Free or Not? That is the Question! Whether ’tis nobler and more effective to give it away, or find some way to charge for it. But there’s the problem! How can we find anybody to pay and how can we make enough. For in that effort to sell the work, maybe we restrict and limit its audience, depriving the public of the chance to enjoy it and the filmmaker’s chance to build his career and track record. “Ay! There’s the rub!” said Hamlet.

And with Hamlet playing on Broadway right now, it’s an opportune moment to reconsider his basic question. And with Shelly Palmer’s very thoughtful post “Free vs. Paid: It’s the Wrong Argument!” (see our guest blogger reprint of his column), we have something to work with.

The sirens of the magic of “free” seem to be everywhere. It all started with Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, and his book FREE: The Future of a Radical Price. We all know that “free” is good. Consumers love free. Economists have a rule about free: “free items are over consumed” — which is another way of saying that free is good. But free doesn’t pay the bills; free does not reward talent and effort; free does not build a career. So “Free” as Anderson would have it is indeed a radical step.

Perhaps a bit too radical? I love the comment in Palmer’s post.

There are only three business models: I pay, you pay or someone else pays. That’s it. I pay means that I (the publisher of the content) am willing to fund the creation, production and distribution of the content for my own purposes. You pay means that you are willing to pay me for my content. Someone else pays means that a third party is willing to pay me so that you can consume my content. Some of my KPMG friends have pointed out that, from the content producer/publisher’s point of view, there are really only two models: I pay or I get paid. I like to include the idea of third-party involvement, because it is so common to the media business.

How refreshing to live in the real world. I pay. You pay. Someone else pays. Pretty much sums it up right there. But Anderson’s pitch is appealing. If you give your work away for free, then it’s likely that some people will take it up, and leave you with the feeling that you have an audience. Something better happen financially, however, or like Morgan Spurlock and his film “Super Size Me”, you may end up with surprising less than you imagined.

Palmer’s contribution to this discussion is terrific. I pay. You pay. Someone else pays. If I don’t pay, and you don’t pay, it’s still possible for someone else to pay — like an advertiser, or a charity, or a philanthropist. Somewhere, someone pays. Palmer also makes the insightful point that the “payment” we’re talking about doesn’t have to be cash. It can be in some intermediary “product” that has value to the recipient. If I decide to pay so you don’t have to, presumably what I get is “awareness” and “interest”. I can assign a value to that. So I gave up being paid by you to get your “awareness” and “interest” in my work. Scott Kirsner has compiled 30 examples of artists being paid in some non-cash way in his work Fans, Friends, & Followers. The idea of being in a three-way scheme (”I pay. You pay. Someone else pays.“) with an intangible exchange really provides a framework for Scott’s interesting book.

Ultimately, the Palmer formulation is the basis for the emerging doctrine of “Hybrid Distribution”. For a filmmaker, his project is very likely to be a combination of all three modes of transaction. IndiePix is very good at hybrid distribution as a business model, but that has to be another thought.

At the end of the day, I’d say that “free” per se, as people usually think of it (as in a “gift”) is not now, has not been, and will not be a good idea. But clever trades work and can make a difference.