Art, Technology & Intellectual Property

The one hundredth American Assembly was held February 7-10 in Harriman, New York to discuss the relationship between art and technology. Below is an excerpt from the report that resulted, Art, Technology & Intellectual Property. Two books were commissioned as part of the project, and will be published next year by Rutgers University Press. The report is available for free by email request to amassembly@columbia.edu. The creation, development, distribution, and archiving of artistic content have long been the result of a complex network of business models. While the term "business model" has become a hazy shorthand for a variety of things, this Assembly focused on the term as a system of choices that enable any business — not-for-profit, for-profit, sole contractor, or multi-national — to meet its mission and market goals in a sustainable way. The choices inherent in a business model include those related to an interactive bundle of strategies — as they drive product/service mix, revenue mix, legal/tax structure, supply chain relationships, capital/asset mix, and staff/leadership incentives. Businesses in all their forms seek goals of market, money, and mission. They do so within the framework of laws, contracts, markets, and mechanisms. And, some businesses seek to adapt their environments by actively pursuing changes to this framework. In the arts sector, a primary element of the relevant business models — not-for-profit and for-profit alike — has been the production, acquisition, aggregation, archiving, packaging, and distribution of intellectual property. Art museums gather and steward large volumes of art in many forms. Recording labels aggregate the intellectual property of recorded performances, as well as the underlying intellectual property of songwriters and composers, and distribute it through various means to a marketplace. Performing artists and organizations gather the intellectual property of composers, designers, choreographers, and technicians, and present it to an audience. The variety and vitality of a multitude of business models in a multitude of marketplaces — for-profit and not-for-profit — undergird the advancement of the arts as a part of the cultural experience. In a changing cultural, economic, and technological environment, the capacity in the 1990s of artists and arts organizations to respond to markets was critical for not-for- profits and for-profits alike. For not-for-profit arts institutions, this response was traditionally local, as audiences ultimately came to the exhibition or performance. With the arrival of digital capture and distribution, old assets acquired an apparent new value if distributed externally online. Moving from a local to a diffuse market meant a significant change in the traditional model, the impact of which is seen in pilot projects that explored the new online opportunities (the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage Internet broadcasts, the Art Museum Image Consortium, Connecticut’s artsconnected, and others). While for-profits, not-for-profits, and individual creators entered this new world with similar challenges, they faced different realities. The available business model choices either enabled an active exploration of new ideas or discouraged it. All participants saw before them large investments of time and money, but only market-based projects seemed to hold the true potential for future revenue — although even these often proved unrealizable. Sustainable not-for-profit models in relation to earned and contributed income have yet to be widely developed.

Art, Technology & Intellectual Property

Broadcast | October 30, 2002

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