Essay: Stop Paying Middlemen for My Content

Revenue models for online content have hurt artists and writers, argues Jaron Lanier in an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “Pay Me for My Content.” Lanier, an interdisciplinary scholar-in-residence at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley, is a writer, developer and researcher who’s been credited with coining the term “virtual reality” and has worked on a range of projects, including acting as an adviser on the film Minority Report.

Motion pictures are the most expensive content to create and distribute, which is why movie studios and television networks have been the most aggressive in calling for copy restrictions online. But the combined residual that writers, actors and directors receive for a DVD sale is around 25 cents, or as little as a third of what it costs to manufacture and package the item. The crew? They only earn day rate during production.

So creators getting shafted by the distributors is nothing new. Distributors getting shafted by the Internet, however, is. And it’s the distributors, not technology, that are standing in the way of opportunities for creative entrepreneurs.

Where does the rest of that DVD sale price go? To executives and shareholders of the parent company. In other words, people who had no hand in the creative process beyond providing the capital to fund it. Online distribution means there are no manufacturing or shipping costs. But if you think those savings will be passed on to creators (or consumers), I’d like to know if you have any interest in purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge from me at a bargain price.

Lanier suggests that the problem lays in information system design — citing the “almost religious belief” among Valley technophiles that charging for content is bad — and calls on technologists to redesign information systems to be accessible but affordable instead of free. And while I agree that as Google, Apple and Microsoft have made billions aggregating freely available content online, one of the stumbling blocks has been the efforts of content conglomerates to hold on to their profits and status as gatekeepers.

People have no problem paying for content when they know the money is going to the artists, as any musician’s hat overflowing with bills in New York’s subways will demonstrate. And they don’t have a problem with an entrepreneur making an honest effort, as the peddlers selling pirated DVDs on the same platforms prove. They do have a problem being bilked by distribution monopolies and insulted by fabulously wealthy studio executives crying poverty on behalf of artists.

There are all sorts of independent creators who would love to sell their music and video on iTunes for a few cents per download, but they aren’t welcome — because then what would be the need for the suits who are allowed to hock their wares there?