Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Is the Internet Killing Old and New Art Forms or Helping Them Grow? (nytimes.com)
The thing about the internet is that as it gained traction and started to become part of our lives, it caused a lot of pain -- bloodbath, many say -- to several major industries. The music industry was nearly decimated, for instance, and pennies on the dollar doesn't begin to describe what has happened to the newspapers. But things are starting to change, many observers note. As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings noted at the New Yorker Tech Festival last year, the internet is increasingly changing the way people consume content and that has forced the industries to innovate and find new ways to cater to their audiences. But some of these industries are still struggling to figure out new models for their survival. Farhad Manjoo, a technology columnist at The New York Times, argues that for people of the future, our time may be remembered as a period not of death, but of rejuvenation and rebirth. He writes: Part of the story is in the art itself. In just about every cultural medium, whether movies or music or books or the visual arts, digital technology is letting in new voices, creating new formats for exploration, and allowing fans and other creators to participate in a glorious remixing of the work. [...] In the last few years, and with greater intensity in the last 12 months, people started paying for online content. They are doing so at an accelerating pace, and on a dependable, recurring schedule, often through subscriptions. And they're paying for everything. [...] It's difficult to overstate how big a deal this is. More than 20 years after it first caught mainstream attention and began to destroy everything about how we finance culture, the digital economy is finally beginning to coalesce around a sustainable way of supporting content. If subscriptions keep taking off, it won't just mean that some of your favorite creators will survive the internet. It could also make for a profound shift in the way we find and support new cultural talent. It could lead to a wider variety of artists and art, and forge closer connections between the people who make art and those who enjoy it.
The music industry is defunct. Music flourishes. Newspapers are irrelevant, but awareness and engagement with current events is so high it's probably deeply unhealthy.
Media as a business is effectively on hiatus while society sorts out how to monetize things and what problems those monetization schemes cause. Media itself is in a golden age.
Almost all works of fiction are.
Last time I checked the RIAA isn't art. Neither is a newspaper.
They may transport art, and they are replaced by a new medium that does it better.
I fail to see the story here.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Internet has lowered to the barrier to getting stuff out to an audience, but it hasn't increased the talent level of the producers. Net result: easier to find more JUNK. Enjoy your cat videos.
If your looking for junk you will find it. I come across so much genuine and unknown talent online that I really scratch my head when I hear the radio and what is being fed to consumers. I've finally realized that success is majority marketing/publicity with a dash of talent, not the other way around.