Aug 09
24
The Internet starts to payoff for big music.
It seems the Big studios have finally recognised the value
of YouTube as an identifier of valuable new talent.
After all it isn’t every day that someone can show casting
agents and producers a “pre-approved”
Showreel. Pre-approved? Well, viewed, by millions; thereby
suggesting “Star Quality in relation to the actors, performers and possibly
“No.1 Sitcom quality” in relation to the video plot/theme.
It would appear, according to an article By Matt Hartley in
the Canadian Financial Post on Friday (August 22, 2009) called YouTubeLand: Make it
here, you can make it anywhere, that:
“Producers from Fox, VH1, Comedy Central and other major U.S.
networks regularly trawl through videos posted to YouTube, as well as other
online video repositories such as MySpace and Channel101.com, in search of new
show ideas.”
Well, anyone who works in the industry, already knows this,
so we bring it to your attention purely as a means to say that at last, the
content industry, or at least some of it have recognised the value of the
medium that the rest of us have been using since around the mid 1990’s.
So if the industry are now collecting their best new talent
and scripts from Youtube, is it time that we started suing them for breach of
copyright?
Nope. The US Supreme court ruled that an idea is not
patentable.
Yet curiously, the construct of the idea (a working
prototype) or picture of, or written description of, or movie about, is.
Hmmmm, this copyright stuff sure takes some understanding.
Do you mean if I go to the studios and tell them an idea for a new hit TV
series or movie, they can just steal the idea and make it themselves?
Yep.
And then there’s a copyright on the movie, which was my idea
in the first place.
Yep.
And if I download the movie, using P2P, I’m guilty of
breaking the law.
Yep.
But the Studio that stole my idea isn’t guilty of anything?
Yep.
Yet the studios, music companies still maintain that until
this year, the Internet has been the reason why millions are being lost
Recently in a speech to News Limited shareholders, Rupert
Murdoch explained why he didn’t sue Youtube for copyright infringements.
“Youtube provides promotion for shows like the Simpsons.
And Hulu, was a way for News Corp to control its copyrights.”
He went on to express interest in online alternatives to
broadcast television and traditional film releases, but said he still expects
television to be “central.” Releasing movies only online? — he said that’s
possible, but hasn’t been tried yet. He’d like to see movies released on all
screens at the same time but vested interests in the distribution chain oppose
it.
There’s a video (of the speech) – but in Australia
– we can’t watch it. Why? Because it’s copyright…….
The small percentage of US readers that actually know about
Hulu (apparently less than 20% of the population) can get to the original by
clicking on the above image.
Now it would seem to us that in the age of ubiquitous
information – Internet Bogs, Youtube, Zoning DRM (which is technically what
Hulu is), Media barons, especially, would realise that attempting to partition and restrict information in this manner is ridiculous and immediately circumventable though the use of an
American proxy service.
I wonder sometimes about the quality of IT cretins employed
by the majors. Do the majors bargain shop for the cheapest? Or do the good
people realise the downside of working for a group that wants to restrict the
distribution of information and just not apply to them for jobs.
Is the culture of the old school actually preventing the
best of the best from working for the “enemy”?
Or possibly, do I have it all wrong?
Are the majors deliberately dumbing down their technical
capabilities inviting planet earth inhabitants to be inventive, adventurous,
and technologically innovative – so they can sue everyone next year for
breaking their DRM.
At least there would appear to be some interesting
developments peeking out of the dark clouds of thunderstorm “copyright”.
On the 19th of June, in an article entitled: P2P
Users are Actually Changing The Music
we said”
“The music industry needs to start adopting a supermarket
checkout mentality, with an appropriately priced and licensable product list.”
It would appear that at least one person reads our blog.
Last month, a “unique” wedding ceremony in Saint
Paul, Minnesota, sent apparent
lightning bolts across the Youtube qroupies
Not only was it a celebration of couple Jill Peterson and
Kevin Heinz’s eternal union, but it was a paradigm shift in how copyright
owners can and should interact with unlicensed content creators, re-mixers and users.
After being uploaded to YouTube on July the 19th, a beautifully choreographed amateur production
introduced a new way of getting married.
Exit the somber sounding, rather dullard and boring march
down the aisle……
Enter the fun March, including acrobatics and a high level
of audience entertainment to the refrain of Chris Brown’s 2008 hit, “Forever”.
Last month, a “unique” wedding ceremony in Saint
Paul, Minnesota, sent apparent
lightning bolts across the Youtube qroupies
Not only was it a celebration of couple Jill Peterson and
Kevin Heinz’s eternal union, but it was a paradigm shift in how copyright
owners can and should interact with unlicensed content creators, re-mixers and users.
After being uploaded to YouTube on July the 19th, a beautifully choreographed amateur production
introduced a new way of getting married.
Exit the somber sounding, rather dullard and boring march
down the aisle……
Enter the fun March, including acrobatics and a high level
of audience entertainment to the refrain of Chris Brown’s 2008 hit, “Forever”.
In case you missed it ……
Normally, this type of activity receives the Big Music take
down notice reasonably smartly. In this instance, it appeared to have been hit
on, by Sony (or even possibly Brown himself) as an opportunity to re-launch the
Brown’s flagging (due to the Rihanna incident) music career.
At Perceptric we watched the Sony/BMG marketing experiment
with interest.
The impossible mission? Get the song of a tarnished artist back onto
the charts. Keep
him out of Jail – official sentencing – this Thursday).
Cost of PR Advertising campaign? Zero.
And it seemed to work.
Sales of Chris Brown’s Forever according
to Nielsen SoundScan, jumped from under 3,000 the week ending 19th
of July (the day the YouTube video was posted) to 50,000 for the week ending 26th
of July ensuring that the song was on the iTunes top ten.
Think about that, 50,000 x $0.99 for how many weeks ? And
all from an amateur, home-made, wedding video.
(Oh yeah – iTunes now only represents 25% of digital music
downloads in the USA.
On that basis – we could almost say it was 200,000 x $0.99 cents.)
Cool, that’s bankable!
The good news?
If the studios continue down this road, successfully developing,
producing and monetizing content via free distribution, it would seem that the
days of P2P distribution being considered illegal are numbered.
The bad news?
The way that Sony effected
the viral distribution, may leave a bad taste in the mouth of a few.
It would appear that Sony employed shills to “assist” the
popularity of the video.
However, the end result is no different to watching Free to
Air Television (FTA) and being interrupted with an advert.
You mean like Foxtel?
Um no, I definitely do not mean Foxtel. With Foxtel, it is a
case of them charging you to watch their content and then forcing advertising
on the subscriber. I call that theft of your time. Unfortunately the majority
of Australian Foxtel subscribers appear to think that it is normal to be
charged for watching adverts. Broadcasters
do not have the advantage of subscription fees. They live only from
advertising.
At this time, Youtube appears as if it may be partnering
with the music majors, content owners to effect a change in the way content is
allowed to be distributed publicly.
If advertising is the cost of that change – then I say, bring
it on…..
After all, advertising built the newspapers.
Advertising built the radio stations.
Advertising built the television networks.
It is appropriate that advertising is also building the next
content delivery method – Not Youtube, not Hulu, The Internet.
References:
The Wealth of Networks:
How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Yochai Benkler, Yale University
Press
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-11.pdf
JK wedding dance a Sony fake – How Sony took you for a
ride
Part 1: http://go-digital.net/blog/2009/07/the-jkweddingdance-video-was-real-the-viral-effect-is-fake/
Build Profit Not DMCA Suits: YouTube and the Wedding
March
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/build_profit_not_dmca_suits_youtube_and_the_weddin.php
Exploring Hulu In Full | Out Of Beta And Officially
Launched But Is It Any Good?