Looking at info on the decline of newspaper sales, the rise in piracy of ebooks, and continued growth in piracy amongst other media formats. The interest groups have it all wrong, you don't charge for the media created, but instead you charge for the creators. Let's go into it for a bit. As a creator of content, you work your way up from small jobs such obituary writer and intern work to staff writer, to perhaps columnist or editor. One works there way up the latter from job to job. So the content that is created should be free to the public, but how does say...a newspaper make money off of the content this person creates? One way could and should is through contracts, and allowing the sale of contracts to other papers, typically larger in size.
For example a writer working at Portland Mercury, writing X amount of articles forms a set of skills that makes him or her desirable for a bigger paper such as the Oregonian. An Oregonian writer does the same and is now desired for a bigger paper such as the San Francisco Chronicle, who is looking to replace a writer who recently went with the Los Angeles Times, who replaced a writer who went to work for the New York Times, replacing a writer who was hired by the Daily Show. The system interconnects to the bigger media outlets. The writers and other media workers are contracted and a bigger company buys a contract out for X amount of dollars, which goes to replace the profit from the product created to the profit gain by selling the creators contract to a company bigger in size that can afford the purchase of the the contract. Companies would also be able to decide to rent the creator out to the bigger company, instead of selling thus receiving the profits from renting and still maintaining that talent in the company. This can flow with models, actors, musicians etc.
The creator is simply the person who creates a product for the media. A contract could exist for a certain level of a creators. The contracts as stated are sold like a product to a bigger company that can afford them, and the profits from the sale are used to run and grow the smaller company. While the creator who goes onto a new company works to make a name for him or herself there, eventually either being attracted, or attracting another company. There is a moral issue here, what about the creator? The creator simply can not be seen just as an object to be sold or even traded. But we already live in a world of contracts, a person could have a say in whether they prefer not to go with the bigger company, but at the cost of the smaller company. So in a rosey world, the smaller company then is stuck with this creator, until they decide to apply at another company in order to make more money, new responsibilities, etc etc, all the reasons why one applies for a new job. But the smaller company could essentially hold the creator back in vengeance for not going with another company, thus costing the company a sale. However it wouldn’t be in the company’s interest to hold the creator down because that would be a loss in revenue as well. They would continue to polish the creator, making him more appealing for bigger companies to buy, or offer rent. Eventually the smaller company can no longer provide a higher pay to the creator, or better benefits, because of company size. So the creator then may feel the need to move on to pursue a better position else where at a larger company. This wouldn’t be the case with every creator, and each creator, being that of a person, will have a different story, which is too much to theorize in this blog post.
As the creator moves on to bigger companies, they rise through the ranks. A number of them reach the level of popularity that makes them celebrities, and are in demand for groups such as non profits and big lobbies to be a spokesperson. Even rising to prominence to be in demand for political campaigns. Their contracts are rented or sold to companies that have a demand for such people. Others may not become such celebrities, but are content with holding a staff writing job at a newspaper like New York Times, New York Post, they are happy being where they are at. Nothing changes, just contracts become the commodity that is bought and sold that works to cover the cost of providing media content to the public. People rise to prestigious roles, others prefer to take the back seat. Larger companies have more money than smaller companies, so in theory they can pay more for contracts from smaller companies. The larger companies such as Fox create ad revenue that can be used for such purchases of contracts. The creators they get, some can eventually be sold to groups that have more money, and are willing to pay for the contract at a higher price than Fox paid for. Such companies would be various corporations such as Exxon, or Haliburton,whom have the money to spend to get a well groomed reporter, or anchor for a public relations, or spokesperson, or adviser etc. The creator’s contract than can be bought by the next level, that of political campaigns, or even back into the publishing industry for a higher position, or whatever reason would exist that companies, organizations would want to buy the contract.
Renting as said before can be an option too, and companies that own the contract can make extra profits by having the creators, visit on competing networks, or appear in movies by other companies, or write for such projects for other companies. The renting of the contract provides extra funds to the parent company holding the contract, and allows them to maintain their talent while grooming it in other media jobs.
The profits from these contracts would cover the consumer cost, and would benefit companies from small to large. I’m writing this, not as a manifesto, but as an idea to share to groups such as the Newspaper Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America, Motion Picture Association of America, etc. The idea can certainly be analyzed deeper, and I hope a few professionals in business practice, economics, sociology, political science and other fields consider studying this idea of “contracts” and “creators”. As for now, as for every product that is digitalized, there is an illegal copy out there. Even for products that are not legitimately digitalized, they can still make there way to the illegal file sharing world (not just online but offline too.) Something needs to change, we are a capitalist society, and what is “cheaper” wins over the consumer. How to make money off this industry is no longer about selling it as a product to consumers, or giving it for free to a consumer with ads (that the consumer ignores.) The industry of media needs to look beyond charging singular fees and membership fees for digitalized media, as this is easily accessible for free (yes illegally but the fact that it’s illegal doesn't seem to be deterring the download/sharing numbers). So contracts on “creators”, that can be rented out, or sold to companies wishing to use the person they’ve found at a small company, can then off set the costs that companies bear in order to provide the media. As a “creator” gets more known, and becomes more in demand, a larger company that can afford to purchase the contract of this person would follow suit in order to get such talent under their roofs.
The way profit is made by the providers in the media needs to change in order to make the media that is created to be legally free to the consumers. If ignored, illegal file sharing will probably continue, online and off. It’s the era we live in, not just the information age, but a hyper-information age that consists of a wide range of knowledge which is so widely available, and so easily accessible ,both legal and illegally. This change needs to happen for it to be legal, and for companies to still be able to make profits thus being able to provide products to the consumers. The way in which media, information is so widely available with such ease, is really a beautiful thing.
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