This document discusses new funding models for digital content in the age of the internet. It outlines challenges with treating digital files like physical goods due to their reproducible nature. It then proposes several alternative models including "crowdsourced patronage" where fans directly fund creators on a subscription basis, as well as a "hybrid approach" where traditional and direct fan funding are both utilized. The document advocates for models that align with how digital content is used and shared online rather than trying to restrict it like physical media.

1. A Million Medicis:
Funding the Content Revolution

3. David Dylan Thomas
Senior Content Strategist,
EPAM
@movie_pundit

4. Discuss Early, Discuss Often

6. Capitol Records Complaint
“ReDigi makes and assists its users in making
systematic, repeated and unauthorized
reproductions and distributions of Plaintiffs
copyrighted sound recordings.”

7. “Digital Files Are Not Material Objects
Subject to the Distribution Right”
“The statute is quite plain. It is clear that digital
music files, which are not material objects, are
therefore neither copies nor phonorecords,
hence not subject to the distribution right. If they
were to be considered material objects, copies,
or phonorecords within the meaning of 17 U.S.C.
106(3), they would also have to be considered
material objects, copies, or phonorecords within
the meaning of 17 U.S.C. 109(a), hence exempt
anyway – in ReDigi’s case – under the First Sale
Doctrine (discussed infra).”

8. No Dice, Grandma
“It is beside the point that the original
phonorecord no longer exists. It matters only
that a new phonorecord has been created.”

9. What the Hell Is a “Phonorecord”?
“…material objects in which sounds, other
than those accompanying a motion picture or
other audiovisual work, are fixed.”
-United States Copyright
Act of 1976
(yup, 1976)

10. No Dice, Grandma
“It is beside the point that the original
phonorecord no longer exists. It matters only
that a new phonorecord has been created.”

11. How to Resell Your MP3’s

12. How to Resell Your MP3’s
All you have to do is sell your “ 'particular'
phonorecord, be it a computer hard disk, iPod,
or other memory device onto which the file
was originally downloaded.”

13. How we pay for a thing is tied to how
we think about that thing.

14. Desirable + Scarce = Expensive

15. Desirable + Scarce = Expensive
Desirable + Common = Cheap

16. Desirable + Scarce = Expensive
Desirable + Common = Cheap
Desirable + Infinitely Replicable = ???

17. Artificial Scarcity

18. Artificial Scarcity
This. Breaks. Easily.

19. Record companies want you to
treat digital goods like physical
goods, until they don’t.

20. Is there any such thing as a used
mp3?

21. Even These Children Figured It Out

22. “Physical copies of works degrade with time and use, making used
copies less desirable than new ones. Digital information does not
degrade, and can be reproduced perfectly on a recipient’s
computer. The ‘used’ copy is just as desirable as (in fact, is
indistinguishable from) a new copy of the same work. Time, space,
effort and cost no longer act as barriers to the movement of
copies, since digital copies can be transmitted nearly
instantaneously anywhere in the world with minimal effort and
negligible cost. The need to transport physical copies of works,
which acts as a natural brake on the effect of resales on the
copyright owner’s market, no longer exists in the realm of digital
transmissions.”
- U.S. Copyright Office Report to Congress, 2001

23. Entropy is what keeps the physical
market afloat.

24. In digital content, the idea of an
“original” and a “copy” ceases to exist,
and we don’t have an economy for
that.

25. In digital content, the idea of an
“original” and a “copy” ceases to exist,
and we don’t have an economy for
that.
(But we do have a way to think about it….)

26. 3 Kinds of Sharing

27. 3 Kinds of Sharing

28. 3 Kinds of Sharing

29. 3 Kinds of Sharing

30. 3 Kinds of Sharing

31. 3 Kinds of Sharing

32. Content = Information
• It doesn’t just represent information
• It doesn’t just contain information
• It doesn’t just point to information
• It is itself information

33. Is there a way to think about
monetizing content that aligns with
its fundamental nature?

34. Is there a way to think about
monetizing content that aligns with
its fundamental nature?
And what we like to do with content?

35. Content as a Service
This Is Not Scarce This Is

36. Crowdsourced Patronage

37. Crowdsourced Patronage

38. Crowdsourced Patronage

39. Crowdsourced Patronage

40. Crowdsourced Patronage

41. Crowdsourced Patronage

42. “It’s about horses, not races.”

43. Who would you subscribe to?

44. How do we discover new talent?

48. Spoken Reasons has 1,000,000
subscribers on YouTube.

49. Spoken Reasons has 1,000,000
subscribers on YouTube.
If only 5% of them agreed to give him $1 a
month, he would make $600,000 a year.

50. Spoken Reasons has 1,000,000
subscribers on YouTube.
If only 5% of them agreed to give him $1 a
month, he would make $600,000 a year.
He doesn’t need Hollywood…

51. Spoken Reasons has 1,000,000
subscribers on YouTube.
If only 5% of them agreed to give him $1 a
month, he would make $600,000 a year.
He doesn’t need Hollywood… …Hollywood needs him.

52. Who would subscribe to you?

53. What does this new ecosystem
look like?

54. Audience
CENTRALIZED RISK
Producer / Distributor
Pricing
DRM
Artist
Final Cut
Gatekeeping

55. Audience
(Artists)Final Cut
Creative Commons
Pricing
Gatekeeping
Platform
DISTRIBUTED RISK
Artist

56. Where this doesn’t work

59. Creative Middle Class

60. Guess what costs $7 million?

61. Guess what costs $7 million?

62. The Hybrid Approach

63. The Hybrid Approach

64. The Hybrid Approach
"It’s a massive growth area.
We’re very excited about the
creativity of consumers using
our repertoire and creating
their own versions of our
videos.”
- Francis Keeling, Global Head of Digital Business for
Universal Music Group

65. The Hybrid Approach

67. What is a song?

68. Open Discussion

69. Keep the discussion going…
David Dylan Thomas
#NewMedicis
@movie_pundit