BFTP: Making a living in a post-DRM worlds

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past.  Original post, February 5, 2008.     With Amazon now looking at getting into the "used" e-book business, this topic remains ... well topical.

It is always with great trepidation that I venture into the shark-filled waters of Digital Rights Management commentary. I am still unconvinced that the inability to control one's creative work is in the best interest of either the producer or the consumer, but I am doing my very best to be open-minded about the issue.

Kevin Kelly's post in his Technium blog  "Better Than Free" attempts to answer the question that bothers me as well:

"...the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?"

Kelly suggests eight "generatives" that are better than free:

1. Immediacy
2. Personalization 
3. Interpretation 
4. Authenticity 
5. Accessibility 
6. Embodiment 
7. Patronage 
8. Findability

He details how each of these qualities can be used to generate revenue. For example Personalization:

"A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room -- as if it were performed in your room -- you may be willing to pay a lot. The free copy of a book can be custom edited by the publishers to reflect your own previous reading background. A free movie you buy may be cut to reflect the rating you desire (no violence, dirty language okay). Aspirin is free, but aspirin tailored to your DNA is very expensive. As many have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can't copy the personalization that a relationship represents. Marketers call that "stickiness" because it means both sides of the relationship are stuck (invested) in this generative asset, and will be reluctant to switch and start over."

Stephen Downes made some similar observations in his blog post, "Economics in a DRM-Free World" a couple months ago. John Perry Barlow in The Economy of Ideas (Wired, Mar 1994) and Ester Dyson in Intellectual Value (Wired, July 1995) were to my knowledge among the first writers addressing the "when everything can be duplicated" issue and its impact on livelihoods.

My sense/hope is that DRM is a short-term stop-gap measure in the longer economic/cultural/legal picture and that variety of sensible economic models will replace selling large volumes of one's creative work.

Figuring out these models, however, will be a learning experience for our students and for many of us!

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Oh, I worry about the patronage model that both Kelly and Downes mention. This is from Bill Bryson's book, Shakespeare: The World as Stage in a footnote on James Stow, author of the "great and stately" book Survey of London:

A tailor by profession, Stow spent a lifetime and endured decades of poverty to put together his great history. He was seventy-three when it was published. His payment was 3 [pounds] in cash and forty copies of his own book. When James I was asked to provide some charitable patronage for the old man, he merely send him two letters giving him permission to beg. Stow actually did so, setting up alms bowls in the streets of the City, though without much effect. p. 48

I hope I get a good corner.

Rembrandt. Beggar seated on a bank, 1630. Etching; 116 x 70; only state. © Trustees of The British Museum.

Don't dis the competition

According to the Department of Education, the average school year is 180 days and the average school day is 6.7 hours. Assuming the projector is on, all but a couple hours for lunch and recess, from the time the children arrive to the ending bell that’s just about 850 hours per school year. Meaning 20,000 hours equals over 23 years.

Ask yourself, as fast as technology changes, am I going to want this projector in 20+ years? - Epson brochure "SOLID STATE LIGHTING: The benefits of traditional lamp technology versus unproven solid state lighting"

Hmmmm, a piece of equipment that lasts too long? That's a new problem.

Epson seems to be sweating the appearance of LED projection systems. And I can see why. My calculations show that the TCO of an LED is about 85% that of a regular projector and that doesn't include electricity saved or maintenance time saved. (See below.)

The point of this is not to extol the virtues of LED projectors. While we have been happy with the one's we've purchased, we still don't really know long they will last. 

But what I do know that when competitors trash each other, I tend to tune out. And I flat out hate it when I know they are lying - and I will NOT buy from a liar.

A salesman recently promoted his video storage service by stating "unlike YouTube, we don't own your movies." That's just not true. (YouTube doesn't own your movies, GoogleApps doesn't own your Docs, CIPA, FERPA, etc. do not ban social media.)

Pitch the value-added features that makes your product worth paying for.

If you can't, sell something else.

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LED TOC runs about $85 a year, assuming it has a 10 year life span. ($850 purchase price. 20,000 hour light source.)

LCD TOC runs about $100** a year, assuming it has a 10 year life span.  Purchase price $500 plus $500 lamps. (Lamp life 2,000 hours?. Lamps $100 (180 school days X 6 hours use per day = 1080 x 10 years = 10,800 - 2000 for original lamp) = 8,800 hours of use or 5 lamps.)

Image source

You can't evaluate creativity using a standardized test

10. Add a column for “Creativity” on every rubric
Creativity is a 21st century currency, and the best way to make sure it happens is to give points for it. They’ll get with the program stat. - 10 Ways to Fake a 21st Century Classroom, Terry Heick, TeachThought, February 12,2013.

Rubrics help clarify criteria for success and show what the continuum of performance looks like, from low to high, from imitative to very creative. Assessing Creativity, Susan M. Brookhart, Educational Leadership, February 2013

• If you can't measure it, can you prove it can be learned?
• If you can't measure it, can it be objectively and consistently scored?
• If you can't meaure it, can you hold teachers accountable for teaching it?
• If you can't measure it, can it really be important?

I struggle with these questions when it comes to creativity. While the Rubric for Creativity Ms Brookhart shares in the Assessing Creativity article linked above is one of the more pragmatic stabs at addressing creativity, I was still disappointed. The first quality indicator looks like this:

Note the terms startllng, important, and same. Other indicators in the rubric include the terms wide variety, original and surprising, interesting and helpful. All virtues of student work that I would say are largely subjective. What is original or startling to a first grader may be tired old stuff to his teacher - and perhaps vice versa.

I sincerely appreciate Ms Brookhart's article, but I wonder if she is not on a fool's errand (as I have been) in looking at ways to assess creativity. Because teaching true creativity requires second order, not first order, change. School as usual, including its traditional assessment tools, will simply not work.

Educstors will need to stop looking at student work as right or wrong, but perhaps as effective or not effective. So questions will come up like...

• Did your new approach to solving this math problem result in an accurate answer?
• Did your original poem elicit the emotional response you intended?
• Did your trial use of plastic wheels give your vehicle better mileage?
• Did your experimental free-throw style result in increased shots made?
• Did your "crazy" campaign result in less trash in the school hallways?

Is efficacy the true measure of creativity and innovation? Are rubrics, fill-in-the-bubble tests, or other means of objectifying assessment even relevant to creativity? The creative iPhone didn't just make a phone nicer to look at; it created a tool that made people more effective.

Image source

Some of my other ramblings on creativity...

• Assessing Creativity, Blue Skunk Blog, Nov 18, 2012
• Concerns About Creativity, Blue Skunk Blog, October 3, 2007
• Developing Creativity in Every Learner, LMC, Oct 2012
• The Gift of Creativity, Blue Skunk Blog, Dec 26, 2005
• Myths of Creativity, Blue Skunk Blog, Oct 25, 2011
• The Second Half of Creativity, Blue Skunk Blog, March 5, 2012
• 10 Ways to Encourage Creativity in Your Library, LMC, Oct 2012