If content is king, then why are the content creators being treated as serfs?
The content creators (serfs) are doing countless hours of labour, just for the right to “live” on the content distributors’ (landholders’) “land”. While in the feudal system, serfs earned a percentage of the product they produced, today’s digital serfs merely occupy server space – in most cases, they don’t see a penny of the digital landholders’ profits.
This market evolution is already having an effect on the creative industry. For instance, The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, which operates on revenues from fees based on a percentage of member income, is facing an increasing operating deficit. The Guild has the same number of members, but revenues are down significantly. What this means, is that British writers, on the whole, are making less money.
Meanwhile, Google has been accused of trouncing on writers’ rights by digitizing books still under copyright – thereby reducing residual income to writers.
Actors in Britain are also suffering with a union that is too weak to enforce a fair deal for rights to re-use content in online media. For example, ITV recently announced it is putting ads on its broadband streaming download service. The IPA raised a concern last year about actors’ and musicians’ rights. ITV’s response? Wait a year, and do it anyway.
If you or your clients make money off the back of user-generated content, I urge you to think about fair compensation for content creators. They are not all kids sitting around with free time and a camcorder; and actually, they shouldn’t be. Don’t you want the best creative talent to contribute to your site? Talent is worth paying for. If you don’t think so, then walk down the hall and ask your copywriter if he’ll write your next campaign for free.
We all think we’re getting something for nothing with UGC, but the reality is we’re contributing to a system that is making it difficult for creative artists to make a living. We need to encourage talent and create a model that is sustainable for content distributors, online advertisers and content creators – instead of just fattening up digital landowners like YouTube with its Google billions.
Free content comes at a price.