To prove a point, I've not done my usual due diligence and care on this work. I have presented below the bare minimum, absolute first draft of my thoughts, as I thought them for me, with no consideration or respect of audience. I hope this helps to demonstrate the key idea of this essay. I think you'll agree, it's not as readable, or palateable or interesting as what I usually post here. And that difference is the art and passion and care and attention that is the subject at hand.
Pinterest is an indication or staw on camels back of creative works.
Like music that started as a live thing, was temporarily controled by business, until they got greedy and minimized the artists and then the whole model fell apart. Now musicians only perform live anymore.
Same thing is happening to other media. Books will become books again. Artwork will become artwork again. Pinerests is the thing that will drive visual artists away like napster did to musicians. Kindle will drive authors away to print again. –
partly because: in this model, any version online is intrinsically infringing. No ambiguity.
Because to the artist, it is always s the solid object that matters. All the stuff online now is only publicity, and it has reached the point where the public thinks that's all there is, and that they shouldn't have to pay for it.
So: if you want to see real art, in the coming future, you'll have to see it online. -know that what you see online is only amateur, bad, uninspired, false. Commercial. Art will come back to being real,a nd to experience it you'll have to do your part.
Has reached the point as an artist, both storytelling and pictures, that people demand that I do work, and do other things that indicate that they value it, but absolutely refuse to acknowledge that it has value. Regularly have scoldings to the effect that I should do it for the 'exposure' or 'flattery' (the pinterest arguments). But exposure in service of what? No: I, and many people like me (creative people) will gravitate away from stealable media, (as musicians have) and towards real. So: from that other side: if you're getting it for free, you're not getting the good stuff. The only stuff that's free is stuff that the creator and the audience have both agreed is not worth anything.
And on the flip side: if you find something valuable as an audience/consumer: it's your job to pay for it, actively if it's not being charged for. The act of paying will value the interaction for you and the artist. . - being an audience member isn't passive any more. You are a benefactor. The act of paying will enrich you, make you a part of the creativity, will give you more of the kind of thing you enjoyed from the artists and so on.
Right now: if you have a picture on your facebook page that isn't yours and doesn't link to the original (i.e. you downloaded it and re-uploaded it) then you're the problem. If you use pinterest, then you're the problem. If your entertainment reading is something you don't pay for, then you're the problem. It's so widespread and ingrained by a business culture that has no interest in preserving art or beauty or artistic merit or artists, that the general public doesn't even know it's wrong. But here's how you'll see it: like music, it will seem that there's not good work coming out any more. But it's not true, it's just gone offline. So: if you want to hear good music, go see a band. And in the near future, it'll be the same for all the other arts. If you think there's something missing, you're right. Go see an art show, buy a book, buy a painting, see a play, anything where there's a physical connection between you and the generator of the art.
here's the comment thread off my facebook page:
here's the comment thread off my facebook page:
- Dave DeHetre the ouvre of online works will stagnate and experience regressive dilution/decay of meaning and substance.
- Dave DeHetre they don't have to, but they will. there is an anti-motivation doing otherwise.
Jenny Lorraine Nielsen Isn't that just because there's a flood of them? They're free...but I'm not sure most of the great authors aside from Jack London maybe wrote for money- Jenny Lorraine Nielsen I see this interesting money-free exchange developing online-- the problem I suppose is that we aren't a money free culture so the era of the "paid" artist may be beginning to be dying out; but at the same time there may be a more even playing field for artists online now. I can upload music on Jamendo and I'm instantly on even ground with every other artist (at least for starters) without having to respond to a market which is demanding specific things
- Dave DeHetre I use my own experience, and those of people I know: there comes a point where you are good enough that people start demanding of you, and expecting of you, as though they were paying you. -my belief is that this occurs when you've become good enough that your work has value. -to be in this situation is corrosive and there's no obvious solution. assuming that my experience is representative, the overall trend will be that as soon as someone is capable of creating something worthwhile, they will naturally withdraw from the environment that is corrosive to that creative process. it would be one thing if it was just a matter of indifference, but it's not, it's more active and caustic. say I don't write for money, it doesn't matter (and that's another topic really) but the point is: given that I can publish to people who value and respect what I do (offline), why would I publish online and suffer the burdens that come with that process? that online process stops repaying me as soon as become good enough that the feedback isn't helpful (i.e. I become someone who might raise the overal standard)
- Dave DeHetre here's one (of many possible) example: here is a bit of writing (and supporting work) that I did because I enjoyed it. no pay, nothing really. you can see the sum total of what I got back for it in the comments thread. http://
www.universetoday.com/ 93698/ book-review-celestial-delig hts-the-best-astronomical- events-through-2020/ www.universetoday.comRecently, we announced an invitation for anyone who would like to review space b...See More19 hours ago · · - Dave DeHetre I didn't expect anything. But what I got was humiliated and denigrated. Not that I'm totally devastated or anything, but based on that sole bit of feedback as my 'payment' for doing such a thing, why would I keep doing it? was your total compensation for that textbook that you had a few people ridicule you?
- Dave DeHetre I'm really not bitter. I'm just trying to point out that the motivational structure of this new venue is against raising standards.
Kat Martin "I really have to disagree, with Dianne Dave here." You got disagreed with. I genuinely don't get your point.- Dave DeHetre it's an organic consequence that the good stuff will go offline. and I think that's a good thing. it's been great for live music, for example.
- Dave DeHetre I think my point may be escaping you because you're seeing this through the eyes of someone who has gotten paid money for the things you do. the new paradigm is that online stuff is done for other motivations/rewards.
- Dave DeHetre I wrote that review because I felt I had benefitted from all sorts of online resources and I wanted to do my part to pay back.
- Kat Martin I have been paid, sure, but all the stuff I've done online I do for free. I enjoy the process.
- Kat Martin And most of my online stuff you never see because it's at poker forums where people frequently disagree with me.19 hours ago · ·
1 - Dave DeHetre are you arguing against my idea that the new online world doesn't reward raising standards? because if so: I'd like to hear what the rewards are.
- Dave DeHetre I think it's worth pointing out that my complaint is against the business structures that profit off of the paradigm, and in particular the current thing with pinterest. I don't mind the free exchange with peers, but when there is somebody profiting, and manipulating the society to increase their profit at the expense of the participants, I rankle.
- Jenny Lorraine Nielsen pinterest is weird, however there are quality artists who manage to make money partly online and partly off -- Ursula Vernon (http://
www.redwombatstudios.com/) and the online Knites comic I'm reading right now at https://www.facebook.com/ knitesare examples - Jenny Lorraine Nielsen you click things and like them sort of like facebook but it's visual and as far as I can tell it's some kind of advertizing system really
- Dave DeHetre i.e. I didn't mind not getting paid for my pictures, but now that pinterest is stealing my pictures, making money off of them and blocking the consumer from even knowing that I am the creator, I've a) lost all incentive or hope of incentive, but also b) I now have a disincentive. in that I want to not help pinterest profit, and the only means I have to do that is to remove my work from their influence.
- Dave DeHetre it's a pretty complex thing, but generally the problem is that they take content, strip any linkbacks or advertising, store it on their own servers and place ads alongside the content. there terms of service is such that the 'pinning' party is the one responsible for any infringment issues and that anything 'pinnned' is pinterest's property to monitize or do whatever they like with.
- Dave DeHetre and pinterest is just a bellweather. the mindset is there and always will be. hence my essay.
- Kat Martin put everything online low res and stamp a DaveDoneDis stencil over all of it?19 hours ago · · 1
- Dave DeHetre anyway: the only thing they buy anyway is the solid objects. which gets back to my assertion in the first place.
- Dave DeHetre ruin my work so that it's not worth anything? sure that'd stop the infringement, but what's the point? same end is achieved by not having it online at all.
- Jenny Lorraine Nielsen I thought when you clicked the pin it took you back to the site it was pinned from
- Kat Martin this will be something of a sea-change for you tho since i keep seeing "dave uploaded 1024 images to the album..."
- Jenny Lorraine Nielsen (though I don't use pinterest much as it seemed...weird....so I dunno if what I said was true or not)
- Dave DeHetre jenny: not so, in my experience. keith: that's another issue, but those images were for a non-paying customer. part of the reason I have the attitude I do.
- Dave DeHetre I haven't given up photography as much as I have discovered more rewarding processes.
- Dave DeHetre I didn't renew my zenfolio account, and that will go offline any day now. my flickr page is paid up for the next 9 months, and after that it will go dark as well.
- Kat Martin more rewarding good. hopefully they will stay rewarding rather than becoming sources of annoyance and disappointment
- Dave DeHetre my writing is all taken offline now, with the exception of a few kindle books that amazon won't let me take offline. (another sore spot)
Traci Bunkers I'll have to go read your blogpost, but just from reading the comments, I totally get where you are coming from Dave. And it's not even just the whole pinterest thing. I feel the same way when I take the time to make a tutorial art video--that's FREE--and then people leave snarky comments on youtube. If they didn't like it, they can just move one. But they'd rather be mean. So I have several issues here, and part of that is just people's behavior.
As an FYI, there is a code you can put in your blog/website that won't allow people to pin things to pinterest. I need to look on flickr, but I think from my understanding, anything that is deemed as copyrighted on there, they have already set up that it can't be pinned.18 hours ago · · 1
hadn't heard of pinterest before, but it doesnt appeal, got enough to do with flickr! I agree that real, solid art is so much more engaging than virtual stuff, and am still buying & reading proper books, but I do doewnload a book to the ipad if I'm going away anywhere to cut down on weight and space in my suitcase! Off to see a live band tonight too, it's good to be oldskool!
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