Social Media Club Question of the Week: Is free content hurting creative industries or advancing society?

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Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Photo by Dave Wild (publicenergy)

My career as a journalist and writer taught me that content has value, that I should be paid for my expertise and for my time. I continue to believe that. My second career as cofounder of a web startup has, so far, taught me that people do not want or expect to pay for pretty much anything online. Whether you’ve invested your time in making an album, writing a book, researching and writing hundreds of blog posts, it should still–according to Internet logic–be free. Never mind that you invested your time (and time IS money) and talents in making it.

Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, tells an interesting story of the backlash and anger that occurred after he had the gall to take some of his own older blog posts down so that they could be published and sold in book form. Later, he gave away a free book, saying, “According to my fan mail, people loved the free book. I know they loved it because they emailed to ask when the sequel would also be available for free. For readers of my non-Dilbert books, I inadvertently set the market value for my work at zero. Oops.”

When the free model hurts creative industries, it hurts society as a whole. Artistic people who have creativity to share can no longer devote themselves to their craft and, instead, end up working at the local coffee shop. That’s not helping anyone and is depriving society of a great deal of talent. I know a ridiculous number of laid-off and unemployed writers who have tremendous talent to share with the world but no longer have the time to do so because they’ve had to take additional jobs to pay the bills.

One of our biggest challenges with Regator is that we seek out the web’s best blogs and feature them but many of the web’s best smaller blogs–those run by one person with a passion for/understanding of a topic–cease to operate after a few months. Why? Because many bloggers tire of working without compensation. It’s a labor of love and even though they find great satisfaction in writing it and interacting with readers, too many call it quits because they simply don’t have the time to continue. I’ll say it again, time is money. The fortunate thing about bloggers is that with good enough content and enough attention and traffic, they can monitize their readers.

But free is limiting. Journalists aren’t going to go out and do research for six months on an investigative story they won’t make a penny from. In-depth feature-length pieces that require weeks of interviews and drafts must be paid for somehow. That’s why I think the public’s sense of entitlement when it comes to free content is a dangerous thing. I understand that people don’t like paying for things. Newspapers have made many wrong moves in the last decade, not least of which was attempting to simultaneously sell via print the exact same content that was available for free online. Their milk was free. No one wants to feed the cow.

Content has value. That’s why Regator doesn’t aggregate full blog posts. One of our main goals is to send additional traffic to niche and smaller, well-written blogs so that they can get some rewards–financial or otherwise–from their work. We recognize the value in the time that bloggers have invested and the artistic and creative efforts they’ve put forward. The problem is that the web has taught people that they should get things of value for free. We’re being trained to devalue art and content. Not to get too far off track, but even the web itself doesn’t know how to monetize the web. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others are all losing money by the bagful. They’re providing useful, well-liked services. If they were brick-and-mortar businesses, they’d be rolling in it. How long can we continue to innovate without profit?

What I’m talking about is the devaluation of art and creative content. I’m not arguing for one moment that there aren’t places for free or that free can never be beneficial. If you’re a band who chooses to give away your album to draw more concert-goers or sell more merch, if you’re a writer who wants to give away one book in hopes that familiarizing the public with your work will help you push your other material, if you’re a playwright who chooses to allow works based on your work, if you’re a photographer participating in Creative Commons for credit (see photo by Dave Wild [publicenergy] above) to build your name or reputation. Those are all smart choices. But they’re CHOICES that you as the artist and creator of the content are making. Sharing is good until we forget that it’s optional.

Additional reading (some of these support my opinions; others, the opposite but all are worth reading):
Wired’s Chris Anderson wrote one of the most interesting pieces I’ve read on this topic, “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business”
TechDirt: “No One Ever Said Free Is the Business Model–But It Absolutely Should Be A Part of the Business Model” and “The Grand Unified Theory on the Economics of Free”
BoingBoing: “Samuelson and Lessig’s Free Culture Talks: Why Copyright Needs Fixing and How to Do It”
Evolving Newsroom: “Giving away content online is not the problem, giving away advertising is”
Recovering Journalist: “Free Is Not a Business Model” and “Paid Content”

This is a contentious topic, particularly among the creative class. You may well disagree with what I’ve presented. I’ll admit it’s not as black-and-white as I may have made it seem. What do you think? Share your thoughts here or at Social Media Club’s post on the topic.