The Value of Free Stuff [Creativity of the Ordinary #2]

2. The Value of Free Stuff - do people value free content less than pay content?

(Original picture found at: http://www.nedshaw.com/images/hackers.jpg)

Before we run headlong into our continuing feature "the @merican coffee shop," I would like to address a thought that has been on my mind this evening. Namely, does free content attract people the way pay content does? This question is most pertinent as we freely read each others ideas on the millions of blogs published every day. The plethora of information and content that awaits our fingertips' simple key strokes in a Google search or hyperlink opens us up to a world a plenty to choose from. My IP professor is in the habit of highlighting various websites that one can get free content from, such as Internet Archive and the Internet Public Library. Whatever it is we cannot deny that lots of free stuff is out there for the taking, but do we value it?

Sam Vankin, P.h.D. discusses this topic in his free web article, "Does Free Content - Sell?". Dr. Vankin discusses two schools of thought: the viral school and the intellectual property school. In contrasting the two schools he says that neither one is certainly better than the other or more effective and provides nine factors to be used in evaluating the effectiveness of either school (nature of the info and audience, timing, "the U curve", "frills and bonuses", "credibility", price/value and fixed prices). Overall, other factors such as culture, technology and trends can also have an ultimate effect on the consumer as well.

For the viralists, free content is seen as a means to an end in that it can create a "buzz" about a subsequent pay product. I found this phenomenon to endure very well in my own purchase of a recent videogame, Condemned: Criminal Origins for the XBox 360. In this great teaser of a website, Sega produced an interactive prequel, that allows the user to use mouse clicks to advance a back story that explains some of the strange happenings in the game. This free content, which Sega arguably could have included in a "Condemned Collectors Edition" for an extra $10 per unit, definitely had an impact on my personal decision to buy. In utilizing the viral school of thought Sega successfully created a buzz about their new videogame franchise, and it has led to solid sales, a movie deal in the making and surely countless derivative works sequals.

On the other side of the coin are the intellectual property-preneurs. According to Dr. Vankin, this breed of content provider finds that giving free content creates an expectation that it all should be free. Just look at the Napster contraversy and what has happened to digital music. Others would argue that the IPOD and Itunes have created a market where once there was a glut, but they cannot deny that many potential customers still look for ways around these financial barriers to content. The IP-preneur says that the bundle of rights that exist with creator must be paid for and preserved lest those with the ideas will not be incentivized to create new content.

Here at the Artist and the IP Lawyer it is our duty to explore such issues together. Will the artist be de-incentivized should the lawyer be unable to protect his creations? Or can free content, even if pirated lead to greater dissemniation and thus more demand? In my own expreience, I have found that free content allows me to listen, watch and participate in expression that I might not have otherwise engaged in if I had to plunk my money down blindly for it. Now I am not saying that everything I have liked for free has immediately inspired me to go out and commit money to it. But the availability of free content has made me a fan of things that I otherwise would not have one of, and once I am a fan of something, the actual packaged and priced work of the artist becomes more desireable than some bootleg copy. While this does not answer the general question, it provides us a launch pad for future discussion. With that, I must go finish my Fair Use Doctrine homework for this week.