The formula to profit on the net is this:
1) More access to content = more fans
2) More fans = more true fans
3) More true fans = more money
The internet is the Economics of Abundance. Whereas in the 20th century, content was a scarcity (as a child I played through the same Nintendo games over and over again), Today on the internet there is overwhelming content & overwhelming copies (people have huuuuge backlogs), which means My Time becomes the scarcity, not the content (nor the copies). That is why the internet is called the Attention Economy. John Perry Barlow, founder of eff.org states that the internet is monetized through ‘Attention’ or ‘Familiarity’.
“Economically when you spread information you create demand for it.” — John P Barlow
This is how it works:
The spreading of your copies BUYS people’s Attention.
The more your work is freely available, the more attention you’ve bought, therefore the more true fans you will generate, therefore the more money you will make from true fans gobbling up your shit.
Your own fans sharing those purchases have now become your single BEST asset to establishing even more relationships with fans. They have become your co-conspirators, your vehicle of advertisement. When they copy you, they evangelize you. And that is the BEST thing that can happen to any creator on the net because ACCESS to content generates fans, fans brew into true fans, and true fans will pay to see more of your work get made.
Why do true fans pay? Firstly they don’t pay because they have to pay, they pay because they WANT to pay. They are patrons. They want to hire you to make more. Secondly they pay because they see value in exchanging their money for your goods. Now the goods you have (or the service really) for sale is NOT your game. It is NOT your video or music or writing. You are not selling games you are selling your labour. Your goods (or your services) IS your labour. And the more people that know your work, the more likely they will be attracted to your TRUE goods (or services) which is your labour. Your labour IS the scarcity not the copies, for it cannot be pirated. Once you get your head around that it makes no sense to try to restrict the spreading of your works. (If in doubt, repeat this a few times in your head)
The Economics of Scarcity and the business models of the 20th century are COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT on the internet. If you INSIST on using obsolete business models in a post-scarcity world, you will not succeed. The art of making money is like an art. It actually CHANGES as the technology of the time changes (Surprise!).
So to recap,
1) Post-scarcity world is where ONE TRILLION pieces of free entertainment competes for people’s free time.
2) With so much competition, it is difficult enough just to get people to READ your work (for free), let alone PAY for it (and this is especially true if you have zero marketing budget). People do not inherently care for your visual novels. they have huge backlogs. Their free time is the scarcity. Not your content.
3) The spreading of your work generates demand for your work. Fan sharing is even better, because it carries recommendation capital. People don’t just share anything. They only share the things that they like. When they copy, they’re evangelizing it.
4) When you are ready, call in your true fans and ask them to commission your next piece of work. Keep in mind that they are paying you to create. They are your employers. It’s not a donation.
5) The only way to make people feel comfortable about opening their wallets for you is through transparency. “These are my living expenses. This is my budget for the month. This money is going towards buying new equipment, this surplus money I didn’t need so I donated it, etc. etc.” If people LIKE you for being honest, generous, open and human, they will be more willing to contribute.
6) If you have 1000 true fans who’ve paid for the game to be made, then 1 million playing it is as expensive as a ‘Torrent File’.
7) Note that I am not describing anything new. Jim C Hines’s 2010 survey of today’s novelists show that the average time spent writing BEFORE a sale was 11 years. Consider Alanis Morissette’s attorney at the Future of Music Conference’s remarkable statement: 97% of the artists signed to a major label before Napster earned $600 or less a year from it. And those were the lucky lotto winners, they were a tiny fraction of a 1% who even made it to a record deal to begin with.
“Piracy is nor our enemy, obscurity is” -Tim O’Reilly
These are Independent studies on the effects of File-sharing: [Studies on File-Sharing][What Filesharing Studies Really Say – Conclusions and Links] We have empirical evidence to show:
1) No negative effects on sales as a result of piracy. and 2) Piracy increases sales. Notice that we don’t have any empirical evidence to show that piracy drops sales numbers. Please also see Christian Engstrom’s summary article: File Sharing is not a problem that needs to be solved.
As Neil Young puts it, “Piracy is the new radio.” People need to get used to the idea that internet is just like home taping when that came about in the 90s. The culture business never died (much less culture itself). In fact, it flourished. The top 5 grossing films in history were made in the last 4 years.
The confusion between sharing being vilified as stealing
is always… ALWAYS a confusion between the nature of physical objects in a physical world VS the nature of information in the information world. And the big copyright industries knows this and they exploit this confusion PERFECTLY by superimposing 1:1 the physical over the world of ideas.
The Nature of Property
Suppose you sell me an apple. In a mutual non-coercive trade between two people, the property rights for the apple is transferred. I relinquish control over a sum of money. You relinquish control of the apple. In this case, the rights to the apple is being relinquished. Its ownership rights go from you to me. I don’t care how much effort you spent growing that apple, we agree that you give up your right to control this apple completely because you exchanged it for money.
Now this apple of mine I will share it if I want to. I will even COPY my apple (i.e. throw it in the replicator from Star Trek) then share the copies to starving children. It becomes none of your business what I do with my own apple.
Now what about pieces of information that have been sold?
Suppose someone has a game. Imagine if, while they were asleep, I sneakily modified their copy of the game (as opposed to modifying my own copy). When the person wakes up and finds that his game had been changed, he is furious. Would he be justified in being furious? I am exercising control over his copy without his permission (a right which is reserved ONLY for the property owner). It would not be okay, because not only is it trespass, it is also a form of vandalism and a breach of privacy.
Now contrast with this scenario:
Say if I purchased a copy of the game from him… what if I take my new copy, I go to my computer and I make modifications to my copy. Would that still be trespass or vandalism? …not at all. Because me modifying my copy affects only MY copy. His copy is unaffected. Even if I upgraded my copy to version 2.0, his would still be 1.0. That is why no conflict occurs over the use of property, each exercises control over their own copy. This is how property works. Property rights is absolute morality. We all know Don’t steal. Don’t hit. Don’t trespass property. Don’t exercise control of what isn’t yours. And so it is even with copies of information. In a mutual non-coercive trade between two people, the property rights for a piece of information is transferred. I relinquish control of a sum of money. You relinquish control of that copy. I couldn’t care less how much effort you spent developing it, we agree that you give up your right to control this copy completely because you exchanged the right to control it for money. Now this copy of mine I will share it if I want to. I will even COPY my copy (i.e. throw it in those 20th century devices called ‘a computer’ and execute the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V command) then share the copies to children living in poverty. It becomes none of your business what I do with my own copy. The fact that you spent time assembling it is quite irrelevant. If you get annoyed at these things don’t sell any copies! Keep it for personal use.
Enter Copyright
Now as a society we can agree to give up certain rights to our own property in order to promote the progress of learning, hence why copyright was invented [see Statute of Anne]. In the 18th century, copyright was enacted as a statute for the ‘Encouragement of Learning’, its aim is to benefit the public, which is us. It’s not for authors. Copyright is the limited time, limited suspension of the PEOPLE’S RIGHT to COPY. With copyright, that right we all have, the right to exercise full control over our own property is taken away and given over to the copyright holders for their commercial exploitation thereof. (hence Copyright ‘Holders’. they HOLD your right to copy.)
US Congress: “The granting of such exclusive rights [copyrights] under the proper terms and conditions, cofers a benefit upon the public that outweighs the evils of the temporary monopoly.”
Copyright is merely a set of commercial laws that grant the holder special abilities to employ the State’s branch of coercion to shut down competing distributors, which is us (in 21st century context). You must understand that when copyright was invented, they weren’t thinking of the internet. They were thinking of the Printing Press. Back in the 18th century, it was possible to employ the State’s power to shut all other printers down because there were so few of them. Back then, you could afford to sue and remove all of your competitors (thus achieving monopoly). In 2012, you would have to sue your country’s entire population. In an age where desktops, laptops, phones, tablets et al have all become virtual copying machines and they’re all directly connected to each other, copyright begins to look hilariously outdated.
Questioning Intellectual Property
“Intellectual Property” law is not an inherent natural law, it is a “product” of human design, it wasn’t here “before the beginning of time” like property was and we just had to articulate it and write it down as a law. Unlike real physical property law, it was designed by a few people and then forced upon the rest of us. The fact is that property exist even among animals, they can’t articulate (they can’t talk) they certainly can’t understand it, but try to take something away from a dog… he will defend it because it is his property. The same was true for us. Before we evolved into homo sapiens, our ancestors started to live in groups (the predecessor of society) and they couldn’t speak, they couldn’t articulate their “thoughts”, but they already had the concept of property because that was the only way to achieve a peaceful coexistence. If something was scarce and rivalrous, it was designated an owner and it was shared only under the “blessings” of this owner and that it can be exchanged for other property and they did this even though they didn’t understand any of the concepts behind their actions.
We consider theft a crime, not because of the “ten commandments”, not because the “people who wrote the law” said it shall be like this, but because it was a law long before we could articulate such a thing as law much less write it down on paper. This is why we tolerate and (most of us) accept the confiscation of unlawfully obtained property because it doesn’t disrupt the peace it actually makes the peace more stable.
This is why the majority of the internet does not accept “Intellectual Property” (even though they say they do), this is why there are so many “thieves” out there downloading music, movies, books, software. These people are doing it because they “know” it does not disrupt the peace, they “know” it is something we can do without injuring another individual, and if we injure nobody then we are not disrupting the spontaneous order and consequently we are not disrupting the peace.
When a large majority of the population doesn’t care for some “law” and/or they care about it only because of severe punishments, it is not law at all, it is just some bad and counterproductive command from the “authorities” forced on us in order to serve the interests of some groups at the expense of other groups. Real laws are those respected by the large majority even without the threat of punishment from the government – only a small minority (the criminals) need to be forced to respect a real law, that is why we call it law, because the large majority “know” it emerged in order to save the peace, not designed in order to serve somebody’s interest.
-Original text by Aaeru @ Fuwanovel.org
