Modern Day Patronage

I’ve seen other articles talk about patronage, and maybe it’s time for some more experiments.

Before the Internet, MP3, ebooks and DivX ;-), intellectual property had a natural scarcity: it was distributed in some physical form. As long as the publisher made sure that people weren’t distributing counterfeit copies of their goods, there wasn’t much to worry about. Today, that physical protection is quickly disappearing. Napster provided a new means for people to get and distribute music. Movies are not far behind. And, as soon as book readers start to have some features that are more appealing than a traditional book, ebooks will catch on and you’ll start seeing books circulating more on line.

Major media has tried to combat this with laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which overstep the bounds of copyright and fair use that the Constitution guarantee. It’s basically impossible to prevent clever programmers from circumventing copy protection, so major media tried to enforce their protection through the law. But, this removes freedoms, inconveniences users and possibly prevents the expansion of the public domain.

Given all of that, it seems like it may be better to just not worry about copying of books and music. But, how can the artists earn their livings? That’s where patronage comes in. I envision it like this: an author puts then first couple of chapters of a new book online for people to read. Their website should provide a convenient means for people to donate and become a patron. Once enough money has been raised, the author continues to post chapters. Perhaps the patrons are acknowledged in credits of the book, or perhaps the patrons get early access to new chapters and other informaiton. When the book is complete, the author will have made their money, and the patrons will have received their book. If people start spreading the book around, it’s no problem… everyone has already gotten what they wanted.

Stephen King did something similar with The Plant. His rules were a little different, because he required 75% of the downloaders to pay $1 per chapter. The system I described just required raising some specific amount of money. There is a Canadian band (I’ll try to get a reference) that is currently working on raising money to create their next album.

This system could work well for both established artists and new ones. What about all of the middlemen in these industries? Well, there will still be a need for marketing. The payment structure is flipped around, though. Today, an author is paid royalties on their book sales and the publisher pays the marketing expense. With the system I describe above, the author receives the money directly and they may pay some people to market the book for them. New authors who can’t afford independent marketers would need to spread the word themselves. Since part of their book would already be online, if people like their writing and want to see more, they would be inclined to pay.

The biggest barrier to such a system taking hold is momentum. People are used to how things have been working the past few decades. A few high profile successes are all it would really take to shake things up.