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Creatives Fight to Survive
-Andrew Grossman
April 8, 2009
The
fight against unauthorized use of copyrighted content on the Web is not merely
being taken up by large media outlets such as AP, which on Monday announced that
they will pursue copyright infringement suits against web sites that use work
from AP without permission. Individual content creators are also part of this
life and death struggle for payment and control of how and where their content
is used. Professional writers, journalists, columnists, cartoonists,
illustrators, photographers and film makers are on the front line of this
battle. What is at stake is their capacity to make a living from their creative
work. In other words, their careers.
In
the Old Media, freelance creatives in print media sold their work to magazines
and newspapers. Some would eventually sign contracts with media companies such
as United Media and King Features to distribute their work in return for
splitting the profits. Others were able to forge successful careers by
representing their interests directly in sales to print media. That success has
now been made inestimably more difficult by the advent of the internet.
At
first, when the internet was young, the sale of rights was made in a package-the
primary rights, those that would allow media to publish the content in hardcopy
editions, were what the publication was purchasing. Subsidiary rights, for
online publication, were considered too minor to charge additional money for.
Print media certainly treated online rights this way, since there was no
prospect of generating additional revenue from online editions.
As
the internet has matured, and as hardcopy publishing is moving rapidly toward
near extinction, the online rights are now the primary reason for purchase.
Print publication has become the subsidiary sale. That means that for profit
creatives have been sucked into surviving in the internet world, and that means
that individuals face the same daunting task as media companies-how do we make
money in this new form? What complicates the formula is the tradition of the
internet, back to the pre-dawn of web
history, for providing an open source culture.
Open source essentially means that everyone shares and shares alike, no money
changes hands.
Battling this online model is now the primary and formidable task of media and
its content providers. The enemy comes in many forms: amateur artists who
'are just delighted to be published on the web'; bloggers who have never
expected to be paid, since most of them approach their work as non-information
oriented diarists; savvy creatives who have assumed that offering free content
online will swell the audience for their work and thus make offline sales more
likely; overseas creatives who look
at the internet as a chance to break into the
American market.
They
are all making one fundamental mistake-they do not realize that the internet
will soon be the only surviving content delivery system. There will be no other
forum in which to sell content. It must happen online or not happen at all.
Given these parameters, the imperative of the new model has changed how to
conduct a creative career: it is no longer of paramount importance whether
the content is of highest quality (although quality is still a factor in become
a professional). All that matters is name branding. All that matters is
strengthening the perceived value of what you present electronically.
Category: Copyright Laws,
Article Income,
Cartoon Income
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Grossman.
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