Honorsystemistas
I have been considering the cultural effects of file-sharing lately. Already there been a resurgence in live music as the economy shifts away from the CD commodity, though live music venues are still controlled by large media conglomerates. I think there will be other interesting effects of file-sharing. The vast availability of feature films on BitTorrent and eMule formats has generated a crisis in Hollywood. At the same time, the web is able to deliver much more independent video content. As Hollywood adapts to the web, it will likely make the full transition to product-placement revenue - i.e. releasing feature-length advertisements, complete with interactive shopping, into the peer-o-sphere. Pornography has really taken the lead in this respect, releasing peer-to-peer files to the winds in the hopes that, like carrier pigeons, they will point customers home. This strategy is otherwise known as "viral advertising": advertisers, taking a cue from pornographers, release a "too hot for TV" clip in the hopes that it will take wing on a warm wind of taboo.
But back to film and music. Say that people demand meaningful art and get wise to pocket-picking advertisers. One option is pay-to-play film and audio. Right now, this is working largely in an environment of scarcity. Online music stores exchange money for the rights to download content. In a fully developed file-sharing world, on the other hand, there is no scarcity, and everyone has the right to download. Does the starving artist finally starve? I don't think so. I take the record label Magnatune to be a case in point. Though they are not quite where I think music and film will go, they are miles ahead of the curve. Magnatune, for the most part, uses the honor system. You pay the artist what you can or will. Compared to record label CD sales, where an artist gets from 25 cents to a dollar per CD, this is a pretty good deal.
We can imagine a world where, at the end of a peer-to-peer file, there is an admonishment for some kind of viewer- or listener-supported donation. This is a situation much more like public television and radio. In this environment - on the honor system - it would seem to me that certain kinds of art would be economically more viable. For example, Bowling for Columbine would do much better than Resident Evil. That is, file sharing would foster an honorable culture to complement the honor system. Communitarian values would persist while the messages of "all against all" would fail. There would be exceptions to this rule - namely fear-based holy crusades, which will always nab a portion of the population.
As it stands, we are already well on our way to a polarized body politic. It is only part of the story to claim the red state/blue state split is made up of metro liberals vs. heartland conservatives - F911 vs. Passion of the Christ. The other part is the divide between those with Internet access and those fed with TV. As the technology of file sharing spreads, I believe the body politic will continue to cleave into yet another recognizable dialectic - the overcommercialized and the honorsystemistas.
But back to film and music. Say that people demand meaningful art and get wise to pocket-picking advertisers. One option is pay-to-play film and audio. Right now, this is working largely in an environment of scarcity. Online music stores exchange money for the rights to download content. In a fully developed file-sharing world, on the other hand, there is no scarcity, and everyone has the right to download. Does the starving artist finally starve? I don't think so. I take the record label Magnatune to be a case in point. Though they are not quite where I think music and film will go, they are miles ahead of the curve. Magnatune, for the most part, uses the honor system. You pay the artist what you can or will. Compared to record label CD sales, where an artist gets from 25 cents to a dollar per CD, this is a pretty good deal.
We can imagine a world where, at the end of a peer-to-peer file, there is an admonishment for some kind of viewer- or listener-supported donation. This is a situation much more like public television and radio. In this environment - on the honor system - it would seem to me that certain kinds of art would be economically more viable. For example, Bowling for Columbine would do much better than Resident Evil. That is, file sharing would foster an honorable culture to complement the honor system. Communitarian values would persist while the messages of "all against all" would fail. There would be exceptions to this rule - namely fear-based holy crusades, which will always nab a portion of the population.
As it stands, we are already well on our way to a polarized body politic. It is only part of the story to claim the red state/blue state split is made up of metro liberals vs. heartland conservatives - F911 vs. Passion of the Christ. The other part is the divide between those with Internet access and those fed with TV. As the technology of file sharing spreads, I believe the body politic will continue to cleave into yet another recognizable dialectic - the overcommercialized and the honorsystemistas.
posted by thebaffler at 2:26 PM
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