UNIVERSITY of NOTRE DAME


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Content Creator Commodification
George Ward
Abstract
In 1988, the Supreme Court of New Jersey invalidated a paid surrogacy contract on the basis that there are certain things that money cannot buy. The holding reflects one understanding of commodification theory, which argues that putting something up for sale transforms its very nature. Some scholars argue, for example, that we ought not to buy and sell certain things integral to personhood because to do so does violence to ourselves. Digital technology has since enabled commodifications of personhood subtler than paid surrogacy. Companies clamor to pay content creators to showcase their innermost personal lives to strangers online for brand promotions. Worse still, a new type of income-sharing agreement (ISA), unveiled in 2021 by a venture capital firm called Slow Ventures, threatens to exacerbate the commodification of content creators. Individuals signing onto the ISA sell Slow Ventures a share of their annual content creator income for the next thirty years. This Note employs Margaret Radin’s theory of commodification and personhood, rather than orthodox “law and economics” frameworks, to assess the risks of this novel ISA. In doing so, this Note also uses empirical analysis of a publicized content creator ISA to demonstrate how the deal can further harm personhood through financial exploitation. Lastly, after observing that content creation blurs the traditional distinction between work and the personal, this Note argues that existing law does too little to mitigate the ISA’s potential harms against personhood and explores opportunities for reform.

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Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies ©2019