03.24What does Web 2.0 owe you?
As we’re agitating for greater and greater freedom of digital media, less restrictive digital rights management, and the arrival of sanity in the patent- and trademark-granting universe, I thought this Times editorial by Billy Bragg and this agreement by Nicholas Carr were worth noting. For background, Bragg argues that Bebo.com founder Michael Birch, who just reaped some $600 million from the sale of Bebo to AOL, perhaps owes some royalties to the artists whose music, he says, was used “to draw members — and advertising — to [Birch's] business.” The conversation raises this question: what does Web 2.0 owe you, the content-generating user?
It’s easy to fight the culture of ownership with a culture of entitlement, and we have certainly become accustomed to “free,” and we certainly feel comfortable in demanding it. But a lot of social media enables a few people to get rich off of the contributions of the masses. Twitter is nothing without its tweets. YouTube is nothing without user-generated video (unless you count all the illegal network stuff). MySpace and Facebook and Bebo are nothing without those communities, and MySpace and Bebo in particular are very little without the musicians who distribute and share their music there. So, at the risk of launching a whole new system of reimbursement that will ultimately become perverted and misused and wracked with greed, should we be paying royalties to the people who contribute the art that makes a site built on sharing that art a success?
Or, does this argument lead down a completely unmanageable path? After all, a lot of people contribute a lot of content, be it blogs or home-made videos, to a lot of sites. Should every amateur YouTube filmmaker get royalties from the sale of YouTube to Google? After all, what is YouTube without skateboarding dogs and the Mentos and Diet Coke guys? Or should we continue to accept the social networks’ argument that with enough exposure, the Mentos and Diet Coke guys get their own sweet deals and don’t need YouTube royalties? Isn’t user-generated content, in some cases, just outsourcing? Few would argue that every blogger should get a kickback from Blogger. But are you, at some point, if you’re YouTube or Bebo or MySpace or a company holding a contest for a SuperBowl ad, potentially taking advantage of content creators who are entitled to more? Sure, YouTube or Bebo may be the promotional vehicle that never existed before for the previously unknown artist, but does that really absolve them of the responsibility to share the corporate spoils?
Or maybe that’s capitalism at work. A good idea is a good idea: Birch and others had the good idea to build a site that lets a passionate community share a lot of free content, and they got paid for it. And contributor emptor to anyone who put their content on there for free, right? After all, they didn’t have to put their work up there. Ultimately, is the burden on the artist to accept the medium as the medium, and let the talent and perseverance lead to benefits via the usual channels? Put another way, does the artist in fact have a divine right to compensation, just because he or she is an artist? I don’t really know. On the one hand, a lot of people should get paid for a lot of things, and the musicians’ lobby is starting to come off a little whiny with the constant “somebody pay us” talk. On the other hand: seriously, Bebo guy. You ain’t gonna dance with the one that brung ya?
Discuss.
I kind of understand why someone might think they deserve payment for the success of a platform they contributed too. But when an artist publishes on Youtube, they do so fully aware that they are NOT going to get a penny out of it. They know that the most they can get is recognition and maybe a deal later on. The Coke and Mentos guys now do corporate events.
On the other hand, if something like Wikipedia (which is a non-profit) gets sold, then all contributors should maybe get a cut. Think about it: You only have dedicated contributors doing hours of research for the good of all, they dont expect ANYBODY to make money off of it.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I don’t really have anything to say that you haven’t already said. Those business models depend upon user generated content, and users are aware of that. That’s what makes the sites so attractive. What would Wikipedia be without the people who edit entries? What would Vimeo or Youtube be without video creators? Nothing. But they never promised anyone that they would get rich for providing content, or that they’d even get a single dollar. You’re right, the medium is the medium. Bebo, Myspace etc, are like free concert venues, not like paid stadiums.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I agree they never promised anyone … but I wonder if we’re getting to the point where they SHOULD have. Are we crossing the line into exploitation?
March 24th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I think entitlement has difficulty dealing with legalism and litigiousness. What is just and what is right are a bit too subjective to rightfully claim hold of the word “should”. I also think trying to distribute revenues back to artists would be case of no good deed goes unpunished and artists fight over their slice of the pie.
I also think it would set a bad precedent to allow people who’ve essentially freely distributed their media to make it un-free. What if Prince had charged Mail on Sunday for the extra circulation they received by him dropping his albums in?
March 24th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I don’t see a problem with YouTube, Blogger/Blogspot and the like making money off advertisements since they’re using the ads in lieu of webhosting fees. Can you imagine what the bandwidth overages would’ve been for that “Leave Britney alone,” guy if he’d had to pay to host the video?
Now, if Wikipedia were to stop being a non-profit and placed ads on the site, that’d be a different matter entirely. In that case I’m not getting anything out of my contributions to Wikipedia besides hippy-dippy good vibes, so if Wikimedia made any money off it, I’d deserve a kickback.
There’s a real-world example from several years ago — the Google Usenet archive (in fact, this may’ve been when they were still DejaNews) experimented with placing hyperlink ads inside people’s posts. For example, if you mentioned chicken, the word might be turned into a link to KFC. People on newsgroups were rightfully wroth over this, since their posts were being altered without their permission to make money for a company they weren’t affiliated with at all. That policy only lasted a couple months.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Does CNet owe me for contributing a voicemail to BoL?
Does CNet owe Ars Technica and Gizmodo for the stories discussed on BoL?
Does CNet owe Google for their press releases discussed on BoL?
Frankly, it is a load of crap.
If the musicians that provided their music to Bebo aren’t smart enough to turn that into some income, then that is their problem. Lots of people make a good living off of giving away free content. Podcasters like Scott Sigler (btw Infected hits bookstores April 1st), companies like Spring Source (creators of the Spring framework), and Google who gives you just about everything for free.
Perhaps the more appropriate question is… how much do the artists owe Bebo for hosting and promoting their music? In my opinion the artists need to start paying their fair share.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:53 am
@seanohara
I hate those inline, double underlined ads that always seem to pop up over words that you’d legitimately want more information about. TGDaily.com uses them.
I’m wondering what would happen if one issued comments on a site with inline ads but added a creative comments “no derivatives” license. Assuming this wouldn’t be forbidden by the site’s TOS these modifications would be unlicensed and illegal. If only I were more litigious.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
admin said: “I agree they never promised anyone … but I wonder if we’re getting to the point where they SHOULD have. Are we crossing the line into exploitation?”
I would like to point out that the users are also receiving tremendous benefit from the “cyber-social dynamic” created by these sites. Sometimes, the benefit is merely ego/social (”I got 120,000 hits on my talking Collie video!!!”) but it is also economic (see: Brookers, EsmeeDenters, Ask A Ninja, Justin Laipply, Tay Zonday etc who’ve all benefited from YouTube glory and who may never have otherwise). Even the average user benefits greatly from having their voice heard in a large and yet also structured and focused forum.
I’m not saying that it’s an equitable arrangement, but I think we have to entertain the *possibility* that, for most users, it is.
Richard
March 25th, 2008 at 11:21 am
It’s pretty cut and dry to me. In the case of the bands/musicians, the websites are providing a distribution medium, at no charge. Why shouldn’t the website make money from that?
Same with other user generated/contributed websites. We, as users, gain entertainment, information, etc from these sites. My work gets seen, and the site gets whatever they get. It’s a symbiotic relationship to be sure, but thus far it seems fair and balanced.
An example would be one of my favorite video podcasts where users actively contribute to the show and the hosts are grateful and give attribution to those works being used. The show is stronger for it and the users feel more connected to the show. How is this bad?
That said, I would not allow or want my artwork, music, etc being used outside the scope in which it was posted or loose my personal rights to those items. I suspect that any site that tried that would loose it’s user base very quickly and thus the market would balance it out. (ok so i have my perfect world hat on there at the end)
March 26th, 2008 at 4:56 am
I think the real problem here is a psychological effect that goes way beyond the Web 2.0 realm: people tend to see their own successes as hard-earned, but everyone else’s successes as lucky. So, if I work hard and make a profit, then I’ve earned it and I deserve to keep it; but when someone else achieves success, they should be fair and share their luck with me.
Since it’s so easy to fall into this trap, we should remind ourselves of the simple facts: the founder of Bebo, like any other successful entrepreneur, had a good idea for a product, invested a lot of time and money to bring a product to the market and worked hard to succeed in a very competitive market where most companies inevitably fail. If he failed, as most do, no one would voluntarily help him recoup his losses because “they owe it to him”. Any such entrepreneur deserves their success just as much as an artist or anyone else.
As for whether users “should” be paid for user-generated content, since the Internet is a very competitive market, that question doesn’t make sense. Users are already getting exactly what they “should” get – 100% of the market value of their content, no more and no less. If someone thinks they should be paid for their content, they should go ahead and sell it to websites at whatever price they think it’s worth. And if they can’t find buyers, that just means it’s not as valuable as they think. Users whose content really is valuable eventually do get paid to create content. And when they do, they never feel they should share their profits with the website that made them famous. Isn’t that funny?
March 26th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I’ve made this comment elsewhere, but one way to think about this is the supposed capacity of the web to give the means of production to the ‘little guy’. If places like Bebo and Facebook retain the distribution network and reap the profits, then the internet’s democratisation of the media biz will be revealed as a pipe dream.
To me, this is about the centralisation of wealth. Take Facebook – by consolidating the distribution network, you have a firm with a comparatively tiny staff potentially raking in billions (assuming, of course, that they figure out that whole money-making thing). That doesn’t seem like advancement to me – but it does smack of exploitation. I know it’s not so different from the past and I think that irks me most, because I was one of those idiots who believed the web might actually do something about ‘hyper-capitalism’.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Just as another data point, Patrick Wilson, drummer for Weezer, was very much in the contributor emptor camp in his comments in Epsiode 82 of MacBreak Weekly (http://twit.tv/mbw82).
Essentially he said that Billy Bragg had his eyes wide open when he clicked to agree to the Terms of Service on Bebo. As in baseball, there is no crying in rock’n'roll. If he can’t monetize the profile that the exposure on Bebo has generated that’s his own lookout. After all, the Bebo ToS aren’t much more exploitative than many first time artists sign up to with major labels.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Molly,
Love this posting – especially the loaded “After all, they didn’t have to put their work up there”.
There are so many ways to interpret this statement:
- Did they expect to get paid and were bummed when nothing came out of it?
- Is intellectual property ‘really’ property ;0)
- Isn’t this type of exposure advertising your product anyway and so sales may be generated by default exposure. Shouldn’t the artist pay the host site by the same design in theory?
- If people want payment for their creations shouldn’t they look to a more structured business model – i.e. iTunes etc..
The thing I see with the cult of ownership is that it’s not a protective but a greed oriented thing whereby success should = money for whoever’s IP is out there, or so they think!!
Sometimes free should be embraced and let’s all be a little less precious about stuff….
March 29th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Sometimes things really set me off. I agree that everyone has some sort of “right” to profit from the work they create, but getting a piece of the sale of Bebo? No, not even close. No, you shouldn’t get money from YouTube. You can use these sites to profit in other ways in my opinion. For example: add a URL at the bottom of your user generated video to promote your business.
More on my thoughts:
http://www.unraveledideamill.com/node/8
March 30th, 2008 at 7:04 pm