Changing the way we think of the media industry online.

This is my first blog-post. Ever.

I would like to start off by stating that I am not an English native, but I decided to write in English to be able to reach more people. I'm making this post because I have something I'd like to propose, and I wasn't really sure how else to get it out there, on the vast internetses.

I've been following the filesharing/piracy debate over in Sweden the past few years from my dorm here in Japan, and something that keeps bothering me is the ever repeating line

"The industry should develop more apt business-models"

But something that never, ever comes up is what one of those models would look like. As I've understood it, the most common interpretation of this is
"Lower the prices, improve payment methods, accessibility, quality and costumization".
I do think that this is important as well, but I don't think that it would solve all problems; even if they lower prices, it is still a model not really suited to the economically distant internet. It is still a single duplex medium, and most successful models on the internet are full duplex; information streams in both directions.

A few months ago, I had a very giving discussion with one of my friends in Sweden, he has always had a rather strict stance on piracy (although he's probably one of the people I know who's downloaded the most of everything, paradox? don't ask me~). We always have very interesting conversations, and this time he blatantly confronted me with the dreaded question;

"And what would those models look like then"

After that, I really started thinking about it... What would they look like?
I actually thought something up, and that is the reason why I'm making this post, and why I created this blog in the first place. I'm not sure if it's already been thought up, or posted somewhere, but whatever the situation, here it goes.

What if, instead of having financers invest in a work, which then goes on to reach movie theatres and private retail to recouperate the invested funds and make profit, you would have a type of fund pledge system?

To elaborate, the current model of making a high budget project work (movie/video game) is:

1. Get financing.
2. Make it.
3. Export to retail (cinema, stores).
4. Profit (as in the remainder of financial gain after expenses are paid).

This is a very centralized model, typical of the "Real World". But online, centralized models are often ignored and/or fail, the truly great online systems (file-sharing / social networks / "push" pages, like digg.com) are in essence decentralized grassroot systems. So what would a similar model be for creating high budget work with internet as a base?

This is the flow I've been imagining:

1. The group of people interested in making a project use a webpage to list all projects they are thinking of making, with each project having a "critical value"; this value is the estimated budget that that particular work would require to make.
2. Users log onto the page, and "pledge" themselves to projects they like. A pledge consists of a promised sum of money that would go to that project when the sum of all pledges reach the critical value. Until the sum of all pledges reach the critical value, no transactions take place whatsoever. The pledge function could work as a plug-in to paypal or similar for easy operation.
3. When the critical value is reached, all pledges are "cashed in" and production can start.
4. When production is over the work is publicized (at a much lower price, since production costs have already been covered). Publication will be with a free copy over P2P networks, and a version for cinema with a very reasonable price for those who like the cinema experience.

This way, financing is decentralized (lots of small investments from interested parties), this makes taking risks easier, since the impact won't be that great for each individual. The pressure to make a good movie is also high, if not heightened (if they make a bad movie, they aren't getting any pledges next time). It would, as a side effect, lower the prevalence on "production teams making bad works of art, riding on past fame". It would support a broader spectrum of arts, since the initiative to make mainstream movies "because they sell the best", is no longer an issue (the ones investing do it because they actually want to see it, not make money off of it). It would help individual creators as well, for example someone who makes good movies, and put them on youtube will probably get a lot of pledges if he decides he wants to make a high-budget project.

I have read about something similar to this though, I think, with "fans buying shares" of an album that had yet to be released, I can't really remember the details now though, but I do remember my reaction at the time, and it wasn't quite like this...

Anyways, I just felt I should write this down somewhere, it's not perfect, yet, but it's a start, and it's something. Not just an endless stream of

"The industry needs to change, but I don't know how, lol"

Anyways, comments are welcome.

See you around~

/Temaran