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Open Content and Value Creation
Magnus Cedergren writes "Which are the driving forces behind the creation of Open Content? What value is created? That is the major questions I try to answer in my paper in the journal First Monday. I would like to thank all you people participating in my study in different ways."
If copying is a particular problem for digital content (such as music), then instead of retailing it one copy at a time (on CDs), or giving up and distributing it as Open Content, why not sell it in one go first and then release it as Open Content?
It's very similar to retail: everyone pays the same price, which is set by what the market will bear, but this time the price is set and the sale made, by the purchasers en masse - in advance of the release. This enables the creator to obtain the bulk of their revenue before their content can be copied.
The Digital Art AuctionThe trouble with closed content is that it's inaccessible to people who want to learn and do more in the future. Who knows what secrets we lost from ancient times, but we do have the stuff they shared, like statues. How important is that? Well, even WITH the statues it's hard to figure out how they did it. Knowing what was done would save us from reinventing the wheel after nearly 2000 years of "advances".
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If it is beneficial to the content creator as such.
Here we will legitimately need DRM - in the way that it should be implemented. We need a away to track content to its creaor and not have people reassign the creator.
Then we need a societial or business system that rewards these creators. Gaining an audiance these days is easy, gaining a following is not. Once people see it, and appreciate it, those they have to be able to reward the content creator in some way. Usualy this is money... But that's not what's happening now. We have this Open Content system going on now, and it works. But not as you expect. A lot of open source project leaders start or pick up projects for the recognistion, which then leads to employment and jobs. I've seen this time and time again. Case and point: Linus. At transmeta he was aloowed to work on the kernel all he wanted. At his previous employer too. The talent in open source generally gets recruited for f/t, p/t contract work...
But we're not talking about software, we're talking about media (Ironically, both are covered by copyrights...) and until there is a system in t place (an Open Content recording studio, printing press, or the like) Open Content won't get too far. For it is only in the tangeble items that we buy that we are addured some kind of sales figures.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
(I may be misunderstanding the term "OpenContent" - but I take it to mean "providing content, without making money on it").
I started to review the books I had read, about 7 years ago. It mainly started of as a way to remember what I had read. It quickly became a way to practice my english (which isn't my primary language) and an excuse for maintaining a homepage with some actual content.
My site has gone from static page to phpNuke (and my own extensions). My reviews has gone from a couple of stumbeling lines to fairly substansial things (when I feel like it).
I've worked hard at promoting the site and I've learned a lot about online advertising in the process.
Sometimes I can use a review as a soapbox, and vent a few of my feelings/ideas.
All this while providing something that may be useful to other people.
I've even spend a good deal of money on it, and the returnes from amazon(co.uk/.com) has been nothing compared to my expenses (mostly books/hosting).
The questions for me is more like: Why aren't you making open content? It's does take time, but if you actually know something, you'll get better and more confident with this knowledge in the process of sharing.
TC - My Photos..
The article was an interesting read, but I think it missed out on a massively important point.
... all that) to just go with atypical close content? At least then, your normally gauranteed a baseline of quality.
;) ). Additionally, to consume any open content, really doesnt require that much skill either... A whole area of checks and balances that exist in the code development world, just doesnt exist here. Coupled with the fact, that you really dont require any particular skill to publish (bad) content, and their is nobody out there to stop you from doing so... very very very quickly start drowning all the good stuff out with the bad.
The one thing that open content lacks ( and also, ironically one of its strengths ) is quality control. Anybody can realistically publish anything or everything they want, of their own creation into the public domain. This is an area that for the most part is lacking in an open content system. There is no editor per-say; there is no proof reader, or anybody that actually audits the validity of the content.
Of Course, the ability to publish your works into the public demand, effectively for free, is a great advantage. As is the ability to publish that which you wish to say without censorship, and in some cases, without ulterior motive.
At the same time, thats the problem... with out quality control, the consistancy of the published work or the validity of fact within such work cannot be gauranteed. In the end, of times, one will spend longer sifting through the garbage in order to find a gem... that in the end, it would perhaps have been simplier and some case's cheaper ( time is money
Dont take that the wrong way... im not saying that open content is lesser in quality then closed content... I imagine that just isnt the case. But, there is a reason we hire people to sift through good and bad products to decide what should be published. Allowing any tom, dick or harry to publish whatever works they wish is a wonderful thing, but for every item published... the ability to find the creme of the crop, becomes harder and harder.
Then there is open content along the lines of news/information. From a closed content provider, their is often a certain legal liability or onus on the publisher to verify the validity of said content. Under an open content system, there is no such thing. For the most part, I read a story in the newspaper... im pretty much sure its mostly based on fact... lawsuits result from less. ( That said, I have no trust of closed media either. ) On the same accord... on the net... I can read stories from basically anyone in the world... now, knowing if I can trust it, if it was real, or just some bogus hoax... that I cant do.
Thats the difference in a sense between open source software, and open source content. The world of software is by its nature a much smaller subset... their are certain skills you need to possess to both create content ( code/software ), and to use that content. Dont get me wrong, there are loads of crap open source projects out there... but due to the realivly small size of the community, coupled with its technical savvy... the truly good projects tend to rise to the top. However, in the world of open content... ANYBODY can play... there is no baseline skill required to say... write an article ( I didnt say a good one...
Im not against the idea... im just suggesting that as open content becomes more successful, its success itself, will result in more open content being released... quality going down... and difficulty in finding such good content rising. One need just look at the difference between the web now, and say... in 1996... You cant argue that it isnt much more cluttered with crap then its ever been.
That's hardly the same thing. Your mom can only give her canvases away once, and at a few thousand dollar a canvas, I can see why she'd be reluctant to. But she could give away reproductions of her work; putting them up on a website would cost next to nothing (ignoring for the moment the difficulty in scanning large paintings). Surprise... many artists already provide content this way, usually for free and with very few strings attached.
I don't know about music... perhaps there is some free sheet music available; I've never looked. But dont think it'll never happen if a quick search won't turn up anything.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
and they do it pretty well with no money too
http://www.bangshortfilmfestival.com/
okay they aren't going to make a special effects action movie but there is more to the genre than massive budget film
even CGI
http://www.hardlight.couk.com/
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
>>>On the contrary. There is a fair amount of free "sheet music" available online now, in a number of open formats. It's mostly of older (pre-1930's) music, of course, for the obvious copyright reasons. You can find both classical and traditional (folk) music.
;-) books of music and pay the $0.05 per page or whatever to get it on their screen. This could quickly put an end to the illicit copying of printed books, because it's so much more convenient.
I know there's lots of free sheet music, but playing in a jazz group, you need access to tons of numbers. Those numbers include all the way from the 1910's to now. I couldnt limit myself to just numbers in the public domain. We get paid to do songs THEY request.
>>>If the music publishers had a grain of sense, they'd do the obvious thing here. Set up web sites like the iTunes site, but for "sheet music", that charge a very small amount per page or per score.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense to us. But they dont think we matter.
>>>Encourage wireless coverage so that musicians will stop carrying around (copies of
For that price, I wouldnt mind being truthful if I got another score off of somebody else. I'd report it and pay the 5c per page (or whatever). Heck, for a 1$ per song, I'd be truthful if I downloaded it from somebody else-and liked it. All I care about is a high quality digital copy with no "protections".
Sheet music => PNG, JPEG, PS, PDF
Audio Music => RAW, FLAC, High VBR OGG/MP3
Video => MPEG2, associated FREE(as in gpl) codecs
Perhaps they'll learn.
This is different. Someone didn't create open content - they created copywritten content, which then went into the public domain after the term was over. In most cases the author used the opportunity to restrict copying to only paying customers, and thus made money on his creation.
And yes, once a creative work has been created, it absolutly benifits society for everyone to have access to it. The question is whether an environment can be created where works are free to all and the author is still compensated for his work. But I think that we can easily agree that the current terms of copyright are far longer than neccisarry than needed provide an author time to make money off his work.
A micro-pay system for sheet music would be very nice, but I have to point out that it isn't open content - it's affordable, convienent content. And the whole point of open content is that it's isn't under the control of a single entity, who will provide affordable, convienent access only if he feels like it (which he may be too stupid to do).
I get a lot out of writing open content material. The best thing is getting sincere thanks from people who use my work. A secondary benefit is that I think that it helps my consulting business.
That said, I probably spend only 5% of my "work" time producing free open content - I do have to pay the bills.
-Mark