11 ms·

Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA

67 points by bgruber 15y ago

guan 15y ago
The headline is misleading. Kickstarter expects to provide more funding overall than the NEA, but not all of Kickstarter is arts projects.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- mcherm 15y ago
  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.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  But the article says: "Kickstarter does restrict the kinds of projects it will allow to be posted on its website to “projects with a creative purpose.” " So it could be said that all of Kickstarter projects are in fact art projects.
DLarsen 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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.
    - MaysonL 15y ago
      The same could be said about DOD and TSA.
vibrunazo 15y ago
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.
- kingkawn 15y ago
  hooray!
- adestefan 15y ago
  I have no idea how you're making that connection. It also doesn't help your argument when you use "MAFIAA."
  - vibrunazo 15y ago
    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.
- simonsarris 15y ago
  > Crowdfunding demonstrates that if we completely remove copyright laws: art will survive. Yes, though I think all that was sufficient to reach that conclusion was all the art that lived long before copyright laws ever existed in the first place. (And I hope copyright lovers admit that Shakespeare, if there was copyright in his day, would have probably created fewer works, not more. In fact it's possible he and others produced so many works precisely because there was no copy protection!)
Jun8 15y ago
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.html http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/12grants/LitTranslation.htm...): 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_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky#Film_career_in...: "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 15y ago
  > 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."
  - kikocherman 15y ago
    Absolutely right, this point is crucial. Kickstarter funds projects by voluntary and democraticly (by which I mean by citizens) means, while the government does it forcefully (taxes) and undemocratically (politicians deciding).
linhir 15y ago
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.
grandalf 15y ago
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.

67 points by bgruber 15y ago

guan 15y ago

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

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mcherm 15y ago
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.
grannyg00se 15y ago
But the article says: "Kickstarter does restrict the kinds of projects it will allow to be posted on its website to “projects with a creative purpose.” " So it could be said that all of Kickstarter projects are in fact art projects.

DLarsen 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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.
  - MaysonL 15y ago
    The same could be said about DOD and TSA.

vibrunazo 15y ago

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.

kingkawn 15y ago
hooray!
adestefan 15y ago
I have no idea how you're making that connection. It also doesn't help your argument when you use "MAFIAA."
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  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.
simonsarris 15y ago
> Crowdfunding demonstrates that if we completely remove copyright laws: art will survive. Yes, though I think all that was sufficient to reach that conclusion was all the art that lived long before copyright laws ever existed in the first place. (And I hope copyright lovers admit that Shakespeare, if there was copyright in his day, would have probably created fewer works, not more. In fact it's possible he and others produced so many works precisely because there was no copy protection!)

Jun8 15y ago

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.html http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/12grants/LitTranslation.htm...): 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_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky#Film_career_in...: "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 15y ago
> 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."
- kikocherman 15y ago
  Absolutely right, this point is crucial. Kickstarter funds projects by voluntary and democraticly (by which I mean by citizens) means, while the government does it forcefully (taxes) and undemocratically (politicians deciding).

linhir 15y ago

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.

grandalf 15y ago

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.