““The stunning thing about a zero-marginal-cost digital distribution system is that we forget that it could allow artists to run a nonprofit distribution cooperative and keep a far higher percentage of their revenues than they do now. YouTube takes 45 percent of the ad revenue on its site simply for running the infrastructure, without putting up production or marketing money. At worst the cost to run the infrastructure is around 5 percent, at current revenue levels, so the rest of the revenue is pure profit. What if artists ran a video and audio streaming site as a nonprofit cooperative (perhaps employing the technology in some of those free Google patents)?””
