TED Community » James Boatright

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• A reply on Talk: Amory Lovins: A 40-year plan for energy

  May 2 2012: Did you actually fail to listen to the talk? He was _not_ increasing the use of natural gas.

• A comment on Conversation: So how DO we balance the need for creative people to get paid for their work with the ideals of a creative, sharing culture?

  Jan 23 2012: To start, you must have a goal in mind.
  
  Consider the musicians you describe who are getting paid the same for club gigs that they got paid 30 years ago. Is the internet to blame for that, or is it that the demand for live music in clubs has fallen to the point where the demand can be filled by those musicians who are willing to work at 30 year old wages? Is that the result of terabytes of playlists on DJ's computers and better playback and speaker systems, or is it the result of club owners moving to DJ's because they're cheaper. Do the clubbing community flock to live music, or are those clubs weak income sources?
  
  If you're committed to making a living by playing your instrument -- which is a trade which has always been a hardship through most of history, oversupplied and underpaid -- then like any other professional you have to position yourself in the market so that people want to pay you to play. That might be as a session musician, as a club gig player, as part of a recording group, as a performer who does the kickstarter-like pre-funding thing, or some combination of the above, but whatever you choose, you have to have market appeal, and you have to market yourself so that people know you exist and can choose to pay you.
  
  This is ultimately no different than a designer or a painter or a programmer.
  
  People can, and will record and reproduce art. People will share. Once Edison let the recording genie out of the bottle, there was no putting it back.
  
  It may turn out that the actual physical number of professional musicians who can be full time was at some sort of peak in the 1960's or 1970's and that the number will now go down.
  
  Professions come and go. There are fewer saddle makers these days. There was a time that every town had TV repairmen.
  
  There's a substantial difference between "keeping creativity flowing" for the largest number of people and "being able to make a full time living performing"