It was with great excitement I was going to listen to Joi Ito live for the first time. Unfortunately his presentation did not do justice to his message about creative commons. It turned into a history lesson we did not need.

In the mobile world creative commons thinking is a huge driver for growth. Content contracts and costs are a huge barrier to growth. But unfortunately there is no active discussion at the moment aroudn applying creative commons licensing in business deals in mobile. The beneits would be huge. Especially in the music arena where full length tracks today are in many cases sold at a loss using the traditional models where a record label takes a large cut, the mobile carrier takes his unreasonably big cut for handling the transactions and offering a bit of distribution. Then the broadcasting rights have to be paid. Take away the VAT and there is not much left for the company operating the service.

If the general reasoning among the promoters of new business models for the music industry is right, how can mobile enhance that model? First the model – give the individual tracks away and make money on all other things such as limited edition special boxes (like the example Joi brought up – Nine Inch Nails), concert tickets (the most common example given I have a feeling of), t-shirts and even selling the master tracks for a song and let the listener become producer and remix the track like Ace of Base is doing it at their site. I understand and respect the fear for change and the leap of faith it is to let go of the traditional model. Here mobile maybe can offer yet another way to bridge the digital and physical (in this case as in hard core cash) worlds and make it less emotionally painful for the music industry as a group.

What if a free download over your mobile with a creative commons license also generated an SMS from the artist when they sell something real to you such as that limited edition box, a concert ticket etc? It can of course be done in more or less suttle ways. Maybe even charging for hooking you up to people who appear near you who have dowloaded songs from ths same artist/category? Here we are also talking social networking 3.0 I think. We are not 100% suited for one network. We fit many niche networks. Our individuality as a person is better matched with several niche networks than one mega-one-size-fits all. And best of all if they start to become automatic. That is when the conversation becomes everything as well as  the driver for innovation. Use case: I am walking in to a cafe and get to know that there are 5 others who have downloaded the same track as I during the last week. I get an invitation to make myself known if I like to. Or not.

One of my key stand-points are that mobile often is the perfect “bridging device” from the digital to the real world simply because it is always on and always with us. Seen in this perspective I think mobile entertainment and services has seen nothing yet. It is mobile web 3.0 really. Do I know this for sure? No, but I am willing to bet the house on it and possible loose it all in the process. But that’s why I am an entrepreneur. Does this make sense at all?

Thanks Joi for the spark that ignited this riff!