Digital Pioneers goes International 568 days ago
Here is some great news for social entrepreneurs who are using Creative Commons Licences for their work! Digital Pioneers and OpenBusiness have partnered to create new funding opportuntties for internet initiatives that promote social innovation.The theme of the 12th round of the Digital Pioneers incentive scheme is ‘International’. Under this theme participants can submit a project proposal that is aimed at introducing an initiative that originated abroad into the Netherlands.
There are plenty of examples and sources of inspiration. Wikipedia, which has a national base of a large number of volunteers in many countries, is of course well known. Less well-known perhaps is a project that Digital Pioneers supported in the past, Face your World, which was set up by Jeanne van Heeswijk in Columbus, Ohio. The project allows young people to design their own neighbourhood with the aid of interactive representation of the neighbourhood, assisted by a virtual urban planning coach. Van Heeswijk introduced her project in The Netherlands in 2005 in collaboration with the VMBO schools. An initiative that was set up in the United Kingdom by Tom Steinberg could also be considered as this could easily be introduced in The Netherlands using few resources.
If you want to read more and/or apply have a look at the OpenBusiness Blog.
UK Artists and Copyright 568 days ago
The Arts Council England and OpenBusiness.cc have created a report, which represents the results of a six-month study into artists’ attitudes towards copyright, creativity and alternative licensing practises, in particular Creative Commons (CC). Although the number of UK artists using open licensing has been growing for the last decade there had been no investigation into how or why such licences were being used.Click here to read the report.
The focus of the report is twofold:
- to investigate how artists working in a digital environment view copyright, which structures many commercial relationships, but often prohibits sharing, copying and the easy adaptation of existing artistic works.
- to examine why some artists use Creative Commons licences, which, in contrast, facilitate sharing, copying and, depending on the terms of the particular licence used, allow derivative use for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
The report suggests that one key reason for artists’ using CC is that they perceive standard copyright as too complex and costly. CC licences are an effective and practical tool for new media artists, who adapt existing work. Artists are also using CC to exploit network effects and to better market their creative work. CC is still used by an avant-garde of mainly rather young artists; more than 140,000 websites in the UK make use of such licences.
The survey points towards a possible confusion between evolving working practices that involve re-use and remix and an individual caution about their own work. In general it can be summarised that artists are in need of simpler and more appropriate guidelines, which might be provided not only by the law, but also through funding and policy bodies such as Arts Council England.
MOD Films 568 days ago
MOD Films (not related to the Ministry of Defense!!) is developing content and subscription services to support interactive story applications. We’re a bit like an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) studio - part content, part software design but working in a largely undefined space between the film and game industry to create sustainable “Film Worlds”.
The aim is to generate new (modern) ways to circulate, evolve and generate revenue from stories for longer. The vision is of an evolved digital story-telling approach, benefiting the film business itself, which leads to new kinds of mainstream convergent titles.
After three years of prototype development, and to ease the pain somewhat of operating constantly on the bleeding edge, we recently decided to shift the focus to web services. We’re not ready to launch yet but our virtual (extranet) studio system has been supporting story productions since 1993 (MOD Films was spun off from thequality.com in 2004). We want to provide a useful community platform and pass on many lessons learned so more people can produce experimental media for fun and future profit.
This is a long term venture - many in the big media predict that a market for games you can plug into films will become clear in six years. So what do you think? The first product we’re planning for launch is a web service you could describe as a “license and re-use registry”.
At modfilms.net (very much in alpha) Here you will find some charts powered by a database of relationships between story titles. Register an account and add the details of any titles you wish to track for yourself. The distinction with this database over others is that we’re modelling relationships between open and traditional copyright licensed material, between films and their constituent parts (e.g. library assets).
We’re looking to collaborate with the various government and industry pilots looking at interoperable licensing in a digital age. The second product we’re working on is a “re-mixable film edition” format for next-gen devices such as Blu-Ray. The pilot for this project is at the VFX production stage. Here is the opening line of the project brief from way back in 2003 -
“Film sampling will one day be as common as music sampling. Film audiences will be able to play with film as easily as they would play a musical instrument or play with recorded music.”
WHY MOD FILMS? Most of us reading this have moved a LONG way from storytelling around a campfire. Not without consequences. But now technology and online culture have irrevocably changed the relationship between film-makers and their audience.
There are benefits to giving audiences more control over stories. Architecturally it is time to start leveraging Internet and game technology more explicitly to do so. Re-interpretation keeps the more relevent stories alive. Personally I’ve been very inspired by the homebrew scenes that operate on the edge of industry - the 80s demo scene, the game MOD’ers, the A/V artists, the Second Lifers, you name it… so much uncredited creativity influencing the mainstream.
More attribution is a good thing. How many people worked on the Matrix sequels without a credit? How many TV formats has Endemol developed and trademarked based on Internet content? More experiments are a good thing. More interfaces between communities and story systems. This somewhat lame term “user generated content” is none-the-less driving unprecedented awareness of something really exciting. But let’s not analyze it too deeply. Otherwise this re-mixable interactive entertainment Web 2.0 thingie might just disappear right up its own arse…. Why MOD Films? Because it’s fun and very human to play…
