Selling Things for Free

Kevin Kelly of The Technium has an interesting article, Better Than Free, about the future of selling content.

The sooner content producers (the television, music, movie, book, etc. industries) realize that their old business model is quickly losing steam and the copyright system as a whole is becoming less and less relevant, the quicker they can adopt, what Kelly calls the "Eight Generatives." Basically, these eight properties are the things that make the content you buy worth buying.

The idea is that, instead of producing a steady stream of mostly worthless content, content producers would focus on making their content desirable to and available for consumers that wanted what they were making. In short: Quality over quantity.

Unfortunately, I don't see this happening too quickly. In our country it's easier to have your lobbyist strong-arm stop-gap legislation that protects your interest through Congress than it is to see what's coming next and ride the wave of the future.