> From: Denver Gingerich > There's another part of free culture that I think is not talked about > a lot but is nonetheless quite important. When an artist that uses > pro-sharing licenses requests donations, we should be the first to > donate.
Being one of those peculiar folk who believe language is important, I suggest this would be better phrased as "When an artist who publishes works of free culture invites patronage from his appreciative audience, the free culturalists among them should be the first to pledge payment for future work". Artists are not charity cases, which is why I wouldn't recommend use of the term 'donate'. They are quite able to sell their art and art production services in a free market (without the benefit of monopoly). Of course, donate is still quite valid as a term to describe a gift or grant by a patron to an artist they'd like to see produce more great work, but I fear it has unproductive connotations, e.g. implying that the artist cannot otherwise make a living from their art, cannot sell it or their labour in a free market, but must survive solely on the sympathetic generosity of their audience. > On the same note, it would be good to see some successful business > models built around pro-sharing licenses. The donation model is one, > but others, like the Street Performer Protocol > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Performer_Protocol), also exist. > There are also some of the more well-known methods such as performing > concerts or hosting art galleries that people pay for. Adapting those > to free content would be very useful. I think finding one of these > models that works is key to promoting free culture. I agree wholeheartedly. Artists produce a valuable product valued by their audience. There is clearly an opportunity for artist and audience to exchange art for money, money for art. That is business, not charity. I'm currently working on a generic mechanism (www.contingencymarket.com) that should enable any number of people to explore 'these models' - until eventually we discover one or more 'that works'. > I have pretty much ignored fixing copyright laws as a way of promoting > free culture in this message. I think it's useful to do, but I'm > worried that it might have negative side-effects. For example, people > may become upset if you reduce the length of copyright protection from > 95 years to 5 years because they feel that you're not protecting > property rights, which a lot of people believe are fundamental to a > properly-functioning economy. I also believe strong protection of intellectual property is fundamental to a properly-functioning economy - along with all the related IP rights. Free culture simply requires the restoration of those rights suspended a few centuries ago in order to create the privileges of copyright and patent. Once those rights are restored, when you buy IP it's entirely yours. No-one else can control what you do with your own property, whether sharing it, building upon it, or selling it. However, as you may concur, until free culture becomes clearly economically superior, the traditional publishers will cling on to their anachronistic monopolies (despite their ineffectiveness in the digital domain). _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
