Chapter Ten Notes

Chapter 10 – Media and Creative Industries: New Opportunities or Casual Collapse?

Produsage approach to marketing media has led to making more available non mainstream merchandise, which people are buying a lot more than when it was not available. Bruns calls this “a wider phenomenon of the long tail”.

Greatest changes are occurring within consumption communities. Move toward consumption as a networked practice.

Copyright
iTunes demonstrates that commercial distrib of digital content is possible

Many users now understand media industries to be highly exploitative. Arguments for people to act morally depend on the institutions acting morally. Ha!

Factors affecting whether someone will pay for tunes if they could get them for free:
- Ease and safety
- Relative cost in terms of time, effort, broadband service

- User’s loyalty to the content creator

iTunes has a good reputation and found the right price

DGMLive successful because of the fan/musician relationship, not audience/distributor.

It is likely that for industry attempts to employ ethical rather than legal appeals – success will come outside the mainstream. (I doubt it.)

Produser to Producer
It appears that new rather than traditional players in the media industries are most likely to harness the creativity of produsage communities. Example – Current.tv (I guess Al Gore participates in this so it may draw his sway of politicos.)

Music sites have emerged that provide a space for unsigned, semi-pros to make a name. Sites include GaragebandPurevolume. Musicians might tend to stay here instead of going mainstream and dealing with the corporate exploitation.

Possible result of produsage distributed media is less a “popular/un-popular” continuum but more a fall away from a peak to a “gentle slope of mediated cultural communities”.

“If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st century will be equally about misses.”

The New Creative Industries
“Interactions are more important than broadcasts.” i.e., effectiveness is based on your ability to make fruitful connections.

Fall away from the peak towards the periphery. This could allow for innovation in the content and style of the text and other material.

Detaching Authorship from Ownership
Tragedy of the anticommons – multiple owners each have a right to exclude others and no one has an effective privilege of use. Negative effect proven when the restrictions are lifted and there has been significant growth.

Patent thicket – network of restrictions – preventing protection. Could discourage investment in research and advancement.

Communities as Copyright Holders
“A move toward true collective ownership of prodused resources would mean that communities would be better able to enforce their full set of IP rights.”

Shopwork – represents the full combination of all version of the produsage project.

Issues of commercial exploitation:
Is the creator being recognized?
Who profits?

Sanger, “What I want to urge is that society respect and, through its laws, support the existence of the presently-nascent general institution of shopwork.”