Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

Recently I was involved in a discussion on Tribe.net in the Culture Whores tribe about torrent sites. It started out simple enough, I suppose. Someone just wanted to know a little bit more about one, but another person there started in discussing how many torrent sites put up music, art and books for free online and how wrong it is and the discussion was on.

There was one person there who really does believe in the post-currency world and that artists should give up ever getting paid again for their work. And they will get more exposure by giving their work away for free etc. (There’s a word for that, it’s called a scam, but I digress.)  There are certainly a number of people out there who believe the same thing, which would be fine if we really did live in a post-currency world and didn’t need to worry about paying rent or buying food or clothing or kitty litter.

But the truth is that we do live in a world that values money and currency. What’s more, we live in a world that doesn’t really value things that are free. Worth is measured in dollar amounts. So, you may have the world’s most beautiful novel ever written. But if you post it up there for free, people will not value it as much as if either 1) you were paid for it or 2) they had to pay to read it. In fact, many artists guilds and organizations will not recognize an artist (writer/musician/visual) until they have a portfolio of proven work that they were paid for. True, sometimes that means doing some work for free in order to get the paying work, but still, getting paid for your work is one of the ultimate goals. We don’t feel validated about our unless we are paid for it, and people do not value it unless we are paid for it (or they pay for it).

That’s just the way it is, and most of us understand that.

However, we still have to live with the people who think we live in a post-currency world and who think we shouldn’t be offended if we are asked to give our work away or if our work is stolen from us and we never get paid for what we did. And I’m not talking about when you do trades with your colleagues and friends. That’s a different sort of payment and an accepted practice in most places.

I’m talking about the times when a book or piece of music ends up online, free to all the world and suddenly you lose sales, but also about the times when people just don’t seem to understand how much work you do when they say, for example, “can you do up a cool menu for us? This is what we’re offering, but we want it to look like this and sound like this.” A graphic designer friend of mine worked on that type of project for months and her friend/clients never did seem to understand how much work she put into it every time they said, “no, not that” and then changed their mind and asked for something else. Then, after all that, balked at paying her a professional price. I think she ended up making $5-10/hour if that. And she did it because she knew them and was hoping for more business from them, which didn’t happen if I remember correctly.  She is an educated professional and her story is a common one. If I listed all the similar stories I had heard along that same vein from the different artists  and freelancers I know this blog would be too long. It’s a common enough story that people all over write about.

And not just a discussion in a dying social network, it can also be read about on Writers Weekly, as well as freelancers blogs such as Screw You, as well as in all sorts of writers forums and groups. Recently, some books from Drollerie Press found their way onto a blog that was bragging about free books to download. The authors were not happy. They depend on the sales of those books to help them make a living. One of my neighbors has written a fantastic set of how to books for making camera rigs. When his sales dropped he happened by a torrent site and saw that someone had uploaded his book. He was dependent on the sales from that book for his livelihood and someone stole that from him.

Now, there will always be some work that freelancers/writers/painters/graphic designers/musicians, etc do for free, whether for friends or connections or a good cause or because we just get talked into it. The point is, though, that we ARE worth the money we charge; we DO deserve to be paid. We do not deserve to have our livelihood stolen from us and then be given a jaded shrug and told that we’ll “get good exposure.” Good exposure doesn’t pay the bills.

And we need to remember all of this when dealing with our fellow artists/writers/musicians, etc. Trades are fine, but make sure they’re fair. But most of all, be fair to yourself.