“Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the Internet” by Cory Doctorow
This recent article on Locus Online, the online companion to Locus Magazine, the “magazine of the science fiction & fantasy field,” is very pertinent to the ongoing Cantor seminar on commerce and culture. Aside from an endorsement of copyrights, with which many Austrian libertarians will disagree, I find it to be explicitly in favor of free markets. The author of the article, a published novelist, also explicitly criticizes patronage, contrasting it unfavorably with markets. The primary focus of the article, as the title suggests, is the great boon to SF writers that the internet is and can be.
The Internet is enabling a further decentralization in who gets to make art, and like each of the technological shifts in cultural production, it’s good for some artists and bad for others. The important question is: will it let more people participate in cultural production? Will it further decentralize decision-making for artists?
The author even insightfully remarks on a phenomenon that has been noted by Jeff Tucker and others on Mises.org, that providing free electronic copies of a published work online serves to improve sales of hard copies of that work.
Some writers are using the Internet’s affinity for SF to great effect. I’ve released every one of my novels under Creative Commons licenses that encourage fans to share them freely and widely — even, in some cases, to remix them and to make new editions of them for use in the developing world. My first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, is in its sixth printing from Tor, and has been downloaded more than 650,000 times from my website, and an untold number of times from others’ websites.
I’ve discovered what many authors have also discovered: releasing electronic texts of books drives sales of the print editions. An SF writer’s biggest problem is obscurity, not piracy. Of all the people who chose not to spend their discretionary time and cash on our works today, the great bulk of them did so because they didn’t know they existed, not because someone handed them a free e-book version.
But what kind of artist thrives on the Internet? Those who can establish a personal relationship with their readers — something science fiction has been doing for as long as pros have been hanging out in the con suite instead of the green room. These conversational artists come from all fields, and they combine the best aspects of charisma and virtuosity with charm — the ability to conduct their online selves as part of a friendly salon that establishes a non-substitutable relationship with their audiences. You might find a film, a game, and a book to be equally useful diversions on a slow afternoon, but if the novel’s author is a pal of yours, that’s the one you’ll pick. It’s a competitive advantage that can’t be beat.
{ 4 comments }
Loved the contrast of the revolution wrought by radio vs. the revolution being wrought by the internet – showing that different business models are natural consequences of markets. Although I think the author overdoes it when he implies that only one could survive previously (his own examples like the Dead show that that’s not true) and that only one (a different one) will survive in the future: the true free market finds niches and exploits them, and there are many niches.
Most troubling was the comment about patronage – he distinguishes it from “markets”. It’d be interesting to see what definitions he uses to accomplish this Bizzaro distinction.
I fully agree with your first point, Quasibill.
As to the second, regarding patronage, Paul Cantor distinguishes between the two as well. Although I would agree that there is a sense in which patronage is or can be part of the market as well, there is also a sense in which it is different. With patronage, an artist is supported by a single wealthy benefactor for an extended period of time. This is different than general selling to consumers on the market as well as the taking of individual commissions from select clients on the market. Now patronage is one option among many within the market, but this was not always so. Here, again, as above, I would agree that the author overdoes it. But his sentiments are significant in that they lack the modernist nostalgia for a return to patronage (or some institutinalized government variant, which is really a quite different thing than patronage) and away from the evil corrupting market.
IN RE: patronage
As I see it, the attempt to differentiate patronage from “the market” is the result of the assumption that “the market” necessarily means mass market — the market for “popular” goods. In that sense, patronage is certainly not a part of “the [mass] market.” Rather, patronage is an arrangement wherein a private, individual service is provided to a single wealthy individual. It is, of necessity, still a part of the general market since it is defined by voluntary exchange. However, it is not something to be relied on for the provision of artistic works desired by the majority of the human race.
On there other hand, I think that there are ways of adapting the patronage system to the mass market, ways of keeping the advantages that patronage brings (particularly the feasability of treating artistic endeavors as a form of labor payable in the present rather than the future) while eliminating the reliance on distribution monopolies (copyright) that the present mass-market system depends on. The key difference from traditional patronage would be that rather than a single wealthy benefactor there would be an organization acting as a concentrator and manager of funds–a sort of trust agency or co-op–to which those interested in a certain kind of art (say, SF literature) could subscribe. Individuals would, of course, subscribe to the organizations which best reflected their interests. The organizations would then use the subscription fees to fund the production of the artistic works, with the final products being released initially to the subscribers.
Anyone else think this would be feasable? (Or not?)
Traditionally, patronage has been thought of as separate from the market, but I think now it should be considered one option among many on the market. Patronage does serve to insulate the artist to a large degree from market forces and the demands of the market; at least in relation to other market methods of supporting oneself as an artist.
Jesse, I think your proposal is plausible as one means of institutionalized patronage in a modern market economy. Time would tell if and how well it might work. I doubt it would become the sole or primary means of funding the arts, however.
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