Is free the new price for most intellectual property?

We living in strange times. In our new Third Pipe world small and decentralized is the rule. Information moves freely and big is on life support demanding a tribute and a toll on its motion. Unfortunately big won’t go away without a fight. Big has an ally in government, and laws are being made to protect big even though, it has become antiquated and inefficient. It can even be argued that the forces of  big won the last round of elections for federal offices. For the last several months, we’ve seen government getting bigger at an unsustainable rate, spending unthinkable sums of money to extend the lives of equally big and unsustainable enterprises.  We’ve also seen big extending it’s reach into our lives hoping to control us, because it’s the only way that it can remain big in this new world. One of the biggest enemies of big is free. Big creates nothing. Big has gotten big and rich from distribution.  Now that distribution is largely free, big is in trouble.

There’s plenty of benefit to giving things away in a business. In fact, many businesses are already giving away or losing money on some products, just to have a chance to sell something else. There are also plenty of us who freely contribute what we produce into the commons,  supported by individuals that value our work. Chris Anderson, best know for editing Wired and popularizing the concept of the long tail recently released a new book called Free, the future of a radical price in which he contends that the value of most intellectual property is in a race to zero.

“Free” is essentially an extended elaboration of Stewart Brand’s famous declaration that “information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting an inexorable downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law: “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.” To the Dallas Morning News, he would say the same thing. Newspapers need to accept that content is never again going to be worth what they want it to be worth, and reinvent their business. “Out of the bloodbath will come a new role for professional journalists,” (The New Yorker)