Do You Sell Originals, or Reproductions?

In the last entry in the “Photographing Art” series, Don’t Bother With Image Protection, I covered some reasons why I think that allowing images of art work to be freely shared isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some people want to photograph art, or download images of art, and for artists dealing with one-of-a-kind images, like painters, the benefits of this infringement can outweigh the risks.

The last entry was rather one-sided, however. Freely allowing copies isn’t going to be beneficial in all situations. If you are in the selling reproductions business, file sharing has the potential to eat away at sales. I can sympathize with this. I have made money licensing images for prints myself. As a struggling artist, I know that every source of income, no matter how small it might seem, is very significant.

How many image makers are in the business of selling reproductions? Photographers certainly are, but I believe that it is important for artists to decide on the main focus of their practice: are they about selling originals, or selling reproductions.
If you are in the business of selling reproductions, this series is probably not for you. If you are more interested in selling originals, please come with me as I take you through the weird world of infinite goods.
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In the last entry in the "Photographing Art" series, Don't Bother With Image Protection, I covered some reasons why I think that allowing images of art work to be freely shared isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some people want to photograph art, or download images of art, and for artists dealing with one-of-a-kind images, like painters, the benefits of this infringement can outweigh the risks. The last entry was rather one-sided, however. Freely allowing copies isn't going to be beneficial in all situations. If you are in the selling reproductions business, file sharing has the potential to eat away at sales. I can sympathize with this. I have made money licensing images for prints myself. As a struggling artist, I know that every source of income, no matter how small it might seem, is very significant. How many image makers are in the business of selling reproductions? Photographers certainly are, but I believe that it is important for artists to decide on the main focus of their practice: are they about selling originals, or selling reproductions. If you are in the business of selling reproductions, this series is probably not for you. If you are more interested in selling originals, please come with me as I take you through the weird world of infinite goods. One idea of Tim O'Reilly's that I try to keep floating around in my head is that piracy should be thought of as a sort of progressive tax on success. If you are big and successful, there are going to be lots of pirates, and sales will be affected. If you are small and still emerging, piracy is a way to rapidly expand your audience, leading to more sales in the future. And, if no one is pirating your material, thats a bad sign: nobody wants what you are offering, even when it's free. If this idea is right, then knowing whether infringement should be seen as a concern or not is made very simple: Just ask "Am I successful?"       IF answer = "yes" THEN fight infringement       IF answer = "no" THEN promote infringement I've used these quotes from O'Reilly and Doctorow before, but they are good ones, so I'll use them again: "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." "It's hard to monetize fame, but it's impossible to monetize obscurity." What is the bigger problem: piracy or obscurity? What is more important: royalties or exposure? I argued in the last post in the series the reasons why I believe that if obscurity is the problem, fighting piracy is not the solution. Piracy can be thought of as a form of word-of-mouth advertising. To summarize the argument in one sentence, "unless you are actively selling licensed reproductions, why fight the spread of copies?" A potential concern might be, "but what if I decide to license reproduction of my work in the future". This is a valid concern, letting everyone have free copies now might prevent them from paying for copies later. Making sure the only copies that are freely available are a fairly low resolution is one option. "You can have a free desktop background image now, but if you make a poster from that image, it will look pretty crappy. Here is a nice high-rez print for sale. Just see what you've been missing!" Creative works that are part of the free-culture movement or creative commons might be seen as a sort of public portfolio piece or career stepping stone. You let it go for free right now, hoping someone of importance will see your work, learn your name, and hire you for a paid project in the future. Several years ago, I was talking to an independent film maker who made the decision to release a movie under a creative commons license. This generated a ton of unexpected attention and exposure, but no money came from the project. Luckily, it was a no-budget film, done out of a passion for film-making, so the lack of sales wasn't seen as a disappointment. Who knows what that attention will bring to his future? TED talks have exploded in popularity over the past few years. Part of this is the license. The videos are free to share, so long as they are not modified, ensuring that the TED branding is left intact. The more people share, copy and download these videos, the stronger the TED brand becomes. Releasing something for free doesn't have to be a death sentence for future profits. One glance at the figures for Nine Inch Nails' 2008 release Ghosts i-iv reveal that with a dedicated built-in audience, free in one place can be used to generate some big sales in other areas, like really fancy box sets. As a painter, a maker of original one-of-a-kind goods, I have an equivalent to the fancy deluxe boxed set - the original painting!

An OCAD Grad Show Conversation

The last two entries, Why Can’t I Photograph Art, and Why Can’t I Photograph Art: Part 2 were inspired by a conversation I had back in May during the OCAD grad show.

           I was talking to one of the graduates. He was good. He had the pretentious B.S. down well enough to keep up with the art snobs, critics, and grant applications, but he also had legitimately interesting ideas to discuss with other artists. They were good ideas, and they inspired good paintings. It was going well, and I asked if I could see any more,

           Do you have a card? I asked him
           Nope.
           Perhaps a website, with a gallery section?
           Nope.
           A facebook fan page with a few uploaded images?
           Nope.
           Anything?
           Nope.

           This took me by surprise, because unlike so many artists, he seemed to have a concern for the business end of the art world as well as the studio end. But this huge critical piece of the puzzle was being left out completely.
           It had to be an oversight. Here was a young artist who had something going, and no website? No online presence of any kind? Was he a Luddite?
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The last two entries, Why Can't I Photograph Art, and Why Can't I Photograph Art: Part 2 were inspired by a conversation I had back in May during the OCAD grad show.            I was talking to one of the graduates. He was good. He had the pretentious B.S. down well enough to keep up with the art snobs, critics, and grant applications, but he also had legitimately interesting ideas to discuss with other artists. They were good ideas, and they inspired good paintings. It was going well, and I asked if I could see any more,            Do you have a card? I asked him            Nope.            Perhaps a website, with a gallery section?            Nope.            A facebook fan page with a few uploaded images?            Nope.            Anything?            Nope.            This took me by surprise, because unlike so many artists, he seemed to have a concern for the business end of the art world as well as the studio end. But this huge critical piece of the puzzle was being left out completely.            It had to be an oversight. Here was a young artist who had something going, and no website? No online presence of any kind? Was he a Luddite?            No, he was fairly tech savvy. His reason for avoiding the internet: Fear of infringement. He didn't want to put his images online because he hadn't figured out a way to protect them from being copied.            He knew there were ways of doing it, but he wasn't sure how to implement them. (note: These ways don't actually work, it might be possible to disable "right click + save image", but "print screen" still works)            I had just met this guy, and I didn't want to turn a friendly conversation into an argument, but I also didn't want to see is work fade into obscurity because no one could find him.            A third person joined our conversation at this point. Her stuff was also quite interesting. Not quite to my taste, but it was very well executed, and it was original, she wasn't chasing a trend. I respect that. My reservations towards her work was its inconsistency. I mean that in the best possible way. Rather than having a narrow focus like most of her peers, her body of work was eclectic. It's hard to get a good feel for an eclectic painter when only five pieces are available. I needed to see more before I could make up my mind on this artist.            Do you have a website? I asked.            "Of course!" was her reply            Oh, that's excellent, I said. There's a lot going on in your work, and I'm not sure that I get it right now, so seeing more of it would help me out quite a bit.            "Oh, I don't have any pictures up on my website"            What? then why do you have a...            "I don't want people infringing my images!"            Then what do you have on your website?            "My C.V. thesis paper, and artist statement." Oh, wonderful. I prefer to avoid artists statements wherever possible. More often than not, these statements cause me to think less of the art than I had before reading it. Art is a visual language. If an artist needs to fall back on words to explain what their art cannot, their art has failed; either make better art, or switch over to the English department. Why don't you have any images of your art on your artist's website? It's a website that exists solely to promote your art! You don't want people infringing your images? I guess you also don't want people to ever see your images.            She has the same concern that this first guy had, and she expressed that concern using the same words that he did. OCAD's professional practices course must be focusing on copyright a whole lot more these days than it did back in 2005 when I was taking the course.            And what are they telling these kids? From what I've just heard, it sounds like they are telling them: Don't let anyone copy your images. Ever. Protect your images. Protect your intellectual property. Protect your copyrights.            There are certainly cases where this is good advice, but there also situations where this is not good advice. When it comes to promoting your work, thats a place where you want people to have access to it.            I hope I am not creating a false dichotomy here, but with what I have heard so far, I have the impression that these students have the mindset that there is a choice before them; one between obscurity and protection from infringement, or exposure with infringement. And they have been told that obscurity is better the way to go.            Remember the words of Cory Doctorow in my previous post, My Take on "A Copyright Story" "It's hard to monetize fame. It's impossible to monetize obscurity."           Is it worth toiling in obscurity, just to avoid the risk of having your intellectual property infringed upon? Or should you risk having your work infringed for the chance at some good exposure?

My Take on “A Copyright Story”

           My last post, Copyright From an Artist’s Perspective was inspired by a fantastic blog entry I had read about a month ago. I came across an article by an artist on the subject of copyright, and while it does fall into some of the same old traps of mixing up moral, legal and economic realities, it also introduces some great new ideas. I knew it was a good entry because it made me sit, and think, and question many of my own preconceptions. Although my opinion hasn’t changed, anything that shakes me like that got to have some kind of power, and his message should be shared.
           I threw together a quick post for my tumblr account, to help me clear my head and sort my thoughts. This article builds upon that one.

           In the copyright debate, I have found the first article from ‘the other side’ that I think actually gets some things right. Jason Robert Brown had an excellent blog entry titled “FIGHTING WITH TEENAGERS: A COPYRIGHT STORY”.
(the follow-up post might be even better, but I’m not going to get into any of those ideas right here.)

           So, I’ll begin by telling the story of what happened. Mr. Brown found a bunch of his content on a file-sharing site. His work was being pirated. Rather than suing his fans (which is very stupid) he created an account on a file sharing site, identified the people who were distributing his content, and he very politely asked them to stop. He went though everyone offering up his content, and on an individual basis, he sent them a message asking them to stop. He was polite and professional about it (which is smart). I think it’s really cool of him to go and do this himself, and I think it was very good of him to explain that he is not ok with his content being shared like that, and many people stopped right away. He made a convincing moral argument, and most people listened. Most people. Not everyone.
Read the rest of this entry »

           My last post, Copyright From an Artist’s Perspective was inspired by a fantastic blog entry I had read about a month ago. I came across an article by an artist on the subject of copyright, and while it does fall into some of the same old traps of mixing up moral, legal and economic realities, it also introduces some great new ideas. I knew it was a good entry because it made me sit, and think, and question many of my own preconceptions. Although my opinion hasn't changed, anything that shakes me like that got to have some kind of power, and his message should be shared.            I threw together a quick post for my tumblr account, to help me clear my head and sort my thoughts. This article builds upon that one.            In the copyright debate, I have found the first article from ‘the other side’ that I think actually gets some things right. Jason Robert Brown had an excellent blog entry titled “FIGHTING WITH TEENAGERS: A COPYRIGHT STORY”. (the follow-up post might be even better, but I'm not going to get into any of those ideas right here.)            So, I'll begin by telling the story of what happened. Mr. Brown found a bunch of his content on a file-sharing site. His work was being pirated. Rather than suing his fans (which is very stupid) he created an account on a file sharing site, identified the people who were distributing his content, and he very politely asked them to stop. He went though everyone offering up his content, and on an individual basis, he sent them a message asking them to stop. He was polite and professional about it (which is smart). I think it's really cool of him to go and do this himself, and I think it was very good of him to explain that he is not ok with his content being shared like that, and many people stopped right away. He made a convincing moral argument, and most people listened. Most people. Not everyone.            The meat of the blog entry is a very good exchange between Jason Robert Brown and a teenage girl who quite obviously gets her information from the anti-strong copyright perspective. She has obviously read up on the issue quite a bit, and their exchange is very much worth reading. A teenager makes a number of solid arguments, and she holds her own; while Brown, an experienced adult, actually listens to what she has to say, treats her with respect, and argues back. It's a wonderful exchange. The comments section is long, and many more excellent points are brought up, and Brown addressed nearly every comment in a thoughtful way.            I agree very strongly with his argument that artists should have a choice whether their work is distributed freely or not. But it’s the whole is vs. ought argument. Sure, you ought to be able to choose what is done with your work, but when that content is digital, well, good luck with that. How do you police the distribution of digital content without massive privacy violations? You would have to devise a system that is essentially breaking the internet as we know it, and forcing strict restrictions on all connected technologies, then rebuilding everything from the ground up. So yes, you ought to have that choice, but realistically, you don’t. It’s out there, it’s free, and it is naive to think otherwise.            Since artists don't have a choice in the matter, a question arises, "is trying to slow down the flow of digitized creative content the right choice for an artist to make?"            In 2006, Tim O'Reilly of the O'Reilly publishing company posted some of his thoughts on piracy up on his blog. All of his points are worth giving some serious consideration, but the first one is the most powerful. "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." When people are pirating your work, that means that they know about your work, they know about you, and they want it. They want what you make. They want what you do. Demand can be monetized. Obscurity, on the other hand, cannot be monetized. Imagine how bad it must feel if no one, not even a single person wants your work, even if they can get it for free.            "It's very hard to monetise fame, but impossible to monetise obscurity" Cory Doctorow has made this point the foundation of his increasingly successful career. He has found success by letting people download his books for free on his own website, while also giving them the option to buy copies, as well. Obviously, his approach won’t work for everyone. And his name seems like the only one mentioned in this context, so it is quite possible that his success could be seen as the exception that proves the rule. Also, as he has himself admitted, if more people experiment with free, the beneficial effects will likely be diluted.            While Doctorow's name may be the first name to come up in your search results as an example of artists using free to increase sales, he isn't the only one to do so. Author Paulo Coelho also had some luck with free, after uploading the Russian translation to a file sharing site, his sales climbed from about a thousand per year to a million per year.            O'Reilly also suggests another way of thinking about Piracy, as "progressive taxation." Emerging artists need to get their name out there, and piracy is huge benefit during this stage of the career. Getting songs into people's ipods, or PDFs on their desktops is a primary concern. Established artists, on the other hand, don't struggle with the same obscurity issues, and for them piracy represents lost sales. Piracy doesn't necessarily threaten business and publishing, it threatens established businesses and established publishers.            This is all well and good, and Brown address all this; some artists want to use free to advertise their work, but he doesn't, and artists should have that choice. Again, I agree with his moral argument. Artists should be able to make that choice, but they don't.            Remember how his great moral argument convinced most people to stop distributing his content, and even though most people listened, well, some didn't. They are still offering those digital files, and that means that anyone can still get his content. Digital files are infinitely reproducible, so even if he were able to convince every single person on Earth, except one, then everyone still has access to it. It only takes one single person to offer up the file for the whole world to still have access to it.            The question remains: when your work is already out there, when it’s already free, when people who want to infringe, and are able to infringe, there is nothing you can do to stop it. As an artist, you still want to get paid for your work, and you should get paid for it. So, what is the right course of action?            If you have even the slightest interest in copyright, no mater which side you take on the issue, it is very well worth reading this blog entry.