[-empyre-] OSW: open source writing in the network

[Simon Biggs]

This question of who pays for the writers to write isn't very different as to who pays for artists. Many net artists receive no payment for their work but they put their work in the public realm for nothing anyway. Some artists in other media also work this way. Many such artists do not look to their work to generate income directly but indirectly - eg: having work in the public realm raises their profile and they get museum shows and fees for that. Then they get tenured academic positions in art schools because of their shows, etc... This economic model has something in common with the software developer model you mentioned Dmytri.

best

Simon


On 12 Jan 2012, at 16:56, Dmytri Kleiner wrote:

> On 12.01.2012 17:26, adam wrote:
> 
>> Well I think the open source ethic is well aligned with capitalism.
>> There is no disconnect there.
> 
> Yet, software has different economics than cultural works. Open Source developers are paid by organisations that employ such software in production, and thus the availability of open source packages reduces their production costs, allowing them to retain more earnings.
> 
> The same situation occurs only infrequently when it comes to books, there may be situations where it does, i.e. reference books or documentation. I can see these being supported by organisations that are consumers of such works, but not much else.
> 
> So, if capital will not pay creators of open works. Who will? No doubt, some fringe can be maintained by cultural grants and simular social funds, and a wider fringe can maintain itself by working for free and earning subsistence elsewhere (or simply being rich to begin with), yet this says nothing of the great majority of books, read by millions, produced today by the capitalist industry, which offers no way to make these open books.
> 
> Best,
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dmytri Kleiner
> 
> 
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Simon Biggs
simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk

s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
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