Peter Brantley worries about moving to an economy of ‘free’ content because, he argues, it will end the era of disinterested writing and leave us with nothing but propaganda.

I had a fascinating conversation recently with a - in his field - very well-known and internationally respected financial analyst, whose reputation, clout and (by my standards) bloated salary depends wholly on his views being perceived as entirely above bias in all cases. However, he tells me cheerfully that of course his advice is always biased - every time the client does something, the bank who employs him benefits.

I tell this story to illustrate the way in which, in business, partiality and a dramatic convention of objectivity rub shoulders, on the whole, very contentedly. Once one gets into the arts, though, this becomes less so. Heaven forbid that the purity of the artist and what he represents be sullied by anything as vulgar as commerce.

And yet, we all have to eat. So we have copyright, to protect the income of the artist without him having to sell his ‘objectivity’ to the highest bidder ike a vulgar financial analyst. After all, art that tries to sell you something is just advertising, right?

The Trouble With Free worries that in a world of free content, every publicised piece of creativity will need a corporate sponsor. And sponsored art is propaganda? Compare - say - books such as Black Hawk Down and - to take a movie at not-so-random - Independence Day. Not sponsored. Therefore not peddling anyone’s views?

Many react in horror to the idea of brands associated with artwork, whether written or otherwise. But this is a disingenuous position. For one thing, the art world has always been an money-laundering exercise for the centers of power: think of the Sistine Chapel, and the political behemoth that commissioned it; think of the banks that sponsor art prizes; think of the buyers. The ‘artistic purity’ associated with independence from sponsorship is shaky at best. And when even language is soaked in ideology, where is the sense in attempting to insulate a part of the language from the political, economic and ideological realities that create and are created by it? Far better to be honest about who’s calling your tune.

Corporations are (sometimes, but) not necessarily evil. Ben has inveighed on these pages against the idea of large faceless corporations owning huge swathes of public data without public accountability for how they handle that data. I agree with these concerns. But that is not an argument against corporations as such, as some would have it, but an argument for accountability. I’d like to suggest that in an economy of free, what’s disturbing is not the idea of a corporate sponsor, but one of a sponsor - ideological, political, financial - who refuses to be named, to declare interests. Who refuses to engage in a conversation and if - supposing it should wish something not to be associated with its brand - that it should be able to justify that, in public.

In this context, free ad-supported content could retain integrity while cheerfully abandoning copyright.

Seven years after the Cluetrain Manifesto, it’s not just markets that are conversations. In the world of social media, everything is a conversation. And pretty much everything in internetland is cheerfully open about its bias. The world of print emerged from a different tradition, in different contexts, in a different time. Are we really all so entrenched in our paradigms that we are unable to question, challenge and engage creative content that is open about its sponsors, and whose sponsors are willing to stand up and be challenged?

(Cross-posted from if:book)