THE PROBLEM WITH AN INFORMATION ECONOMY

We are surrounded by a great debate, on one side people claim that information is limitless and free and should be freed from commercial restraints. On the other are those who argue that creativity is scarce and expensive and that it must be paid for.

Both views are however in my mind inherently inaccurate. The Creative Economy exists at the intersection of Creativity, and Information and trying to separate one from the other to make an economic model will automatically fail because neither Creativity or Information on it's own has all the required pieces to form a total economic model.

CREATIVITY: Creativity is a scarce resource, for which there is a demand. however creativity cannot be stored or exchanged rendering it valueless.

INFORMATION: Unlike creativity, Information can be easily traded and stored. Information however is creativity's mirror twin in other aspects in that it's supply is near infinite. This trait robs information of it's value.

WORK: Both Creativity and Information are surround and empowered by work, Work translates creativity into information and back again, work allows information to be stored and exchanged, it brings value to both Information and Creativity. Work brings both abstract ideas to the real world, however in doing so Work inflicts it's costs as well. It is these costs that causes society attempt to turn two non-viable economic models into one viable one.

WHERE VALUE CAN BE OBTAINED

CREATIVITY: Herein lies the rub, Creativity is the daemon of the trio, it's qualities are fixed and everchanging: supply and demand ebb and flow, but as a personal quality it is utterly resistant to being exchanged or stored. and as such is impossible to generate value from.

WORK: Getting value of out work is perhaps the classic method, of human exchange, second only to trading property. However it does have it's limitations. Generally work can only be exchanged for value once. Work can also be hard to quantify at times, while the amount of effort required to pass a file, or print a book can be pinned down, how much is the effort required to write the "Great American Novel" worth, especially when the value of a given work may not be apparent for years to come? So while extracting value from work may be a predominant method, for works with siginifigant potential value, it is not often the sole source of compensation, the remainder of the value of the work being extracted from the produced information

INFORMATION:And so we come to information, theoretically it's infinite supply makes it worthless, but by working with the other parameters to either bottleneck or expand them, markets can be made to extract value.

• SUPPLY:Patronage, Subscription, Limited Editions: Simple enough, create real scarcity of supply, and information becomes marketable . However when you limit supply, you also by default limit distribution of the work, and the scarce supply is a temporary situation for any given work.
• DEMAND:Marketing, Popularity: Pry the opening for demand open wide enough, and they'll pay you to give them content. It may not look it, but this is how Big Media makes it's money. However like adjusting supply, adjusting demand is also a temporary situation.
• EXCHANGE:Copyright: By getting value whenever work is used or distributed, Copyright taps the long term value of a work, The value is also collected without much effort, but over a long period of time. Since it is not a front end restraint on the work, however it requires societal consent to work.
• STORAGE:Performance:Performance is information in a form with extremely limited ability to be stored. The value in this case is collected in a short period of time, but with much effort. However it is not inherently available to all media.

So The Question Remains, Where Will You Get Your Value Out?