[extropy-chat] A post-IP mechanism for funding creativity

[Emlyn]

Hi all,

Ever since Damien (Damien Broderick) posted about the idea of putting
a book online and soliciting donations from readers, I've been
thinking about mechanisms for funding creative work, where the work is
given away for free. Finally, I think I've come up with something that
might be workable.

I'm assuming a post-IP world. I know that IP is very much with us, but
enforcing it in the digital environment, especially for individuals,
is practically impossible, so it is best to start from the premise
that individuals can't control the copying of their work.

Giving away work online is fine, I do it myself as much as possible.
And that choice is fine if, like me, you get your income elsewhere.
But if you want to be able to create full time and not starve, you
need to get money from somewhere. It's not clear to me that the paypal
busker's hat is a good enough mechanism to do that (although I have
yet to try it).

It is clear to me that there are actually people who are willing to
pay for work by favoured artists. The presence of near frictionless
acquisition of artworks for free through P2P mechanisms means that
even the most principled are turned off by too high a price, and the
pricing of the pre-internet world for music, books, movies, etc is way
too high, reflecting lots of physical media distribution costs, middle
people rents, etc. But if we could get people to pay a little online,
and have nearly all of that go to artists, that'd be a big
achievement.

The first thing that occurs to me is that you need a larger grouping
than a single artist to get incentive to pay. Some of the problem with
the paypal busker's hat is that it's a bit painful to pay, and you'd
be put off doing it just to send someone 10 cents, say. You might do
it a couple of times, but then you start not bothering, telling
yourself that you'll get around to it later...

But if people could pay a chunk of money periodically, then distribute
it painlessly, or have it distributed for them, that might work.
People would set up subscription once, have a credit card (or paypal
account) billed yearly say, and have no more monetary hassles apart
from that.

---

So the idea is that you have an organisation (a web site in practice)
where people come along, pay up as members (patrons of the arts!) and
artists could also register to be able to receive grants to help them
create. The paying members would have some say over where subscription
fees went, but probably not directly. Rather, they would vote in some
way for the artists they liked, and that would contribute to a
reputation score for the artists. Artists would propose projects, and
based on their reputations and probably on direct voting for their
projects by Patrons, the system would allocate grants to artists on a
project basis.

You'd probably want a system following up the funded projects, to
publicly report the results. It's my feeling that funding should be
restricted to projects which produce free (as in liberty) artworks,
which would encourage a lot of new online artforms where you otherwise
can't get anyone to pay (like a wiki based collaborative novel, for
instance). Artist reputation should then be affected by the difference
between the proposal and the actual result produced (ie: those failing
to follow through would damage their reputations, and it would stay on
their record). Much like reputations on e-bay.

Patrons should have publicly visible reputations, and some of the
money from memberships should go into promoting the organisation,
rather than just to grants. You need to promote the idea that it is a
Good Thing (tm) to be a member and fund artists, and also that it is a
Cool Thing (tm), and also that it is a Status Thing (tm). I find that
people love to climb a ladder if you place it before them and if they
think their peers are looking, so you want to promote the idea that
the reputation score on this site is actual social capital.

To encourage the status side of things, different levels of reputation
amongst Patrons could be set, you know, like silver, gold, platinum
and diamond status, that kind of thing. There could also be special
events held which are only available for higher reputation levels,
maybe some or all artworks are released to high reputation members
only for a short period of time before being opened up to everyone.
There should be benefits, benefits, benefits!!! And reputation level
should be as visible as possible at all times. There should be as many
ways as possible of comparing one's reputation with that of others, to
see where one ranks.

Over and above the basic membership fee, it should also be allowable
to sponsor individual artists, or areas of interest (like "folk music
in northern albania"). For individual artists, it would result in
direct cash contributions to the artists (maybe for their latest
project), and increasing those artists reputations; for subject areas
it would increase the pool of grant money available for the artists
who place themselves in that grouping. Any direct grants should be
split though, so that for instance half goes where it is intended, and
the other half goes to the general pool.

There probably needs to be something like a lottery system for those
artists with no existing reputation; if you win a grant, you get a
chance to get off the ground. Is there some other way to do this?

Also, maybe the above could be a fully fledged reputation market?
Contributing money to an artist might boost reputation of the artist,
and the patron would get reputation shares in that artist, which could
then be traded on the reputation market; you could then have
speculation trading purely in reputation. I get out of my depth here,
this is something for Robin Hanson I think.

----

That's it in a nutshell.

My main motivation here is to provide a mechanism for artists to be
able to fund their creativity. It's not about a few getting rich, and
the rest being hobbyists, as is the current model. It mustn't tend
toward winner take all. So the grants should tend to be small and
many, rather than few and large.

I think that the current model of fame out there is a very pointy
pyramid, ever pointier in a global market. It seems to not be scaling
well; a few people become bazillionarres and the rest are paupers. I
think this is the result of mass production and distribution, which
favours few, expensively produced artists, meeting globalisation. But
in the post-IP world of the net, this is bad; there is huge incentive
to rip off a globally famous artist in as many ways as possible, and
we definitely see it happening (whether by P2P pirates or by their own
management).

The idea is aimed at small groups and individuals, and isn't about
funding huge lavish productions and the like. State grants bodies can
continue to pump endless money into their friend's high art pieces
that no one else cares about. This is about funding the common or
garden self actualiser in producing things that enrich us all.

I think an idea like the one I've outlined above can move us to a
situation where there are many more artists, less of a peak on the
much wider fame mountain (facilitated by the measured reputation
scores in such a system) and a much more decentralised artistic
economy where many people can live comfortably making the art they
want to make.

Also, if this meme can take hold, and many people pay because it is
Good, Cool or Status, then artists can give the products of their art
away for free (all the better to boost reputation!) and all the
problems of "piracy" go away. If we could get to that point (ie: to
Wuffie), maybe we could start thinking about throwing the IP system
out once and for all.

Comments?

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *