One thing I love about the Online Information conference is that I have the most thought-provoking conversations with random people. I believe it was Kate Arnold, of NHS Direct, who mentioned to me how interesting it was that musicians now sell ringtones and give away music. Who would have thunk it 5 years ago? Similarly, Gen Yers buy DVDs just to see the "extras" - they love seeing the back-stage information. She asked me whether I thought writers would see a similar transition -- what could we sell to support our writing? Would novelists give away e-books and sell the story of how the characters were developed?
I'm not sure, but then I read an article in the December issue of Wired, profiling Doug Morris of Universal Music Group. He's the one who called MP3 players "repositories for stolen music", and he is quoted as defending aggressive DRM and other clueless activities by saying "If you had Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen, how much
would you be willing to pay for Coca-Cola? There you go. That's what happened to the record business."
Whoa! What comes out of my faucet right now? Water, virtually free and, living near Boulder, it's actually great-tasting water. But the bottled water market is strong and growing. People are willing to pay more per gallon for water than they do for gas. Why? Convenience, quality, cachet. I'd probably pay for Diet Coke even if it came out of my tap, for the same reasons (well, maybe not the cachet, but certainly the carbonation).
Likewise, we are willing to pay for content that is available in some format for free on the web. I prefer reading Wired magazine in dead-tree format so that I can tear out pages, write notes in the margin, and toss the pages in a folder for reference later. I get the print copy of the Wall Street Journal because it's easier to read at the breakfast table or in front of the fire. Any industry that sells content (whether in atoms or bits) has to be willing to give away content in order to generate revenue for a truly value-added version of that content.
And yeah, I write lots of stuff for free, and I get paid to create fresh content for workshops and speeches, which I generally don't give away for free.
</rant>