Our small group (Vera, Pei-Chieh, Michelle) had an interesting discussion last night. We started by asking, if “free” is the better model, then how is it economically sustainable in the long run? In other words, if the Microsoft’s of the world will ultimately lose to free peer production, where would all the paying jobs go? If everybody is happily engaged in social production, what do they do as their day jobs?
We have heard that careers are shifting from corporations to individuals. But even if we work as independents, somebody has to pay. Or we do more bartering? That doesn’t sound very efficient.
So we tried to look for some answers. And we thought Asia is a little bit ahead in certain stages of “free”, largely thanks to looser IP protection. Take the DVD market as an example: there are thousands of new TV shows produced in Asia. Almost none is sold as “legal” copies. In fact, there are less pirated copies sold now due to online viewing (which is another form of piracy). But all of that seem to be (however unwillingly) accepted by the industry. In the mean time, the media industry didn’t collapse there. There are actually more shows produced every year, many of them very popular. Actors and actresses can usually turn popularity into profits, with concerts, shows, and as spokespersons.
One key difference that makes it more sustainable, is the income level of “stars” in Asia, which is far lower than their Hollywood counterparts. They still do very well, making maybe ten thousand instead of a million per episode. So to Benkler’s point, Hollywood and the media establishment will fight hard to protect the “status quo”. But is it really a sacred “right”, for somebody to make in one day, what an average consumer makes in a life time?
Randy
November 19, 2009
These are really interesting concepts, and I love the idea of looking at some “outside” models (your example of Asia) of making “free” economically sustainable.
I am quite ignorant as to the details of the DVD piracy in Asia, other than I know it is running rampant. I would be interested to find out what percentage of the media piracy there is from US based productions, and what percentage is Asia based productions.
Again, I claim a fair amount of ignorance in this (so correct me if I’m wrong), but I would be willing to bet that the impact of DVD piracy on US content is much greater than Asia. This is based on the assumption that Hollywood Feature productions have an enormous fixed cost relative to the cost and quantity of Asian films. For instance, Asia’s model may be to produce low cost films with the assumption that they can’t make much back due to piracy. If piracy were as unenforced in the US as it is in Asia, it is unlikely that there would be all these $200 million dollar movies being made (http://io9.com/5363781/the-most-expensive-movies-of-the-past-decade).
Personally, I would rather keep current IP law for the sake of protecting Hollywood, rather than having a situation where we see a halt to gigantic creative spectacles from being produced.
seanxwang
November 20, 2009
The DVD example we discussed was Asia produced content only, so the entertainment industry there is self-sustainable even in a “free” environment. Creativity did not come to a halt. I think that was the point we were trying to make.
I like Hollywood movies. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of that 200 million. How much of that $200 millon goes to select few individuals, and how much goes into “production” value? Is the quality of the outcome always proportional to the cost?