My mind isn't equipped to fully grasp economic models, I admit, but after reading Spivack's proposal twice, I have to ask: what?!? The "Participants" are buying shares of the "Creator" content? and these participants, Spivack says, are "...not just any consumer of the content, they are consumers of the content who choose to invest to earn or purchase shares in the content." And that makes them special how?
I get the impression that people with more money and a hell of a lot more time than most of us have are being invited to invest in a chance to choose what content gets distributed? Somehow I don't see that as what Al Gore has in mind when he wrote in "The Assault on Reason" about the Internet's potential to foster a "democratic marketplace of ideas, the best of which would somehow be recognized on their own merits. Sounds more like money and yes, even special interests talking.
But perhaps I've misunderstood.

Man, whatever happened to writers and readers? I feel old now.

Um...he's ignoring one very important thing: time. The idea of buying and trading "shares" of content over a long period of time is absurd, because some types of content (e.g. breaking news stories) devalue incredibly quickly. If, on the other hand, this is meant to work like arbitrage or something, with transactions taking place within tiny, fractional time frames, when exactly would anyone have time to tear themselves away from their "content market tracker" to actually do something with their content, such as—crazy idea here—read it or gaze upon it?

Further, the stock market only works the way it does because it's a closed system—the only way to make an investment in the companies that participate is to buy stock. Whereas my guess would be that not every media company is going to get on board with the idea of selling shares in the "content market"—thus desirable content, including content which "scoops" content market–based creators and distributors, will still be available elsewhere.

Not only that, but why the hell would independents providing their own content want to get involved with this? Without the middleman—the "distributor"—independent content providers could make a whole lot more money. The only reason to get involved with a distributor would be to get your content in front of more eyeballs—but people can already make their content available to the entire Internet via a number of other means.

And guess what—that content that's out there is already subject to a "market" of sorts, competing with other content for eyeballs. The only thing this model does differently, as far as I can tell, is artificially inflate the role—and the profits—of distributors, regulatory bodies, and market-infrastructure providers.

I don't get it. Why the hell would we "content providers" want more infrastructure in our lives?

Yeah, what MJ Parker said. : )

I work for a Mom and Pop publisher (literally, husband and wife team) and though I am now a programmer here keeping it real in Web 2.0, or 3.0 or C30 or C3P0 or whatever I am allegedly working in I use to do design work, and pretty nifty work at that. I'm trying to picture me meeting with the owners to explain what I created is now a "stock" which I have ownership in and therefore will be collecting a portion of the profits they obtain from the use of my newly created stock. I am then envisioning my HR exit interview...

One of the other major flaws with this plan is when you work for a publishing company you typically sign away all rights, at least monetary ones, to the work you produce, intellectual property laws and all that. Perhaps freelancers can work better contracts but unless your someone high falutin with a name like, I don't know, Kaufmann, your leverage is going to be slim and none in negotiating some sort of "I get a piece of your pie" type of deal with a publishing firm. But I doubt ordinary people, those of us not named Kaufmann ( : D), can swing lucrative deals with a publisher to share revenues, especially with the number of people out there who'll write an article for a piece of day old bread.