Written by Nic Wistreich | 22 April 2009 | in politics and society

A rushed three hour write-up on the Pirate Bay en route to the Star and Shadow cinema in Newcastle on Friday, got me looking back to the first time the Pirate Bayern was in the news, when I wrote a piece here linking it to Hakim Bay's Pirate Utopias and the Temporary Autonomous Zone which was written back in spring 1990, long before the birth of the Web. If Cluetrain is the text that precursed social networks and user-generated media, the TAZ pre-empted the Web - both perhaps the first document to name it and is prophetic of many of its features.

It begins by talking of the 'pirate utopias' of the 18th century as islands and remote hidouts, scattered through an "information network" and goes onto define a Web evolving within that net. It's scarily ahead of its time:

"we'll use the term Web to refer to the alternate horizontal open structure of info- exchange, the non-hierarchic network, and reserve the term counter-Net to indicate clandestine illegal and rebellious use of the Web, including actual data-piracy and other forms of leeching off the Net itself."

He goes on, suggesting that re-use of what we find is part of our biological nature,  and that because the web removes production and distribution costs, free non-hierarchical access is assumed as standard:

"(Digression: Before you condemn the Web or counter-Net for its "parasitism," which can never be a truly revolutionary force, ask yourself what "production" consists of in the Age of Simulation. What is the "productive class"? Perhaps you'll be forced to admit that these terms seem to have lost their meaning. In any case the answers to such questions are so complex that the TAZ tends to ignore them altogether and simply picks up what it can use. "Culture is our Nature"-- and we are the thieving magpies, or the hunter/gatherers of the world of CommTech.)"

He doesn't have much hope for efforts to limit technical control of what he calls 'data piracy', citing chaos theory, which is not to assume there's no model to produce good content in the face of collapsing presales (watch this space!):

"Like Gibson and Sterling I am assuming that the official Net will never succeed in shutting down the Web or the counter-Net--that data-piracy, unauthorized transmissions and the free flow of information can never be frozen. (In fact, as I understand it, chaos theory predicts that any universal Control-system is impossible.)"

Written by Brendan Tate | 03 April 2009 | in cinema

- 97% of films downloaded are illegal

- 10% of films viewed are non-mainstream

- 45% are sastisfied with choice of films available at cinema

Brendant Tate, for Newcastle College and Hello Ideas, has compiled the early results of his survey into cinema-going habits amongst young people and students.  Published for the first time on Netribution, the results comee from 75 face-to-face interviews, and will hopefully exist in an online form here soon.

“Asking questions is widely accepted as a cost efficient way, of gathering information of past behaviour and experiences, private actions and motives, and beliefs, values, and attitudes.” (Foddy, 1994)

On the following page are some diagrams, which represent the results from the questionnaire, which I distributed as part of the market research for my event.  The market research is on going; these results are based on the answers from 75 questionnaires.  I hope to be able to report on my final findings with twice the amount of data.  The sample group has been taken from outside the Newcastle University, Newcastle College media department, in Marco Polo restaurant, and in the R&B workplace.  This has given me a sample group that represents males, females, students and full-time workers equally, with ages ranging from 19 to 50.

Written by Nic Wistreich | 25 March 2009 | in media and representation

It's easy enough to criticise the government for being out of touch with the web - I frequently do - but without the industry explaining to them the needs and issues at play, it's hard to blame them entirely. In other words democracy only really works if we all play our part in contributing to it (or attacking its weak points, such as these brilliant spoof paranoid transport police adverts over on BoingBoing and right). With this in mind I rushed a rapidly written response to the recent call for evidence for the House of Lords select committee enquiry into the film & TV industries. In the interests of openness (and perhaps debate?) I reprint it here. (Please don't take too much time to tell me about typos and grammatical errors - I wrote this in a rush on a train on my birthday!)

Distribution and finance

How do the current UK arrangements for distribution and exhibition of films affect the commercial success of the film industry?  How might long run changes in international film production and distribution affect the UK film industry and its export potential over the next decade?  To what extent is the raising of finance an inhibiting factor in UK film projects?

Written by Nic Wistreich | 03 February 2009 | in politics and society

"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation"
Dennis Leigh

So despite (or because of) a cultural renaissance
of knowledge and skills sharing, empowering new production models, tools and methods of quite historic proportions, we face a collapse of the banking infrastructure, and the fundamentals of economic orthadoxy. The Obama administration's 'Buy American' clause in the US $900bn stimulus package to ban buying materials and services from foreign companies, like the walkouts over foreign labour in the UK is understandable, if misguided. For we are midway through a shift, it seems, from a society dependent on fiscal capital, to one - with such uncertainty in the markets - built around social capital. If not permanent it is at least the best way to survive a downturn. It is a system which already powers much of the web - from the open source Apache servers, to the Firefox browser, to Youtube videos and Wikipedia pages.

"We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve"
President ObamaA shift to protectionist policies, or the drawing of a dividing line between British workers and European workers is a reaction to the faults of the old system, but seems oddly out of time with the new order. This week alone I've sold books in the US through our US distributor and sales partner, I've renewed a domain name through our Californian web host (and been blown away once more by the quality of their service), paid for templates from a US design company, and shared my private financial data with a US feature filmmaker considering self publishing his book.

It's this sharing of resources and ideas that the web does so well, and simultaneously removes any sense of geographic or nationalistic isolation. As Obama said so brilliantly in his inauguration, "We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself". Yet the currently planned clause in the US bill demanding that all stimulus spending goes only on US sourced materials flies against that, and suggests that rather than help steer the world economy into a new age, America would be seeking to exploit the downturn to strengthen her own position. Given that much of the problems we are facing began in the US mortgage and sub-prime market, its a move that is a little uncivil and - like his silence over Gaza - could weaken the weight of his powerful words. Likewise the worker strikes misdirects anger about the total mismanagement of our economic system at workers who are much like us, rather than the overpaid long-lunchers under whose watch the mess took hold. 

Mandelson is right, we can work anywhere in Europe and should make the most of this, while embracing the happy truth that as more and more business goes online, many of us can in fact work anywhere in the world. If we are indeed shifting to a society held together mainly through social capital - the currency which glues most of the creative, charitable and civil sectors, not to mention your family and social network and the web/open source (and the third world) - then all these movements - from Obama, the stirkers and the factory bosses who are not vauling their local staff, runs against the grain of these times and smells more than a little like dinosaur.

(Creative Commons flickr photos from a 'spring' search by Mikelens (bottom) and Spisharam (top))

Written by Nic Wistreich | 28 April 2008 | in science and economics

"Investors fleeing Wall Street's mortgage-related strife plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into grain futures, driving prices up even more."
Washington Post

So its official. The UN anounced Monday that food speculators were mostly to blame for the recent surge in food prices. Agrofuels and changes to diet no-doubt have a part to play, but as Vietnam moved to stop panic buying at the weekend, with the Prime Minister stating that food supplies for the country were more than adequate , its clear that markets have been artificially inflating prices. A special meeting of the heads of the UN's agencies, along with the WTO and World Bank has been called in Bern for later in the week to discuss sollutions to the crisis.

Since I started researching the subject , a couple of in-depth articles have appeared in the Washington Post and BusinessWeek/Spiegel Online. It’s good to see that not only have two instituions of the conservative press picked up on the story (finally) but  that they join the likes of hedge fund head George Soros (who ran the US’s second most profitable fund last year) in describing the speculation as a sympton of unfettered capitalism gone too far.
My flatmate from Oxfam did point out to me that higher food prices had an upside – the impoverished farmers, many of whom have faced tough tough years (like in India where suicide amonst small farmers is very high), would be seing increased income. If the money is shifting from the miners of precous metals to impoverished farmers, it can't be all bad. It makes sense as an argument, but not if it’s at the expensive of mass starvaion – otherwise we’ll see a return to feudal systems with rich landowners supporting the people working the fields who can barely afford the produce they grow.

Written by Nic Wistreich | 20 April 2008 | in politics and society

"Cotton growers have been among the most vocal critics, having witnessed a baffling surge in prices over a few days in March. In one day, the price of cotton jumped 15 per cent despite reports showing cotton supplies were at near record highs."

Forgive me for this brief tangent from the world of film and pixels, but I've been compelled to pull myself away from an engrossing chat with the Hull Film people and write about something which seems pretty urgent right now.

Like a lot of you, I've been concerned about the news of the rise of food prices around the world - a near doubling in prices of some vital foods like rice and wheat - and the fact that the consequences could lead to an already undernourished majority of the world having access to half as much food as before.
"And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror... This is silent mass murder."
Jean Ziegler, U.N. special rapporteur What troubled me most, however, was the causes, and how things are escalating so fast. I appreciate that investment in agriculture has shrunk, that close to two billion acres of land has been put aside for Biofools and that a wealthier India and China are eating more meat (the global meat industry consumes enough food to feed the world twice over, and emits more CO2 than the entire car, aviation and transport industry put together). But it seemed like there must be something else heralding such rapid changes in price (a few weeks back the global price of rice skyrocketed 300% in one day). So I formed a theory, searched Google, and found that I'm not alone in this thinking. I should stress I have no economics training, and my understanding of global commodities and futures trading is next to nothing. But I still think it's worth sharing this as it's not getting as much press coverage as you would expect - and would welcome any feedback/criticism you can give.

Basically its long been known that the forces driving first the debt bubble and subsequent sub prime crisis wiping billions off the values of the world's major banks, was the trading of debt on financial markets. Likewise the crazy price of oil - $117 and rising has been pushed up by speculators (people who gamble on the future price of a stock or commodities). Then gold and other precious metals started to rise and also now are at record highs as people invest in these commodities on expectation of bigger returns.

"Dealing in foodstuffs these days gives higher returns than stocks or bonds or real estate. These dealers never actually see the soybeans or sorghum, a bit like the Third World poor, who don't see much of them either... Our pension funds have also been getting into commodity dealing. The security of our monthly cheque may now depend on a family in Burkina Faso paying a week's wages for a bag of rice. " Tom Shields, Sunday Herald

So it seemed a logical conclusion that with all these markets now being overvalued or unstable, that the traders who control the billions invested by the major financial institutions, and currently trying to minimise the losses from the current turmoil, would seek to move their money to a new profitable place. Could this be driving the rise in food prices? And if so, does that mean there are some immediate actions that governments, the WTO and IMF, etc, could take to ensure that we don't see the first increase in famine and childhood malnutrition (which debilitates for life) in 20 years ago. And not have our TV screens filled with pot bellied children struggling for a bowl of rice in a few months?

“I suppose that's just capitalism but it's jolly disappointing. If society looked down on these funds then perhaps it would make a difference.”
Sir Michael Darrington, Chair of Greggs the Bakers

In much of the world 40% to a half of the household income is spent on rice. If the price rises by 300% in one day, as it did a few weeks back, it means that a family can eat three times less rice. Malnutrition seems inevitable, which in children has life-long consequences. The potential for widespread famine is more likely than at any time in the last 20 years. Since 2000, prices of wheat, butter and milk have tripled and prices of rice, maize and poultry have almost doubled - with the majority of those increases happening in the last year. 

Even the Chairman of Greggs the Bakers, Sir Michael Darrington, has spoken out about grossly irresponsible behaviour of the speculators and asking for the public's widespread condemnation of the darkest side of capitalism?

"It is astonishing in the present situation that the international financial institutions and government regulators have done little to control or banish this parasitical and antisocial practice. The myth of the benevolent and ultimately impartial market prevails against all contrary evidence." International Herald Tribune

People once just speculated on stocks. The internet bubble was great fun for day traders and bedroom gamblers with a bit of knowledge wanting to make a fast buck. I did it with QXL a decade ago - I bought £500 of shares, doubled my money, sold all but 2 of them, and then saw them rise tenfold, before falling back.

"The futures market reinforced the consumption trend: with food inflation expected to continue, wheat appeared the safest bet for investors in the years to come--prior to its dramatic surge, wheat had shown less volatility than maize and soybeans."
(60% of wheat market owned by index funds) Forbes.comThe internet bubble burst, and the mortgage / debt bubble picked up. A few years ago this started to fracture, and seeing problems ahead, people moved to oil, which in turn rose four-fold. More recently as the problems with bad bank debt became more apparent (a trillion dollars lost, apparently, probably enough money to feed, house, educate and provide water and health for everyone in the world - at least pick up a third of the bill of Iraq ), traders managing billions of investors' money, shifted to speculating in gold and other precious and semi-precious metals. And now metals have seen their prices so inflated that they are also overvalued, with the last place for the trading addict (and it is like any addiction) is food speculation. Gambling on the price of food, and acting in such a way to push prices up in order to make huge gains in a short period of time. For some institutions this may be the only way to cover up the holes in their finances from the sub-prime crisis.

So when Egypt halted its rice exports because of falling stocks, speculators push up the cost of a ton of rice by 300%. India followed by limiting their rice exports heavily and waiting to see how high the price would go. Riots and civil disruption erupted worldwide, with the UN Peacekeeping force shooting at hungry rioters and getting shot at in Haiti (did that one make it to London Lite?). It was, if you may recall, the tripling in the price of rice in Burma, which triggered the monk's protests there last autumn.

Day traders, seeking a quick buck with no sense of consequence (or morality) have created the potential for widespread famine. As Anthoney Costello, director of the UCL institute of Global Health pointed out in frank terms, "the poorest households in the developing world, surviving on tiny fixed incomes, will be hungry right now. In a few months our TV screens will show the pot-bellies of children with kwashiorkor and the emaciated faces of mothers and children ravaged by malnutrition and infection. Many will die unnoticed."

"In a few months our TV screens will show the pot-bellies of children with kwashiorkor and the emaciated faces of mothers and children ravaged by malnutrition and infection. Many will die unnoticed."
Anthoney Costello, UCL  Intervention by the UN by handing out sacks of rice won't solve the problem - the rice will still be very expensive (as will the wheat, soya, grains, oil, etc), and the hungry will be in the hundreds of millions. It's the speculators and the same lack of regulation which led to the current sub prime crisis, the internet bubble, and the price in oil which needs to be stopped. And even the biggest fans of free trade and global capitalism are arguing massive caution. To quote Paris-based agro-economic think-tank and research body Momagri 

"free trade will not stabilize prices but will increase instability. Indeed, simulations based on the assumption of complete market free trade in 2008 show that large-scale crops and grains will see price volatility rise sharply, while cattle prices will collapse. In addition, unregulated free trade, by increasing the participation of financial speculators, will further intensify price volatility. This was demonstrated by a new groundbreaking indicator that links the percentages of financial speculators to the increasing volatility of agricultural prices.

I don't think they are even caring about social impact... their job is to make money... They're not going to be worried about repercussions somewhere else."
Gary Kaltbaum,
Hedgefund managerEven the owners of hedgefunds are alarmed by the merciless trading of those whose need for a short buck (perhaps to cover their loses on sub prime) blinds their vision to the suffering they are creating.

Other articles discussing this include this, this in the International Herald and Tribune, and this. For the record I should point out that one article by Brian Durrant in MoneyWeek argues against the claims that speculation is driving the rise in prices, tho he does recognise that activity in food trading has risen from $10bn to $142billion pa in the last decade. He argues it is down to more people eating meat in China and India and the rise of biofuels, and that it is a simple issue of supply and demand, suggesting the answer is greater trade liberalisation:

If the world today were a rational economic place, then regions such as the Gulf, which are energy rich but are food production constrained, would be investing their petrodollars in agriculture. On the other hand, the US is the world's biggest agricultural supplier, but has enormous energy demands. The rational solution would be for Saudi Arabians to buy farms in the mid-West. At the same time America would secure its energy needs in the most efficient manner by sending teams of Texans to Riyadh. But in practice, numerous controls prevent Saudi Arabians buying Mid-West farms and Americans owning Saudi oil wells...

Instead, mutual mistrust is rising. Gulf leaders are considering plans to desalinate sea water to plant wheat in the desert, while at the same time the US and Europe are trying to turn corn into fuel. It's the economics of the madhouse, but alas, these measures make sense in terms of narrow domestic politics. And the consequence of this surge in economic nationalism? Even more food price inflation."

An interesting point, but a digression - as UN Chief Ban Ki Moon told a conference this weekend :

"If not handled properly, this crisis could result in a cascade of others ... and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world,"

Update 8pm, Monday :

MoneyWeek pointed out their link above was broken, now corrected.

I also see from the Evening Standard left on my train back to Glasgow that the IMF have spoken out on it today and Brown is holding a summit tomorrow. There is also an interesting piece of analysis in today's Times from Anatole Kaletsky which speaks in mysterious terms about the correlation between the announcement of bad news in the markets and the rise of food prices, claiming no-one knows why they are so linked.

"Why, then, has a global collapse in credit created a boom in commodity demand? The short answer is that nobody knows.
Anatole Kaletsky
The TimesMore intrigingly he matches the graphs of the rise of the Euro against the Dollar, against the rise in commodity prices, pointing out that the are almost exactly the same shape. My knee-jerk user-generated-economist theory would be that as currency speculators abandon the dollar in the face of sub-prime fallout that big institutions or investors whose wealth is tied to dollars are trying to offset their losses with investment in commodities, a 'safe haven' as people are always going to need to eat. As the dollar falls in value, no real wealth is lost if your billions in dollars of rice or wheat futures is rising by the same amount.

Could this really be a case of the world's poorest literally starving to death to clean up the mess left by some gung-ho and irresponsible banks and traders? 

(I promise film and media talk will soon resume. All images from Trading Places, which is a good introduction to the corrupt world of food commodities trading) 

Update 9am Thursday

 Business bible Business Week has republished an excellent article from Die Spiegel which acknowledged that "hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger... "The landscape has changed since the influx of large index funds. Fund managers seek to maximize their profits using futures contracts, and prices", says [long term grain trader Greg] Warner, "keep climbing up and up.""

"In mid-2006 Anderson was touting the "extraordinary profitability" of field crops from corn to soybeans. He was convinced that rising worldwide hunger would be synonymous with highly profitable— and dead-certain— investment bargains... These days, though, Anderson avoids the media... buying up rights to all photos of himself on the market."
BusinessWeek

PM Brown has agreed to rethink biofuels after a summit on the question. Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, admitted to the  Observer (only just seen this now) that rising demand from emerging countries, such as Brazil, India, China and Russia, explained some, but not all, of the price surge, which has seen the cost of wheat double in 12 months. 'I see so much focus on food, and it seems to be so trendy in the investment world,' he said. 'The underlying dilemma has been created by the wealth of the BRICs [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries; but, for the past year or so, it's also been a major theme for financial institutions. The markets seem to me to have a bubble-like quality.'

US shops have started to ration rice, and the Latin American countries have grouped together and are looking at creating a distribution network "so we don't" in the words of Venezuala President Hugo Chavez "fall into the hands of intermediaries and speculators, which stop millions from receiving food."

Meanwhile a meeting of US Farmers and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates U.S. commodity markets, in the US led to some heated exchanges on Tuesday - and an agreement not to raise the investment limit on speculation as planned. 

"Sixty per cent of the current [wheat] market is owned by an index fund," said Tom Coyle, of the National Grain and Feed Association. "Clearly that's having an impact on the market."

From the article in the Globe and Mail

"Some producers blamed these large speculators for causing a disconnect between the value of a futures contract, and the underlying value of the asset is supposed to represent.

Cotton growers have been among the most vocal critics, having witnessed a baffling surge in prices over a few days in March. In one day, the price of cotton jumped 15 per cent despite reports showing cotton supplies were at near record highs.

Several cotton industry players urged the CFTC to investigate the price movements, and demanded that the regulator make speculators subject to the same rules as commercial players who buy and sell the actual commodities...

Given the current turmoil, the CFTC said yesterday it was not inclined to move ahead with controversial plans to raise investment limits for speculators. "I believe that before acting, this agency must be certain that additional speculative pressures will not exacerbate the anomalies we are experiencing in these markets," said CFTC acting chairman Walt Lukken. "It is critical that we understand the problem fully so we can get it right and ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease."

Written by Adam P Davies | 07 December 2007 | in Finance

If it is clear that the producer wants the product on as many websites as possible, would market forces really create competition amongst filmsites or encourage them to scramble to pay money upfront in return for the "privilege" to sell the movie?"

If you thought the biggest threat facing the international film business was piracy, think again. The creation of a single global market on the Internet for distribution also challenges the pre-sales model where film rights are sold on a territory by territory basis. The majority of independent films intended for theatrical release often raise a third or more of their budget through pre-selling rights: in a world where distribution is day-and-date across territories and platforms this doesn't make so much sense, as a producer you would probably not want to favour one country over another any more than there would be a point in releasing through only one download/streaming service.

Adam P Davies, one of the top film finance and tax brains in the business, and adviser on several hundred features, including Warzone, Nil by Mouth, Gods and Monsters and Sexy Beast, has written a detailed explanation and exploration of this little discussed but genuine problem. The threat of piracy is still tough to quantify: however the loss of some 30% or more possible production funding is far more immediate - it is as if all sources of public finance were to vanish suddenly. The article first appeared earlier this year in the Film Finance Handbook - World Edition which we wrote together, launching in Europe at Cannes in May and hopefully debuting in North America at Sundance next year.

The Future of the Mainstream Financing Model by Adam P Davies, taken from the Film Finance Handbook: How To Fund Your Film (Netribution, 2007).

The Tangling of the Web

No discussion about the future of the film financing "model" is complete - or should even start - without serious thought being given to the impending changes from the growing impact of the internet. Not just from the perspective of the end-user's experience, but also the implications for distribution methods, real-time transfer of money, sources of production finance, piracy and so-on. It is true that no-one can unequivocally proclaim through a crystal ball exactly how the business will be run in ten years time. But what is clear is that the various "possibilities" thrown up by the internet that everyone was hypothesising about five years ago have now been replaced by "probabilities". At the numerous over-priced seminars regularly addressed by top-brass industry executives discussing forthcoming issues, the phrase "This is how things could change" has finally switched to "This is what we are currently planning and testing"...

Written by Nic Wistreich | 28 November 2007 | in Studio 2.0

As talks restart in an attempt to end the US Writers Guild strike, commentators are discussing whether the dispute will drive more writers and talent out of the studio system and onto the web. It is one thing to win a doubling of DVD royalties, from four cents to eight, and a share of web advertising, as with TV (the main WGA demands); but another altogether to actually own, or co-own the show or film you devise and write.

"The writers' strike, and the studios' response to the strike, may radically accelerate a structural shift in the media industry - a shift of power from studios and conglomerates towards creators and talent."
Marc Andreesson

Marc Andresson, who founded Netscape amongst other ventures, is arguing that the film industry needs to rebuild itself on a model closer to that used by startups in Silicon Valley. Here venture capital companies will normally back talent with a good idea, and leave them running the company with a big share, perhaps over half, of the profits.

There's a certain over-simplicity in the argument, which sidesteps independent financing where VCs rarely, if ever 100% or even part finance film. While the next eBay may be able to prove itself through a demo site, few hit films or shows are identifiable at script stage. But the arguments are otherwise convincing, and echoes some of the notions in my essay - the Internet as the Seventh Major Film Studio (PDF download) - which argued that all filmmakers and artists using the web for fundraising, marketing, casting, production or distribution, etc are effectively members of a single vertically integrated virtual studio conglomerate/co-op, spanning the world. Furthermore, the principles of the open source/dotcom/Silicon Valley world, make that virtual studio far more cooperative, supportive and talent/idea driven than traditional studios.

Both Scott Kirsner and LA Times picked up on Andreesson's blog (reprinted below) with much support, arguing writers need to become entrepreneurs and ditch the industry standing between them and their audience, much as CASHMusic (see below) is trying to support for the music world. In fact the shifts of the music industry, which online seem to be a few years ahead of film, are worth studying.

Blog B-Side recently outlined, with examples, five models the music industry could adopt to survive as a business in the 'binary economy' - free (music as loss-leader), pay what you want, pay-by-popularity, subscription and tax- all of which could be reapplied to the film world, with a bit of imagination. Most significantly all of these models can be (and already are) facilitated by technology, allowing artists to connect with (and earn from) potential audience directly, without needing to go through a studio machine.

Written by Nic Wistreich | 01 October 2007 | in internet and technology

I recently heard from a music industry insider that Radiohead make some 80% of their income from touring, which opened up the question of why they put so much effort into packaging, selling and protecting albums. A question that has now been answered. Free from a record label after their six album deal with EMI had come to an end, one of the most revered bands of the last 20 years have taken the twin giant leaps into self-distribution and inviting downloaders to decide how much to pay for their new album (In Rainbows).

Thousands of buskers today make a living from an upturned hat, which - tho no DRM system can ever force people into filling, often they do.

Trust - it's a model that has supported musicians perhaps longer than any other system, and hundreds of thousands of buskers and touring musicians today make a living from an upturned hat, which - tho no DRM system can ever force people into filling - somehow they do. Magnatunes has already been using the 'pick your own price' system for a while, and despite having a minimum cost of £5 (unlike In Rainbows where there will be no lower limit), sees an average payment of around £8 (Magnatunes also have great licenses for filmmakers wanting to only pay for music rights *after* the film starts making money).

We've seen the publishing industry shift from a paid-for model for newspapers and magazines to free ad-supported distribution in less than a decade. The New York Times was set to make millions this year from pay-per-view articles, the management eventually decided it would make more from advertising in the long run and made everything free. Rumours abound that ft.com and WSJ.com are set to follow suit.

With Amazon now opening a 2 million song DRM-free store, making it easier than ever to pirate (if you are so inclined), the tide for music too seems to be shifting towards a more open trust-based situation. Inherently - as with life - the trust approach has a lot going for it, viewing people as decent until proven otherwise, and it is sufficient to support church collections, eBay and plenty more. 

Supercomputer HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey would be upgraded to Windows Vista and instantly cheer up.

But film is that much more expensive than music or writing to produce, and it'd be foolish not to consider what if trust doesn't work? If so, and unless we are to adjust to watching only microbudget productions and demand that film professionals work for free, then we are presented with the nightmare scenario Orange has been taking great pains to illustrate over the past decade with its Film Funding Board cinema ads - the advertiser as film funder and script developer. In some ways its only a small step away from current practices where Spiderman is filled with Sony technology, or films eligible for British tax breaks have to have sufficient 'British elements'. But it would spell the end of big budget art films. Supercomputer HAL in 2001 would be upgraded to Windows Vista and instantly cheer up.

Written by Danah Boyd | 28 June 2007 | in media and representation

Danah Boyd, currently in the news over her blog-essay theory that Facebook vs MySpace represents a social divide, gave an insightful talk at Cannes 60 about the future of film consumption and the changing habits of young people's relationship to media. Thanks to OffBrand's Neil Maguire for the headsup - copied below. Danah's area of expertise is not so much film or technologoy as online social networks, and in between identifying the hits and misses from the film world's attempts to co-opt young people to market their films, she points out how while independent music is embraced by teenagers, indie film is not. Fair point and certiainly worth mulling over. Her arguments against DRM, in particular, present another reason why the current furore over the DRM on the new BBC iPlayer (finally set to launch on Windows on July 27) is worth considering. People don't want to put a full feature or even an entire Simpsons episode on their MySpace page - they want to stick that 10 second clip of Homer talking with his brain which makes them crack up like no-one else they've met in the offline world...

"By and large, we treat the Internet as another broadcast medium where you push content at people. In other words, we're still aiming to localize rather than to co-opt. A better way of conceiving it is as a public space where people want to pull content in to personalize it, identify with it, and share it. It is no secret that we're not yet sure how to monetize this practice, but efforts to stop it are like trying to build gigantic walls after planes were invented.

The audience of tomorrow is online. They're consuming video; they want to be consuming film. There's unbelievable room for innovation and creativity in this space. The technology is not stable and it never will be stable. Successful filmmakers will need to pay attention to the dynamics and optimize their strategies accordingly. We all know that agility in the presence of challenges results in good art.

1) Youth are online to hang out with friends... they use media to jockey for status and socialize with their peers.
2) Youth do not and will not consume media whole in a passive way.. the more they are able, the deeper they will engage. This means remix, chopping it and sharing it.
3) Building walls to stop deep engagement scares off fans and never actually closes the loophole.
4) It is time for the film industry to innovate rather than trying to control. Many new opportunities lie ahead."