I am back now to the day that I spent in the European
Parliament last November (2013) and the conversation I had with Amelia
Andersdoter, who at the time was a Member of the European Parliament. Sadly she
was not re-elected in the elections held in May 2014, which is a shame for she
was a breath of fresh-air among stale politicians who are, on the whole, too
keen to pander to powerful vested interest, and in doing so, criminalise
ordinary people for doing what is natural – participating in and sharing
culture.
Following my discussion with Amelia I undertook some
research to understand more about her thinking. Her views on matters relating
to copyright and the internet are, I believe, well considered and reflect a 21st
century mind, which stands in sharp contrast to the 18th century
industrial era minds of those who will, in the end, determine European
copyright laws. Most of these people are unelected and include a group of
people with vested interests, and their minds are firmly planted in 18th
century industrial era thinking.
I fully agree with Amelia’s point that we should not be
criminalising ordinary people who download content from the internet for
non-commercial purposes such as teaching and participating in culture. Most of
the people who do this would never purchase this cultural content in the normal
course of events, and would not therefore be able to access it. To deny them
access to this cultural content is to deny them access to culture.
Charging people to access something which is a fundamental
to being human – culture – also highlights what is wrong with the modern world
where just about everything is considered to be a commercial transaction, and
nothing is of value unless it has economic value. It is time to role back this
insidious practice, and to make much more cultural content available, for free.
So we should be encouraging people to download cultural content and also providing
them with facilities to use this material in creative ways.
I also strongly suspect that the downloading and
non-commercial use of copyrighted material is something that most people in the
modern world do, and that includes those who are fighting to preserve outdated
copyright laws. So let us stop this nonsense of “all rights reserved” and start
allowing people to make use of this content.
There has to be other business models that will enable the
above and my quest is to discover what these models are. At the time I spoke
with Amelia, I had already embraced open access publishing, by providing free
access to my books on-line. This is because I write books for people to read! This
for me, as a professional writer, is the primary objective. The making money
from my books is a secondary issue. I realise that this may seem strange to the
out-of-date people – the 18th century thinkers – in the media
industries, but art – in this case literary art – is not about money, it is
about making people fly and helping them to see the world in different ways. By
throwing off the shackles of commercialism, I am able to be more innovative, because
I can now write the books that I want to write, and produce books which advance
the art form that is literature, for I do not have an agent or a publisher
telling me what to write, or telling me that a particular book is not what the
market wants. This, one might say is the point!
And this also is the response to those stupid people with
vested interests who say that “if creators cannot earn from what they create it
is a hobby and not a business”. About this they are wrong. Such a statement is also
a gross insult to artists and writers, and the appropriate response to this,
from artists and writers, is for them to unleash the forces of creative
destruction on these vested interests by developing business models that are
founded on open access and free downloading.
One of my current activities is to discover what these new
business models are. I dare to dream that I can put existing media companies
out of business. As part of this I have taken the decision to deny publishers
access to my content and to make it available for free, on-line. This is not to
say that I will not work with publishers. I am happy to do so, but on my terms,
not theirs. Currently I am working on many business model related matters,
which include the use of hacking and also Creative Commons open culture
licences. I plan, in due course, to publish a book under such a licence, and to
actively encourage people to hack the content, to download it, and to apply the
content in their own creative work – all for free! It makes business sense to
do so!
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