Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style

from the selling-the-scarcity dept

A couple of months back, Mike wrote about how Psy's relaxed attitude to people infringing on his copyright helped turn Gangnam Style into one of the most successful cultural phenomena in recent years, and that includes becoming the most-viewed video on YouTube ever.

Ah yes, the maximalists will retort, this free-and-easy, laid-back approach is all very nice, but it doesn't put food on his table, does it? If you want to make a living from this stuff, you've got to enforce copyright to stop all those freeloaders ruining your business. Well, maybe not:

With one song, 34-year-old Park Jae-sang -- better known as PSY -- is set to become a millionaire from YouTube ads and iTunes downloads, underlining a shift in how money is being made in the music business. An even bigger dollop of cash will come from TV commercials.

From just those sources, PSY and his camp will rake in at least $8.1 million this year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of publicly available information and industry estimates.

The AP story quoted above goes on to give a detailed breakdown of where that money comes from. Interestingly, it's mostly from things not directly connected with either his music or video:

It is television commercials that are the big money spinner for the most successful of South Korea's K-pop stars. PSY has been popping up in TV commercials in South Korea for top brands such as Samsung Electronics and mobile carrier LG Uplus.

Chung Yu-seok, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, estimates PSY's commercial deals would amount to 5 billion won ($4.6 million) this year.

This is yet another great example of how artists can give away copies of their music and videos to build their reputations and then earn significant sums by selling associated scarcities -- in this case, appearances in TV commercials. Now, not every musician may want to take that route, but there are plenty of other ways of exploiting global successes like Gangnam Style -- none of which requires copyright to be enforced.

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Filed Under: business models, copyright, psy

Dear Recording Industry: 'Rampant Piracy' Is Deader Than Your Outdated Metrics

from the the-newest-music-genre:-'post-Napster' dept

Tom Townshend at MSN Music posits an interesting question: is illegal downloading dead? To be sure, asking any lobbyist fronting for the RIAA this question will result in a long-winded tongue lashing that compares today's "digital dimes" with yesteryear's "plastic money-printing machine." But the question is valid. Is piracy as much of a problem as the RIAA insists it is? Or has music consumption changed so dramatically that the old yardsticks no longer work?

Townshend points out some interesting stats on last week's chart toppers.

Last week AC/DC finally allowed their music to be available to buy digitally. Prior to the 19th of November, the only way to own the veteran Aussie rock giant's songs was to buy them on CD, vinyl or cassette. Or to illegally download them.

But no sooner had the group agreed to sell their back catalogue in downloadable form, two of their classic hits entered the Top 40 singles charts (with several more popping up in the Top 75.)

Two tracks, taken from albums released in 1979 and 1980 respectively, broke into the Top 40, three decades after their debut. As Townshend points out, anyone over the past decade-plus could have downloaded these tracks and still had them in perfect working order. It would have taken next to no time at broadband speeds, but despite this piracy "opportunity" (created by AC/DC itself), thousands of fans chose to purchase AC/DC's music from legitimate sources. After a decade of supposed widespread piracy, why would AC/DC's music still be in such high demand?

That's not the only anomaly in the charts, either.

This week's top 40 also features a new track from Rihanna's latest album, Unapologetic. And yet the song, Right Now, isn’t a record company promoted single. And neither is another of her tracks, Nobody's Business, which went in at number 63. The public have chosen to cherry pick songs from her new album rather than be dictated to by RiRi's promotional team. People power!

So, what's happening here? It looks as if the promotional money that labels constantly lament they'll never recoup is going to waste. Rihanna's handlers choose her singles... and the public chooses other tracks they like better. No wonder they're upset. First, the piracy thing, and now this -- a public that won't be told what to buy!

Why is Rihanna's label unable to pick hit singles? Possibly because "singles" don't exist anymore. Singles were an important concept when the endgame was album sales. But the public's not buying albums, they're buying single tracks, a very different creature. Album sales might be at an all-time low, but people are still buying plenty of music. They're just doing it on their own terms.

And the fact that this is happening to music by Rihanna, the biggest pop star in the world right now, is even more significant when you take into account that her last album, 2011's Talk That Talk, managed to return to the number one spot this year with just 9,578 sales – the lowest sales ever recorded for a number one album...

The structure of an album is a throwback to an analogue age. The number of songs on an album was dictated by the constraints of the physical format they were stored on. But what sense does buying 12 tracks in one go make, when you have memory space for thousands? And why buy that many songs if you only know you like one? You can always buy another later. And another.

Hence, "singles" are no longer something a record company should feel inclined to push on the public. Sure, there's radio airplay for promotion of albums, but even that market is broken up by YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, etc. Instead of a top-down delivery system fervently pushing consumers towards album purchases, it's bubbling back up from the bottom. Radio/labels may expose new artists, but the fans are choosing the tunes they like -- even 30 years down the road.

The people who bought AC/DC's Back In Black didn't want a whole album of AC/DC songs. They just wanted that one. And the same goes for Rihanna.

Album sales may be decimated, but single track sales are huge. The numbers put up by top-selling single tracks are on par with the heyday of the industry. The only difference now is that consumers aren't purchasing the other 7-10 tracks of filler surrounding the songs they like.

And in case you think it only takes a few hundred downloads to get a song in the charts these days, Rihanna and Calvin Harris's We Found Love has sold 6.9 million copies worldwide, so far. And it was only released in September of last year. In fact, a quick look down the list of multi-million sellers shows that singles from 2010 and 2011 shifted units not seen since the 1970s and 80s – the so-called golden age of the pop charts.

So, Townshend asks: is piracy dead? Is the industry still holding onto its belief that piracy is the only thing holding them back from the heady days of yesteryear? Maybe it's their metrics. Last year, when the RIAA was pursuing the creators of Limewire in court, its "smoking gun" was a chart that plotted the decline of the recording industry, laying the blame for the steep decline on Napster. The chosen measurement? A mysterious numerical concoction called "Album Sales Per Capita."

If the industry is going to continue to use the album as the yardstick, then yes, sales will never return to the level they once were. When music fans are picking up 3 or 4 tracks for $4-6, then it will never keep pace with the $14-18 they were spending for "bundled" tracks that lumped songs they liked in with songs they could live without. People are buying music in record numbers, but the industry still complains that things ain't the way they used to be. They aren't, but not because of piracy. At least not solely, and certainly not to the extent they claim.

If a band can break a self-imposed, decade-long internet holdout and return to the Top 40 charts three decades after the songs were originally published, then it stands to reason that every person that wanted a free copy of these tracks should already have those safely stowed on their hard drives. But they don't. Or if they do, they wanted to get the "real thing." Either way, people are paying for a lot more music than the industry is willing to give them credit.

Here's how Townshend puts it:

To continue to be told how damaged the music industry is by illegal downloading, while single sales soar, is somewhat galling. It’s like when you sit down to watch a DVD and are confronted with doom-laden orders not to buy pirate movies, even thought the only time you ever see such warnings is when you're watching something you've legally purchased. It's like being told off for a crime you've not committed.

Thanks for the trust and gratitude, guys!

Hey, if the industry wants to paint a dismal picture using lousy metrics and an outsized sense of entitlement, it's welcome to go right ahead. But don't expect outpourings of sympathy from the public generously putting money in its pockets, despite the easy availability of free options.

Filed Under: paying, piracy

It's Important To Learn From Business Model Failures As Well

from the lessons-learned dept

When we held our artists & entrepreneurs working group meeting in October, one of things that was discussed was how little discussion there is about what doesn't work. And that's kind of important, since so much is bound to fail. Some of the entrepreneurs noted that it's not unheard of (though still not exactly common) for failed entrepreneurs to write up a postmortem about their experience. However, with artists, it was almost entirely unheard of for an artist to delve into a failed experiment to say what happened (and what didn't happen!). This isn't a huge surprise. It's tough to talk about the failures -- but with entrepreneurs, they can wipe their hands clean of the startup and move on to the next thing. For a musician, they can't just walk away from themselves. So I can completely understand why artists would be hesitant to talk too much about what didn't work, because they fear it will reflect poorly on themselves.

So it's great to see that Kyle Clements has decided to post the details (over at Step2) of an experiment he helped set up with a musician that failed and to discuss where he thinks it went wrong. You should check out the full story, but, the short version is that he helped set up a plan for a musician to record a quick "improv" song each week and a more "full" song once a month, and release them all on YouTube. There was one part of the plan that immediately struck me when I was reading it. A plan to not promote this:

The first 3 months are Operation: Stay quiet. Produce and publish content, but don't advertise it. leave it for people to randomly stumble across. You don't want to advertise, have people love it, want to see more, and realize there is no backlog of content. No one wants to be the first to arrive at a party. Let the backlog build up while no one is watching.

My first reaction was that I wasn't sure the assumptions here necessarily held. While I do think that there's an "empty" room problem, where people don't necessarily want to be the first on the dance floor, I'm not sure that applies to not promoting videos for 3 months. Especially when it comes to music, there are a number of taste-makers who absolutely do want to get there first and think they found something early. So there were a number of ways I could see this part of the plan backfiring. In fact, it seemed to me like the "first to arrive" part actually is made worse after three months, because when people come in at that point, they see that no one else has watched the 3 months of videos and might assume that they're likely worthless. It seems like those three months could be used more wisely trying to bring the artist's audience to the videos and building connections around them.

And, in fact, it seems that this "don't tell anyone" aspect to the project really did hurt:

First month: Everything went as planned. 4 improved songs, 1 developed song, a few odd hits, nothing unusual.

Second Month: artist grows impatient. Is discouraged that no one is watching. Writes more songs. No developed, proper song is released this month. slightly more hits than last month, but nothing unusual.

Third Month: Artist grows impatient, begins posting new songs to facebook. A much lower than expected number of friends follow through and watch the videos (they will drive an hour and pay $10 to watch him play live, but they wont click a button in facebook?!?!) Artist is discouraged. No proper, developed song this month.

Fourth Month: only 2 improvised songs see the light of day this month. viewership drops. Artist gets discouraged.

It only goes on for a bit more before the artist gives up entirely -- and eventually blocks the videos. There are definitely lessons here -- and even though the plan was not to promote the songs, that alone led to frustration, which is reasonable. That said, almost any artistic endeavor tends to take much longer than people expect. The overnight sensations rarely are overnight sensations at all. Kyle wonders if there was just too much competition and they didn't do enough to stand out. That's entirely possible too, though I'd be curious what other people think as well.

Either way, kudos to Kyle for sharing the story, and hopefully it's something that others can learn from. Personally, my takeaway would be that you should never wait to connect with fans. That should be built in from the beginning.

Filed Under: business models, experiments, failures

Newly Independent Band To Fans: Don't Just Remix Our Music, Please Try To Make Money From It Too

from the new-model-experiments dept

At this point, bands releasing stems and asking fans to remix their work is old hat. We've seen it done a bunch over the years, and it's pretty common. But Darren Hemmings alerts us to a cool variation on that done by the UK band Chapel Club. Earlier this year, Chapel Club "parted ways" with Universal Music. In testing out new things, it decided to do a remix offering, but one where fans are actually encouraged to then try to sell the results and make money off of it:

We're offering THE WHOLE WORLD the chance not only to REMIX THE TRACK, but to SELL their creations and KEEP THE MONEY. LOL.

So the deal is this: you can download these stems FOR FREE, remix the song and self-release it digitally via any online outlet you like. To find out how best to do this we've attached a little step-by-step guide, below.

The band does admit that they're about to sign a new record deal -- so they're doing this "in between" deals, and it's unclear how long it will last. Also, the terms and conditions (pdf) are interesting in that they actually provide detailed instructions on how to upload the remixed tracks to Tunecore and CDBaby. The band does ask that you email them before releasing the track, which seems like a reasonable request. What's a little odd, though, is that they will not allow remixers to "give away" the remixes:

So the deal is this: you can download these stems FOR FREE, remix the song and self-release it digitally (and only digitally) via any online outlet you like (as long as it’s known for selling lots of music). You can also stream your creation (but don’t give it away).

That seems like a silly and pointless restriction. The band does note that it retains the publishing rights, meaning that if someone does remix the song and sells a ton of copies somewhere, they'll still get their publishing cut (though the remixer will get all of the direct sales revenue, minus the fees taken out by the middlemen). So, it's smart in that the band knows that if someone else somehow figures out a great way to market and sell the song, they'll still make some money. But, it's still a little disappointing to see that restriction on giving it away. For such an experiment that seems pointless.

It's also a nice reminder that letting some others make money in helping to promote your work (or even letting them build on your work) can be a good thing. There's way too much of an attitude among some that every penny that's earned belongs to the original creator, even if someone else did more with it. We've warned before that non-commercial restrictions on Creative Commons often don't make sense -- but many people cling to them out of this irrational fear that if someone else makes money, it means you lose money. So it's great to see the band recognize that a bigger pie can be good for all.

That said, while I do think this experiment is cool -- and I love to see bands experiment in unique and innovative ways -- I do wonder how successful experiments like this will be. I think that many people think that fans will rush out to try to "make money" with content from an artist they like, but in watching various businesses built around that concept before, I just haven't seen it play out in reality. Fans like bands because they like those musicians and want to support them. Assuming that they have a monetary incentive to help out often feels weird and just doesn't interest people. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Daniel Pink's awesome and thought provoking book Drive in which he notes a large stack of research that says for some activities (not all!) providing monetary incentives actually harms output. It's for activities where the person already feels fulfilled in some manner or another, and I'd argue that probably applies with fans. Fans don't want to make money off artists they love. They just want to see them succeed. Adding the monetary component might not necessarily be a very good incentive, even if people assume that money is always a driving incentive.

Still, that's just an aside on money and incentives. I still think it's cool to see a band experiment with something different to engage fans that could possibly open up another new revenue stream.

Filed Under: chapel club, publishing, remix, sales

Micro-Stock Photo Agency Prefers Converting Customers To Cracking Down On Infringers

from the sometimes-a-handshake-gets-better-results-than-a-savage-beating dept

In this bold era of copyright trolling, calmly (ir)rational takedown bots, baseless legal threats and ridiculous statutory damages, it's a true rarity to see a copyright holder deal with infringement, especially non-commercial infringement, with a reaction that's actually in line with the "crime" committed.

As photo sharing increases, thanks to platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr, the chances of infringement increase. Paidcontent has the details on a micro-stock agency that's treating infringers as potential customers, rather than criminals.

Unlike other image owners, Dreamstime does not sic lawyers on people who like its photos. Instead the company, which claims to have more than 5 million users, responds by sending them a notice to take the image down or else to buy a license at the going rate which can be as low as $8.

According to CEO Serban Enache, this approach actually leads to better business.

“We want to respond to copyrighted images but we want to do it in a different, non-heavy-handed way,” said Enache in a recent phone interview. “This is very successful way of turning unauthorized users into customers. Once they learn of the license, they often obtain larger licenses.”

When you give infringers a logical option (take down the photo or pay a fee), most will take down the photo. If you give them the chance to license the photo for a reasonable rate, you should be able to find a few takers. The most important part of this scenario is that Dreamstime gives infringers an option, something most copyright holders are unwilling to do. Compare Dreamstime's method to those of other copyright holders.

As photos spread across the internet, bands of lawyers are springing up who offer themselves as hired-gun enforcers to image owners. When they find a target, they squeeze them for thousands of dollars and take a cut of the loot.

Major image owners like Getty possess image recognition software that lets them quickly detect unauthorized use of their images. The legal settlements they collect have become a major source of revenue.

These copyright holders are willing to imagine that a hobby blog's use of an image is somehow depriving them of thousands of dollars. Because of this irrational (but self-interested) logic, the "problem" is treated with utmost severity, resulting in demands for prohibitively expensive licensing fees.

Not only does Dreamstime request reasonable license fees, but it doesn't waste time with the DMCA process. A DMCA takedown notice almost always results in the infringing content being removed, but does nothing to help the photographers earn any income. It's hard to earn money by shooting first and asking questions later. Instead, the infringer is approached directly and honestly, rather than threatened with the possibility of legal action and thousands of dollars in statutory damages. Perhaps if more copyright holders approached casual infringement this way, they might see an uptick in income, rather than alienating another set of potential customers.

Filed Under: converting, copyright, customers, infringement, stock photos
Companies: dreamstime

Creativity Through Collaboration: From Memes To Videogames

from the this-is-a-cool-story,-bro dept

With more and more internet adoption worldwide, collaboration and sharing as a genesis for creativity is becoming the norm. The marquis example is Wikipedia, of course, although we've noted a general theory that great ideas can spring from sharing and collaboration, often leading to unexpected (but fun) results. That's one of the reasons it's so fun to see things like the following emerge (completely NSFW, unless you're employed by Dark Helmet Inc.):

Yes, that's the trailer for a new video game to be released shortly, and it was inspired almost entirely by an online group and the resulting internet meme the group produced. Included amongst this list of video games resulting from internet memes, the entire premise of the game began with what was essentially a bitch-session online over how awful shooter game sequels are.

It all started with a joke on a forum. One NeoGAF forum user, annoyed with how lazy shooters had become, complained that he was tired of games like 'Dudebro 2: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time.' It grew from there.

The phrase became a byline for tired, me-too games, but it was so absurd that it got people thinking. Soon, it had mock cover art and a storyline. Before long, a team of fans were working on an entire game, a 2D platformer, and it's on the way soon. It even stars Jon St. John, the actor famous for voicing Duke Nukem.

Apparently, somehow, the entire premise for what looks like a hysterical game was generated spontaneously online in a collaborative format, as was the trailer, cover art, and storyline. Now, it may quickly be pointed out by some that the end product of this creativity is subject to copyright by default, but that misses the point entirely. This is simply another example of how creation occurs and how sharing and exchanging ideas freely can produce an interesting project as well as a great deal of fun. As collaboration of this nature expands due to the ability of people to connect on the internet, the overall need to lock up ideas relative to creative output is going to weaken. There may still be some "artists" who create simply for monetary gain, but their ranks are lessening.

Filed Under: creation, culture, dudebro, inspiration, memes, videogames

Double Fine's Tim Schafer On Openness And His New Game Project With Humble Bundle

from the you-fight-like-a-dairy-farmer dept

Today, the always innovative Humble Bundle launched yet another great new project. This time they've teamed up with Tim Schafer, whom some may remember as the founder of Double Fine and the creator of their insanely successful Kickstarter campaign (and others may remember him as the creator of several classic adventure games). The project is a twist on the standard Humble Bundle system: instead of paying what you want for a collection of existing games, contributors get to vote on various game ideas from the Double Fine team to decide which ones get prototyped. The whole development process will then be live-streamed, and contributors will be able to download the prototypes at the end. The ideas themselves come from a feverous internal brainstorming process called the Amnesia Fortnight, the secrets of which are being revealed to the public, as best (and most entertainingly) explained in the video:

It's rare, maybe unprecedented, to see gamers brought into the development process on such a wide scale and at such an intimate level. Though participation takes the form of an single vote, you can bet that people who get involved will have lots of feedback and questions, and probably a few demands, as the process continues — which, in addition to forging a strong connection with fans, could actually be kind of scary. Today I spoke briefly with Tim Schafer to ask more about the thinking behind the project and his expectations for where it might go. For him, the key revelation from the Kickstarter campaign was less about identifying demand for a new adventure game, and more about discovering that a more transparent development process can be a really positive experience:

We're building off of one of the things we learned from that project, which is that it's okay to open the doors. We've had this Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory thing for many years, and the Kickstarter changed all that.

...

We let people see the making of the game and realized it's okay. You think people will laugh at us or they'll judge us for the work or they'll get mad when we cut something from the game. ... We realized that the players are smarter than people are giving them credit for.

He expressed some slight anxiety at the idea of handing the choice of games over to the public, but it was far outweighed by curiosity:

It's really interesting. Usually I pick, usually I deal with the deciding. I think I just wanted to try a different way to see. I like getting my way some of the time, but not all of the time. If you don't have any sort of agent of chaos or wild card then you never have any sort of evolution of ideas, and fresh blood. ... I really want to see what the people at large have to say, to see if it's different.

Similarly, he noted that live-streaming the development process would be a real dose of reality for some gamers, and he's interested to see how they react. While there's plenty of fun stuff to show, like the Art Jams where they flesh out a game's visuals, there's also the painful side, like the budget meetings where exciting ideas get reluctantly cut. But such things are necessary, and as he notes, displaying them helps to humanize the process — which is something we talk about a lot when it comes to connecting with fans and being open, human and awesome.

It's going to be great to see the results of this team-up. Schafer started his career at Lucasfilm Games when secrecy and control were the orders of the day, and developers tried all sorts of wacky schemes to prevent piracy — that's what he was used to, and he credits the Humble Bundle with helping to inspire a different outlook:

Besides the fact that they bring a lot of smaller, lesser known games to light, a lot of what's inspiring is the business model.

Keeping things secret, hoarding information, protecting your copyright. That's just what I was used to, and Humble Bundle says let it go, open it up, let people have it for a penny or a dollar, let people pay what they want and give all the money to charity if they want.

...

You can't have this 100% watertight, airtight grip on that stuff. You have to make other people not want to pirate, make it easy for them, and respect them enough to let them choose. People respond to not being treated like criminals.

If you want to get in on the project and cast your vote for which games get developed, you can do so over at the Humble Bundle site — there are also two existing prototypes of other games for contributors to download right away.

Filed Under: crowdsourcing, openness, prototypes, tim schafer, video games, voting
Companies: double fine, humble bundle

AC/DC And Kid Rock Finally Realize That Selling Tracks Online Is Probably A Good Idea

from the well-look-at-that dept

A few years ago, people always referred to the Beatles as the biggest holdouts in terms of releasing their music for sale as MP3s online (mainly iTunes). However, the Beatles finally came around in November of 2010. After that, people started putting together lists of who was left and AC/DC and Kid Rock seemed to top most of those lists. So it seems noteworthy that both have just caved. Kid Rock's new album is available on iTunes, with someone saying that he finally realized that he could "no longer ignore how much money he was leaving on the table." And, the latest is that AC/DC has come around as well. Of course, AC/DC wasn't just not selling downloadable tracks, but they seemed philosophically opposed to the whole concept based on some of their quotes:

"I know the Beatles have changed but we're going to carry on like that," guitarist Angus Young told Sky News in May 2011, after the Beatles had ended their own iTunes holdout. "For us it's the best way. We are a band who started off with albums and that's how we've always been."

Back in October 2008, the band were even more hardline. "Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned, but this iTunes, God bless 'em, it's going to kill music if they're not careful," singer Brian Johnson told Reuters.

"It's a...monster, this thing. It just worries me. And I'm sure they're just doing it all in the interest of making as much...cash as possible. Let's put it this way, it's certainly not for the... love, let's get that out of the way, right away."

Yup. But apparently they're finally realizing that maybe it helps to go where your fans are. A bit late.

Of course, looking at those quotes, they sound mighty familiar to what we're hearing these days about other services like Pandora and Spotify. Why is it that there's always a contingent of musicians who so want to hate the services that actually deliver a legal product to fans?

Filed Under: ac/dc, itunes, kid rock, mp3s, music, sales

Dan Pink Offers 'Access' As A Reward For Helping Promote His Book

from the interesting-ideas dept

We've written about Dan Pink's last work, Drive before. It's a fascinating book that explores some counterintuitive concepts about how money incentivizes people. His new book, To Sell is Human appears to build on these concepts, as it specifically relates to salespeople (who many people assume are only incentivized by money). An HBR article appears to summarize the thesis:

Some things in life we know are true. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. A body in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by an outside force. And the best way to motivate salespeople is by offering them commissions.

But what if we’re wrong, at least about that last one? What if paying salespeople commissions is rooted more in tradition than logic? What if it’s a practice so cemented into orthodoxy that it’s no longer an actual decision? That’s what a handful of companies have begun discovering. To the surprise of many, these firms are showing that commissions can sometimes do more harm than good—and that getting rid of them can open a path to higher profits.

Either way, it should come as little surprise that Pink is also trying unique ideas for the selling of his own book, including recruiting a "launch team" made up of 96 people who promise to share the ideas in the book (and, no, I'm not a part of that). He's offering up "rewards" for people who are willing to do this:

• Advance galley copy of To Sell is Human – there’s only a couple hundred of these ever printed.
• Signed 1st edition hardcover of To Sell is Human.
• A public Thank You on my blog along with links to your website and Twitter.
• Exclusive access to me – and each other – via a private Facebook group.

It's that last one that I find most interesting. It's not all that different than some of the offerings we've put together for people on Techdirt as well, who wish to support the site, and can get greater access in exchange (which has been really fun in practice!). It will be interesting to see how well this works (and hopefully Pink will report back on the success or failure of the program as it goes on).

What do people have to do in order to be included? Well, first they have to apply (and applications close tonight at midnight eastern) and be chosen. But then, it's pretty straightforward:

• Spread the word about the book on your platform during the weeks before and after publication.
• Leave a short, honest review of To Sell is Human at Amazon.com or BN.com on December 31.
• Join us in the Facebook group to brainstorm and share ideas on how we might spread the word about To Sell is Human.

I would imagine that, under current FTC rules, anyone in this program would actually need to disclose their participation in the program whenever they talk about the book -- which hopefully Pink is telling those who sign up for this. I also wonder if those who don't get "in" to the program will walk away feeling negative about it. Hopefully not. Either way, it's an interesting experiment and hopefully he'll share how well it works. I've always been a big fan of "access" to content creators as a possible unique form of "reward" -- and it's the kind of experience that can't be copied, which is what makes it so valuable.

Filed Under: access, connect with fans, dan pink, incentives, motivation, selling

Doug Stanhope: Piracy Is A Problem Only If You Think Of It As A Problem

from the frame-of-mind dept

As the legacy of Louis CK grows, as does his fanbase and his ability to get the closed to be more open, it's worth noting that comedians have long existed on the edge of the IP world. While some comedians will occasionally pull out the copyright card, accusations of joke-stealing and copyright infringement of their acts haven't found the same hold as in music and movies. There is a great deal of borrowing and tweaking going on in the joke world and yet the comedy business is still around.

Now we can add another comedian to the list of folks who just don't see infringement as a problem, and think of the internet as a boon rather than a threat: Doug Stanhope. In an interview with Wired -- which is hilarious enough to be worth reading the entire thing -- the former Man Show frontman took on the notion that piracy is harmful.

The internet has done nothing but good for comedy all around. Comedians no longer have to rely on TV execs and club owners deciding if they are funny or not. There’s the problem of piracy if you think it’s a problem. I credit piracy with getting my name known enough to have a decent career. People bootlegging shows on cellphones and putting material out before it’s finished is a problem for every comic, but compared to all the upsides of what the internet has done, it’s a fact of life that we’ll learn to adapt to even if it means finding these people and killing their families in front of them.

Now, I'm at least 75% certain that the last bit about killing families for infringement is a joke, but his larger point is a gem. When we, all of us, think about what we want the internet to be, it is important for us to weigh the sum total of its impact. If I may extrapolate on Stanhope's statement, I would argue that this completely undermines the view the piracy and/or sharing must be stamped out on simple moral grounds. We've all heard the "but piracy is just wrong!" arguments (or, heard that in substitute of an actual argument) but that's nonsense. Piracy, infringment, and sharing would be wrong if there were a net-negative impact on the works being infringed upon or shared. If there is a net-benefit to those people, as Stanhope suggests there indeed is, how in the hell could that be morally wrong?

Further on that point, while some may argue that it is still wrong because the infringers are not respecting the wishes of the artist, look at how Stanhope frames it: Piracy is a problem if the artist thinks it's a problem. Bootlegged shows and uploads may present challenges and problems, but they are going to adapt. It seems to me that it is every bit incumbent upon artists, be they comedians or musicians, to change their frame of reference as it is on the internets denizens to respect the artist's wishes.

Filed Under: adapting, comedy, doug stanhope