Music and the "Gift Economy" 7: Alternative Economies

Previous posts in this series:
Music and the "Gift Economy" 1: An Introduction
Music and the "Gift Economy" 2: Examples
Music and the "Gift Economy" 3: Commons, Copyright, and Radical Politics
Music and the "Gift Economy" 4: Personal Versus Impersonal Transactions
Music and the "Gift Economy" 5: Supporting Artists
Music and the "Gift Economy" 6: Problems with Free Art

Over the course of this series, I've explored the concept of a gift economy and haven't found any indication that it presents a way to support the arts any differently than we have done for hundreds of years.

However, some people have suggested some new ways of remaking local, national, and international economies which might include, as a side benefit, support of the arts.

Let me outline a few of the proposals, from least radical to most radical:

Art as a Form of Payment
Barter has a long tradition, so I won't detail it here. I'll just point to a couple of examples of programs where artists can give art as payment instead of money.

The [Brooklyn’s Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center] Artist Access program, which launched in May, allows artists, through performances or interactive programs for patients, to exchange their art for health care credits. "Art for Health Care," New York Foundation for the Arts.

In Mexico, artists can pay their taxes with artwork, which has allowed the Mexican government to amass a collection of over 4000 pieces since the program started in 1957.

Expanded Use of Commons
In part 3 of my series I brought up the idea of commons. Some people feel we could do even more with the concept as a way to promote creativity and community. Sharing and collaboration are variations on this theme.

Some of the research on commons involves shared natural resources and community areas (e.g., pastures, fishing grounds, forests, parks). Here's what people have learned.

Certain attributes of the local community have been shown to positively affect the outcome; (U1) users are dependant on the resource system for a major portion of their livelihood, (U2) users have a common understanding of the resource and of how their actions affect each other and the resource, (U3) users’ relations are built on trust and reciprocity (direct communication), (U4) users have prior organisational experience and local leadership (Ostrom, 2000). Two more attributes are often discussed as well, but the results on their impact are ambiguous. These are group size and the extent of homogeneity in the community (ethnicity, gender and interests), related to the distribution of resources (Baland and Platteau, 1996; Bardhan and Dayton-Johnson, 2002; Ostrom, 2005).

... “Rules are shared understandings among those involved that refer to enforced prescriptions about what actions (or states of the world) are required, prohibited, or permitted”, according to Elinor Ostrom and Victor Ostrom (2004). "Commons protected for or from the people: Analysis of strategies to establish protected areas in the Swedish Mountain Region." Anna Zachrisson.

Some people are extending the commons concept to sharable items (e.g., equipment, cars). Yochai Benkler wrote a paper outlining the types of products which are especially suited for this, such as those that an individual or family may want and can afford to purchase, but they don't need to use all the time. He also writes:

Pooling large numbers of small-scale contributions to achieve effective functionality—where transaction costs would be high and per-contribution payments must be kept low—is likely to be achieved more efficiently through social sharing systems than through market-based systems. It is precisely this form of sharing—on a large scale, among weakly connected participants, in project-specific or even ad hoc contexts—that we are beginning to see more of on the Internet ... "Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production." Yochai Benkler. Yale Law Review. Vol. 114: 273. 2004.

The paper covers far more than I have excerpted. I recommend you read it if you are interested in the topic. His work is also cited here:

In his book, The Wealth of Networks, Professor Yochai Benkler has developed some brilliant theoretical insights into why online commons can be so generative. He has explained, for example, that peer production is best achieved if a particular task is modular (meaning a complex project can be broken into discrete parts), “granular” (meaning it doesn’t take much investment for an individual to participate), and does not cost a lot to integrate the results. "The Commons as a New Sector of Value-Creation." David Bollier. On the Commons. 4/22/08.

Here are more suggestions related to online commons.

For the whole structure to work without large-scale centralized coordination, the creation process has to be modular, with units of different sizes and complexities, each requiring slightly different expertise, all of which can be added together to make a grand whole. "Chapter 8: A Creative Commons." The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. James Boyle.

In discussing commons, I have gone from commons as a physical location to commons as shared objects to commons as shared projects. Moving along that continuum, here's a list of factors that contribute to successful collaborations:

The following general, practical guidelines for collaboration resurface throughout much of the literature in the field of collaboration study:

Develop trust and mutual respect

Outline clear and attainable short and long-term goals

Define needs/self-interest well

Give reasons behind your thinking

Combine online collaboration with face-to-face meetings to speed up the process

Be concise, patient, and persistent

Get everybody involved in the process

Develop a clear process including self-reflexive loops

Stick to initially made commitments

Take a dose of humility

Develop good listening skills

Pay attention to scale in collaborative groups (production groups: 4-5 participants)

Put a stop to domineering interruptions and put-downs

Communicate frequently, clearly and openly

Acknowledge upcoming problems

Use facilitators for larger groups

Develop a long-term view

Learn when to let go

"The Participatory Challenge," Collectivate.net [from: Krysa, J., ed. (2006) DATA Browser 03. Curating immateriality. The work of the curator in the age of network systems. Autonomedia: New York.] Trebor Scholz 2006

What all this research on commons indicates is that people in a variety of disciplines are looking at alternative forms of property and work. And as ownership and sources of income blur, that filters down to those who make, or attempt to make, their living from the arts and other creative fields. The more that is shared, the less artists have to buy themselves, but also the less they might be able to sell.

Here are some resources:

On the Commons

What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

Shareable: Is Social Media Catalyzing an Offline Sharing Economy?

Guaranteed Basic Income
A number of people have come to the conclusion that providing everyone a basic amount of money every year to cover necessities is a better system than either providing no help for the poor or coming up with a patchwork of social programs. This money would also serve as a subsidy to allow some people (including artists) to pursue important but low-paying activities.

Among those who support the concept is Peter Barnes. In his book Capitalism 3.0 he covers capitalism's strengths and weaknesses.

When capitalism started, nature was abundant and capital was scarce; it thus made sense to reward capital above all else. Today we’re awash in capital and literally running out of nature. We’re also losing many social arrangements that bind us together as communities and enrich our lives in nonmonetary ways. This doesn’t mean capitalism is doomed or useless, but it does mean we have to modify it. We have to adapt it to the twenty-first century rather than the eighteenth. And that can be done. Capitalism 3.0: Preface

Barnes feels there is historic precedent for providing people with an annual stipend.

[Thomas] Paine therefore proposed a “national fund” that would do two things:

[Pay] to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property: And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

A century and a half later, America created a national fund to do part of what Paine recommended—we call it Social Security. We’ve yet to adopt the other part, but its basic principle—that enclosure of a commons requires compensation—is as sound in our time as it was in Paine’s. Capitalism 3.0: Chapter 2

Barnes says that giving everyone a little bit of money will actually make a better economy. As an example, he discusses Monopoly.

... Monopoly has two features currently lacking in American capitalism: all players start with the same amount of capital, and all receive $200 each time they circle the board. Absent these features, the game would lack fairness and excitement, and few would choose to play it.

Imagine, for example, a twenty-player version of Monopoly in which one player starts with half the property. The player with half the property would win almost every time, and other players would fold almost immediately. Yet that, in a nutshell, is U.S. capitalism today: the top 5 percent of the population owns more property than the remaining 95 percent.

Now imagine, if you will, a set of rules for capitalism closer to the actual rules of Monopoly. In this version, every player receives, not an equal amount of start-up capital, but enough to choose among several decent careers. Every player also receives dividends once a year, and simple, affordable health insurance. This version of capitalism produces more happiness for more people than our current version, without ruining the game in any way. Indeed, by reducing lopsided starting conditions and relieving employers of health insurance costs, it makes our economy more competitive and productive. Capitalism 3.0: Chapter 7.

There is even conservative support for a basic guaranteed income:

Support has now come from what might seem a surprising source: the US policy analyst Charles Murray (In Our Hands, American Enterprise Institute). Mr Murray regards himself as a libertarian but of a socially conservative kind. ...

His starting point is that in spite of well over $1,000bn (€810bn) a year spent on welfare services of all kinds, poverty in the US is still rampant. He comes out for an unconditional basic income of $10,000 a year for every American over 21. I was originally attracted to basic income as a way of divorcing capitalism from the puritan ethic and allowing young people or creative artists to opt out from the rat race. Mr Murray on the other hand finds numerous, ingenious arguments whereby an unconditional payment of this kind might help restore the work ethic and traditional values. "Surprising case for basic income." Samuel Brittan. Financial Times 4/21/06.

Michel Bauwens, creator of The Foundation for P2P Alternatives, also supports the concept of a basic guaranteed income.

... clearly we need a more durable macro scale arrangement and, as I said, it is my belief that it will require the introduction of a universal basic income. This is a logical outcome, but it is surely several decades away. "P2P: The very core of the world to come," Open and Shut? 9/7/06.

Collective Ordering
As technology allows more people to connect and work together, this has given hope that at some point they will be able decide in advance what they need and then how to produce or acquire it. That will allow more efficiency than the current market system.

A key insight into the altruistic economic model is that a limit on the number of an individual's direct relationships need not limit the number of their indirect relationships, since computers can efficiently establish and use multi-step relationships such as friends of friends. "Altruistic Economics & The Internet Gift Economy." Robin Upton. Altruists International. 7/7/05.

Environmenalist Dave Pollard explains it this way:

Now, in a process called Peer Production, the local people interested in becoming suppliers, customers or investors of the offering that will fill the unmet need from step 1 above, self-organize and become partners in the enterprise, and co-design the offering to meet their specific needs. This is not rocket science; the reason it isn’t done in traditional economy companies is that it doesn’t scale well up to the multi-national level that traditional enterprises need to grow to to continue to exist.

The partners now decide which of them will work how many hours in the enterprise and what they will be paid (dependent on their time availability, personal income needs, and the needs of the enterprise — but with little differential between highest and lowest hourly rate, and with an appreciation that the enterprise is not for-profit and must manage its costs prudently). "How a Community-Based Co-op Economy Might Work." Dave Pollard. How to Save the World. 7/29/10.

The ideal is that if people have a guaranteed basic income, they won't have to work at jobs they hate and will be free to contribute in ways and to the extent that they wish. According to Bauwens:

In the context of P2P, equipotentiality is the assumption that the individual can self-select his contributions, which are then communally validated. "P2P: A blueprint for the future?" Open and Shut? 9/3/06.

Here are three other advocates of using networks to realign labor.

The essence of the long-term goal is to reduce the workweek to its minimum, so that the work we have to do to survive [pay rent, eat food etc] is no more and no less than what is needed for our survival. The remaining time is then freed up to pursue work that we want to do. It’s a shift from a must-work economy to a want-to-work economy.

Work that people want to do is inherently useful. It’s a gift economy. I want to teach: so I teach, I want to learn: so I go to school, I want to bake cookies, I want to help kangaroos who are being badly affected by our activities, or maybe I want to become a doctor and heal people. As the workweek gradually decreases, our time to do positive contributions increases, and the net-output of the human-system becomes ever more increasingly “positive”.

The beauty of such a system is that if someone is working 2 days a week, say: farming their own vegetables, and then they decide to do nothing for the remainder of their week, this is not only completely acceptable, it is preferred to them making something they didn’t actually want to do. "Gift economy: a viable economy," Sebastian Chedal. 3/12/09.

What about the jobs no one wants to do-like cleaning a public bathroom?
With the mentality encouraged by the gift economy, we would all understand what needs to be done and help where help is needed. Meanwhile, our sense of fairness would help balance the work that needs to be done on a case by case basis. If someone cleaned a public bathroom once a week, then because it is unpleasant work, perhaps they wouldn't be expected to do anything else all day. Or perhaps people would take turns doing easy-to-do yet unpleasant duties like cleaning public bathrooms. There wouldn't be any strict rules about it - people would just be held socially responsible for their role in maintaining a healthy and harmonious society.

What if people don't want to work at all? What if they just want to mooch?
If we lived in a society where people are looked down upon for not contributing their fair share to society, then no one would choose laziness and risk losing the respect and love of their community. And in the case that there are still people who don't contribute, community members could influence each other by refusing service to those who don't seem to be contributing. "Transition to the Gift Economy." Russell Jelter. March 2010

To escape from the fetters of competition, we need to develop an economy that is based on giving rather than trading: a gift economy, in place of this exchange economy. In such a system, each person could do what she wanted to with her life, and offer to others what she felt most qualified to offer, without fear of going hungry. The means to do things would be shared by everyone rather than hoarded up by the greediest individuals, so each person would have all the capabilities of society at her disposal. Those who wanted to paint could paint, those who enjoy building engines and machines could do that, those who love bicycles could make and repair them for others. The so-called “dirty work” would be spread around more fairly, and everyone would benefit from being able to do a variety of things rather ^J than being limited to one trade like a cog in a machine. "What's So Bad About Capitalism?" SF Bay Area Gift Economy - tribe.net, 12/17/05.

Douglas Rushkoff goes a step further and proposes that we take money away from those people/companies that don't do anything and give it to people who do something.

A majority of the money earned under our current currency system is earned by people who don't actually do anything. As such, all this speculation is a drag on the system. Speculators just bet on various companies' ability to pay back what they have borrowed. ...

The way out —— as I see it —— is to begin making our own money again. I'm not talking barter, but local currency. Money is just an agreement. And the more a community trusts one another, the more efficiently the moneys they develop can function. We can create units of currency based on anything; if we don't have grain, we can earn it into existence instead by babysitting, taking care of the elderly, or teaching in a charter school. Every hour worked is an "hour" of currency credited to your account. "Hacking the Economy." Douglas Rushkoff. h magazine. 3/19/09.

But we can take it one step further than creating local currency.

An Economy without Money
The most extreme reinvention of the economy is to eliminate money altogether.

Imagine a future in which millions of families live off the grid, powering their homes and vehicles with dirt-cheap portable fuel cells. As industrial agriculture sputters under the strain of the spiraling costs of water, gasoline and fertilizer, networks of farmers using sophisticated techniques that combine cutting-edge green technologies with ancient Mayan know-how build an alternative food-distribution system. Faced with the burden of financing the decades-long retirement of aging boomers, many of the young embrace a new underground economy, a largely untaxed archipelago of communes, co-ops, and kibbutzim that passively resist the power of the granny state while building their own little utopias. "The Dropout Economy - 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years." Reihan Salam. Time. 3/11/10.

One reason people think a cashless economy is possible is that abundance will replace scarcity. It's just a matter of making sure it is distributed in an equitable manner.

The future will be shaped by three interlocking trends: imploding capital outlay requirements for production, reduced transaction costs of networked organization, and eroding enforceability of artificial property rights. Taken together, they will render the propertied classes' privileged access to large amounts of land and capital irrelevant, act as a force-multiplier for bootstrapping the alternative economy, drastically lower the revenue streams required both for households to subsist and microenterprises to stay in business, and shift a large portion of consumption needs into the category of Free or virtually Free as embedded rents on artificially property rights are washed out of the price of goods. "The Abolition of Scarcity." Kevin Carson. The Future We Deserve.

A group that is rapidly spreading around the world is The Zeitgeist Movement, based on the ideas of Jacque Fresco.

Simply stated, a resource-based economy utilizes existing resources rather than money, and provides an equitable method of distribution in the most humane and efficient manner for the entire population. It is a system in which all natural, man-made, machine-made, and synthetic resources would be available without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of symbolic exchange. ...

Cybernation, or the application of computers and automation to the social system, could be regarded as an emancipation proclamation for humankind if used humanely and intelligently. Its thorough application could eventually enable people to have the highest conceivable standard of living with practically no labor. "Resource-Based Economy." Jacque Fresco. The Venus Project.

Here's more: "What are some of the central characteristics of a 'Resource-Based Economy?'"

So now, we have finally reached a point where a gift economy makes sense. If there is abundance and if people trust that their needs will be met, they may feel free to give away what they want to give away and what they don't need.

In various ways Marcel Mauss, Georges Bataille, and Jean Baudrillard have all argued that societies are grouped around the notion of excess (and acts of generous gift giving) rather than resource scarcity (Coyne 2005: 99-150). "The Participatory Challenge," Collectivate.net [from: Krysa, J., ed. (2006) DATA Browser 03. Curating immateriality. The work of the curator in the age of network systems. Autonomedia: New York.] Trebor Scholz 2006

My personal opinion is that all the discussions about giving away music and then selling scarcities is way too limited. Most of the proposed ways for musicians to make money are based on consumerism. Should we be encouraging them to sell anything? Or should we find ways to help them, and others, survive in a new economic system? As we move more toward user-generated creativity and participatory society (in art, journalism, networking, and so on), finding ways for everyone to live fully and creatively rather than just finding ways for elite artists to sell their works seems to be a good goal.

Here are two extensive gift economy resources:

Regenerosity

Anarchism and Gift Economy

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 11/20/10
A recent article on the subject: "To end poverty, guarantee everyone in Canada $20,000 a year. But are you willing to trust the poor?"

Music and the "Gift Economy" 2: Examples

For the first post in this series, go here: Music and the "Gift Economy" 1: An Introduction

In order to determine whether gift economies have any practical application for artists and musicians, let's look at some gift economies.

The first ones to be described were small indigenous communities where money had never been introduced.

Instead of vying to see who could accumulate the most, the winners were the ones who managed to give the most away. In some notorious cases, such as the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, this could lead to dramatic contests of liberality, where ambitious chiefs would try to outdo one another by distributing thousands of silver bracelets, Hudson Bay blankets or Singer sewing machines, and even by destroying wealth - sinking famous heirlooms in the ocean, or setting huge piles of wealth on fire and daring their rivals to do the same. "Give It Away," by David Graeber. In These Times. August 21, 2000.

However, this author suggests that perhaps there has never been a pure gift economy.

The possibility that some cultures organized their economic life around systems of "gifts made and reciprocated" rather than commodities bought and sold originates in the fieldwork of anthropologists such as Malinowksi in the Trobriand Islands, and colonial observers of the so-called "potlatches" of northwest American Indians, observations which were then synthesized in Marcel Mauss's monumental study The Gift. Yet none of these observers, including Mauss himself, were ever able to decide once and for all whether the practices they observed really constitute a distinctly different economy, a system truly based in generosity and self-sacrifice; instead, they always leave open the possibility that members of archaic cultures simply exchanged gifts in the rational expectation of receiving ever-larger gifts later, making the gift economy merely a kind of rudimentary capitalism under a different form. "Response to Barbara Sebek's 'Good Turns and the Art of Merchandising: Conceptualizing Exchange in Early Modern England'," by Scott Cutler Shershow in Early Modern Culture, 2001.

The best example of a gift economy I can find in today's world (other than some communes and family-style compounds) is Burning Man, the week-long festival held every year in the Nevada desert. Here's what Larry Harvey, founder of Burning Man, has to say about it as a gift economy and the reason for doing so.

We've intentionally designed Black Rock City to foster what we call a gift economy. We allow no vending, no advertising, no buying or selling of anything. We discourage bartering because even bartering is a commodity transaction. Instead, we've originated both an ethos and an economic system that is devoted to the giving of gifts. ...

Let me draw a contrast between the market and a gift economy. I will begin with the marketplace. ... A simple act of purchase allows me to command the resources of the world. ... There has never been a better method for the productive allocation of wealth and the distribution of goods and services. ... The market, mated today in our modern system of mass production and mass distribution, has produced more wealth and distributed it more widely than in all other epochs of human history. This has liberated us from toil, but more importantly, it has freed us to independently pursue uniquely personal visions of happiness. ...

But what this transaction does not necessarily produce is connections between people. It does not produce what Robert Putnam and other writers have described as "social capital." Social capital is a very different concept. Social capital represents the sum of human connection that holds a society together, and it is fostered by networks of personal relationship.

... It is in the nature of our modern system of mass marketing to cater to the desires of the individual. "Viva Las Xmas." A speech at the Cooper Union in New York City. 4/25/02.

Burning Man would not exist, however, without the resources people accumulate during their real world existence outside of the event. They bring in what they personally need and what they want to give away. While services and products are sometimes created at Burning Man, all the raw materials are trucked in from elsewhere.

Q. What should I bring?
A. Thank you for asking the million-dollar question. Burning Man is an exercise in radical self-sufficiency. You have to bring all you need to survive, and then some. Some people bring only the basics; others bring everything including the kitchen sink.

Water, food and shelter are imperative — you will be asked to turn around at the gate if gate personnel believe you cannot meet your basic survival needs. Carefully read the Survival Guide, and prepare accordingly.

After you have taken care of your survival, everything else is up to you.

If you are fond of sleep, earplugs are a participant's best friend.

A bicycle (with a bike light) is vital for enjoying our vast and burgeoning metropolis.

For maximum enjoyment of the event, bring toys or costumes with which you can express your creative spirit.

"What is Burning Man?: FAQ"

So Burning Man shows a true gift economy can exist within a moment of time and location, but it doesn't demonstrate that it can exist without a market economy.

My third example is the Internet, expecially the open source community, the development of Wikipedia, and the use of crowdsourcing. Some people have called these gift economies, but in my mind they are not really. Rather, they are examples of collaboration. While people may be uploading items separately or contributing free labor, the final result is something that benefits them all rather than being the transfer of an item from one owner to another.

The history of the Internet, however, has given rise to some interesting discussions, which will be relevant to my exploration of music and gift economies.

During the Sixties, the New Left created a new form of radical politics: anarcho-communism. Above all, the Situationists and similar groups believed that the tribal gift economy proved that individuals could successfully live together without needing either the state or the market. From May 1968 to the late Nineties, this utopian vision of anarcho-communism has inspired community media and DIY culture activists. Within the universities, the gift economy already was the primary method of socialising labour. From its earliest days, the technical structure and social mores of the Net has ignored intellectual property. Although the system has expanded far beyond the university, the self-interest of Net users perpetuates this hi-tech gift economy. As an everyday activity, users circulate free information as e-mail, on listservs, in newsgroups, within on-line conferences and through Web sites. As shown by the Apache and Linux programs, the hi-tech gift economy is even at the forefront of software development. Contrary to the purist vision of the New Left, anarcho-communism on the Net can only exist in a compromised form. Money-commodity and gift relations are not just in conflict with each other, but also co-exist in symbiosis. The "New Economy" of cyberspace is an advanced form of social democracy. "The Hi-Tech Gift Economy," Imaginary Futures, 4/19/07.

The above paper was written by Richard Barbrook in 1998. In 2005, he was asked how the hi-tech gift economy had evolve since he wrote the paper. You can read his responses here.

Here are quotes from two people who share my opinion that the Internet probably isn't a true gift economy:

Notice that the gifts are exchanged between people who know each other; indeed, the purpose of gift giving is to cement relationships between people. This may have been true of the very early Internet, which was small enough that researchers could know each other and direct their work to specific people. However, it is not sufficient to explain the behaviour of people who, to use one current example, put pages on the World Wide Web, since they may never know (and, therefore, have no relationship with) people who see their work.

Worse, in traditional theory, gifts are alienable; this means that when you give a gift, you give up ownership of it. Ownership of the gift is transferred to the person to whom you give it. However, by its very nature, ownership of information is inalienable. When you send a copy of a document to somebody, you can keep a copy for yourself. Alienability is an important aspect of gift culture; we wouldn't think much of somebody who had given us clothing, for example, if they kept asking if they could borrow it! If the Internet is not a gift culture, we have to return to the question: why do so many people work so hard on something for which they receive no financial compensation? "The Gift of Generalized Exchange," by Ira Nayman in Spark-Online, Issue 17, February 2001.

In my opinion, there is a profound misconception regarding peer to peer, expressed by the various authors who call it a gift economy, such as Richard Barbrook (Barbrook, 1995), or Steven Weber (Weber, 2004). But, as Stephan Merten of Oekonux.de has already argued, P2P production methods are not a gift economy based on equal sharing, but a form of communal shareholding based on participation. In a gift economy if you give something, the receiving party has to return if not the gift, then something of at least comparable value (in fact the original tribal gift economy was more about creating relationships and obligations and a means to evacuate excess, since they did not need it for their basic survival needs). In a participative system such as communal shareholding, organized around a common resource, anyone can use or contribute according to his need and inclinations. "The intersubjectivity of P2P: the The Gift Economy vs. Communal Shareholding," by Michel Bauwens, originally written in 2006, and republished in P2P Foundation Blog, 7/28/10.

If you want to explore more about the Internet as a gift economy (multiple citations), go here.

Next: Music and the "Gift Economy" 3: Commons, Copyright, and Radical Politics

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

Music in a Declining Economy

I'm working on a series of blog posts on gift economies. It's a complex subject, so it's taking me awhile to pull it all together in a logical fashion.

In the meantime, I've been seeing a wave of articles on spending patterns during the recession. Not just about people buying less, but even giving away what they already have. I want to collect them here and do a short piece on how all of this might impact the future of music.

Recently the thinking has been that musicians should provide free digital music to create demand for salable merchandise and for shows and other types of experiences. But I haven't seen much attention paid to the fact that people either may not be able to afford what musicians are selling, or if they can, they may not want it.

First let's look at some economic figures (this is just a brief sample of what can be found):

Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300. "The crisis of middle-class America," Financial Times, 7/30/10.

Explained Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett: “When the bottom 40 percent has [only] $100 to spend every month after shelter, food and transportation, the idea that it’s OK to charge $80 for basic cable is very dangerous. "Analysts Bullish on the Eve of Upfront Week," MediaWeek, 5/16/10.

And when Americans are spending, the money is going to tech and telecom companies, which may not be putting money into musicians' pockets:

Right there up at the top is America’s love affair with mobile devices, where spending has soared almost 17% since the recession started. Also supporting my thesis of a communications boom – spending on wired, wireless, and cable services have risen by 5%. "Where Americans Are Spending More..." Mandel on Innovation and Growth, 8/9/10.

"Tech Gadgets Steal Sales From Appliances, Clothes."

And some people are going so far as to get rid of their possessions.

Many have begun trading in CD, DVD, and book collections for digital music, movies, and e-books. But this trend in digital technology is now influencing some to get rid of nearly all of their physical possessions - from photographs to furniture to homes altogether. "Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive," BBC News, 8/16/10.

Most people live their life trying to acquire more and more things. Living a minimalist lifestyle is completely the opposite. It’s about trying to live with less and less things. It’s about trying to get back to the bare minimum of possessions. In doing that, it frees up your life to pursue the things you most value. "Becoming minimalist: when having fewer possessions means living a better life," SmartPlanet, 8/12/10.

Is it possible to own nothing?

Well, maybe not nothing. Nothing is a little extreme. But is it possible to own close to the nothing? I hope to have the answer to that question soon. Inspired by a a book or two, I’ve decided to try to see if I can rid my life of most of the clutter. The goal? Condense my life into 2 bags and 2 boxes. "Is it possible to own nothing?" Cult of Less Blog, 9/8/09.

If people either can't afford, or don't want, possessions, that knocks out t-shirt sales and limited edition books, albums, and art objects.

On the other hand, the good thing about owning less is that it helps us prioritize what is really important to us. There have been quite a few studies lately about happiness; many indicate that experiences mean more to us than possessions.

We find that only one component of consumption is positively related to happiness — leisure consumption. In contrast, consumption of durables, charity, personal care, food, health care, vehicles, and housing are not significantly associated with happiness. Second, we find that leisure consumption is associated with higher levels of happiness partially through its effect on social connectedness, as indexed by measures of loneliness and embeddedness in social networks. "Does consumption buy happiness? Evidence from the United States."

This might be good news for music, which can be all about the experience. However, given that there is less money to spend, not all experiences are doing equally well. For example, we already know the high end concert market has been hit hard.

Our Top 100 Tours for the first six months have a combined gross of $965.5 million, down $196.8 million, or 17 percent, from the same period one year ago. If you want to find a lower number you’ll have to go back to 2005 when the mid-year gross volume was $730.9 million. "2010 By The Numbers (So Far)," Pollstar, 7/9/10.

And some data has been coming in to suggest the low end might be affected as well, but it's probably too soon to know about that yet.

The live music industry exhibited a productivity gain in 2009 by generating more money through fewer events.

... as reported last year, the gap between the grass roots acts and superstars is widening, both in touring and at events where the big names are needed to attract fans. ... Down in the tail, the closure of pubs (49 a week, according to The Publican) puts more pressure on the low end of the market, which makes it increasingly difficult for emerging talent to find an audience. "Adding up the UK music industry for 2009," PRS for Music, 8/4/10.

Working in favor of the low end of the live music market is that for consumers doing something small on a regular basis can be more fulfilling than blowing a lot of money on an occasional big experience.

Scholars have discovered that one way consumers combat hedonic adaptation is to buy many small pleasures instead of one big one. Instead of a new Jaguar, Professor Lyubomirsky advises, buy a massage once a week, have lots of fresh flowers delivered and make phone calls to friends in Europe. Instead of a two-week long vacation, take a few three-day weekends. "Consumers Find Ways to Spend Less and Find Happiness," New York Times, 8/8/10.

The three-day weekend vacations have worked well for some music festivals. Consumer costs can be kept down if the festival is in your own town and you sleep at home, or it's a festival with a campground.

However, I have long maintained that the heart of live music is local, and this research seems to reinforce that:

Being able to spend money on purchases designed to create positive experiences increased people's happiness. The best way to increase happiness, though, was to make a series of smaller purchases rather than one big one. Think of it this way. The people who went to a series concerts by a few local bands were happier overall than the people who spent the same amount of money but got great seats at a concert by a top band. "Money can buy happiness if you spent it right," Psychology Today, 5/21/10.

I've touched upon just a small amount of research on consumer spending patterns, so this blog post isn't meant to cover the subject in great depth. But I wanted to add to the conversation by suggesting that some of the newly proposed music business models seem to assume that fans are sitting on cash that they will use to buy music-related stuff if only we are smart enough to offer it to them. People will always want music, but if and when they can obtain all the music they want for free, they may not feel the need to spend more for it.

More on the economics of it all in my upcoming posts on gift economies.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 8/26/10

"Musicians currently have half the gigs they did before the flood, and this work pays less than pre-Katrina," says Gabriela Hernandez, executive director of the non-profit relief agency Sweet Home New Orleans (SHNO), which released the report. "At the same time, the recession has eliminated a lot of the service industry day jobs they've previously relied on. So while the cost of living has skyrocketed in the city, musicians are seeing their opportunities to earn money dry up."

SHNO published the report this morning, using its 4,500 clients to provide insights into the well-being of the city's famed music community. There's good news: Despite fears about the storm's impact on neighborhood-based institutions such as Mardi Gras Indians and the second-line community, those groups are back to pre-Katrina levels of activity. Musicians, on the other hand, have experienced a drop in the average number of gigs from 12 to six in a month, and earnings are down 43% to a ballpark income of $15,000 per year. "The state of working musicians in New Orleans: 'Half the gigs ... and the work pays less'," Los Angeles Times, 8/26/10.

If You Want to Change Intellectual Property Laws

I haven't entered into the debates on copyright and other forms of intellectual property. I understand the copyright laws as they apply to me and the other creative people I know, but I don't feel strongly enough about the issue to argue for or against it. I'm saving my energy for other matters.

However, in reading comments from various anti-IP folks (some people more credible than others: snarky anonymous posts don't elevate the discourse), I've found some of their points less compelling than others. Why, I think to myself, should lawmakers change current laws if a strong case hasn't been made to do so? After all, there are all sorts of other issues requiring national and international action.

With that in mind, I decided to make a list of comments I've read on why IP protection is bad, ranking them in ascending order of persuasiveness. For the most part they go from arguments that focus on individual benefit to arguments that focus on societal benefit (without sacrificing the individual in the process).

1. I want it (e.g., content, music, ideas, images) for free, and they won't give it to me.
This comes off as self-centered.

2. I want to use it, and they won't let me.
This is a little stronger than the above statement because it implies you're going to do something proactive with the idea rather than just consume it, but it also implies that you can't come up with something on your own.

3. Culture was built by taking other people's ideas.
Again, not really a strong reason to dump IP protection, especially copyrights. Society has functioned pretty well so far within copyright restrictions. Creative people usually can find legal ways translate inspiration from multiple sources into something they can call their own.

4. I have already used it and now they want to sue me.
This has to do less with the rightness or wrongness of the laws and more with to do with how they are administered and whether or not any person/company has the money/time/wherewithal to sue. In other words, we can have laws that are fairly enforced. We can have laws that are unfairly enforced (e.g., suing people for minor infractions). And we can have laws that are no longer enforced. Perhaps we should decide which needs to be addressed first: the laws or the enforcement of them. Sometimes it is a matter of reasonable laws badly executed rather than the laws being inherently unreasonable. And sometimes the problem takes care of itself when we simply ignore old laws.

5. I want to use it because I have a business, but my plan will only work if I can get some or all IP for free or minimal cost.
Average people and most legislators don't care about your business per se. If you can't show voters and lawmakers how your business will help them, then they aren't likely to listen to you. And since you may come into conflict with other businesses that don't want you to have their IP for free or minimal cost, you need to show how these IP holders will benefit from your plan. If you've got a great idea that depends on cooperation from them, you've got to sell it to them. Telling IP holders and legislators that they are stupid for charging you is not the way to win friends and influence people.

6. I want to use all or parts of it, but I don't want to go to the trouble of getting permission.
The way to deal with this is to create easier ways to obtain licensing, so that both IP holders and potential users benefit.

7. I want to use parts of it to include in a critique or to pay homage.
Fair use allows for this already. So if certain uses are currently being prevented but should fall under fair use, then perhaps the fair use concept should be expanded or better defined. However some people argue that they are afraid to test fair use and therefore they self-censor rather than include other people's works within their own. I think this is often more of an education problem than a legal problem. If this can't be settled outside of court, then academic and creative groups may want to set up a fair use fund to cover legal challenges to their members.

8. I want to use it because I know how to make more money from it than they do.
This anti-IP argument is a crowdsourcing construct. People are saying, in essence, "Let the concepts be out in the marketplace and the rewards will flow to those who best execute." But the results may favor those companies and individuals with the most investment resources. On the upside, throwing concepts out into the marketplace may make the concepts most widely available. On the downside, the financial rewards may not be evenly distributed. So citing this as a reason to drop IP protection may be a tough sell to creative individuals and small companies unless there is a way for them to directly benefit from creating the concepts without holding any rights to them. Altruism is nice, but doesn't necessarily pay the bills.

9. I want to use parts or all of it to improve it.
Some people have suggested that IP locks up certain concepts with people/companies who do nothing with those concepts or utilize them badly. Most patents expire in 20 years, so there is already that. However, there is an on-going debate as to whether having to wait 20 years makes sense in these fast moving times. And copyrighted items are tied up even longer.

If it is true we're all being disadvantaged because people can't tweak other people's concepts when they wish, there are at least three possible solutions:

change the IP laws;

have people/companies/organizations decide it isn't worth their resources to enforce IP laws;

or develop new ways to share concepts.

I'm guessing that of the three scenarios, changing the laws will be the last to happen. And if one or both of the other two scenarios happen first, it won't really matter much if the laws aren't changed.

10. I want to use it because society as a whole will benefit.
Some concepts are already freely available to everyone. They are in the public domain. Chances are that if they are currently in the public domain, they will remain so. So let's assume that's not an issue.

That leaves concepts that aren't currently in the public domain or concepts yet to be created that might not be placed in the public domain in the foreseeable future.

I can't see legislators altering protection for concepts currently protected. Telling someone who has complied with the laws that his concepts are now going to become freely available years before he had planned won't go over well. Therefore, let's assume currently protected concepts won't enter into the public domain before their patents or copyrights expire.

But perhaps legislators can be persuaded that IP protection is currently too long and is hurting society. A logical response from them would be to let currently protected concepts live out their days under IP protection, but to shorten or eliminate protection for concepts yet to be released. But I don't think there's enough evidence yet to persuade legislators to go this route. Right now we don't have any side-by-side comparisons to show that countries without IP protection laws have a better quality of life than countries that do have IP protection.

What we are likely to see in the interim are experiments by certain groups of people choosing to make their concepts freely available as they publish them. If there are then demonstrable economic and societal benefits, we may see widespread support for downsizing IP protections. In other words, show the positive results first; then lobby for change of the laws.

Here's a good outline of the potential benefits of having concepts placed in the public domain:

In attempting to map the public domain Pamela Samuelson has identified eight “values” that can arise from information and works in the public domain, though not every idea or work that is in the public domain necessarily has a value. Possible values include:

Building blocks for the creation of new knowledge, examples include data, facts, ideas, theories and scientific principle.

Access to cultural heritage through information resources such as ancient Greek texts and Mozart’s symphonies.

Promoting education, through the spread of information, ideas and scientific principles.

Enabling follow-on innovation, through for example expired patents and copyright.

Enabling low cost access to information without the need to locate the owner or negotiate rights clearance and pay royalties, through for example expired copyrighted works or patents, and non-original data compilation.

Promoting public health and safety, through information and scientific principles.

Promoting the democratic process and values, through news, laws, regulation and judicial opinion.

Enabling competitive imitation, through for example expired patents and copyright, or publicly disclosed technologies that do not qualify for patient protection. "Public domain," Wikipedia.

11. Some concepts are so important to society that they shouldn't be patented.
Rather than trying to eliminate or reduce IP protection for all categories of concepts, perhaps we should focus on those that are too fundamental to be owned by one person/company, or are so important to the future of mankind that they should immediately be made available to everyone (e.g., basic scientific discoveries, new sources of energy, biomedical research). To accomplish this, it may be up to world organizations to set the parameters. However, there are issues which will still need to be addressed:

If certain companies or organizations have invested considerable resources in creating these concepts, will there be ways to compensate them?

Will secret societies be formed to give certain groups knowledge not available to everyone?

Will wars be fought to keep these life-changing concepts within certain groups?

If there is a cost to execute these concepts, who will pay for that? A concept that is publicly available, but can only be utilized at great cost may be less beneficial than a protected concept that can widely reproduced and distributed inexpensively. How do we guarantee equitable use of these freely shared concepts?

So, that's my reaction to some of the IP debate. I'm not for or against, but I do note when justifications one way or the other are poorly presented.

Overall I think IP protection has functioned well in some cases and has been abused in others. On the one hand, I believe a lot of the paperwork and legal maneuvering related to IP could be better spent elsewhere.* But on the other hand, I'm not sure doing away with copyrights and patents will necessarily transform the world anytime soon. For example, poor nutrition and inadequate health care in Africa are not IP issues. The solutions are already in the public domain; they just aren't being distributed.

* For the same reasons -- less paperwork and more efficiencies -- I like the idea of universal health care.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 10/24/10
Rarely has the case for lessening IP protection been made so that it is relevant to the average person. When we go to vote, IP issues tend not to be a priority.If anything, the emphasis on copyright and music lessens the perceived relevance because most voters don't see that as a major issue in their lives. Here's is an good discussion about how environmentalists were able to transform their concerns into a national issue and what might be learned by those in the IP debates.
"Chapter 10: An Environmentalism for Information." The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. James Boyle.

Art and Conversations about Art

In the last few days I've

met with a musician I used to work with so we could get caught up on what was happening in our professional and personal lives,

had a meeting with a group of people I am working with to discuss new forms of artist funding,

been monitoring what's been happening in the world of music and the arts,

have been commenting about music on a variety of blogs hosted by people other than myself.

Add to the mix a rather animated discussion going on at Amanda Palmer's blog about her latest project (Evelyn Evelyn) which has triggered comments from her about what it means to be an artist today (including what it means to be engaged with and accountable to fans). And a discussion over at Music Think Tank on "elaborate plans."

All of the above led me to jot down some ideas about making art and talking about making art, which I view from two perspectives: as a person who creates (I've been a professional writer for 30 years) and as a person who deals with people who create (musicians).

Over the last year, I phased out much of my work with individual bands/artists and have instead been focusing on the future of the music business as a whole. I still am approached by artists wanting help, but I haven't jumped back into it other to lend a hand on some short-term projects.

The primary reason is that I don't have the time. The secondary reason is that I've "been-there-done-that." But this last week it occurred to me that there's a third reason. My day-to-day conversations about music are now much more interesting.

When I was working with individual musicians, my conversations revolved around practical issues: booking, PR, mailing lists, ordering merchandise, touring, and so on. I volunteered to do much of it because I wanted it to get done. And I have no regrets doing what amounted to office work. It's absolutely the best way to understand the music business, especially in these days of DIY artists. However, doing all of that didn't come with an easy way to connect with musicians at a creative level. Many of them express themselves primarily through music. Which means if you aren't co-writing or playing music with them, you live in separate worlds, even if you are working alongside them. (The same thing happens to non-musical boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses. They live with musicians and yet often find themselves leading separate lives because they aren't sharing a creative experience.)

In contrast, after I rejoined the writing world, and started tapping into conversations about music, theater, media, culture, and technology, I connected with people who wanted to talk about creativity and innovation. Noteworthy are the artists who get us thinking not only about their "product" (e.g., visual arts, film, music, theater, design) which they are usually hoping to sell, but also their process. Unlike those who hate to blog, these communicative artists have enough introspection to be cognizant of what they are doing as creative people, have the ability to write down those thoughts, and have the necessary social skills to engage others in the discussion. They may even have a sense of purpose, not just to create a work of art, but also to create a synergistic community.

Pre-Internet, if you didn't know artists personally, there were limited options to find out what they thought. Maybe you could read a profile in a magazine or see one on television. Perhaps you could take classes or workshops if they offered them. And even if you got that far, rarely did you get the chance to have an on-going dialogue with them. But now blogs, and in some cases Twitter, have opened up the discussions to many more of us. Here's the perfect example, Jerry Saltz. He's the art critic of New York magazine. His art is writing about art. In the past, his work appeared on paper, but more recently he has also moved into a more interactive medium.

In the year or so since, Mr. Saltz’s Facebook page has become a phenomenon, having undergone an unlikely, organic transformation that turned it from an inconsequential personal profile into a highly trafficked, widely read discussion board about the art world. Populated by dedicated and predominantly serious-minded artists, curators, gallerists and assorted art-world denizens—many of whom check the page compulsively and post their thoughts multiple times a day—the page has become home to a vibrant community and an essential extension of Mr. Saltz’s practice as an art critic. ...

“I find it a pleasure and a thrill,” he said. “It’s exciting to be in this room with 5,000 people. It’s like the Cedar Bar for me, or Max’s Kansas City, neither of which I was ever in and probably wasn’t cool enough to be in. Now I get to kind of be one of the barmaids in this place, to put an idea in the air and see what happens.” "The Many Friends of Jerry Saltz," The New York Observer, 2/16/10.

My first post about artists blogging about being artists came out a few months ago. Taking those thoughts a step further, I want to link to six blogs which I think are good examples of conversational communities. They aren't all written by artists, but what they share in common are high quality posts with high quality comments.

Amanda Palmer The best musician blog that I've seen.

Monitor Mix Blog This is a blog on the NPR site by Carrie Brownstein, a member of the rock band Sleater-Kinney. She covers a variety of topics, some focused on creating music, some on music business, and some about listening to music. Here are a few posts to check out.

• Now Is The Time: Who Or What Inspired You To Play Music?
  
• End Of The Decade: Concluding Thoughts
  
• Roundtable Discussion: The Role Of The Record Label

Jerry Saltz These are the Facebook notes cited in the above quote. They should be viewable to you even if you aren't his Facebook friend.

Music Think Tank One of the best music blogs that I know for fostering discussions about music (both by musicians and by music industry people).

Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent I just discovered this. It's directed to writers, so it's not surprising that there is a big community of commenters who express themselves well.

A VC A non-music blog by venture capitalist Fred Wilson. It's noteworthy for its active and intelligent group of commenters. Here are a few posts from his blog that deal with art, culture, and music:

• Thinking About Etsy In The San Telmo Markets
  
• What Comes After Post Modernism?
  
• Lupe Fiasco's Enemy Of The State Mixtape: A Study In Music Business Models
  
• From Scans To Listens

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

Participatory Art Is Revolutionary

In my last post (But Is It Art?) I wrote about how technology enables more people to make music. And I have done blog posts on fan involvement and audience participation. The reason I think all of this is relevant is that some are touting a wealth of opportunities for musicians today because the Internet allows them more direct access to fans than in the past. But I have been pointing out that this concept is still based on the idea that there are artists and there are fans.

But what about a world where there are only artists, and no fans? If we are going to anticipate the future of the music business, we need to think about this possible scenario. And based on what I have seen in terms of audience participation both at shows and online, artists who provide the most opportunities for engagement seem to do well. I've been taking it a step further to suggest that not only might you want to provide ways for fans to interact with the music and the artists, you may want to provide ways for the audiences to feel creative themselves.

Now I want to go into the subject even deeper because while these ideas have been an on-going discussion within some circles, they haven't filtered out to all who potentially might be affected. There are two different aspects to the topic. One is "everyone is an artist," which involves providing tools to enable creativity. The other is participatory art, which has traditionally involved a high level of social interaction. In this particular blog post, I'll focus more participatory art.

It's not a new concept. People have been talking about it for quite some time, particularly as a counter to the idea that art is to be created by a professional elite.

This paper by G.S. Evans explores the concept in depth and begins with the idea that an artistic elite has not been the norm over the course human evolution.

This alienation from art is a relatively recent phenomenon. As we shall see, the making of art was a central part of people's lives for most of human history--that is, until the relatively recent advent of a capitalist, commodity-based culture in Europe and North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At that time the emphasis in art shifted from participants, who could satisfy their own artistic needs, to specialists, who demanded a paying, non-participating audience to buy their 'products'. Essentially, the art-commodity came to replace participatory-art in most people's lives, and art increasingly became a source of alienation. ...

We live in a society where art is primarily a commodity, something people buy instead of make. Consequently, very few people are actively involved in making art. Because of this general lack of participation, many find it difficult to believe that societies have existed in which literally everybody sang, danced and made their own crafts, all on a daily basis.

Evans extensively covers the history of the arts and how societal and economic conditions transformed them from something everyone did to something mostly done by professionals. There is far too much in the paper to quote, but this is particularly relevant in light of the direct-to-fan discussions dominating music right now.

A radical monopoly [as distinguished from a commercial monopoly] occurs when pre-recorded music as a product comes to replace the making of music in society; in other words, people stop making music themselves and start buying pre-recorded music instead. A further aspect of a radical monopoly is that it becomes an entrenched and structural part of society. People who only listen to music and do not make it for themselves, for example, will normally put on pre- recorded music, no matter what the situation, rather than make their own. This is partially because of conditioned habit, but also because they will no longer be capable of making music among themselves. In addition, the radical monopoly will set up modes of performance that are exclusive to it and will push more personal modes out of style, i.e., make people like or relate to them less and less. "ART ALIENATED: An Essay on the Decline of Participatory-Art."

The idea that "everyone is an artist" has been something of a radical approach during the 20th century. There are political and economic ramifications in giving more people control over their arts experiences. Rather than excluding people for lack of talent/experience/resources, they are included as part of a community. In a paper discussing arts participation among Bay Area immigrant communities, Pia Moriarty explains the dynamics of participatory arts using a church choir model. It has considerable relevance to music because (1) church is THE live music experience for many people and (2) she points out how participatory music strengthens those community bonds. Imagine if secular musicians incorporated some of the same techniques.

Most church choirs are composed of volunteers from the congregation. This is key: the singers are already members and have entry and identity in the larger life-world. Their singing is an expression and deepening of a shared cultural goal, to pray together. To that end they are given a lot of support: physical space, a defined role in the rituals, and perhaps even microphones, songbooks, and instruments. The cultural life of the worshipping community moves forward together, and it carries the singers with it as full members. The line between audience and artistic actors is blurred, overlapping, and permeable; this is typical in participatory arts. The choir practices; it rehearses, but more importantly it engages socially as practicing singers. People learn as they go, but they are already within a living social context....

With our church choir, “audience development” means that we all learn to sing better together. The community that invites us to develop artistically is the same community that provides entry, actively recruiting us as members in a diversified web of reciprocal relationships. ...

Participatory art’s membership approach shortens the distance between “who pays” and “who plays,” and so it can develop past the self-limitations of exclusively patronage or sponsorship models. ...

At a time when non-profit arts organizations are particularly vulnerable to the economy’s protracted woes, the participatory model of “informal,” “folk,” “amateur,” or “unincorporated” artistic production is vibrant and resilient. Participatory arts offer a working alternative for non-profits that will always struggle to survive when they are forced to compete on the terms of a commercial arts model. "Participatory Arts: The Stranger Brings a Gift."

What is bringing participatory art back so prominently now is the connectivity that the Internet facilitates.

The internet with all its manifestations is transforming participatory culture, shifting its orientation from the object to the subject and more recently from subject to data. Ideas are no longer collated in sections or categories but tags. The archive has transformed into a ‘cloud’. Participatory dependent internet art is expanding exponentially. Server-side programming enables a cross-cultural, cross-language, cross-border collaboration where the ‘location’ of the artwork is accessible on demand. The reproducible copy of internet based work is one and the same as the original, albeit perhaps, as only a fragment of the dynamic whole. "Thoughts on Participatory Art," by Yiannis Colakides & Helene Black, NeMe, 6/26/09.

Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch, says:

Systems such as Wikipedia, Flickr, Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, Hunch and various parts of the open source movement are based around small contributory systems, bodies of work in which there are incremental improvements by multiple contributors, or exposing small actions that would be insignificant in isolation, but are meaningful in the aggregate. These types of software and platforms are specifically designed for conversation and contribution. That is the point. There is no final product such as a book, movie, song or album. "Participatory media and why I love it (and must defend it)," Caterina.net, 1/19/10.

A number of people make the distinction between interactivity and participation. This distinction is also very relevant as musicians hope to engage fans and audiences. Some websites deliver interactivity to fans, but don't include the more creative, more social aspects of participatory art.

At this stage, I also find it important to differentiate between participatory art practices and the much broader term "interaction," wherein the relations established between the members of the audience or between them and the art objects are much more passive and formal (usually directed by certain formal instructions, given by the artists, that are to be followed during the exhibitions).

... I want to reflect particularly on the most recent shift of the artists’ focus: from dealing with objects and installations towards dealing with subjects and enabling their participation in art activities." "Participatory Art," Springerin, 2/2006

The author, Suzana Milevska, goes on to cite the five levels of art participation suggested by Alan Brown.

Inventive Arts Participation engages the mind, body and spirit in an act of artistic creation that is unique and idiosyncratic, regardless of skill level.

Interpretive Arts Participation is a creative act of self-expression that brings alive and adds value to pre-existing works of art, either individually or collaboratively.

Curatorial Arts Participation is the creative act of purposefully selecting, organizing and collecting art to the satisfaction of one’s own artistic sensibility.

Observational Arts Participation encompasses arts experiences that you select or consent to, motivated by some expectation of value.

Ambient Arts Participation involves experiencing art, consciously or unconsciously, that you did not select. "The Five Modes of Arts Participation," The Artful Manager, 9/14/05.

Here's another essay on the subject: Interaction vs Participation.

In a previous blog post, "Elements of Music Participation," I explored some ways to create music projects which facilitate participation by a wide variety of people with different skill sets. Henry Jenkins, one of the most important voices writing about the future of media and entertainment, gives his definition of participatory culture.

For the moment, let's define participatory culture as one:
1. With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
2. With strong support for creating and sharing one's creations with others
3. With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices
4. Where members believe that their contributions matter
5. Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created).

Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued. "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Part One)," Confessions of an Aca/Fan, 10/20/06.

Jenkins also goes on to make a distinction between interactivity and participatory culture.

Interactivity is a property of the technology, while participation is a property of culture. Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways. A focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we do not also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools toward our own ends.

Another resource on the topic of participatory art can be found here: "Participation & Participatory Platforms." This article mentions the origin of "happenings" which became popular in the 1960s. Flash mobs and Burning Man could be considered descendants of "happenings." Here's a more recent example of a participatory Burning Man-like event.

A caravan of 19 such trucks were arranged inside a vast indoor garage on the waterfront of a desolate Brooklyn neighborhood. Nothing was for sale, and you needed to bring your own food & beverages.

The key here is that the event was participatory, meaning you didn’t go simply to passively view art, you were invited to experience it.

Yet, what made this particular event so fascinating was the many inventive ways each participant completely transformed their truck from something empty and uninspiring into great fun. All I could think was how the next time I see a box truck out on the street, it might be one used here. "Lost Horizon Night Market: Party in a Box Truck," reactions, 1/17/10.

For all my discussions on participatory art and audience participation, I'm not saying that it is necessarily preferable to take down the walls between artists and fans. There are especially talented individuals who I would like to see have enough financial support in some fashion to be able to devote as much time to their creativity as possible.

Rather, what I am trying to do is to prepare the music world for what I see happening anyway. The concept of a passive fan, who happily pays money to buy whatever the musician puts out, be that music, performance, art object, or personal interaction, seems to be changing. When fans start getting more attention for themselves by what they are personally doing rather than what they are buying or who they are associating with, they tend to find their own self-expression and creativity preferable to what they can purchase from someone else.

There can still be a role for the artist in all of this, but it often involves having the artist give up some degree of ownership of the creativity. Here's one artist's take.

Patricia Reed: I’m also interested in the ways in which such participatory modes of working subvert the branding strategies of institutions by way of clearly identifiable authors and names. ... In participatory practice, it is perhaps the artist who initiates something in the form of an object, idea, interaction, etc., but unleashes it to the influence of the many for further manipulation, engagement, etc. So the artist is the one who “proposes” or instigates certain processes but the authorship is ultimately obscured—it occupies this important space of the “co-,” where a work is partially made with and not by. ...

Perhaps it’s useful to look at the distinctions in the notion of authorship involved in participatory practice that expands this “artist-as-proposer” we’re discussing. To propose or initiate something is vastly different than to author something. It’s the first step in a process—obviously an important step, but one in a potentially long road. It’s the launching of an idea—and a “hosting” of that idea throughout a process. Crucial, however, to this notion of “hosting” is equally the capacity to “un-host”—for a conventional host assumes situational authority. What I mean by “un-hosting” is not to relinquish authority completely within a group dynamic, but to view the process as a partiality—that is, both being and not being a “host” simultaneously. Throughout the process of un-hosting a certain degree of control (not all) is dispersed and it is precisely that dispersion of “control” that blurs conventional notions of authorship. "What Is a Participatory Practice?" Fillip 8, Fall 2008.

Game developers and other designers of multimedia think like this because user engagement is their goal.

For the artist, this means giving up traditional notions of authorial control. “I’m a writer, but I’ve discovered that sometimes writing has to take a backseat to gameplay to ensure people have the most fun,” comments David Varela, who helped create the successful alternate reality game Xi, designed to promote Sony’s PlayStation Home. ...

“In my work, people spend 30% of the time playing and 70% socialising. We should be facilitating that social experience,” says Lance Weiler. "Participatory Storytelling: A Thousand Authors in Search of a Character," jawbone.tv, 11/11/09.

Nina Simon makes a particularly good distinction between inviting the public to design a project and designing a project that invites their participation.

Which of these descriptions exemplifies participatory museum practice?

1. Museum invites community members to participate in the development and creation of an exhibit. The exhibit opens. It looks like a traditional exhibit.
2. Museum staff create an exhibit by a traditional internal design process, but the exhibit, once open, invites visitors to contribute their own stories and participation. The exhibit is dynamic and changes somewhat in response to visitors' actions.

The answer (for me) is both. But the difference between the two examples teases out a problem in differentiating "participatory design" from "design for participation." In the first case, you are making the design process participatory. In the second, you make the product participatory. "Participatory Design Vs. Design for Participation: Exploring the Difference," Museum 2.0, 4/7/09.

Simon's distinction gets at the heart of what is happening in music among those hoping to engage their fans. Some are letting the fans create the product, while others are letting them participate in something that has already been at least partially developed.

The reason I have been exploring this to such a degree is that I feel if popular music doesn't at least participate in this conversation, it's going to be outside the wider artist community. Certainly many artists in other fields are talking about ways to generate income for themselves, so I'm not suggesting that music is unique in its discussion of developing careers that involve sales. But I'd like to see more conceptualization about the future of music beyond what is currently being discussed at music conferences and online. The 1,000 True Fans and Tribes models, where the artist is the core surrounded by adoring fans, may not remain the norm. As Evans points out:

For the most successful of the art-specialists this hero worship has made it possible to sell millions of dollars worth of their art-commodities on name power alone, and gained them large and loyal followings that would do a head-of-state or television evangelist proud.

... the prevailing belief is that legitimate art is produced solely by art-specialists and anybody else's efforts are secondary at best. This belief becomes, then, an essentially self-perpetuating definition of art, namely that art is what art-specialists produce.

The underlying assumption is that this vast number of artistic non-participants will have their artistic needs met, not by actually making art themselves, but rather by consuming the products of the art-specialists. ...

All of this is the logical result of a commodity culture. If participatory art was a part of our everyday lives, large numbers of people would be actively involved in the making of art. This, however, would severely limit the potential sales of art-commodities and the celebrity status of the specialist. "ART ALIENATED: An Essay on the Decline of Participatory-Art."

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE, 3/19/10
"SXSW: LaDiDa iPhone App Lets Anyone With a Voice Make Music in Seconds"

Here's a video of Henry Jenkins talking about participatory culture and how most creators do it to share rather than as a way to make money.



UPDATE 9/10/10
Here you can find a long discussion about whether or not DJs and mash-up producers are artists.

Some DJs rebel actively against legal and commercial institutions, while others simply avoid them as a matter of course; in both cases, these factors have helped to break down the artificial distinction between artists and audience. As UK-based musician Matt Wand told me: “I can’t draw the line, I definitely don’t draw the line – he’s artist, she’s audience – I can’t do that at all." "Aram Sinnreich: ‘Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture’ - Book Excerpt," Truthdig, 8/27/10.

The Recession and "Amateur" Talent

After my last post, "Tod Machover and Musical Innovation," Mike at Radio Nowhere posted a comment about having been initially confused by my focus on the democraticization of music. Since I can't hyperlink just to my response, I'll reproduce it here, and then go on to give some of the examples of changing nature of creativity and fandom that I have run across recently.

The focus of a lot of future of the music business discussions in the past year have been about "direct-to-fan" sales and 1000 fans. In other words, people are assuming the business model will still involve artists playing for and selling to fans.

I'm trying to shake things up a bit and suggest that the music business may not unfold this way and, at the very least, the "artists-with-their fans" model is definitely not very revolutionary or forward-thinking enough.

There are a variety of reasons why I think the trend may be headed this way:

1. Live shows often seem to be a way for fans to highlight themselves (via sending text messages about the concert to their friends, taking photos and emailing them to friends or posting them online, videotaping to upload on YouTube, etc.). So I see live music being as much or more about the fans wanting to be the center of attention than it is about listening to the music.

2. Economic trends. If people are becoming permanently more frugal, they may not spend a lot on music-related items. If they can get some satisfaction by hanging out with friends at backyard jams, they may go for it.

3. Technology is allowing more people to play with the musical process. YouTube, music video games, music iPhone applications. These are all ways for people to get involved, often with little or no skill. As technology gets better, it can do even more to produce music for people. It isn't so much that they will create great music. It will be enough that they feel they have done something worth sharing.

4. Crowdsourcing. The Internet is allowing more people to collaborate. Therefore they are learning about participatory culture. I think the idea of being passive fans is going to be less appealing to them.

5. Music consumption changes. Compare classical music audiences to rock concert audiences. As times change, people change how they listen to music.

In summation, just as MP3s were a disruptive technology for the music business of the 2000s, I think technologies that allow everyone to be a music creator/producer/promoter will be disruptive technologies in the future.

We have gone from major labels selling millions of copies, to independent artists selling or giving away thousands of copies, to perhaps millions of people sharing music with 10 to 100 of their closest friends.

If some of my visions of the future are correct, then the music business has to change some more. More people making money; less money, on average, going to each artist.

Now on to some examples of "amateur" creativity. Here's Newsweek's take on non-professionals moving into the arts.

In September 2008 English singer Billy Bragg performed at something called the Big Busk. After posting the chords of the songs he would play on the Internet, he invited all comers to bring their guitars. Some 3,000 did, strumming while a crew behind Bragg hoisted signs showing which chord to play. ...

The global recession hasn't crippled the entertainment industry, as some feared, but it has hastened its embrace of the do-it-yourself movement. From neighborhood theater troupes to bookstore readings, amateur performers are taking their place onstage. It's less a new development than a return to an old way of life. "The whole idea of the professional artist belongs to the 20th century," says Shan Maclennan, Southbank's creative director of learning and participation. "Before that, amateurs were everywhere." When the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic was founded in 1840, she says, half its members had day jobs. "In professionalizing art, [spontaneity and fun] have been lost. What we're doing feels like the way forward."

... Robin Simpson, head of the U.K.'s Voluntary Arts Network ... noticed attitudes shifting even before the world economy went south. "The false divide between professionals and amateurs was already breaking down," he says. ...

How good can any of this stuff be? That's missing the point, says Robert Lynch, president of the nonprofit arts promoter Americans for the Arts: "The word 'amateur' comes from the Latin root for love." Where the arts are concerned, love is definitely in the air. "Amateurs Making Art in Growing Numbers," Newsweek, 12/30/09.

The National Endowment for the Arts also reports increased participation in the arts, based on a recent survey.

... said Joan Shigekawa, NEA's senior deputy chairman. "... there is something about this technology that emboldens people to express themselves."...

The NEA survey -- which polled 18,000 adults -- also revealed that more people appear to be creating their own art. The numbers of enthusiasts engaging in photography, videography and filmmaking increased to 15 percent last year, a climb from 12 percent in 1992. The availability of digital media, said NEA researchers, accounted for that increase. "National Endowment for the Arts survey shows growth in online arts audience," Washington Post, 12/9/09.

In the Washington DC area, some of the most expensive chorus groups have closed. But others, using volunteer performers, are springing up.

... the secret of choral success appears to lie on a more grass-roots level: in the fact that choruses allow people to make music, rather than merely listen to it.

"If we don't allow audiences to become involved every once in a while," says Ann Stahmer, executive director of the City Choir of Washington, "we're not doing everything we can to promote choral music. There's something about the 'Hallelujah' Chorus that is universal. It makes people feel they are a classical musician for 3.5 magic moments." "New groups like National Master Chorale signal key change in D.C. choral scene," Washington Post, 12/18/09.

An interesting variation is the complaint choir.

Recently a group of about 100 Tokyo residents put their complaints into a pile and a composer, Okuchi Shunsuke, turned them into a song. About 80 of the complainers (accompanied by an accordion, a bass cello and a tambourine) then performed the composition at various sites around the city, becoming the latest example of what has become known as a complaints choir. ...

... others have formed choirs in other cities ... more than 60 performances have occurred worldwide — from Melbourne to Singapore to Philadelphia to Florence. People of differing ages and backgrounds are encouraged to participate. Singing experience is not required.

“If you demand a certain amount of singing skills it would exclude a lot of people,” [Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, founder of the concept] said. “Anyone who has a complaint should be able to take part.” ...

Regardless of the complaint and where it is sung, being able to sing it while standing alongside others is apparently often cathartic. "Complaint Choirs Make Whining an Art Form," New York Times, 12/9/09.

Talent shows, open mics, and the like have had varying degrees of success. I wanted to feature two of them. In both cases, the community element, where people come as much to drink and hang out with people, is as important or more so than who is performing.

For nearly 10 years (over 100 shows), the Freak Train has been going on. It was originally conceived as a way to do something with an empty theater on Monday nights.

Monday night is when the freaks come out. In droves.

Old freaks, young freaks, gay freaks, straight freaks. Freaks in drag and freaks with cancer. They flock to the Bug Theatre, an old nickelodeon house in northwest Denver.

They pay $5 for admission and a plastic, bottomless cup the freaks of proper age can fill with not-so-freaky Breckenridge microbrews.

Some come to the monthly event, called "Freak Train," to perform — anything they want, from songs to stand-up comedy, poems to performance art, anything, uncensored. Most come to be entertained.

The distinction between the two groups, though, is minimal, as self-described freaks watch their fellow freaks from the seats, then head to the stage themselves. ...

The comics aren't necessarily funny. The singers can go off-key. Things can be fascinating or painfully tedious. It's all part of the show — a very popular show, usually packed with a crowd of hipsters and half-wits, weirdos, wunderkinds and wannabes.

"Freak Train is where the lines blur between virtuosity, sincerity and amateurism," says bubbly emcee GerRee Hinshaw. "I wouldn't call it a forgiving audience. The audience never promises to love what you're going to do. But the exchange is always there. We're going through something together. And, really, every audience member is hoping the person on stage is about to blow them away." "Are these people freaks?" The Denver Post, 8/29/09.

Ignite is a concept spreading around the country where people get to make five-minute presentations on topics of their choosing using 20 slides that change every 15 seconds. It's PowerPoint combined with standup comedy. In Boulder this has become hugely successful, with each show growing bigger and selling out. The last show attracted 700 people and the next is expected to draw 850.

Despite being a pretty low-tech endeavor, the idea came from the tech community, and it's an event the exemplifies geek culture. The potential topics are unlimited and determined by the speakers' passions and by attendees' votes (with the odd intervention by the organizers). ...

The format is tight and keeps things from ever getting boring: If a speaker isn't doing it for you, you grab a drink, and by the time you're tipping the bartender, the next person is up. The crowd is raucous and engaged, encouraging with hearty yells and interjecting the occasional laugh with a well-timed retort. The results are impressive, even to those thinking the whole thing sounds like a colossal bore. "Ignite Boulder lit my fire," Westword, 12/11/09.

Finally, I wanted to mention a highly successful website, LOOKBOOK.nu, where people post the looks they have created. They aren't passive consumers.

... the idea all along was to see if a global community of creative and talented people could pull off a virtual “LOOKBOOK” that was just as visually compelling as that of any one magazine editor or fashion industry “insider.” That’s why we originally called LB a “social experiment in style.” ... to our astonishment it has now stretched to over 80 countries around the world.

... By now, practically everyone recognizes the immense appeal that street fashion has over more traditional fashion media outlets — it’s just so much more real, you know? I think it’s no wonder street style blogs and party photo sites have seen such runaway popularity over the past year, simply because on the streets is where real fashion comes to life. What gives LOOKBOOK.nu its edge in the realm of online fashion is that our content is 100% produced as well as democratically sorted by the community members themselves. "What Are You Wearing Today? A Discussion With Yuri Lee, Founder of LOOKBOOK.nu," Allentrepreneur, 3/9/09.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE, 1/14/10
The trailer for this documentary says that the ukulele is popular again because it's easy to play and everyone can get involved.
MIGHTY UKE: A documentary about the global revival of the ukulele in the 21st Century

UPDATE, 1/20/10

At the end of the 19th century, an amateur meant someone who was motivated by the sheer love of doing something; professional was a rare, pejorative term for grubby money-making. Now, amateurism is a byword for sloppiness, disorganisation and ineptitude, while professionalism–as Humphrys suggested–is the default description of excellence. Ours is the age of professionalism; it is a concept in perpetual boom. But all bubbles, as we have painfully learned about finance, must eventually burst. Is it time we let some of the hot air out of professionalism? "Are We Too Professional?" More Intelligent Life, Winter 2009.

UPDATE 8/7/10
This article (and the comments) list examples of non-professional musicians participating in classical music activities.
DIY music