Something I found interesting written by someone else.
Facial recognitiion in the cloud http://t.co/kznweJhC
At one level this is kind of scary – these were the folks who discovered a Social Security number way too often, from a casual photograph in the street – at the level of production automation it shows the direction we’re heading for automatically generating metadata for postproduction.
Episode 35: The Templatorization of “Creativity” http://t.co/yIY8RGK9 A new episode of The Terence and Philip Show
The trend toward basing creative endeavors on templates has been a trend for many years, culminating in Hollywood’s use of its history as templates for its current production. Is it a case of profit over creativity?
Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on whether you value your personal creativity, or you’re pushing a budget to get a project finished.
Without copyright art would not exist? http://t.co/TksxMjq
The arguments of the MPAA and RIAA reduced to the level of the absurdity that they are.
If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would People Download Them? http://t.co/j6iEg9o
Other than legal constructs that make them different, in practice a download with embedded ads and a real-time broadcast with embedded ads should be the same thing. And yet, no-one in the TV industry has even thought of the possibility, despite it being a very old idea.
For years, I’ve been referring to Mark Pesce’s Hyperdistribution model – both here in the blog and also in some of my public presentations – as one viable alternative to the current situation that would allow more consumption flexibility without changing the economics.
The responses are mixed. There are, certainly, a lot of people who insist they would never do that because they hate all advertising. I still think those people really just hate bad advertising, and don’t realize that they actually like good advertising (for example, the TV shows they download? They’re just “advertising” for other episodes of that TV show). But there are two types of answers that stand out and are seen throughout the comments. The first are that some people would agree to do this, having no problem supporting the TV folks. The second are people who say they hate commercials and wouldn’t do this, but that they would pay for a similar thing without commercials.
I generally dislike advertising, although more correctly I should say that, like others, I dislike irrelevant advertising, so I’d prefer to pay the equivalent (not the inflated prices attempting to be charged via iTunes et. al. ) but might be prepared to receive relevant advertising. Now, I don’t have children, am happy with my current car and already know what will replace it, not planning on going out to dinner or movies anytime soon, really don’t buy many clothes, don’t buy cosmetics… Â I am a little non-consumerism, so just what advertising won’t be horribly intrusive and irrelevant?
What are your postproduction nightmares? Preparing for my DV Expo session http://t.co/fLI7QFU
If you’ve got a post-production nightmare let me know in the comments so I can make sure I address it in my “Avoiding Post Production Nightmares” DV Expo session.
Online video finally chipping away at broadcast TV http://t.co/LLmZhYg
There are some hints that the traditional US cable subscription may be in decline, but not only in the US but around the world are moving toward  more online video and less real-time broadcast.
The survey, which was conducted in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the U.S. and South Korea, consisted of 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews, and represented almost 400 million consumers. The conclusion is that the Internet has changed the way we watch TV, but hasn’t cut down much on demand for broadcast television. However, it’s not the demand that’s an issue, but figuring out monetization strategies for what is essentially a new and fragmented delivery platform that’s leading to high drama and various strategies that make finding content a crapshoot for consumers.
We’re not there yet, but we’re heading there.
Just How Rich Are These YouTube Stars? http://t.co/o0F6gIm
The rankings go from just over $100,000 a year up to $300,000 a year. Even for team productions that’s still a decent income from online video. And just like the traditional market, a few people are making good money, and a whole lot more people are making little to nothing from their online video efforts.
But at least it can be done, and young Lucas Cruikshank (a.k.a. “Fred”) with an estimated $149,000 income this year, probably doesn’t have to worry about college tuition fees, if he even wants to go to college.
In other news, Goodnight Burbank has secured a “real” TV deal with Mark Cuban’s HD Net. That’s in addition to the Hulu distribution that they’ve already had. Don’t know what sort of money is involved in the deal, but it’s a long way from the first Goodnight Burbank episodes.
Trivia item: My interview with Hayden Black on the Digital Production BuZZ in October 2007 was his first media interview about the show.
The Terence and Philip show tackles Transmedia in Episode 34 http://t.co/NgMw9W7
In this show Terence and Philip tackle Transmedia, the successor to “multi-media”. Transmedia is the extension of a program to more ways for the audience to interact with the program, story and characters. Is Transmedia the future of television?
Copyright Infringement and Theft – The Difference http://t.co/Q4U7Tat
The US Supreme Court has ruled that:
In 1985, the Court ruled in Dowling v United States that copyright infringement is not theft, even when dealing with physical objects, such as vinyl records.
And yet, despite that 1985 ruling so-called “intelligent people” – including VP Biden – have blatantly referred to Copyright Infringement as “theft, plain and simple”, in complete contradiction to law and precedent.
In reality the last thing the RIAA and MPAA want is for copyright infringement (a civil issue) to be prosecuted as theft (criminal).
Firstly, the standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt” and it’s very, very unlikely that the discovery process in copyright cases would pass muster. It’s never been proven to be reliable in any court anywhere in the world. An IP address does not identify an individual, no matter what the fantasies of the legacy industries in music and film distribution.
Secondly, the penalties are much more reasonable.
Regardless of your opinions on copyright infringement, in the USA, it’s not theft. Personally, I’d prefer “beyond reasonable doubt”. The article compares the Jammie Thomas case as it has proceeded under copyright infringement and how it would have proceeded had it been tried as theft: bottom line – a much smaller fine (with the potential for a short prison term, although unlikely for the very small amount of value “stolen”, as the criminal case works on actual real value: 99c a song!
Good push back against the ever-growing threat to civil liberties by the RIAA/MPAA and the disastrous PROTECT IP proposed legislation, which has the potential to “break” the Internet as we know it. And that’s exactly what they want, and we don’t.
A Response To Felicia Day On How Video Gets Funded In A Fragmented, Digital World http://t.co/mdtcKaD
Felicia Day has had some success in the online video with her The Guild series. Initially fan funded (poorly) and now sponsored (by Microsoft is my memory is accurate) Felicia has a reasonable position as both a participant in the traditional TV series world (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and online. She asks the question on Google Plus:
