Generative AI in Google search is great news for the true fans model, but what about publishers?
Most of the analysis of generative AI – things like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT – has focused on how it will affect creators. But another important aspect is…
Writers and publishers face an existential threat from AI: time to embrace the true fans model
Walled Culture has written several times about the major impact that generative AI will have on the copyright landscape. More specifically, these systems, which can create quickly and…
SoundCloud’s “Fan Powered Royalties”: a halfway house towards the true fans approach
Regular readers of this blog will know that Walled Culture is a fan of the true fans concept – the idea that creators can be supported directly and…
Why the “true fans” model is great not only for creators, but for entrepreneurs too
The “true fans” idea has appeared in many posts on this blog, and also makes an appearance in the last chapter of Walled Culture the book, as a…
How music platform Corite is turning true fans into digital street teams
The last chapter of Walled Culture – the book looks at how the many problems of copyright might be mitigated. It concludes with Kevin Kelly’s idea of “1000…
Ireland shows how to take the true fans idea to the next level, with a bold new arts funding programme
One of the recurring themes on this blog is the idea of true fans: hard-core supporters of an artist who are willing to send money directly to creators…
Why the true fans model is coming into its own now, and how to ensure its sustainability
Regular readers of this blog will know that we are big supporters of the true fans idea – that artists can thrive by building stronger connections with a…
Concordance: how Discord has become the latest hot platform for creators to engage with true fans
Walled Culture has just written about the new Scriber platform, which is designed to make it easier for artists to keep their fans close and happy. But the…
The true fans idea is not just about wishy-washy, feel-good charity: it’s a business too
Walled Culture has written several times about the “true fans” idea as an alternative approach to the traditional remuneration models employed by the copyright industry players, such as…
Moving beyond dysfunctional copyright: true fans, and a new middle class for the creator economy
It’s easy pointing out that copyright is deeply dysfunctional: there are new examples of the profound mismatch between this 18th-century law and 21st-century creativity coming to light every…
Streaming services today sell musicians access to their own fans; SoundCloud shows a better way
Back in January, Walled Culture wrote about an interesting initiative by the German online audio distribution platform and music sharing service SoundCloud, with its Fan-Powered Royalties (FPR) approach.…
Here’s another way that AI will reduce ad income for publishers – and what they can do about it
New ways in which the latest AI technology can be applied are popping up all the time. Here’s an interesting example discussed by Ben Werdmuller on his blog,…
Brown noise spam is another reason why music streaming payments need a radical overhaul
There’s an interesting story on Wired about “functional music” – things like white noise and brown noise – which is widely available on music streaming platforms. These kind…
Copyright has been one of life’s certainties: but will it always be?
Copyright seems to be a fixture of our legal, economic and social systems. For 300 years, it has formed the backbone of the structures used to incentivise and…
Copyright isn’t working: all around the world, writers are struggling to earn a decent wage
One of the central themes here on Walled Culture is that copyright isn’t doing its main job. It is supposed to provide fair remuneration for the work that…
Interview | Glyn Moody: Walled Culture – A Journey Behind the Copyright Bricks
Glyn Moody has been writing about copyright, digital rights, and the Internet for 30 years. He is the editor of the Walled Culture project and author of Walled…