

Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA - bgruber
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/kickstarter-expects-to-provide-more-funding-to-the-arts-than-nea.php

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Jun8
The title compares _all_ the money given out by Kickstarter (including non-art
projects) to NEA's budget, which _as of now_ is not a fair comparison.
However, I think this is a technicality, since at the rate KS is growing, the
comparison will be valid very soon.

The second apples and oranges point is stronger though: Look at the types of
projects that NEA funds, e.g. translation projects in 2011
([http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/12grants/LitTranslation.htm...](http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/12grants/LitTranslation.html)):
although the grants are tiny (~$10K) I don't think these are types of things
that would have shined in the KS environment. So NEA is doing this as a public
service, funding people who wouldn't have been funded otherwise. This is
important. I remember Tarkovsky's lamenting the fact that his film _The
Mirror_ was not understood by the people so he had difficulty getting his
other projects funded by Goskino (from
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky#Film_career_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky#Film_career_in_the_Soviet_Union):
"From the beginning the film was not well received by Soviet authorities due
to its content and its perceived elitist nature.") _That's_ why the state has
to be in the business of funding arts, to protect artists from the "tyranny of
mass taste" (unfortunately, in Russia this worked backwards).

Now, after having said all that, let us once again emphasize the fresh
approach KS brought to arts funding. I bet if/when they thought about KS
before, the NEA people (most likely they haven't heard about KS, as these are
not exactly cutting edge Internet technology people) they chuckled about the
naivete of its approach, thinking it a fad (forget about NEA, I thought like
this myself!). After millions of dollars of arts funding, they'll probably
take the crowd sourcing approach more seriously. Patron-based art funding is
hundreds of years old, the difference here is the number of patrons backing
each project.

~~~
feralchimp
> NEA is doing this as a public service, funding people who wouldn't have been
> funded otherwise.

Many would argue that "taking taxpayer money to fund something that no one
would pay for" is a coherent definition for "public _disservice_."

~~~
Jun8
There's quite a bit truth about your comment but I think it is somewhat
simplistic. To better analyze your objection, let us remove the taxpayer part
first: Should art projects be funded (by whatever means) that the general
public sees no value in, i.e. this is how I parsed your "no one would pay
for". This goes into deep discussions about "what is art", "how do you define
the value of an art object" etc. Without going into detail, let us observe
that in almost all art fields it frequently happens that even the educated
public's taste lags the appreciation. I don't know much about
painting/sculpture etc. but examples abound in literature (one of the most
famous is _The Great Gatsby_ ) and film.

So, the mechanism here is very much similar to entrepreneurship: an artist
producing work of dubious value asks for support, there's considerable risk in
this, i.e. the work is most probably _is_ junk but you might as well have
discovered the new Warhol or Banksy. Therefore, it's not a case of funding
works "no one would pay for" but how to manage the risk.

The bigger question is: should the state be in this business, with its
clueless, bloated and generally ineffective machinery? Again, avoiding the
long discussions about how controlling government should be I propose (the
obvious but somewhat naive) solution: government should fund _some reasonable
amount_ but the works so funded should be under joint ownership of the artist
and the public, i.e. the artist should own it but the public should have
perpetual view rights, at least from a web site. Continuing the NEA example I
gave above, the text of those translations should be available from the NEA
site. The public should get value in return, other than the moral feelgood
effect of supporting artists.

~~~
feralchimp
> To better analyze your objection, let us remove the taxpayer part first:
> Should art projects be funded (by whatever means) that the general public
> sees no value in, i.e. this is how I parsed your "no one would pay for".

The fact that taxes are collected under threat of force is the entire basis
for the objection. Any "funded" work of art, absent the use of stolen money,
is by definition an artwork that someone would pay for.

The next time someone takes money from you at gunpoint, be sure to ask them
whether they're doing so "to amortize the risk of finding the next Warhol or
Banksy." One can hope, right?

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vibrunazo
What does this do to the whole "but art will cease to exist if artists can't
have absurd monopoly rights over copyrighted material" argument, which the
MAFIAA seem to love so much?

If people are willing to fund arts regardless of legal obligation. Then the
number one pillar sustaining the copyright "morals" gets easily destroyed.
Crowdfunding demonstrates that if we completely remove copyright laws: art
will survive.

~~~
adestefan
I have no idea how you're making that connection. It also doesn't help your
argument when you use "MAFIAA."

~~~
vibrunazo
If people are willing to fund arts, even without being forced to. Then art
will still be funded, even if there are no laws forcing people to.

Which is the opposite of the main pillar argument for copyright enforcement.

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DLarsen
Just my opinion, but the state should have never been in the business of
supporting the arts. Let those who want to support the arts do so privately.
Kickstarter proves that good projects can get private funding directly. I love
to see this kind of organic privatization.

~~~
prolepunk
It's just your opinion, in an excerpt from the article Kickstarter co-founder
Yancey Strickler stated:

As Strickler explained, the milestone is “good” in the sense that it means
that Kickstarter may now reach a point where it will funnel as much money to
the arts as the federal agency primarily responsible for supporting them,
effectively doubling the amount of art that can get funded in the country.

~~~
hnal943
Except the problem with the NEA is that their funding source is taxpayers,
many of whom are "contributing" to art against their will. The kickstarter
model is much more direct and is funded and controlled by the people that want
the art. It stands to reason that getting rid of the NEA would result in
better art and a freer society.

~~~
astrange
You think better art is the same as art people want? Even that's not the same
as art people think they want ahead of time.

~~~
hnal943
I think that the quality of art is subjective. I would rather have art that
many people want enough to fund directly than the art preferred by a few
bureaucrats.

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linhir
Fun fact, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs is the largest
cultural funding agency in the nation, with an expense budget in Fiscal Year
2012 of $152 million, larger than NEA.

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grandalf
Does anyone really consider the NEA a significant source of funding? The vast
majority of "artists" produce things that people happily pay money for, and
the notion of subsidy is unnecessary.

The idea that what the NEA funds is "real art" and the associated disdain for
commercially viable art is in my opinion fairly perverse.

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guan
The headline is misleading. Kickstarter expects to provide more funding
overall than the NEA, but not all of Kickstarter is arts projects.

~~~
mcherm
Kickstarter provides for the following categories: Art, Comics, Dance, Design,
Fashion, Film&Video, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Theater, and
Technology.

Every one of those except "Technology" strikes me as art, and even a few of
the technology projects. So while Kickstarter may not be _all_ arts projects,
it is _primarily_ arts projects.

