Imagine a world without publishers, broadcasters or record labels. Imagine the complex infrastructure, large distribution networks, massive advertising campaigns, and multi-million signing contracts provided by the media incumbents all gone from our society. What would our culture look like? Will the music stop? Will pens dry up?
I would hope not, but I recently read Siva Vaidhyanathan’s book, The Anarchist in the Library, and I encountered a curious quote from Time Warner CEO, Richard Parsons:
This is a very profound moment historically. This isn’t just about a bunch of kids stealing music. It’s an assault on everything that constitutes cultural expression of our society. If we fail to protect and preserve out intellectual property system, the culture will atrophy. And the corporations wont be the only ones hurt. Artists will have no incentive to create. Worst-case scenario: the country will end up in a sort of Cultural Dark Age.
The idea that “artists will have no incentive to create” without corporations’ monetary promise goes against everything we know about the creative mind. Through out human history, self-expression has existed under the extreme conditions, for little or no gain; if anything, self-expression has flourished under the most unrewarding conditions. Now we that the Internet provides a medium to share information, people will create.
A fundamental misunderstanding in the relationship between media industry and the artist has produced an environment that has led the industry to believe that they are the reason for creative output, not just a beneficiary. However, the Internet is bringing the power of production and distribution to the user. And if production and distribution — which are where historically media companies made their money — can be handled by users, then what will be left for the media companies? With the surge in content, will media companies need to become filters and editors? If not, then what is there?
The current media model depends on controlling the flow of information, and as information becomes harder to control their power will diminish. On the internet we see strong communities building around very specific niches. As these communities get stronger, they will become harder to compete with. I believe that these niches will develop into the next generation media companies. These will be the companies that the large media companies will need to compete with.
The challenges that the current media companies face remind me of what happened to AT&T in the 1990s. After being broken up into “baby-bells”, AT&T was left providing only long distance. It was just a matter of time before the “baby-bells” began eating away at AT&T’s business from below, and there was little AT&T could do about it.
I think Richard Parsons’ quote shows a misunderstanding not only in the reason why people share information, but also in the direction of new technologies. For that reason I do not have much hope for the current media companies to adjust. Their only hope is to change and change represents their demise.
Oh please, the end of corporate sponsorship signals the end of culture? What crap!
The term “starving artist” was coined for a reason. Artists who create even though they can’t make a living from their art! Art, of all types, will continue to be made whether or not there is some corporate, institutional mechanism for the artist to get paid.
This is the case EVEN NOW. My experience is mainly on the music side. Online, reference these sites to get a glimpse of just how many people are making music with no care as to remuneration, and CERTAINLY outside the institutional Major Label system:
http://songfight.org
http://somesongs.com
http://garageband.com
http://ccmixter.com
Just to name a few! MP3.com was FULL of people who were never going to make a dime off their music, but who made it anyway. Right now YouTube is being filled with content made by the same type of people. Visit deviantart.com for a visual-arts example, or any of the dozens of weird forums where people create fantastic photoshop works just for the other folks on the forum! Or sites like worth1000.com even. Or heck, Flickr!
Not that we should expect a quote from the CEO of Time Warner to be anything but self-serving, but the very insincerity of the quote should be forcefully pointed out at every opportunity. It’s just not SERIOUSLY debatable!
JB
admin: songfight.org
the canard that artists won’t create if we aren’t paid is silly.
most of us are not _currently_ being paid by the corporations,
yet we continue to make art anyway. because we _must_…
these accountants are just projecting their own minds onto us;
accountants _would_ stop doing accounting if they weren’t paid.
(which i understand entirely.)
and, you know, that might be the best way to get rid of ’em…
-bowerbird
“Artists will have no incentive to create.”
Are the “media” conglomerates the engine that drives all this creativity? Do they control this evolving medium? Well, their sticky tentacles are all over the place, of course, cluttering all kinds of interesting blogs with advertising. Is there no surface left untouched? But as to corporate entities being the engine that drives this train, I do not see that in operation here. What I do see is the flourishing of individual creativity which is louder and more powerful and more urgent and more quirky, creative, and compelling than what financial incentives alone would provide. Sure, we all need to pay the bills. But the source and energy for anyone with an original creative idea comes from something far less controllable than a corporate entity’s marketing department. The rebellious and childlike mind of the artist can now show its creations to the world without the filter of the grownups. That surely must annoy the people in the suits.
That quote would be too stupid to bother taking seriously, if it wasn’t in danger of being taken seriously by law-makers. (Perhaps most depressing is the artist-turned-glove-puppet who parrots the same argument.)
But your post signalled another train of thought for me:
“Through out human history, self-expression has existed under the extreme conditions, for little or no gain; if anything, self-expression has flourished under the most unrewarding conditions.”
If – as I think you’re suggesting – art has tended to thrive in adversity, could the sheer ease of cultural production and distribution that the internet offers be bad for us? Do we as artists (and human beings in general, for that matter) need boundaries to develop? And, if so, does the virtual infinity of the internet pose a problem subtler than those seen by self-interested record company execs?
I once heard the current British Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, talking about the advent of the word processor and its impact on the submissions he was receiving as a poetry editor. He reckoned it led to an increase in manuscripts that showed little sign of having been re-read – let alone reworked, refined – by the would-be poet. If I remember right, his theory was that the experience of seeing our words in print, on clean white paper or in a clean white window, lends them a certain authority, a semblance of publishableness, which affects our judgement.
It’s an interesting idea.
dougald said:
> could the sheer ease of cultural production and distribution
> that the internet offers be bad for us? Do we as artists
> (and human beings in general, for that matter)
> need boundaries to develop? And, if so,
> does the virtual infinity of the internet pose
> a problem subtler than those seen by
> self-interested record company execs?
now _these_ are more interesting questions, to be sure…
under the corporate system, the few artists who _do_ get paid
— over and above the “advance” that most never “earn back” —
often become _such_ fat calves they seem to lose their artistry…
but in my own experience, having _an_audience_ for your work
— which is all the web really _promises_ us, not a paycheck —
is a good thing with (for the most part) beneficial consequences.
> I once heard the current British Poet Laureate,
> Andrew Motion, talking about the advent of
> the word processor and its impact on the
> submissions he was receiving as a poetry editor.
> He reckoned it led to an increase in manuscripts
> that showed little sign of having been re-read
> – let alone reworked, refined – by the would-be poet.
> If I remember right, his theory was that
> the experience of seeing our words in print,
> on clean white paper or in a clean white window,
> lends them a certain authority, a semblance of
> publishableness, which affects our judgement.
that might’ve been true “at the advent” of word-processing,
but i think most people are well past that point by now, and
the ease of re-writing that word-processing allows us means
people tend to do _more_ re-writing than they did in the past.
of course, the “instant” nature of today’s communications has
blown away that advantage. i’m constantly amazed by people
who believe their poor writing and typo-filled missives can be
“excused” by the position that they spent little time writing it,
as if the large number of people who _read_ it have no import.
-bowerbird
Dougald Hine,
Great comment. Thanks.
You said:
I know this is not exactly what you mean, but I hope you get my point: I would never want to put a barrier on self-expression or on it’s sharing. I think that Picasso would be seen as a great painter even if there were tens of thousands new artists at the time who access to the required resources…
Also, I agree with you that difficutly does produce interesting work. I just don’t think that the difficulty should present itself at the point of creation or distribution.