70 Personal Content Experience: Managing Digital Life in the Mobile Age encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creat- ing the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and infl uence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multi- plication to explode the message to potentially millions. Considering digital content, superdistribution is a potential viral marketing tool (Mori 1990). Essentially, superdistribution is a concept where content may be distributed freely, but it is protected from further modifi cations and modes of usage not authorized by its vendor unless such rights are purchased. Originally superdistribution was envi- sioned for software deployment, but the method can be easily extended to any digital content. Combined with a peer-to-peer network and mobile micropayments, concepts such as superdistribution may heavily change the way we trade content. At the end of the day, one realizes that there is no such thing as free content. In the end, someone has to pay for it. The payment may come in the form of money, or the need to put up with advertising, or having to shift through loads of useless content to fi nd some gold nuggets. Ultimately, someone has to pay for the transmission and storage, even if the content itself is free. Every time bits are being stored 15 or transmitted, energy is being consumed, and that is never free. We are in the middle of a situation where traditional content indus- tries (music, TV, and fi lm, etc.) are struggling as digital distribution is changing their business. They have evolved their content distribution chains for decades on the basis of physical distribution of physical copies of their precious material. Suddenly, any kid on the ‘net can get it for free; maybe illegally, or semi-legally, but for all practical pur- poses for nothing or almost nothing. There are always associated costs that can be less than obvious. As much as the authors of this book would like, as consumers, get tons of free high-quality content, they are not great believers in the free-for-all model. The advocates of free content often take the view that personal content can be as good as commercially produced content. That can certainly be true in some cases. There are millions of musicians, for instance, who have never received wide attention, while it can be argued that some the music we hear on the Top 20 of commercial channels is low quality. Or is it? Why is it that somehow the artists made it to the top with poor music? Is it their smashing looks, or their rock star lifestyles, or those fabulous cars and jetliners? Or is it just marketing and productization? Mass iconization? There are countless factors that contribute to stardom. There are many strategies in getting to the top. Pouring in tons of money to 15 You cannot fool the laws of thermodynamics!