Content should be free, except for my book 'Free.'
Wed/Jul/2009 07:00 AM Filed in: Personal
I'm gonna be watching this one pretty closely over the next few weeks. I'm open to new ideas about content and outlets for writers, but I must say, I'm more than a little dubious about Chris Anderson and his theories. In short, I think this guy writes Airline Business Porn, the kind of books businessmen pick up during their travels, read on the plane (when they can't use their Blackberries for an hour or two), then bring up at their next meeting, and use to anchor terribly misguided business plans for the next couple years.
Even as the big ideas behind Anderson's last book are proving more than a bit useless, here comes his latest must-have business conference accessory, Free. Much is being made of the book's recent (I would argue hypocritical) review in The New Yorker and Anderson's rebuttal on his own magazine's site. I won't link to them, because I think each is the equivalent of one sock-puppeted hand arguing to the other, while Si Newhouse hopes that pageviews translate to magazine subscriptions. In short, I'll sum up my thoughts this way: I think talented and professional writers deserve to be paid for their work. Period. It's hard enough to break into the business of writing, and if it becomes impossible to ever make a living doing it, no young people will even try anymore, they'll all just start their own sites (or publish on Lulu), until the whole business is completely and utterly splintered in a million different directions, none of which you'll be able to find! In the rising corporate outlook on content, many at the helm point to their success pulling in advertising dollars based on content often produced by unpaid enthusiasts, as a sign that they can make money at little to know expense, and their "writers" will just be happy to be published. Obviously, Anderson has spent too much time on conference calls with such individuals, and too little time out in the newsroom with his own magazine's writers. No writer worth his salt would be willing to work unpaid for any extended period of time. That to me is a simple fact of life. If you work a day job that saps your will to live, does Anderson really think that year after year you'd be willing to go home and write music reviews, game evaluations, or what have you, without the hope of one day turning it into a paying gig? What is this man thinking? Furthermore, if something is free, then why would anyone expect it to be made available to just them? What incentive do they think the author of this work would have to allow this? Furthermore, after a certain amount of time has passed, and the free writing has spread, what value does this work even have anymore? Intellectual copyright can be the creative equivalent of a Viagra patent (just watch Michael Jackson's stake of the Beattles publishing catalog as proof) -- if you have a hit, it will continue to bring in cash for decades if not generations to come. In the short term, free content might make someone a little money from advertising, but in the long run, what is the value of that archived writing?
The perfect example of the questionable ideas behind Anderson's book is illustrated by an issue that will surely dog it existence, however long of brief that may be. In the last month it has been found that Anderson (or perhaps an unpaid writing assistant?) copied and pasted numerous sections of Wikipedia entries into his book and failed to attribute them. Not only is this a violation of Wikipedia's agreement with its users (not to mention the ethics code of every high school and college in the civilized world!), it means that large portions of the book are also available elsewhere! Yet the asking price of 'Free" has been set at $26.99! Will part of that fee be going to the uncredited writers? And if not, are they just happy to be published? More and more, it seems that squeezing writing from an indentured stone will get you nothing more than exactly what you paid for.
'Free' isn't free, except for its