What is the impact of free anyway?

There has been a great deal of conversation, interpretation and mobilization around the web recently. Between SOPA and PIPA legislation and the recent shut down of megaupload.com, we are in the midst of a great conversation concerning Internet rights, ownership rights and consumer rights. The Internet has been both free and a gateway to new forms of commerce. It has enabled new social constructs and empowered those who have never been able to have a voice. But as empowering as the Internet has been, both the Internet and the digital transformation of the past 20 years has been equally destructive. Just look at the recent bankruptcy of Kodak, the very creators of the digital camera, destroyed by their own innovation and the ability through the Internet and digital channels to take and send photos anywhere in the world through the touch of a button. In addition, most companies that have relied on content generation and distribution have been adversely affected. From news to books to music to tv and movies, the rules have more than changed, they have been erased and replaced by new expectations and behaviours that were impossible to foresee 20 years ago.

But for all of those businesses that have witnessed declines, many more have been born. From Google to apple to Facebook to Twitter to Zygna and beyond, products, services and employment has been fostered at an unbelievable pace. One thing is constant as the technological revolution continues to unfold, is that we are all still figuring it all out. It really is the Wild West and rules are made and often broken within months as the new “new” comes out and changes the rules all over again. In our Wild West, we’ve formed some attitudes about technology and how its’ used. Some feel that technology and content should be consumed and bought and others think that it should be consumed, but be free.

At the end of it all, the question remains at the heart of the conversation, “what is free anyway?” and as technology evolves, how do we change both our consumption of content within a long-term economic framework that will foster innovation and content development. Steve Jobs had managed to guide his company away from hardware into an innovation company that tapped the technological revolution and become one of the world’s most valuable companies. But outside of great hardware and software, even apple requires content. They take a percentage of every app, movie, tv show and song that is downloaded. Good for them and their shareholders, but what of the content providers? How many are making any money and what if the quality of the product they are producing is crap because they aren’t profitable to produce? By extension, what happens to apple in the long run when we stop buying from iTunes because we can’t find anything worth buying? It’s a circle and we haven’t even mentioned illegal copying of the material and the fact that for every one product sold, many more are copied without any payment to the content provider which created the SOPA discussion to begin with.

Let’s face it, this is a complicated issue. To date, no one has found the right balance of payment for content with freedom to use that content within the confines of that ownership. For instance, if I bought a book and loan it to someone, is that illegal or simply a result of passing my property to a friend? By extension, if I upload a copy of my friends music onto my ipod, is that the same thing as lending a book? If this is accepted as being a right of ownership, how many copies can you make before it crosses a line into piracy and begins hurting content generators? Within this frame of reasoning, have we already crossed a line by downloading content from someone that isn’t a friend? Most important, what if no one paid for the content at all? Forget apple and the distribution companies, what happens to the content providers who are writers, musicians and developers?

Currently, we have two extremes of control and distribution in a loose sense. One extreme (megaupload) exists where you download whatever you want, whenever you want without any payment to the producer of the content. The second extreme (iTunes) has a gateway with firm control of how you use the content and how often you can distribute that content with the content producer having little influence on pricing. A case in point is Kid Rock’s aversion to using iTunes for that very reason. We can’t have SOPA and PIPA mandating the Internet as it will destroy the very fabric that allows a freedom to support something as awe inspiring as the spring Arab uprising, but you equally need people to realize that content cannot be developed for free, at least of any quality anyway. Somewhere in the middle, we’ve seen where content providers have tried the “pay what you want” model, such as Radiohead with some success. To date, this model hasn’t gained real traction. So, what are we left with? I think we’re left with a question, “what does free mean?”

I think free means content generators become impoverished and we stop creating an environment where directors, musicians, writers, artists, developers and other creative occupations can succeed and grow. We can’t mandate a distribution or political model based on economic principles from decades long past. We can, though, recognize that the same openness that allows for social expression can provide economic viability. In other words, we need to recognize that SOPA and government interference is the wrong course of action, but we do need to pay content providers in order to guarantee quality content. Decades ago we disassembled plants across North America and moved them overseas. We lost production capability that will take decades to regain, if at all. This affected our economy and our culture. By taking content without payment to the creators, we are equally disassembling the creative production system that we currently seem to take for granted. As a society, we need to shift our attitude from downloading for free, to paying content providers in a manner that will ensure our creative economy can flourish. I don’t have an answer, but at the moment, until something better solves the problem, I won’t download for free, but I’ll pay what I can directly to the content creator. I also think we need to shift the discussion from the political realm and begin discussing the real impact that “free” will have on the Internet in the next decade.