Embracing The Future
This is my response to a blog post by Stephen Poole, slightly edited to make it standalone. It’s also a subject that came up on this week’s Macbreak Weekly, so it’s already been on my mind this week.
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If you’re currently making a living from writing books, composing music, or making movies, then you may be forgiven for thinking the Internet has you under seige. Everywhere you look it seems that people want you to give away your content for free, as if everything you do no longer has any value and it’s a basic human right that everyone be able to do as they please with anything you produce. You are basically being told that if you wish to continue to be creative, you’re mad to think anybody is going to pay you to do it.
This really is not the case.
The argument is not that anyone who is creative should be denied payment for their efforts, but simply that those who are going to be the most successful going forward are those that embrace a new business model, rather than continue to cling on by their fingernails to the old one.
The record companies are a perfect example of what happens when you cling on too tightly. At first they tried to pretend the Internet didn’t exist, and then when Napster came along they sat there and just lashed out at anybody that tried to take away their comfort zone. Then they woke up a bit, and at least admitted they needed to do something. But they lock up their songs up with DRM, sue anybody who ever touches a file sharing network, and in one Sony case, install malicious software on your customers computer. This is simply not the way to conduct yourself. Not only is it hugely damaging to their brand, but it also devalues music even further, as those who truly do like the rebellion distance themselves even further from the money grabbing corporate whores the music executives appear to be. The harder the music companies push, the harder it is for them to win back the mindshare.
But some of them are beginning to get it. iTunes was the first real step in actually providing what people wanted, easy access to the songs people wanted. And unlike Napster, you had a 100% chance of actually getting the song you wanted to download, with proper tags, and not an MP3 rip of a song recorded from the radio with a DJ talking in Spanish over the end. Starting to allow DRM-free versions, even in their previously feared MP3 format at Amazon, shows that they have finally realised you should treat your customers as people first, and thieves later; not the other way around.
The lesson from this is that change should not be feared. Grab the internet generation with both hands and use them to your advantage, rather than locking your doors and cowering in the corner with your old business model pressed tightly to your chest, afraid that the mob is coming to steal it from you. For musicians this means giving away a few tracks from your new album for free and selling the rest, with a premium for the higher quality lossless versions. Or selling complete recordings of all your live shows. And using the momentum from this to sell more tickets to your next show (see TMBG and Barenaked Ladies). For writers, this means giving away your last book for free in order to create publicity for the one you’re about to release in hard copy. Or giving away the first couple of chapters for free as an incentive to buy the rest. Or selling your novel one chapter at a time, as you write it (see Stephen King). And if you’re a movie producer, let people download the first 30 minutes of your movie for free and then let them buy the DVD containing the rest of the film direct from your website.
And most importantly, take the feedback from your audience, interact with them, let their word of mouth be your marketing machine and never treat them like criminals. People will be more than happy to pay for your work if the price and terms are fair. At the end of the day these are your customers, and for the first time in human history creative people have the opportunity to truly communicate with those who appreciate their art en mass, and that should be something artists should be excited about, not fearful of.
