Business Models

  • Links Roundup 11 July 2011

    By .fcoppa on Monday, 11 July 2011 - 9:53pm
    Message type:
    News of Note
    Tags:
    Conferences, Gender and Sexuality, Business Models, Commercialization of Fans, Fanart, Fanfiction , OTW Sightings, Technology

    Here’s a roundup of stories that might be of interest to fans: articles about professional fanart, technology meant to control fans, interactive fan sites, erotic fan fiction and sexuality, new models for fan-TPTB collaboration, and fans as transmedia specialists, all beneath the cut!

    * Just Don't Call It Fanart. Salon did a fascinating article on an ongoing art show called "Crazy 4 Cult" which features artists making work based on movie stills. The show is patronized by the likes of Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarentino, Samuel L. Jackson and others. But, Salon warns, "Just don't call it 'fan art.'" (It sounds to us a lot like fan art.)

    * Who Controls Your Camera? The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently posted about the implications of Apple's new patent: a camera that can be turned off by a third party. The idea is to stop fans from, say, capturing "illegal images" at a rock concert. The EFF points out that this repression of fans is bad enough, but also asks us also to imagine how that technology might be used in an era where portable cameras have been used to document and publicize civil rights abuses and spread important news all around the world. Who gets to decide what you can record?

    * Interactive Sites Before Pottermore. There have been many stories these last few weeks about Pottermore, J.K. Rowling's new interactive Harry Potter site, but here's an article about some other explicitly pro-fanfiction and pro-interactivity authors who have put together creative sandboxes for their fans.

    * Elmer Fudd vs. Miss Marple? This review of A Billion Wicked Thoughts, a book which uses erotic fan fiction and other online materials to draw conclusions about human sexuality, critiques the book on many fronts, but most notably from a lesbian perspective: "Is the near total silence about this quadrant of human desire because the authors couldn't fit lesbians into their thesis?"

    * No Endorsement; Endless Possibilities: Cory Doctorow, thinking through the implication of creating "ODOs" or On-Demand Objects, imagines a world where creators and owners could give fans a "no endorsement" license to make and sell derivative (not transformative!) works. The maker would automatically cut in the creator/owner for a stipulated percent of any profit.

    * Transmedia 2: Electric Bugaloo: Henry Jenkins has posted footage from all four panels of this spring's Transmedia Hollywood 2 conference. There was discussion of fan culture and works throughout the conference, with many panelists believing that fans have acknowledged expertise in transmedia storytelling, and others debating how best to engage fans in this new multi-modal world. (OTW Board Member Francesca Coppa was on the second panel to talk explicitly about fan works and characterization.)

    We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about you can submit it in three easy ways: comment on the most recent Link Roundup on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW, tag a link with "for:otw_news" on Delicious or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

    Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

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  • Rumblefish Proposes (Highly Restrictive) Song Licensing System

    By .fcoppa on Thursday, 1 July 2010 - 4:43am
    Message type:
    News of Note
    Tags:
    Business Models, Commercial Works Authors, YouTube, Remix

    The New York Times reports that a company called Rumblefish is partnering with YouTube to license songs to amateur video artists for use in noncommercial videos at $1.99 each. At the moment, they do not represent any major labels, though they are hoping to expand (don't hold your breath, given the difficulties the major labels have had with most new business models).

    While this idea certainly has the potential to be beneficial for vidders and other remix artists, and the price is comparable to a ringtone or higher-quality download, this isn't the solution: the license Rumblefish and YouTube are offering doesn't allow users to remix, mash up, speed up, slow down, alter or translate lyrics or do lots of other things that vidders and other remix artists routinely do; all you can do is cut the length of the song. Also, you are only permitted to stream your video, and only at authorized sites like YouTube; you can't offer your vid for download, or stream from your own site. Moreover, the licence stipulates that your use:

    must not be pornographic, promote hate or violence, must not be libelous, defamatory, fraudulent, infringing or otherwise illegal, and must not involve criticism of Friendly Music, Rumblefish, UGC Network, or any of their products or services.

    And of course they get to decide what is okay and what isn't. (Doesn't that make you want to make an anti-Rumblefish political remix right now?)

    While this service might be useful for makers of home movies and amateur films who just want to add a soundtrack to their child's birthday party or high school graduation, transformative works like vids, anime music videos, and political remix videos are not using music as a soundtrack. In these transformative works, the music is a crucial part of the message, and the message is a form of speech.

    This seems like an attempt by Rumblefish and YouTube to charge noncommercial video makers for fewer rights than they already have. In fact, it's interesting that Rumblefish and YouTube are trying to create a market to license songs to amateur video makers just as laws like Canada's Copyright Modernization Act are proposing the legalization of noncommercial remix - but only if it doesn't aversely affect "an existing or potential market." Minimalist licenses for some songs, no matter how affordable, can't substitute for fair use.

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  • Links Roundup for June 24, 2010

    By .fcoppa on Thursday, 24 June 2010 - 6:26pm
    Message type:
    News of Note
    Tags:
    Business Models, Intellectual Property, Fanfiction , YouTube

    Here's a roundup of stories that might be of interest to fans: news, blog posts, book reviews, lectures, and even video art!

    First up, here's a group of stories for vidders, about the direction YouTube is taking.

    * In the New York Times, we have, At YouTube, Adolescence Begins at 5, an article about YouTube's 5 year anniversary. Unfortunately, in this article "growing up" seems to mean "selling out", or at the very least, making YouTube a lot more like television and less like a home for user-generated content. "Once known primarily for skateboard-riding cats, dancing geeks and a variety of cute-baby high jinks, YouTube now features a smorgasbord of more professional video that is drawing ever larger and more engaged audiences."

    * Similarly, this article--YouTube's Top 100 By Type--defines YouTube's success by how many of its videos are professional and/or have ads on them, and also by the decline of user-generated content like vids. "Overall, YouTube is doing fairly well: although only 41.93% of the most popular videos have ads, that number is growing by 0.83% per month and both unofficial TV/movie clips and user-generated content are down." (emphasis mine)

    Next up, a couple of links that talk about the development of tools for what some people are calling "affirmative" fandom (which is creator-centered; vs. "transformational" fandom, which is community and fanworks-oriented):

    * The NYT did an article about Cambio, a new website/web video portal that bills itself as "your destination for original shows, specials and short videos featuring your favorite actors, musicians and athletes." It is also being billed as "a 'safe environment' [for artists and celebrities] to talk to fans"; what it purports to offer is direct access to artists and special content for fans. (The Jonas Brothers are partners in this enterprise and will be using Cambio to do direct outreach and marketing to their fans.)

    * Similarly, publisher Richard Nash, gave a talk on what he thinks the future of publishing will look like--and it looks a lot like parts of fandom. For example, Nash himself is starting a publishing business/social network called Cursor, which is described as as "a social approach to publishing that focuses on the establishment of powerful, self-reinforcing online membership communities made up of professional authors, reader members, and emerging writers."

    Other links include:

    * On BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow cited a LiveJournal post by bookshop in Pulitzer-winning fanfic: a non-exhaustive list, which sparked some intense debates as to the definition of fanfic.

    * The EFF's Fred von Lohmann reviews Adrian Johns' new book Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. Quote: "Opposing the 'intellectual property defense industry' is not the same thing as opposing 'intellectual property.; Rather, it is about insisting on values like civil liberties, privacy, and autonomy, and not allowing antipiracy enforcement to trample them."

    * Lastly, we have a different kind of transformative work than those that we normally talk about here. In Transformation through YouTube, video artist Patrick Liddell uploads a video to YouTube, rips it, uploads it and rips it, until the sounds and image degrades. From his description: "An homage to the great Alvin Lucier, this piece explores the 'photocopy effect', where upon repeated copies the object begin to accumulate the idiosyncrasies of the medium doing the copying."

    We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about you can submit it in three easy ways: comment on the most recent Link Roundup on LJ, IJ or DW, tag a link with "for:otw_news" on Delicious or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

    Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

    Read more

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