Author Robin Sloan Offers Up Money To Fans For Good Remix Ideas
from the but-remixing-isn't-creative! dept
I'm always amazed at the claims by some of our usual band of critics in the comments that "remixing isn't creative." They never seem to explain how something like what Kutiman has done could ever be considered not creative. Nor do they explain how taking a clip of a note and using it to make a new song is really different from using a keyboard (which plays "pre-recorded" notes) and playing a song. And we've certainly seem plenty of content creators encourage remixing of their work, and now more and more musicians have been purposely releasing stems and asking fans to make their own mixes. But how about with a book?A few months back, we wrote about how author Robin Sloan was offering a tiered support model, similar to what many musicians have done, so he could write a novella. He used Kickstarter, and it turned out to be a huge success, with him earning much more than he originally targeted as his goal. The novella has been published, and apparently it's getting quite a response. But Sloan has realized that you don't stop there.
He's taking things a step further, and has reserved $1,000 as a "remix fund," to encourage people to take the book that he just wrote (which is available for download in a variety of formats under a Creative Commons license) and do some sort of remix project on it. He's asking his supporters to pitch remix ideas (including how much it would cost to do), and then those who helped pay for the creation of the original story will vote on the ideas -- and the top ones will get funded (until the $1,000 runs out):
I wrote and published Annabel Scheme with the help of about 600 patrons. It's gotten a warm reception from readers, but I'm greedy! I want more: I want other people to transform it and make it their own. If you're a writer, an artist, a musician, a mathematician, a pastry chef--or a fan of one of the above--where could you or they take this story? I want to find out.It's yet another cool way of connecting with fans, and going explicitly against what copyright allows. It's explicitly encouraging people to copy his work and even offering money to them if they do a good job. I imagine this will confuse those who will say "but... wait, he should be getting paid any time anyone wants to do something with his characters." But what Sloan appears to recognize is that building up a larger audience for his works will certainly pay off a lot more in the long run than trying to squeeze people in the short run.
Filed Under: cwf, remixes, robin sloan
