Video Mashups: Please Rolling stones don’t sue us

Rob Maigret Principle/Co-Founder, DigiSynd (Revver)
David Dudas CTO, Eyespot
Franklin Lopez Media Saboteur, subMedia
Colette Vogele Founder, Vogele & Associates
Aaron Valdez , Wreck and Salvage

Went thru the different styles of mashup

Revver takes stance of protecting the owner of the content

Natural Born killers

How can we take on the responsibility?
- Viacom’s suing Google/Youtube announced today
- embrace mashups and help facilitate deeper consumption – searching, ecommerce
- the people who are making the mashups have a very close relationship with the artist and could get permission
- the political mashups are protected under free speech

do tos override copyright
- you can contract around copyright, they do have the ability to switch ownership

- works the other way – if some of the mashup-ers stuff is taken, they have to become comfortable with that openness

Creative commons
- Valdez only does cc with own stuff he shoots
- Lopez does only political and doesn’t really copyright anything, interested in learning more tho

question came up regarding how does a mashup artist track (analytics)
- analytics come into play when money is involved
- Once you throw money in the mix, everything changes

is this going to develop into something or just be little fun viral things

eyespot competitors junkcut, motion box,

there are ways to pay for songs
- magna tune
- getti

question/comment about lionsgate telling this guy no when he asked if he could do fan fiction
- he is goign to do it anyway and panel agreed would be a give him a great career in conf circuit
- was told to talk to stanford law area if they do sue

US perpsective
- different laws in AUS and Europe

Will Wright

Sim City and Sims Creator

hobby – Stupid Fun Club

few thoughts on story telling…

“i hate stories”

sees the world as a simulation

truman show and groundhog day 2 great gaming movies
- truman trying to escape the game
- groundhog exploring the world infinite times

people love creating content and sharing
- if we give them better tools, the output will be better

he quickly showed COOL graphs that chart the data of social relationships and choices players made in aggregate on the sims (NEAT!)

use other player choices to help you figure out what similar players would like

i can’t wait for spore

character builders – tried to make a maya for kid levels

will be able to access items made by other players – props, character

Henry Jenkins and Danah Boyd

Cross conversion culture in pop culture
Essay a day on his blog – henryjenkins.org

how did you first become a fan and what does it mean to you?
- fell in love with another fan and discovered how different male and female fan interact
- backstory versus psychology
- in grad school discovered fans were not seen in esteem by academics
- fans used to be marginal (rogue readers he calls it)
- web 2.0 = fandom without the stigma
- collective intelligence – when the online community watches together
- demanding more complex content
- schools getting easier, media getting smarter/complex
- everything bad

media producers and how they deal with rise of fan
- have to get over control
- recognize the opportunities for growth
- moving from fans depreciate to appreciate
- firefly audience – was billed for copyright, they billed them for marketing budget
- collaborate with audience and vangaurd them
- embracing audience as unpaid fervent labor
- participatory culture is being threatened by corporate control
- bullying and overassertion of authority
- noone is standing up for the fan

social workers in sites
- mentors, work with kids
- help educate kids
- anonymous, no data stored
- harnessed the brand evangelism
- open up, reduce the parameters of creativity

57% kids content producers – empowered with tools, but not protected
43% kids who don’t have access – participatory gap
- DOPA would give more restrictions to those 43%
- Foley was huge proponent, Stevens (pipes) too
- all signs show it as passing, even if
- are the kids more safe if they are taught by teachers and librarians media literacy or if they are locked out
- restriction is not the answer, education and assistance is the answer
- Culture War attitude

Connecticut bill – need parental permission for any social contact under 18
- what role do parents have
- fear sells
- govt thinks kids should be muzzled

MacArthur – 50 million how kids learn using tech in/out of school
- publicizing through blog
- call attention to the mechanisms of fear
- bipartisan fights are silly, participation is a right – even for kids

role that tech can and should play in civil politics – where is it going
- language of politics is not eternal, changes and evolves each time
- particpatory culture gives young people a new language
- just how american idol helped us rethink music, politics can be mashed up
- may not be pretty
- ethics of our uses of cut out culture
- with great power comes great responsibility
- myspace, wow used as platforms
- need to figure out our ethics and norms of our culture so that we can benefit from this

wikipedia
- knowledge as product or process
- aside from it being done at all, it’s impressive how good it is
- use it and check it – study the collective intelligence
- ethics of the community keep the info in check
- one of the few spaces where a compromised view of history needed to happen, as opposed to trad history books with national slants on diff periods – is MORE true because of it, more critical thought had to go into it
- figure out how to engage in wikipedia practice or critical

truth versus faux – how do we work through those issues online
- lonelygirl15, unc breakup video
- historical examples with humbug , pt barnum’s mermaid, etc – decide for your self if it’s real
- non-contextual learning – grassroots media literacy (program for teachers/educators – MacArthur)
- teach dicernment , gathering evidence, etc

MMORPGs and Immersive systems (Second Life)
- second life is a new center of participatory culture
- comparable to mideval carnivale
- identity playing was done once a year as opportunity to make change (boston tea party, dressed as indians)
- instead of ritually, do it every day
- globalkids uses second life
- brigadoon- Mediation enabled place where kids can learn how to deal with each other
- Virtual Masadonia or Palestine places to play out/experimenting with social relations and bring back to offline

question about how do we attack politics of fear, is it getting big spenders (companies, hollywood?)
- how do we create low budget politics that has big budget returns
- can’t be granola or bitch slap, has to be smart and witty
- steven duncan – dreams – new book

siesteen chapel is mashup of bible
shakepeare is fan fic of other contemporaries
lol was used by teen agers in the 50′s

any links to second life (or other immersive environments) and alleviating depression?
- collective joy – book

environment issues
- oscars going green, inconvenient truth
- internet is opening up awareness
- son asked for trip to australia b/c of survivor
- very offline trip inspired by online awareness
- all had different theme songs from the show that inspired the trip
- tele-tourist as first step, then you become an eco-tourist

Determining a language to communicate across varying things to get points
- you dont know my aunt, but you know my fav characters, we can bond thru that

we need the big corps to supply the forums for these ways of communicating
- but they need us to push forward

Getting Girl into Games

there is no single definition for a female gamer
- respect the demographic, not all girls like the same games

women are less resistant to micro transactions

what constitutes good market research
- some research for girls and it
- girls prefer a story
- not as big on competition
- like to be directed – rather than just set in there to explore

games are art, not entire project should come out of market research
- use focus groups for more pr, etc
- research has been used logistically in order to get projects greenlit (situational ethics)
- should be used as another ind of conversation with your gamer for changes,etc
- shouldn’t be used to determine the games to make
- shouldn’t be used as a roadmap
- shirking violet – can’t show girls violence theory
- they don’t like violence for violence sake, it’s just boring to them

question regarding is there a fundamental aspect of gaming that appeals to women
- no, just as not one for japanese
- it’s a market, not a genre
- barbie opened up the market, but it’s just one genre
- doom and halo are good games, not because their fist person shooter

halo is genre busting
- third person perspective
- fairly simple to learn to play
- storyline is basic but good
- cooperative play aspect

how can we take into account female in game design
- make the interface design big
- women have less patience with bad ui due to multi-task
- make multiple game play choices
- consistency and saving is important, less about preening and boasting, but rather progress and differentiation
- need to not stereotype
- RPGrs are paperdolls – dressing up your characters
- taking down the barriers
- tutorials – males are exploratory learners, females modeling or imitative learning
- don’t stick a nickel in the baby and shake to see how it works”
- its not about making game about kitties or guns
- think of it as a way to invite more people into your audience – girls, casual gamers, etc
- Need to keep hiring females
- pushing the fact that adding gamer to your identity is ok
- avoid any sense that you are being talked down to
- avoid behind the veil, special areas females are very sensitive to that

the market needs to explore girl gamers because the market needs to expand
- Nintendo Wii is a great solution to bridging the gap
- need to get the casual gamers, etc now to expand the market, not just the hard core games
- mobile market is an opportunity as well

how has mobile changed the market
- more access, not just targeted at one demo
- women love the smaller game format – phone, handheld, etc
- even when gba players were 40% of market, no female skus made it into stores
- downloading helps as it removes the misogyny from middle man (salesperson)

question about girls choosing male avatars
- women char are usually over-sexualized, but trend is that usually females play female characters
- but the fact that sometimes there is not a girl characters to choose from

question about how to inspire team of all men to work on girl project
- make sure males do not treat the assignment as a low echelon assignment
- if they give you crap work, don’t keep them on
- get them in focus groups and have them watch the kids play games
- have them find a personal connection (daughter, sister, etc)
- make them respect the gamer

question- thoughts on frag dolls
- dangerous territory – the way that men raise the profile of women in games to make them sexy
- pms clan – huge network, not put together as a marketing

question of can’t we just let the larger cultural trend of girls being more involved in trad male areas (sports, engineering)
- yes and no – still not able to sell female titles, stlll need for push
- the word “casual” is pejorative – gateway drug, play until you get to the “real” game

get your demos up
make sure the marketing takes into account women too

I stood and watched these kids pick up the Nintendo Wii controller and immediately start playing like they have been using the new controller for a month. All had never used one previousy. I love the gal jumping up in down in excitement when each volley is over and the crowd cheers. Regardless of whether she won or not, she was happy and in the zone of the game. The boy on the end in red was very good.

Had a side conversation about how great Wii is for, among other things, making a whole console system that really engages not only the users playing, but also the spectators.  DDR did a good jobof this as a single game, but the Wii console is a wholesystem built around that idea. 

Now i just have to find one…