CHARGE!

Independent art - like this zine - is often free art. It's locally produced in limited numbers, doesn't cost much and is picked up by mostly now-and-then readers plus a few loyal regulars. By its very nature it has a built in glass ceiling that is determined by the limits of the time and money that the staff - this zinester- has to invest in his zine!

Yet the art revolution demands more. It's time to BREAK that glass ceiling. And, like the "Light Brigade", of the celebrated poem, it's time to charge.

Not for the zine. That will remain free for now. But I hope to rally enough support for our website to begin to expand it. But the only way to expand the website is to charge money. "Money" - there's that word again, the word that conjures up 'selling out' to Corporate Art controlled companies, who make puffed up art that's sold as merchandised units. But actually taking money-in, if done carefully will do exactly the opposite. In this essay I'd like to talk about 1. Why it's important to charge 2. What we would charge for, and 3. How we would set it up.

Why charge?
1. Art has value. Great art has greater value. Indie art that is better than Corporate Art deserves to be fairly compensated.

2. By charging we can compete with Corporate Art on quality.

3. Fuels jobs for artists and fair art critics.

4. Gets government funding out of the arts.

5. Fuels bigger projects, not only could we have a gallery posting art, lit., and music; but we could do theater, film, TV, and other larger projects that require capital.

6. Supports a fair alternative media source.

7. Ends the worst aspects of regionalism and allows artists to "audition for the world"

8. Fuels competitions for artists which would compensate the most gifted while challenging others.

9. A bigger staff allows for not only more projects, but projects more quickly done, and more time for service for artists. We could set up simple art courses, (how to play the guitar) newsgroups on art, guides to the business of art, etc.

10 Builds cash reserves for the support and preservation of all art for everyone.

11 If we don't do it, or someone like us, there is a real danger that there will be a generation of gifted artists that will never be able to escape amateur status. And by ending that amateur standing we'll end the bitterness that many indie artists feel about the unfair system we have now.

12 And it'll build a bigger audience for artists and arts.

What we would charge for.

It won't be ads - I can assure you! If Musea has learned one thing in our 9 years - it's ads ruin everything. We will probably get a lot of support just for being ad free and openly against ads.

The bulk of our money will come from what we can offer artists and art lovers. And the first thing we can offer is attention. Right now it is a jungle of websites out there with few (and almost no ad-free sites) having any traffic. Because of our anti Corporate Art stance, Musea has built an audience that of this date (3/01) has over 10,000 hits a month with an average of just under 500 a day, that works out to about a hit every 3 minutes every hour of every day. Yet just browsing the site for Musea content won't be enough.

The bulk of the money will be from artists charged a fee of $10-15 a page, to post on a Musea all-types-of-art gallery. The concept is simple. An artist wants to post his work yet he doesn't have a website or access to the web, or even if he does have a website he doesn't know how to post work, or doesn't have the time or money to do it. Therefore he can put his work in an envelope and send his art work, song, script, poems, photos, (and later on short films, theater performances, etc.) to Musea and we will post it for a fee. Then he can sit back and let his work do the audition for him. Also artists that already have websites, might want to post a sample on Musea's Gallery that directs them to their site. Our gallery would turn into a clearing house for all kinds of arts.. Want to see what a site like that might look like? Even as I type this there is such a site already up and I'd like to promote it here. It is at www.lowfashion.com , and in a quirky coincidence, it is a site that's right here in my backyard of Dallas!

Next, with the money that the Gallery brings in we would set up 2 more major projects - a net radio station - no ads, no formats, and no Corporate songs! It'd be a mix of indies and classics. And it'd have real people not DJ robots. That'd open the door to finding some real hits again. And a net newspaper a no-ad, hard news instead of fluff, world newspaper.

And if there is still more money coming in, we could begin doing some extras - more guides to all the arts, a net directory of other no-ad sites, an art newsgroup, contests and competitions, etc.

All this content would eventually allow us to charge the visitor that comes to our website. Here's how that would work. A lot of the site would be free - the Gallery, the top news stories, perhaps even some of the radio programming; but anything in depth would require the listener to pay a fee. For the first 5,000 or so it would be a one time fee of $10 that gets you total access to the site for the rest of your life. Then the next 10,000 subscribers would be charged $20 for full access, and so on, making sure that the fee is fair to the content available. At some point it may require charging a monthly fee or micro-payments as you go along (Note - there are numerous micro-payment systems that are being tried out on the web. Here's how they work. When a visitor clicks on a site he pays a tenth of a cent. That way those parts of our website that get the most traffic would get the most royalties. If everyone clicks on our film guide, then the writer of that film guide should get the most money from fees.)

Gradually you would build up content, and an audience for that content. How we would set it all up

Realistically it would take some venture capital to begin even the first step - a Musea Gallery. And what can we offer investors?

First of all we are talking 100's of dollars not millions. So many investors have been burned by putting their cash in dotcoms with no history, no plan, no passion, no innovations, no core beliefs, no reason to exist, and no chance of success!

Musea would act responsibly by using hundreds to hire some part times that would include:

1. Another computer programmer (Right now all the work is done by a single generous, unpaid volunteer - Donna Turman. She could use compensation for her work and some help)

2. A person to handle the business end - permits, payroll, taxes, bookkeeping, etc.

3. A salary for me so I could end my day jobs and give more time to Musea (that's the one I like the best)

And it should be obvious to all that you'd find out fast if it was going to work, because we'd either make a profit from artists paying to post their work in the Musea Gallery, or we would not. And if we did not then its time to shut down the pay part and kiss those fistful of dollars goodbye.

Risk - small, success possibilities - enormous. So to investors that understand that being a no-ad, no format, all art, coolest indie internet site on the web, is an advantage in every way - opportunity is knocking. It's content not ads, integrity not sneakiness, service not exploitation, and reasonable cash support not wasteful spending. OK, so there it is. Let's do a show in the barn! Any takers?
- Art S Revolutionary

http://Musea;digitalchainsaw.com

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