tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post2912906108129411254..comments2024-03-19T03:15:54.551-04:00Comments on Half an Hour: Paying For ArtStephen Downeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-9302864670066877462010-05-01T17:31:09.991-04:002010-05-01T17:31:09.991-04:00Stephen,
Yeah, this is really well spelled out, a...Stephen,<br /><br />Yeah, this is really well spelled out, and it is a obstacle in thinking I often come up against. How do we rethink labor in the digital age is my first inclination, to theorize the a kind of contextualized idea of Marx's notion of labor value in our moment (not that I could do it :) ), but the way you keep the argument grounded in the idea of artisans getting paid for what they produce, rather than one or two things perpetually reproduced is extremely useful. I guess what's interesting to me here, is how digital work, and the more general idea of labor virtualized, at first seems to have lost all its value in terms of money. But that is far from the case, as you and Alan Levine (with his amazing stories of openness videos) frame are the many ways the idea of being paid is rather different. And while we do still work for governments, states, or institutions, having control over what you produce and the means to share it freely does seem so counter intuitive to many because everywhere we are told that by retaining ownership we are somehow in a position to get rich.<br /><br />What's interesting to me, and this is on a tangent from this idea, but related---well at least in my mind. Is how tenure and promotion committees at Universities (and I am speaking from a particular US perspective here given that's all I have experience with) are seen as a means of reinforcing this idea of ownership and getting rewarded for the peer-reviewed, often locked-up published work that could otherwise be understood as a public good and resource. Case in point, there is an entire archive of a rather important 20th century poet that has yet to be scanned, annotated, and made freely available online. I was part of a brief discussion that ultimately ended in: "this project is not viable because making this work freely available online will not count for an official publication and hence will not serve those involved in any real way professionally." And fact is, none of these folks were jaded or even against the idea of doing the job, they just couldn't afford the time and energy to invest in a project they would get no professional credit for. <br /><br />And while I agree with tenure as a way to protect speech and political positions (although it seems rarer and rarer that academics are really exercising the latter part of that protection) it seems to have increasingly become a self-perpetuating force to ossify the idea of what diverse forms of publishing and sharing can be understood as valuable and rewarded in kind, or in other words: paid. I am increasingly seeing space in a school like UMW for the tenure and promotion committee to evaluate and give credit for the various digital work our professors are engaging in, but at the same time that has a lot to do with the fact we are a primarily a teaching college and don't require a book or two published by an academic press. What further complicates things is that these academic presses are increasingly running into financial difficulty (take LSU Press for example) which underscores the idea of how these presses which you outline above in terms of publishing more generally, and are increasingly becoming more and more a burden on the exchange of scholarly ideas. What's more, the are increasingly unable to financially manage the system of academic publishing that was premised on free peer-review, little or no money paid to the majority of authors, and a rather expensive publishing process paired with concomitant expenses for the book itself---many scholarly books costing upwards of $20-30 in paperback unless they are sufficiently popular. <br /><br />I mean how easy would it be for the peer review process to work online via the tools we have now post facto? Kinda like a blogging process for academics, do we still need the academic journal? I know you read them regularly and blog about them rather regularly, and let me ask you, is the work there significantly better than the work that has been unvetted, save by a network of fellow of peers?Jim Groomhttp://bavatuesdays.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-60217905533601415082010-04-24T11:25:49.563-04:002010-04-24T11:25:49.563-04:00Stephen -- Once upon a time, publishers employed e...Stephen -- Once upon a time, publishers employed editors who worked closely with writers to produce excellent books (Max Perkins comes to mind), but as soon as publishing became big business, that all ended, to the disgust of many dedicated editors, who'd ventured into their professions with a passion that made them overlook low pay and lots of evening and weekend work. <br /><br />After my first novel's publication more than ten years ago (by a small commercial press) my eyes were opened to US publishing. It's not a pretty picture, and getting book number two published never came together. Editors are pushed to find a book that fits into a particular category, that promises significant payoffs, that has an author who's camera-friendly. It's no longer about quality books, but about sales, and those are usually two different things.<br /><br />Hooray for print-on-demand options, and for online access to places like www.lulu.com where anybody can produce a book and make it available to everybody else. At cost or free.<br /><br />Or a writer can choose to bypass even online publishers and produce something entirely on their own and release it directly to their readers -- many are doing this, as are many musicians. <br /><br />Artists and photographers are slower to adapt to the model (though graphic artists seem to be leading the pack here)<br /><br />Change is in the air, but it will come slowly. We still have people like Donald Trump trying to get ownership of common phrases like "You're fired." (Just the other day I heard him credited as having "coined the phrase" which made me laugh out loud -- as if no one had ever said that before The Donald.)<br /><br />So if I'm up against a structure that's this ingrained, and all I have is what I produce, and the only way the structure will currently compensate me for it (not everyone is available for consulting; not everyone has that goal) is for me to hold onto a copyright and charge per copy, then finding the middle ground seems the most viable option.Ellenhttp://alearning.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-31078892602949954512010-04-24T02:52:42.212-04:002010-04-24T02:52:42.212-04:00interesting. Just would like to add my own additio...interesting. Just would like to add my own addition to the benefits of artists and creators bit. For me its also more important to be read, to be able to share and follow my passion than be living off it. A true tribute you can pay to an artist is to understand their work and read it than to pay for it to a publisher. <br />Also as long as i do it for the love of labor, its all ok. Filthy rich artist can turn into someone producing for the love of money and thats where the passion dampens and writing what people want part becomes salient. I atleast believe if you dont write for yourself more than you write for people, maybe you should re-consider writing at all or any art for that matter. If that doesnt make you happy and brings peace in your life, its not worth it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12066189680772864997noreply@blogger.com