The Internet has a problem: it’s an amazing way to share your creations with the world, but its also a damned difficult place to make money while you’re at it. This creates several problems for creators, one of which is that you have to make a choice: you keep your work off of the Internet and languish in obscurity, or release it freely and watch as people enjoy it without offering compensation. Thankfully Peter Sunde, one of the co-founders of Thepiratebay.org, is planning on offering a third option.
Called Flattr.com, Sunde’s new site looks to change the way artists are compensated on the Internet. Flattr users pay a monthly fee — the amount of which is up to the user — then proceed to spend the month “flattering” content creators, be they musicians, writers or even web designers, by pressing a link on the site. At the end of the month, your fee is divided by the amount of flattering you did (i.e. the number of Flattr links you clicked), and distributed to the creators accordingly.
In an interview with the BBC, Sunde said that initially Flattr would keep 10 per cent of the money that moves through the website, but said that if the project takes off, he would hope to reduce that royalty by as much as possible. And, unlike other micro-payment schemes, Sunde thinks that Flattr will take off, since, unlike its unsuccessful predecessors, it’s relatively easy to use.
If you’re wondering how itsy bitsy payments will serve to compensate creators, there is a Swedish phrase quoted on the Flattr site: “many small streams will form a river.” The more worthy your idea, the more times you are flattered, and the more money you will receive.
So, will we be seeing a Flattr link on Michael Buble’s website anytime soon? Probably not, but if Radiohead’s success with their album In Rainbows, which was offered as a free download, giving fans the opportunity to pay what they thought the album was worth, is any kind of indicator, a majority of fans are willing to pay creators for their content.
According to an article in the Times Online, only a third of the people who downloaded In Rainbows elected to pay nothing, with a majority giving the band about $6.50, or the amount they figured the artists would receive, were the album released by a studio, according to a survey performed by Record of the Day soon after the album was made available.
In the end, while Sunde’s idea might not be revolutionary, it does make the act of compensating your favorite creator easier than updating your twitter status, and that, coupled with the public’s apparent willingness to compensate artists whose work they appreciate, might be just the combination required to transform the Internet from being a tool to access content without compensation (which, admittedly, Sunde’s Piratebay played an important part in) to a mechanism for artistic prosperity.
