On The Internet, Everyone Is A Creator
from the it's-not-a-broadcast-medium dept
One theme that we’ve covered on Techdirt since its earliest days is the power of the internet as an open platform for just about anyone to create and communicate. Simultaneously, one of our greatest fears has been how certain forces — often those disrupted by the internet — have pushed over and over again to restrict and contain the internet, and turn it into something more like a broadcast platform controlled by gatekeepers, where only the chosen few can use it to create and share. This is one of the reasons we’ve been so adamant over the years that in so many policy fights, “Silicon Valley v. Content” is a false narrative. It’s almost never true — because the two go hand in hand. The internet has made it so that everyone can be a creator. Internet platforms have made it so that anyone can create almost any kind of content they want, they can promote that content, they can distribute it, they can build a fan base, and they can even make money. That’s in huge contrast to the old legacy way of needing a giant gatekeeper — a record label, a movie studio, or a book publisher — to let you into the exclusive club.
And yet, those legacy players continue to push to make the internet into more of a broadcast medium — to restrict that competition, to limit the supply of creators and to push things back through their gates under their control. For example, just recently, the legacy recording and movie industries have been putting pressure on the Trump administration to undermine the internet and fair use in NAFTA negotiations. And, much of their positioning is that the internet is somehow “harming” artists, and needs to be put into check.
This is a false narrative. The internet has enabled so many more creators and artists than it has hurt. And to help make that point, today we’re launching a new site, EveryoneCreates.org which features stories and quotes from a variety of different creators — including bestselling authors, famous musicians, filmmakers, photographers and poets — all discussing how important an open internet has been to building their careers and creating their art. On that same page, you can submit your own stories about how the internet has helped you create, and why it’s important that we don’t restrict it. Please add your own stories, and share the site with others too!
The myth that this is “internet companies v. creators” needs to be put to rest. Thanks to the internet, everyone creates. And let’s keep it that way.
Filed Under: creativity, dmca, dmca 512, everyone creates, everyone is a creator, fair use, internet, nafta, safe harbors
Comments on “On The Internet, Everyone Is A Creator”
Gatekeepers gonna gate…
When you have spent you life living under a bridge hording all the gold from the tolls you extort from people it is only natural to get angry at people for building a better bridge and daring to not charge tolls!
Not everyone
While I agree with this, mostly, I do fear there are some who are not so much creators, but pose themselves as destructive’s. Naysayers for the most part. No matter what a creator says, they say the opposite. Not necessarily out of belief, well possibly so, but more for the disruptive aspect. Seems they get their jollies out of that disruption. Certainly more than any valid points, of which they have few.
There are a couple who hang around here, and unfortunately get fed by some non-destructive types. There is no winning points with these destructive’s, their point is disruption and nothing else, no matter how much they cry otherwise.
Re: Not everyone
you are not alone in this supposition. have you heard of the taxonomy of players?
Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
False. That’s alway been true. Teh Internets is handy for broader, er, broadcasting, though.
No, the key essential is not "platform" — it’s not even the creating — it’s getting noticed in the resulting crapfest.
Key problem is your creation getting ripped off by people sheerly out for money using content that others make — such as Kim Dotcom and other "file hosts" who create nothing but do provide bandwidth.
Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
You’re just jealous because everything you make, makes people run away.
Re: Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
That’s almost true. No one wants to be virtuous,
and I’m cursed with being Lawful Good. It’s a bear
I cross, and not so very happily, neither.
It’s orders of magnitude easier to lure people
in with sex and "it’s okay to be a pirate".
Re: Re: Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
Funny how you see that as a curse. Want to get up to some Chaotic Evil, hmm? Looking to maybe score some…
[checks for cops]
…illegally-downloaded episodes of The Jimquisition? (Oh, the scandal!)
Re: Re: Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
I’m cursed with being Lawful Good
Not to mention a dearth of INT, WIS and CHA.
Re: Re: Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
I normally don’t get into the whole grammar stuff, but come on.
“False. That’s alway been true.” Wait, What? Is it false or has it always been true?
“It’s a bear I cross” Again, What? You cross a bear? As in make a bear mad, or cross a bears path? WTF are you even talking about?
Re: Re: Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
You need to check your rulebook again, blue boy.
Because your performance has been nothing short of the shittiest play of “Lawful Good” any gamemaster has ever seen.
(Also it’s “a cross I bear”, but we already know you’re crap when it comes to languages.)
Re: Problem is that everyone can be a pirate even easier!
You would argue with your mother trying to give you candy.
Whatever happened to the LAST site you started on this same basis?
Wasn’t it called “Step 2”? WHERE is it? Last I checked, had stopped in 2015.
And didn’t it go:
1) Create.
2) ??????
3) Profit!
SO, congrats on “creating” another web-site! Now all ya gotta do is sit back and WAIT for others to give it value!
Re: Whatever happened to the LAST site you started on this same basis?
With Paris Hilton and assorted Kardashians it goes:
1) ??????
2) ??????
3) Profit!
Nevertheless, step 3 happens.
Re: Re: Whatever happened to the LAST site you started on this same basis?
You misspelled "rich parents".
Re: Whatever happened to the LAST site you started on this same basis?
Now all ya gotta do is sit back and WAIT for others to give it value!
Wrong;
as ever with any creation, it is the audience that it attracts that gives it value. While that is to some extent driven by quality, it is also driven by engagement with your audience. That involves as much or more work than the original creation to escape the obscurity which is the fate of creators who just wait for an audience to come to them.
Only if we stopped trolls from creating.
The bane of capitalism
There is nothing that capitalists hate more than competition. Especially competition that operates on a shoestring, so that monopolists can’t under-cut the price.
'If it's not through us, it doesn't count.'
Internet platforms have made it so that anyone can create almost any kind of content they want, they can promote that content, they can distribute it, they can build a fan base, and they can even make money.
Well yeah, why else do you think that the legacy gatekeepers hate it so much? It’s because it makes them redundant. It makes it so people don’t need to go through them, don’t need to sign away the rights to their works in order for them to be available to the public. It makes it so that creators of all types go go straight to the public, without some parasitic middle-man in between demanding control and an insane cut.
And, much of their positioning is that the internet is somehow "harming" artists, and needs to be put into check.
If, as I’ve seen more than once, you look at it from the position of ‘anyone who isn’t signed to a major label/publisher/studio isn’t a real artist’, then in a way they’re right. More competition does have the potential to ‘harm’ those people, because no longer is is a choice of ‘my stuff or nothing’, now people have options, massive amounts of options for any possible interest.
internet
Yes, It is absolutely right. Nowadays, Internet is a platform to showcase talent https://prepaidgiftbalance.net/.