour.”

You are speaking from (I must assume) complete ignorance. FOSS products are excellent and often superior to similar commercial products “within the context of their purpose” which is not always identical to “similar” commercial products. In addition, companies (including IT giants like IBM) have made billions in services revenues supporting FOSS. It actually proves the exact opposite of your view.

“Sorry, but it’s the same the drug industry, it cost millions of dollars to develop and test new products, if there was no reward for this development that development will not take place.”

This is also a debatable matter. Big Pharma made billions in profits even before patents were prevalent, for over a hundred years, back in the days when drugs were not nearly as expensive as patented drugs are today. In addition, drug branding has been shown to work well in markets where it has been tested leading to high profits for non-patented drugs. Keeping drugs patented and expensive has never been adequately proved to be necessary for high profits, it has simply been demanded by Big Pharma. It can be argued that it is only due to their desire for “super-normal” profits, which the market does not owe them (according to free-market principles).

From an R&D perspective (relevant for pharma and software, patents and tight IP laws have been extensively proven to stifle innovation and slow down development which in the medium to long-run hurts the companies that practice them. Unfortunately, management typically does not see this or is not brave enough to act on it….