Ideas worth spreading

The art of asking

12,951,672 views |

Amanda Palmer |

TED2013

• February 2013

Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.

Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Amanda Palmer

Musician, blogger

See speaker profile

Alt-rock icon Amanda Fucking Palmer believes we shouldn't fight the fact that digital content is freely shareable -- and suggests that artists can and should be directly supported by fans.

Lawrence Lessig | Penguin, 2004 | Book

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

Fellow TED speaker Larry Lessig delves deep into the intricacies of piracy and intellectual property. Added bonus, it’s available for free online as a PDF.

Lewis Hyde | Vintage, 2007 | Book

This is an absolutely incredible meditation (with academic underpinnings) about the nature of creativity and what "gift" actually means. Hyde looks at the value and meaning of the gift-giving gesture throughout time and cultures and finds out what we emotionally suspected all along: a gift is only truly a gift when it stays in motion.

Cory Doctorow | McSweeney's, 2014 | Book

Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free

I wrote an introduction to this book, and expanded on some of the themes of "The Art of Asking". Cory writes here about the state of copyright and creativity in the new wold west of the digital age.

Zen Master Seung Sahn | Grove Press, 1994 | Book

Dropping Ashes on the Buddha

Not directly related to my talk … but actually, it is. This book changed my life when I read it in my twenties, and it informed everything I created as a performer, a businessperson and a speaker.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.