Slowly, the entertainment industry is coming up with different models that allow fans to express creativity without fear of being hunted down by the legal departments of media companies. More often that not, though, these initiatives seem to be coming from the artists themselves, not the media companies that own or distribute their work. At the end of the day, though, it’s the media companies that will need to readjust their thinking about the industry in order for these initiatives to have a life of their own. Something similar to the anmoku no ryokai model mentioned in the Wired article about dojinshi I mentioned on the blog a few weeks ago. It could happen. Fandoms are collectively becoming more savvy to issues of copyright and intellectual property, it’s not too unheard of to think that a fan-organized campaign could start that would send a message to media companies that fan activity contributes to the bottom line.
Deven Desai discusses Trent’s /Saul Williams’ Niggy Stardust experiment and the music industry at Concurring Opinions here, and suggests that as “artists control their music maybe a hyper-individualized music scene will be our future. Maybe it already is.”