When crowds produce and finance culture

Abstract

Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are relatively old practices, butthey got a dramatic boost by the Internet. Today they both have adeep impact on cultural and creative production and are valued as innovativeways to sustain young and young people's enterprises in thatfield. In times of economic crisis, crowdfunding is seen by many observersand policymakers as the only possible complement, if not substitution,for public funding of culture.The basic models of crowdfunding are shortly described: donations,reward-based, microfinance, equity.Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing involve however a few critical aspects,not only for investors who are risking their money in highly unstableprojects, but also - and probably more important - for culturaland creative workers. Competition between professionals and amateursunder crowdsourcing schemes often results in a marginalization of theformer or in a massive exploitation of unpaid work. Crowdfunding, rightlyconsidered as a progress in transparency and a form of democratizationof patronage, is sometimes carried out with no clear statementof project evaluation and selection criteria.2012 Data about crowdfunding in the EU and in Italy are presented.The article also introduces the new Italian Regulation for crowdfunding(July 2013).