Problem if song download yielded avg 2-3 cents for the artist?

[Warren]

Pertains to value creation, is directly relevant to ProjectSAFE and also to SAFE coin, comes up in other threads, but a more direct discussion of what stuff is worth and what may be practically provided for is worthwhile.

This is what I think a fair value on an open network like Project SAFE should tend to yield content creator, and its more a picture of a ceiling than a floor. This means a couple million downloads might yield 50K a year and it would leave nothing for labels or any middle men but would potentially maximize the flow of info, exposure and value for the end user. Also provide a truly level playing field for content creators where their works would be paid based on merits by a system with minimum coercion. Its just one way to talk about valuation, its not comprehensive but I reject the stake holder model, the practical alternative is Pirate Bay as people are ready to dump toll road content regimes, and this sentiment drives much of the interest in efforts like MaidSAFE. The end user is the sole stakeholder as that is the primary role for all of us. The system should only provide enough incentive to keep the pump optimally primed.

Rough assumptions: Global gross product divided by population: 12k per capita
Average song length 4 minutes (from experience.) Based on the number of seconds in the song and the worth of the average human second according to the current system: 9 cents or a dime per song, but maybe only a quarter of downloads would yield payment so roughly 2-3 cents per song download.

That means in a purely end users owned and controlled network like ProjectSAFE where then network ran on end user equipment and end user supplied energy and got around any useless government stipulations on licensing fees to trying to keep sponsored top down garbage in the loop- that means that is someone felt like contributing it, if they felt the song was worth their time (that risk should be on the artist not on the end user) they might contribute a dime via optional micro payment for future works.
But if it was a waste of their time they should contribute nothing.

Which means 500k- 2million downloads recompensed by end users to make 50K per year. Maybe it takes 2 million downloads because some people don’t like it and some people don’t bother to click.
A fair cost for the average movie 130 minute length: $3.25/4 = 80 cents And that would be for a new release- they wouldn’t have any premium nonsense (always a kind of theft.) Their alternative is Pirate Bay. And of course all this is based on a completely ad free model. There is still the chance of larger success, A song like Gangnam Style might 20-30 million dollars.

If most undiscovered artists their works would be exposed to a large body of people for free, most of them would jump at the chance, even in exchange for never making any money from it or being limited to some modest amount for life. The legitimate ones would always take this bargain. A global ProjectSAFE would give them exposure on the merits the injustice of the labels would never allow. They can’t use their already pissed upon by the labels position to argue on the labels behalf for more info enclosure and surveillance. Those are good amounts and most important they get rid of the absolutely useless record labels which use our money to argue for SOPA/PIPA/CISPA. I wish we could have national referendums to hold the labels in contempt of the public resulting in the seizure of their assets, with the proceeds converted in to some useless currency and that currency burned in a public display.

But more than this they wouldn’t have any price setting control, this would be dictated by the whims of the end users and attempts to suggest prices and all that would be deemed ads, which some filter would remove. Any attempt to fix or set cost is supply side collusion- abuse of power or leads to increasingly extreme abuse. This system maximizes access, all but eliminating enclosure, maximizes potential exposure and maximizes values for contributors. This is what a distributed system does to a centralized system which also happens to be designed above all, existing in its essence, to censor and spin.

[happybeing]

Just a thought about this. The artist model of needing a large audience is inherently centralised, whereas a more “natural” historical model - when primitive people were all artists, tattooing each other for example, is inherently decentralised.

The centralisation comes about naturally, through a wish for specialisation (from community and artist or artisan). In a tribe, this trading can happen without money. Scaling creates the incentive for a more widely tradable trustable token we call money, but at the same time I think this creates problems - not just the obvious ones we know about like deceit and greed (bankers, music contracts) but just in working out what is a fair reward, or what motivates people to specialise etc. This may be a spin off topic @warren, and I don’t have much more thought on it, but I’m curious about how scale, money, and centralisation have shaped our ideas and practices around this kind of production and consumption as in others. I do wonder if we might somehow encourage everyone to become artists (to some degree) - do we really need people to continue to get ever more specialised like this, to have ever greater distinctions between producer and consumer, or would it be better if we shifted the balance a bit more so we’re doing a bit of both. So for example, music would be more didactic - musicians not just producing and shipping, but being more engaged, actually including consumers within the process, teaching them. Consumers now become more involved. I think this is already happening with the stakeholder models you mention? Not exactly in the way I just mentioned, but with more engagement. I’m seeing a pattern here I think, and I like it!

Anyway, just a thought that your post stimulated.

[Warren]

I think that’s on target. I was thinking something similar. As a stakeholder I think we are all best conceived of as end users. That conception is aided quite a bit if end users on average become more engaged and less passive so that content production is just one side of a conversation. Seems like that could only serve quality, diversity and value. In the model above where I was trying to think of fair ceilings that would rightly distribute voice and buying power downward I was suggesting that even a hugely successful movie might only expect to generate $30 million over its life (especially if we can drop copyright down to 5 years or so- which I think is necessary and it can start anywhere in the world- we will stream from that place with Project SAFE etc- i.e, the EU ruling on embedding) and that means less studio and more software driven production and more collaborative and distributed efforts.

Indie can work fine on a 30 million dollar budget. But I think that is what top of the budget pyramids looks like when it is flattened by commoditization. We don’t have to hand these people ROI, needing progress and converting their risk into loss for public gain is part of the deal, we don’t have to socialize that risk and perpetuate it, its part of recognizing the RIAA and its ilk were paid off long ago.