Maybe the solution could lie with people becoming a bit more responsible, and starting to donate to authors they like. In may require a bit of education, however. Like, teaching children that sharing is good.
I think the real flaw in the current state of affairs is the lack of an easy way to donate. Build that, and say "my work is free, just please be nice if you like it", and interesting things may happen.
Heck, people are more likely to donate when you give them your work for free, than buy your work at all. Provided that taking and donating is as simple as buying of course.
If there was an dead-easy, reasonably secure way to donate 1$ to the authors of a work I am currently enjoying, I may click on that button.
Good idea. Especially since the most profitable businesses in the world are charities. Oh wait, they're not. In fact most donations happen because they're tax deductible.
If a person wasn't willing to pay $0.99 to download a song on iTunes what makes you think that person would be willing to donate a dollar?
Experiments have shown that when you give $2 to someone, then ask them a favour, they are more likely to do you that favour than if you ask them the favour in exchange from those $2. I don't have the specific sources, but I suspect they will be easy to find.
I believe this could be extended to spreading of abundant goods. Now, we basically have the choice between buying the thing, or downloading it from the internet for free. The problem, is, downloading is often more convenient than get up, go to the damned store, and buy a copy. It can even more convenient than buying it on-line, because when it's gratis, you have to fetch your credit card.
Now imagine you made your work available for free, and would like people to send you a few bucks in return, please. Assuming we could transfer the results of that experiment above to this problem, it may be more efficient than selling your work.
Of course, there are obstacles for that transfer to happen. First, donating is inconvenient most of the time. Second, you can't ask the favour face to face, as it was done in the experiments. I think both obstacles can be mitigated, but I don't know if that will be enough.
The old models are dying. So either we search for an alternative, or we let music die, or we sacrifice freedom of speech and privacy on the internet. Our choice.
Now, I have presented one alternative. It may not work. It certainly won't work for everyone. Luckily, there are others. I say let's keep searching.
I think the real flaw in the current state of affairs is the lack of an easy way to donate. Build that, and say "my work is free, just please be nice if you like it", and interesting things may happen.
Heck, people are more likely to donate when you give them your work for free, than buy your work at all. Provided that taking and donating is as simple as buying of course.
If there was an dead-easy, reasonably secure way to donate 1$ to the authors of a work I am currently enjoying, I may click on that button.