Jason Rohrer, developer of anonymous P2P app MUTE, wrote an interesting piece (Free Distribution) on how to get paid for creative work without resorting to copyright. One of the suggested methods is an old method called the benefactor system:
One support system used in the past was the benefactor system. In this system, a few high-profile creators received ongoing financial support from wealthy donors. Certain creators forged support relationships with individual donors over many years, and in some cases, over entire lifetimes. Some of these benefactors gave money, while others provided food, housing, and other necessities directly.
but instead of having one wealthy supporter, a creator can use the Net to collect money from a group of donators, as a pure benefactor system is not reliable. Furthermore, instead of one-off payments, ongoing support is crucial to ensuring sufficient funds.
It is a nice idea and I like it. However, I think there there is a trust issue that needs to be addressed for this to work and it relates to how much the potential donor knows about the creator.
Before I decide to donate money to a creator, how will I know that she will continue to carry out productive work while I am supporting her? The amount of money I am willing to donate is irrelevant here and the more important question is one of reliability of the creator and my trust in her. If I don't know this creator well enough then I will find it difficult to enter into an ongoing donation arrangement with her.
Perhaps some kind of reporting or monitoring mechanism could be employed, but this is only useful if the report is public and already has some history for me to make decisions on. Still, this is not a great solution because it is based on feelings of distrust and may breed animosity.
Another solution may involve publicising the the number of people who are already supporting the creator, a kind of reputation system. Knowing that a creator is "popular" may give others confidence in also supporting her, although an empty list may have the adverse of the desired effect! Current total of funds may be another way of showing this, but it may work against donations if the current total is deemed as more than enough by potential donors.
Trust should be allowed to be built progressively so that prospective donors can build up trust to a point where they are willing to donate. This is similar to the process described by Chris Allen in his blog, Progressive Trust. Transparency about the author, a kind of trust CV about her, will help kick start the trusting relationship. Then allow the prospective donor to find out for himself the benefits of the creative project the creator wants support for.
This is best achieved by ongoing dialogue between the two, which is critical in all early trust relationship formation stage. Dialogue can be carried out in many ways: through free use of the software/creation, emails and community culletin boards, personal emails or calls, listening to users and including their feedback in future creative work. These are all existing and proven techniques that can support effective trust building dialogue.
An advantage of this progrssive trust bulding method is that because you are allowing the donor time and space to build trust in you, the actual amount that they may end up donating may be greater than the minimal proposed amount. Creators are afraid to ask for larger amounts because it doesn't make sense to ask this from people (prospective donors) that you don't know. But once trust has been built, the value of the relationship will dictate the amount the donor is silling to donate, and chances are they will be much greater than $1/month.
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