Contemporary cultural products are increasingly derivative and finance-complicit than in the past

Evidence

What’s different about film, television, and music today? In a word, it’s more often derivative. The degree to which a popular story or song is based on a previous story or song, directly or indirectly, is much higher than it was in the past. The degree to which the formal elements within a story or song are directly connected to business decisions within the company that funded that story or song is much higher. The degree to which a hit song or popular story is plundered for all its worth through derivative and ancillary products is much higher. The ratio of global hits to the rarely seen or heard is wider than ever. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 16

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the reader’s core question — whether finance-to-form causation can be traced. This paragraph is the book’s central thesis claim, the falsifiable proposition to test.
• SEED: The core element here — ‘formal elements within a story connected to business decisions’ — is exactly the traceable causal chain the reader wants; good anchoring quote for the eventual essay.