[-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source

[Rob Myers]

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:54:37 +0000, "sdv at krokodile.co.uk"
<sdv at krokodile.co.uk> wrote:
> cynthia/all
> 
> The logic of open-source seems to work in subsidized environment like 
> academia where they are paid for teaching and perhaps a little research 
> - but external to the academy how would an open-source artist survive ?

Outside of the academy very few non-free-culture (non-"open-source")
artists survive.

It's a cliche but its true - the problem is not piracy, it's obscurity.

Free culture helps to address that.

> I can see how the economics of it would work in West, with a false 
> economics of scarcity and with rich patrons investing in art objects - 
> which rather obviously are not open-source objects, but still without 
> these how would the economics work ?

Fine art can be free culture without losing its economic value because
copies/adaptations will not affect the originality or identity of the
original. They will only emphasize and promote it and thereby its
desirability to rich patrons (from whatever kind of institution). This
makes fine art (autographic art) better placed than mass media (allographic
art) such as novels or popular music to benefit from the reputational
effects of free culture without losing sales to third party copies.

> Is that it ? That the art academy supports artists, so that when the few

> produce art objects for patrons, they in turn then support the 
> generation of ideas for the spectacle ?

Art is not necessarily "for" the people that pay for it.

> Or is the model something else ?

The model is - make your art as you would anyway, make it free culture,
use the reputational effects of the criticism, reference and adaptation
that this enables to make more of a living more quickly. 

And support freedom of speech, free expression, academic freedom, and
freedom of critique by doing so.

- Rob.