Hi!
Please see below the reply by Rob from MusicBrainz (forwarding because he is not on the mailing list):
On Jan 17, 2016, at 04:51, Mitar mmitar@gmail.com wrote:
I would suggest that anyone interested in monetizing APIs check how MusicBrainz (https://musicbrainz.org/) is doing it.
An open encyclopedia for music metadata. Their data is all open, collaboratively made, and APIs are free to use, but big users are asked to pay. In this way they are getting money from Google, for example. You should contact them and check how they feel about issues raised here: Do they feel that they get strings attached for receiving money from Google? How do their contributors feel about them getting money in this way? How do they achieve that big players pay, but community projects, researchers, and others do not? What is the process to determine that? In fact, I am CCing Rob from MusicBrainz here.
Hello!
I wanted to give you an update on our business model, since we pivoted on that back in May. If this sounds bad, it isn't -- we're actually following along the path that Creative Commons has envisioned for people using their licenses. For over 10 years we used Creative Commons licenses to determine if people should or should not pay us for the data they use in their business. That got us to $250k/year and then we leveled off. (This is akin to an aspiring CC artist releasing their content as they work to become known).
But then there comes a point when the business/aspiring artist can stand on its/their own and start making its/their own rules. And this is where we've arrived now -- today we have a support model where people who make commercial use of our data are encouraged to support us. There is no requirement for supporting us, but we're quick to point out that a company that makes financial gains using our data really ought to give something back to us in order for us to keep the lights on and improve what we do.
And, this is working! Have a look at our growing list of supporters:
https://metabrainz.org/supporters
The only major music tech company left that isn't supporting us is Apple and maybe SoundCloud, but they are on my hit list for this year. Have a look at the tiers of support we setup:
https://metabrainz.org/supporters/account-type
Note that the tiers have guidelines that are a vague suggestion of data usage and company size. While people get an idea what "support" means, it isn't fully clear, so most will sign up as "stealth start-up", which is great, because it lets us start a conversation about their data use. In the course of the conversation we can determine a fair level of support that suits the company's current needs and ability to pay. Note that we hardly talk about "products" in this case anymore -- we don't really care how people use our data. (I've long joked about us operating under a drug dealer business model, that "the first one is free". But, really, this is exactly what we're doing. Lots of companies got hooked on our data and now we're looping around asking for support)
I hope this makes sense -- if not, hit me up for questions!
--
--ruaok Excel is not a database!
Robert Kaye -- rob@musicbrainz.org -- http://musicbrainz.org
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Mitar mmitar@gmail.com wrote:
Hi!
Please see below the reply by Rob from MusicBrainz (forwarding because he is not on the mailing list):
[...]
There is no requirement for supporting us, but we're quick to point out that a company that makes financial gains using our data really ought to give something back to us in order for us to keep the lights on and improve what we do.
And, this is working!
Thanks for sharing this, Mitar (and Rob!). It's an interesting approach.
We generally approach private donors with an argument that boils down to "if Wikipedia is useful to you, give something back to keep it going and growing".
The same argument surely applies to corporate donors. If Wikipedia is useful to them, they too should give something back, no strings attached. There is no need for large corporate donors to style themselves -- or be styled by us -- as "philanthropists" if they give $100,000, any more than the small donor who gives $15 thereby imagines they are becoming a philanthropist. It's just an aspect of good citizenship, right?
Are we seeing corporates contributing in that spirit? I'm not sure we are. And if we're not, then this can indeed be framed as a moral issue, along the lines of what Rob, as I understand him, suggests in his mail.
Now, for such a moral argument to gain traction, the public at large needs to understand who profits financially from our work. If -- and only if -- the general public understand that, then it will become a PR problem for a major company to be seen to benefit financially from a volunteer effort, without giving anything back.
So perhaps there is work to be done here to build wider awareness of the income streams that are based on Wikimedia content. Ultimately, providing such information is also consistent with the movement's goal of transparency.
Andreas
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org