Rules, London, England, Jul 2009

For every explicit rule, a method of communication…

Continuing with multiple thoughts on niches and nuances and originality…

• Jan Chipchase, Unexpected Profit Centers:

  For every business model, externalities – the only question is who pays.

• Grant McCracken, Where Have PrimeTime Viewers Gone and What Do They Find When They Get There, commenting on the decline of broadcast networks and the risk of cable networks from 1984 to 2008:
  

  The question is this: does this movement to more popular themes represent a compression of cultural offerings and a dumbing down of programming. We can argue this a number of ways. But I am impressed with the fact that reality television is often a very successful ways of getting something like the lives of real(ish) Americans into the programming mix. Without the innovations driven by cable, there is no way we would now have such detailed ethnographic treatments of, say, the Housewives of New Jersey and Orange County.

  It’s a question then of winners and losers.

  Two groups are relatively displaced by the “new cable:” the avant garde who prefer indie content, and taste elites who care about arts content.

  Two groups are served: a carnie audience interested in sensational coverage and the rest of us who like this window on other worlds.

  For every business model, niches served: overserved, underserved, unserved.

• Mike Masnick, The Myth Of Original Creators:
  

  Nearly any creative work can be shown to be built upon the works of those who came before…

  Law professor Peter Friedman recently had a few interesting blog posts that helped highlight this. First, he noted that the very notion of an author as the originator of a new work is a relatively recent phenomenon, and part of the Romantic Movement. However, prior to that, the view was much more akin to what we’re actually seeing today with online tools of creation: “creative endeavors are derivative and collaborative, that originality is not the product of isolated genius but of, well, remixing.”

  … People still want to create the way they always have, but the industry of the last century, that has relied on copyright law to make its product seem different and “original” freaks out about this ongoing content creation…

  … The idea that there is a single “author” or “creator” who deserves to get money any time anyone else builds upon his or her works is something that should be seen as increasingly ridiculous as people recognize that all works are created based on the works of others, and it’s inherently silly to try to charge everyone to pay back each and every one of their influences in creating a new work.

  For every creative work, an influence, a collaboration (explicit or implicit, known or unknown), and an expectation of credit and compensation (financial or recognition).