The free stuff free-for-all

Last week, Helienne Lindvall published a column in The Guardian whose point seemed to be to say, “Look at how all these people such as Cory Doctorow, who advocate giving stuff away for free, charge large fees for speaking appearances! Isn’t that funny?”

Mike Masnick at Techdirt wrote that Lindvall completely missed the point of giving things away for free. The point of giving things away for free, Masnick said, is to allow you to make money by charging for other things.

Free is a part of a business model. That’s all anyone’s saying. And when you say that it means you do believe in a larger business model, which means making money. I’m always amazed at how people like Lindvall seem to have their brains stop in their tracks when they get to the big 0, and never reach the other side of the tracks where it’s explained how you use that $0 to make money elsewhere.

And a few days later, Cory Doctorow came out with a lengthy column, also in the Guardian, rebutting Lindvall’s and talking about why he gives e-books away for free, and the greater purpose of giving things away.

In his post, Doctorow pointed out a number of smaller errors in Lindvall’s column about him (for example, he doesn’t charge $25,000—and the agency Lindvall spoke to that told her so hasn’t represented Doctorow for years), as well as one larger error: he doesn’t tell artists to give their work away for free; he points out that it is impossible to prevent people from taking others’ work for free.

The topic I leave my family and my desk to talk to people all over the world about is the risks to freedom arising from the failure of copyright giants to adapt to a world where it’s impossible to prevent copying. Because it is impossible. Despite 15 long years of the copyright wars, despite draconian laws and savage penalties, despite secret treaties and widespread censorship, despite millions spent on ill-advised copy-prevention tools, more copying takes place today than ever before.

Doctorow wrote that he gives his e-books away for free because it will attract readers to buy the paper versions of his books which earns him money. And it’s working for him—as Doctorow pointed out in the article, he has had books on the New York Times bestseller list for the past two years.

As for what other artists do, Doctorow said, he isn’t “really bothered.” He feels that it can’t hurt and will probably help, but if they prefer not to do that then it’s fine with him as well.

But here’s what I do care about. I care if your plan involves using "digital rights management" technologies that prohibit people from opening up and improving their own property; if your plan requires that online services censor their user submissions; if your plan involves disconnecting whole families from the internet because they are accused of infringement; if your plan involves bulk surveillance of the internet to catch infringers, if your plan requires extraordinarily complex legislation to be shoved through parliament without democratic debate; if your plan prohibits me from keeping online videos of my personal life private because you won’t be able to catch infringers if you can’t spy on every video.

And this, wrote Doctorow, providing several paragraphs of examples, is what the entertainment industries have been trying to do.

In the rest of the article, Doctorow addressed Lindvall directly, pointing out further errors in what she wrote about others such as Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, and Peter Sunde. He pointed out that Lindvall was saying that “anyone who talks up their success at giving away some work to sell other work is peddling fake hope,” and reiterated that isn’t the sort of thing he tells people to do.

And then he said:

You know who peddles false hope to naive would-be artists? People who go around implying that but for all those internet pirates, there’d be full creative employment for all of us. That the reason artists earn so little is because our audiences can’t be trusted, that once we get this pesky internet thing solved, there’ll be jam tomorrow for everyone. If you want to damn someone for selling a bill of goods to creative people, go after the DRM vendors with their ridiculous claims about copy-proof files; go after the labels who say that wholesale lawsuits against fans on behalf of artists (where labels get to pocket the winnings) are good business; go after the studios who are suing to make it impossible for anyone to put independent video on the internet without a giant corporate legal budget.

This Guardian piece is well worth reading—Doctorow is in his finest copyfighting form, and as always he makes some excellent points regarding the nature of copyright in the digital age.