About fans, mobile content and copyright
Jul. 14th, 2006 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmuzkaI follow the media coverage about the new mobile digital contents pretty intently. Everybody seems to be worried about the mobile tv and waiting for those big innovations on what the customers would like to actually pay money for. I believe that those innovations that will eventually accelerate customers 3G phone use could as easily come from some little no-name companies as from the big ones.
So, about mobile television… What really is the difference between a cell phone that uses mobile television services and another device, a portable Play Station or a Nokia Communicator? Okay, mobile television uses its own network (and isn’t that nifty and customer friendly to build overlapping networks) and it can transfer programs on real time. But, when the mobile television was planned, the idea was to sell customers separate little videos; News, music videos, cartoons. And now? Now the plan in Finland is to mostly broadcast exactly the same program feed as in regular television. Are the customers really that much unimaginative? Or are the content providers?
My mantra is - as I have probably told before-, that fans make it better. This means that fans have the dedication, the time and the knowledge of what fandom really wants, and therefore can answer the “customers” needs and even custom made contents to selected audiences better than what the original provider could ever offer. And the fans do it most of the time for free.
Now when I try to figure out if this would be a right place to do some innovative business, I will constantly bump to the copyright issues. When the fans do and share fan videos in the net, copyright-owners really don’t care. But what if there would be a small company? This company would offer the fans an opportunity to register and then get their works hosted for free. Then the company would distribute them as a digital content to 3G network or a mobile television network, getting its profits by either collecting fees from the customers or by commercials. The fans doing the work would get fame (and believe, just being in the “hot 50” list really is a good motivator) and in some cases, money or presents. Everybody would be happy. Except, of course, the copyright owners.
One solution for this would be to accept only original work. (And why You Tube isn’t providing the mobile services already?) Bad thing that most of the more memorable internet (Like that guy singing the O-zone song of more recently the Loituma Girl clip – an animation of an animated girl twirling a leek, with a weird polka song in the background) video clips and flash cartoons are crafted by using ready, copyrighted material.
Would it be, hypothetically, possible to work out some kind of agreement that would free the fan works to a commercial use? The distributor could maybe register the work as officially existing and would then pay a per-minute or per-second fee for the copyrighted material? This agreement would also restrain the copyright owners from making any demands for the work afterwards or trying to influence the way the new work is constructed.
With this system, I could make a SGA fan vid. I would probably make it with a little higher production values than what I would do if I wouldn’t have knowledge of the distributor beforehand. I would register to the net service and could get my video hosted for free. There would be registered pre-viewers who would watch all the submitted videos and rate them. (for that, they would receive videos for free) The videos that were rated high (like my hypothetical SGA video) would then get registered as “partially owned renewed work” of whatever the official term would be. Then it would get distributed as digital mobile content. Or, the firm could sell the now previewed, selected and paid media content to some other company who would offer the content in their pay-per-view mobile “channel”. The really good fan author (like me, hypothetically!) would receive fame, fan-girls, money, gift-cards and job-offers for their work.
Okay, the copyright laws will be changed this drastically when there will be ice skate rentals in Hell. But one noteworthy thing would be to self produce the environment for the fan production, like with Habbo Hotel or the Simms game. Anyone want to create one? Or, some big television or production company could declare their shows as a free game for amateur videos less than five minutes in lenght. Or something. I can always hope.
So, about mobile television… What really is the difference between a cell phone that uses mobile television services and another device, a portable Play Station or a Nokia Communicator? Okay, mobile television uses its own network (and isn’t that nifty and customer friendly to build overlapping networks) and it can transfer programs on real time. But, when the mobile television was planned, the idea was to sell customers separate little videos; News, music videos, cartoons. And now? Now the plan in Finland is to mostly broadcast exactly the same program feed as in regular television. Are the customers really that much unimaginative? Or are the content providers?
My mantra is - as I have probably told before-, that fans make it better. This means that fans have the dedication, the time and the knowledge of what fandom really wants, and therefore can answer the “customers” needs and even custom made contents to selected audiences better than what the original provider could ever offer. And the fans do it most of the time for free.
Now when I try to figure out if this would be a right place to do some innovative business, I will constantly bump to the copyright issues. When the fans do and share fan videos in the net, copyright-owners really don’t care. But what if there would be a small company? This company would offer the fans an opportunity to register and then get their works hosted for free. Then the company would distribute them as a digital content to 3G network or a mobile television network, getting its profits by either collecting fees from the customers or by commercials. The fans doing the work would get fame (and believe, just being in the “hot 50” list really is a good motivator) and in some cases, money or presents. Everybody would be happy. Except, of course, the copyright owners.
One solution for this would be to accept only original work. (And why You Tube isn’t providing the mobile services already?) Bad thing that most of the more memorable internet (Like that guy singing the O-zone song of more recently the Loituma Girl clip – an animation of an animated girl twirling a leek, with a weird polka song in the background) video clips and flash cartoons are crafted by using ready, copyrighted material.
Would it be, hypothetically, possible to work out some kind of agreement that would free the fan works to a commercial use? The distributor could maybe register the work as officially existing and would then pay a per-minute or per-second fee for the copyrighted material? This agreement would also restrain the copyright owners from making any demands for the work afterwards or trying to influence the way the new work is constructed.
With this system, I could make a SGA fan vid. I would probably make it with a little higher production values than what I would do if I wouldn’t have knowledge of the distributor beforehand. I would register to the net service and could get my video hosted for free. There would be registered pre-viewers who would watch all the submitted videos and rate them. (for that, they would receive videos for free) The videos that were rated high (like my hypothetical SGA video) would then get registered as “partially owned renewed work” of whatever the official term would be. Then it would get distributed as digital mobile content. Or, the firm could sell the now previewed, selected and paid media content to some other company who would offer the content in their pay-per-view mobile “channel”. The really good fan author (like me, hypothetically!) would receive fame, fan-girls, money, gift-cards and job-offers for their work.
Okay, the copyright laws will be changed this drastically when there will be ice skate rentals in Hell. But one noteworthy thing would be to self produce the environment for the fan production, like with Habbo Hotel or the Simms game. Anyone want to create one? Or, some big television or production company could declare their shows as a free game for amateur videos less than five minutes in lenght. Or something. I can always hope.
