The Cost of Freedom - Not

"The cost of freedom in the digital age" is a sadly misguided article on openDemocracy that questions whether Creative Commons, open source and open access are "a just reward for creative endeavour", and concludes:

Free dissemination systems such as open access and creative commons are good and should be supported. The most excluded in society will benefit from not having to pay. But creative commons is not the right alternative to rewarding content-creators and innovators. We are still only at the dawn of the digital revolution. It is likely that by the time we get to sunrise, more equitable alternatives will have been found. Until that happens, whoever ends up picking up the bill for content creation, there is little justice in charging the credit cards of scientists or short-changing authors of books and composers of music.

Well, no, actually: scientists do not pay with their credit cards for open access: the cost may be author-side, rather than reader-side, but it is picked up by one of the scientist's sponsors - be it the grant-giver (like the Wellcome Trust) or academic institution.

Similarly, it is incorrect to say that authors of books and composers of music are "short-changed" just because they adopt a creative commons licence, or to call creative commons an "alternative to rewarding content-creators and innovators". There are well-attested cases of sales being boosted when a book is released under a CC licence (just ask Cory Doctorow or Yochai Benkler): in other words, more reward, not less. And even when sales aren't boosted, there are numerous other ways of making money from the reputation that CC publication can bestow (public appearances, consultancy, etc.).

Looking at new-style content distribution with the blinkers of old-style publishing inevitably misses these facets. Not so much the cost of freedom, then, as the cost of fettered thinking.