Onboard Diary

For the past few days I've been trying to capture on a piece of paper what I feel about all the wonderful, yet stormy debate that is being generated around the #leysinde, the intellectual property and the old and new business models.

I have written pages extensively and rejected them all. Almost everything has been said by the two parties, they've presented examples and counterexamples and brilliant arguments and others not so bright.

That's why all I have left is to make a desperate and urgent request. A request to all those politicians, distributors, producers, actors, artists, creators, technicians and others involved with the reproducible culture industry (therefore I omit architects, painters, theater actors and other artists whose works are not reproducible and therefore have no problems beyond those imposed by the market).

Mine is a simple request: You must remember the only two things essential to your profession. It is the only thing that can save us all.

One is the meaning of culture:

Regardless of the media, the more accessible, simple and easy sharing culture is, the more we advance as species. The invention of printing press and later the media, transportation and internet, in contrast with the exponential intellectual, technical, scientific and human growth that we have had as species over the past 300 years prove it.  

When we are able to learn, see, enjoy, read ... we create more and better. And it is so from Aristotle, who learned everything he knew from Plato and went one step further, to @alexdelaiglesia and the many tributes of his latest film. 

Let's not turn the industrialization of the culture brought about by intellectual property rights in the eighteenth century to protect the authors into a restricting tool for that wonderful access to knowledge that internet has provided to almost half of the population of our planet.

The other one, and may I add, the most important one, is the basic principle that drives our society. Without discussing whether if it is better or worse, we live in a society based on free trade where our duty as creators is to serve our audience the best way possible. Create for them. We make films, records, concerts, pictures, films and books for them. We enjoy creating for others so they can enjoy what we have created. They are the ones who have the last word. They decide if they like it or not. Whether or not they would pay for what we are capable to offer them, in whatever format.

We must never forget. They are the ones that make our films, which would make no sense if being projected in a empty room (or computer screen). They are the ones who create our songs that would not have any meaning to write and record if no one would listen.

And the reallity, affecting whoever is concerned, is that they are ones who have decided how, when and where to consume the creations we make for them, thanks to the possibilities that technology offers them.  

They are not criminals for taking something that is at the reach of their hands. There are not pirates, or talibans, or rapists, nor thieves. They are the only thing that gives meaning to our profession. Them and nobody else. 

And if the vast majority of them have decided that the way in which we are offering our work is not the way they want to consume it, the only thing we should not do is try to force them to accept our standards. Not with laws, or with national circulation articles, or with pressures, nor excuses. Not even the reasons can count.

The only thing that counts is to give them what they want, how they want it. Because they are the reason WHY we exist.

I don't have a magic solution. We are trying. Testing new models. Exploring ways. Some things will work, others won't, but we must reinvent ourselves as an industry and as creators.

Dear professional colleagues: If you are unable to understand these two things that happen to be the engine of our work, it is better that you change professions, and dedicate to something less committed, to a more mechanical work or a less difficult one.

These are the times in which we live. Opportunities emerge from every corner. There are more consumers than ever before. Distribution channels that are capable of reaching out to thousands of millions of people to a practically nonexistent cost. An audience that is getting more and more involved and participative, making comments and at the same time altruistically promotes our works, making them reach out to more people. 

If we don't understand this, then we will disappear, but not by hacking, or the internet or the lack of one law or the other, but just because we failed to hear that the world had changed.