I'd like to start a discussion of the future of mass media and Open Culture.
A Brief (Immediate) History of Media Culture:
In the last decade, we've seen the growth of niche markets and the rise of user-generated content as YouTube and Netflix quickly replaced television in millions of households.
Similarly, annual revenues of subscription-based music streaming services are on the rise while physical media purchases continue their rapid decline, (excepting the niche used and new vinyl markets with yet another year of monumental growth.)
Subscription-based media access is quickly replacing broadcast packages, where for a fixed monthly fee consumers can access any media under the provider’s network of licenses (Spotify and Netflix are this year's most active examples.)
And media streaming hardware is gaining popularity, as Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV are each vying for the public dollar.
In the 3rd quarter of 2014, mobile use hit critical mass, rivaling television use in hours-per-day. The smartphone and the tablet were proudly dubbed, "America's First Screen." This is a direct reflection of the way users get their news and information and consume media in the digital age.
The democratization of music-making and filmmaking technologies has made user-generated content a critical element of our global culture. At present, 300 hours of new user content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. And paired with social media, user-content can have instant exposure to millions of potential viewers with little or no distribution expense.
More important still is the continued-growth of the Open Culture movement. The Wikipedia has become a global primary source of information and has spawned innumerable spin-off wikis of their own. Creative Commons makes content share-able and relevant as users are free to copy, transform, and combine ideas instead of creators scrambling to secure their works under digital lock-and-key.
The GNU Project, Copyleftism, and Open Culture are growing and having a greater impact on the world with each passing day. Many major universities have opened their digital doors, offering online course material completely free to the public, and an ever-increasing number of texts, films, and music albums are finding free and legal accessibility on the web.
What does the future hold for these cultures? By what system will creators be compensated for their work in the digital age? Will media conglomerates succeed in locking down content, further-extending the reach of traditional copyright? Will the public passively accept forms of DRM as simply part of the digital territory? What lasting-impact will increased media accessibility have on the global audience?
And what's next?