In its recently published report, TNO – Dutch public institution working for the applicability of scientific knowledge in government and industry circles – concluded the following: access to a wide range of cultural goods increases out well being, simply because most of us would never have bought our downloaded content.

File shares are financially unable – or plainly unwilling – to buy many of the things they’re enjoying via p2p networks. And getting stuff for free obviously makes us feel nicer than not getting the stuff at all.

But before we’re made to believe that companies should be losing their money for a public cause and an economic externality – even when both of them are nice side effects, the report’s researchers also found this: people who download music and film are buying no less than people who don’t.

Gaming company Electronic Arts admitted last year that ‘every Bittorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale’. This report goes one step further: file sharers visit concerts and buy games more often than those who don’t.

And while the Netherlands’ entertainment industry continues to suffer losses in the order of €100 million per year, consumers are spending an estimated €200 million per year more because they have free access to not-so-free content.

So now its official: the industry’s arch nemesis is a very successful marketing tool. Yet, as the report will have it (of course), within the music industry it’s the lesser-known bands that profit the most from file sharing.

To me, another sure sign of a playing field in transition. While most big and established companies are slow to recognize that bygones should be bygones, the smaller, newer ones see opportunities in the web. Instead of whining about it, they’re discovering how they can monetize on the Internet as a non-exclusive distribution platform.

And let’s not forget about us consumers, and how this report will make us feel even better than we already did. As dxtr says in reply to Torrentfreak’s post on the subject: ‘Wow! I never knew that I had been contributing to the growth of my country’s economy since age 10! That is so cool!’

More

• Read the original Torrentfreak post on the report by clicking here.
• Read the full report (142 pages – and in Dutch), register and  download it for free by clicking here.
• Read how EA’s view on piracy is changing – and how they’re trying to emphasize the non-piracy prone aspects of their games, by clicking here.
• Check dotbejamin’s ‘Failing Industry’ post, which accompanies the picture shown above ().
  

Brilliant street art/animation combo by Argentine-based artist Blu, even more so when you consider how it was made. Once shot, a mural painting had to be destroyed to make room for the next one, so there was no possibility of reworking and re-touching old frames in the studio.

Click play on the screen below to watch the 7-minute film, and have a look at the brilliant blublu.org website.

Also check out Baptiste Buonomo’s 2005 film Virus (further down).

Thanks to Ime for passing it to me.

(photo IMG_5043.jpg by Matt Woolner)

Five-minute audiovisual teaser for Open Content

We stole and re-arranged some inspiring thoughts as we saw fit; I put them into sound and images.

To watch, click play on the screen below; for plot and (management) summary, read on.

What to do when your content can be infinitely copied by anyone with access to the Internet? How can you add value to your content when it’s be found anywhere, for free? Where’s the business in open content? How can you make it work for you – instead of against. How can users make open content work for you?

Summary

Today’s world is one of super-abundance: digital and/or digitized content will be found, sooner or later, by anyone prepared to look for it on the web. So what does this mean for people working with content?

Many – across different industries – are starting to realize that sealing it up, fighting something that’s turning into common practice, is futile. But the clever ones are seeing opportunities.

Actively freeing up content, dropping it into the web for everyone to see and share, hugely increases your potential audience. Better still, a small part of that audience is very eager to become a partner – or co-creator. This part fills in the blanks, places context and conversation around your content, passes it on, and adds value for thousands or millions of others in your potential audience.

Free doesn’t mean it’s being given away -  only that someone else is picking up the tab. And it doesn’t stop there. There are ways to turn your end-users into clients again; the trick is to build something around your content, something better than free.

(photo opencontent by jlori)