The Commoditization of Creativity

An interesting interview on Murketing, and the cheap art in limited editions it discusses, has me thinking (again) about the role of experts and commoditization of creativity. Our economy has embraced the "idea as artifact" so enthusiastically that we keep overlooking some really important things:

1. People who produce ideas (a.k.a. creatives) are being transformed into production lines. This results in commodity ideas that are less organic, less researched and more simplistic. The ideas are, in fact, often crappy or hogwash.
2. Access does not equal quality. Just because something is online, or available cheaply, doesn't mean it's worth owning or reading or believing.
3. Who owns all these ideas?

It's the last question that worries me. I'm no copyright expert but I am a writer. And as a writer, I consistently bump up against publications who want it all—all rights, that is—and don't want to pay for them.

As a designer, too, I see this. Clients don't know the difference between a useage license and copyright ownership. In other words, they don't differentiate between the finished product and the creative process used to produce it. Now that everyone can "create," there is no longer a distinction between the challenges of problem-solving/thinking/experimenting/innovating and a factory assembly line.

Of course, this argument begs the question: isn't a mass-produced artifact the fruit of someone's creative idea? Not really. It may have been when it was just a prototype, but once it becomes mass-produced, it becomes a commodity.