(Now I know that every artist who has talent, (or thinks they have), is going to disagree with me.)

The world is full of people who create beauty, all looking for an audience, writers, poets, composers, painters… Everyone thinks they are special, their creations are sacred, and… For the most part they are, they’re a part of us, we pour our souls into them, we bleed, cry, and make love to them.

However, we must come to terms with the fact that once we became a digital world, all creative works became shareware, no longer will your song, poem, or painting have any intrinsic value of it’s own. This happened by virtue of the fact that once it became possible for someone to digitally copy our works at a particular quality level, the thing that gave it value, disappeared…

What is that thing we lost ? Scarcity…

The digital revolution not only opened up the creative process to many new participants, but it also allowed for near perfect duplication of existing works. It has become imperative that we artists rethink our hopes & dreams of riches based on our existing art. We need to focus more on performance based income, merchandising, & licensing royalties.

For example, I’m a musician… (I use the term loosely)
It is unrealistic for me to expect to make a living writing and recording music strictly for public consumption. I can try everything to keep my recording from being copied, but once I’ve sold 1 copy or 1 cd, it’s over. It’s on rapidshare, megaupload, or dumped in some torrent somewhere. My assets are now being publicly distributed…

I need a paradigm shift… My music is no longer the product.

The new mindset is that my music is the advertising for my live performance, my t-shirts, or coffee mugs, unless of course it is used in a money making venture such as a movie, video game, etc…

It is all free for personal use, but must be licensed for any for-profit use. The same goes for your art…

Reference the Creative Commons by NC-ND license.