Contextscopyright, cultural conglomerates would lose their grip on the agglomeration of cultural
products by which means they determine the outlook of our cultural lives to an ever-
increasing extent. They would have to give up their control of huge chunks of the
cultural markets.
This has far- reaching consequences for the way the public relates to cultural
production. This is the second effect we might expect. hitherto, the public’s choices
were overwhelmingly determined by what the marketing of cultural conglomerates
offered them, so they could ensure the public did not miss anything. however, in the
situation i propose, these conglomerates will not exist, and thus the public’s attention
will not be steered in only one direction.
This is a cultural gain, much greater than we can imagine. The public would need to
develop their curiosity because it is their principal guiding compass once the marketing
by cultural giants no longer exists to influence their tastes. Curiosity is a most valuable
characteristic of human beings – it makes us into independent- thinking and reflective
citizens.
When copyright is abolished and when the present cultural conglomerates are
substantially smaller in size, i.e. are normal enterprises, a level playing field will be
in place in which many artistic expressions can find their way to the public, buyers,
readers, users and audiences. This is the third effect of my proposals. There will once
again be room to manoeuvre for a variety of entrepreneurs in cultural markets, who as
a consequence are no longer pushed out of the public’s attention by blockbuster films,
bestseller books and music, visual arts or design stars. all artists will be able to find
audiences for their creations and performances in a normal market.
There is no reason not to believe that there is a demand for such an enormous
variety of artistic expressions. in a normalized market, with equal opportunities for
everyone, this demand can be fulfilled. it is possible to make a very comfortable living
off artistic creations – regardless of the genre to which they belong – without being
granted a title of ownership. This increases the possibility that a varied group of artists
is capable of extracting a decent living from their endeavours.
Chris anderson claims that in the long tail of the demand curve the market for
niche music, for instance, is huge. ‘What if the non- hits – from healthy niche product
to outright misses – all together added up to a market as big as, if not bigger than
the hits themselves’ (anderson 2006: 8). ‘our culture and economy are increasingly
shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of hits (mainstream products
and markets) at the head of the demand curve, and moving toward a huge number
of niches in the tail’ (anderson 2006: 52). Chris anderson is quite optimistic: ‘as
the audience continues to move away from the Top 40 music and blockbusters, the
demand is spreading to vast numbers of smaller artists who speak more authentically to
their audience’ (anderson 2006: 82).
if copyright were no longer to exist, works would belong to the public domain
from the moment of their creation or performance. however, this does not mean that
creators, performers and other cultural entrepreneurs would be unable to make a living
from their operations or to make them profitable. in order to understand this process,
we need to take into consideration that market relations would also fundamentally
change.