We also considered just making up our own license and putting it on Four Eyed Monsters but decided against it for various complications. For us we saw the main issue as the non-exclusivity closing certain doors.

So if the filmmakers aren’t agreeing, i doubt it’s because they’re stupid or stubborn, I think it’s just because they know that when they do something very open with their work, they will rub distributors who need exclusivity the wrong way and become incompatible with that system which is still today how they pay their bills.

And why do distributors need exclusivity. Upon very close inspection of the whole system. We pretty much decided the reason is advertising cost. You can’t have one company incur the huge cost of advertising and then let any other company make money from the same work.

But of course thats unavoidable since movies need to be released in theaters and then DVD and then TV in order to be fully exploited. So the industries answer has been windows so that each distribution platform could have it’s own advertising costs and reward. The only way to deviate from that has been to own the theatrical, DVD and TV like we’ve seen with Bubble being released all at the same time into three platforms by three companies all owned by 2929 media. But obviously we need a better answer then just creating monopolies.

So to change things you have to take on advertising models. You first need way better discovery tools. I recently about how to build some preliminary mock ups in two recent posts. With good enough discovery tools that people adopt the only thing you should need for a film to do well is for it to be good. In that system the gems really truly will rise to the top.

But if advertising is incurred, at this point I’m thinking that should be part of the films original budget needing to get paid back before investors and what not see proceeds. If a film sees a bigger opportunity then anticipated, just like any other business it can go out and get more investment to spend on it’s advertising and until it makes back the money it’s spent, it’s not making money yet.

So I guess all I’m saying is individual specific license with specific entities are generally bad when it comes to distributing content. I think the moment you are letting one person do something with your content, you should be letting anyone else do that same thing. This will change the structure of the film industry substantially but industries evolve all the time as technology and innovation changes the game.

So if the talk you guys had was 2 years ago then it’s a totally old view point and it’s probably time for renew to have a new talk and consider reframing reframe. But I agree you also need a group of early adopters of a new license. I would be willing to say it would be worth it to buy that content. Reduce the risk on the early adopter filmmakers by giving them money to put their film into the precarious state of being a pioneer.

Thats a novel concept. Financially compensate pioneers that are taking the risks that will make it better for everyone later. I feel Four Eyed Monsters has been compensated in a lot of ways but financially is still not really one of the big ones to date.

We are working on changing that so if nothing else we can get other filmmakers pumped about the possibilities.

And in terms of funding content. That is a good thing, but here is the deal, you fund one persons content, thats great for them, but does nothing for everyone else. If you come up with a solution that is it’s own echosphere in which the creation of good content is rewarded automatically and if someone has a project they can use the same infrustructor to collect interest in that project and get it made, that is obviously a way better effort.

So if I had X amount of money, I would spend half on making content and the other half on making an new distribution echo system in which that content will pioneer hoping it catches on and that in the future I can simply have X amount of money and spend it all on just content which at the end of the day does matter most, provided people can see it.

So, the Reframe you saw Kelly pitch is actually a half-way step, that we hope can morph into some variant of the system you describe in the future, or help lead to its development. If it could become more of a rights-locater database that allows companies of any type (distributor, festival, magazine, whoever) to license content for some use and pay the filmmaker directly for this use, that would be great. It could also become a way for you, as a filmmaker, to license content (clips)for subsequent, follow-on, use in your new film- whether as samples or just a traditional clip license – and it could be paid for depending on use (and accommodate fair use). This could include CC licensing, but would probably also include other alternate licensing models as well.

Anyway, we’d be happy to convene such a group again, but we can’t fund Creative Commons. Wish we could, but we, like them, are actually a small nonprofit and all the money we give as grants we raise each year from larger foundations. Our grants are earmarked for direct support to artists for creativity (not a bad thing). We would welcome the opportunity to explore raising such funds with CC and/or others, as well as just continuing the conversation here.
Brian – Renew Media (aka Someplace)