A Swarm Of Angels:Open Business Meets Filmaking
[via smartmobs.com].
A Swarm of Angels is about making a £1 million movie and giving it away to one million people in one year. By using the Internet to gather together 50,000 people willing to pay £25 to join an exclusive global online community–The Swarm–the project’s ambition is to make the world’s first Internet-funded, crewed and distributed feature film.
How?:
FUND / FILM / FLOW
1. Fund the project. Call for collaborators. Publicize and create marketing materials. Gather the first 1000 members. Develop the project and infrastructure. Start script development. Open the project up to more members.
2. Film. Collaborate. Develop scripts using a ‘wiki’. Crew through The Swarm. Funding drive for pre-production/production/post-production. Create marketing and final materials.
3. Flow. Master materials. Create spin-off materials. Publicize. Burn. Upload. Seed. Download. View. Remix. Share.
Why?:
I think people would rather pay £25 or so to be part of an entertainment experience for over a year. Especially one based around the creation of an inspirational, cult project. A Swarm of Angels has the opportunity to make a mark on film and Internet history.
In purely material terms, the social and networking benefits of The Swarm should be value for money enough. If you add to this the access to to the filmmaking editorial process, the planned Collectors Edition DVD and other Swarm-only merchandise, it becomes a steal.
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38 Responses to “A Swarm Of Angels:Open Business Meets Filmaking”
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Release the materials under a copyleft license and I am in. Something like CC BY-SA would be good enough for me for the first film.
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/111123
Here is the exact CC license they are planning on releasing the movie under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Guys. Thanks for the heads up.
We’re trying to be as open and flexible with the license as possible, but retaining some restrictions so we can use our discretion in some instances.
We have a discussion thread at our members forum (The Nine Orders) about this:
http://www.aswarmofangels.com/thenineorders/index.php?showtopic=120
The BY-NC-SA 2.5 license is generally correct. But the film and assets will also be classed under Sampling Plus so parts can be used for commercial use.
We want to ringfence certain commercial uses so we have the option of licensing to broadcast and other distribution entities without it being a free-for-all.
Many thanks, Matt
[...] We are currently getting a new wave of visitors from Smartmobs, Open Business, and related blogs in the social business and collective action blogosphere. [...]
Wow Sam, thanks for posting that! I’ve been working on something pretty close (www.extinctionlevelevent.com), now I know I am not crazy. I’ve made a blog entry about it and will incorporate a few of their ideas (Swarm of Dragons, anyone?). I agree with them about the fund raising, the way DailyKos raises money I think maybe Swarm of Angels is shooting too low. For their next project they should shoot straight for the big blockbusters and send the MPAA (and/or the Brit equivalent) a real message.
Here is the exact CC license they are planning on releasing the movie under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Well then,
they can count me out. I am not paying for the creation of NC content.
Thanks for the info.
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/258456
In November 2006, wacth a novel being written in 30 days.
It will carry a CC BY-SA license.
Commercial use can also be made from parts of the film’s media under an additional Sampling Plus license.
I agree with the Non-commercial license (augmented with Sampling Plus).
I’m probably the first person (maybe the only person?) to get a comic publisehd under a copyleft license (I used the Open Content license, this was before Creative Commons came along). It gave me no leverage whatsoever over the publisher. They took the low-rez images off the web and published those instead of paying for the hi-rez pics. I never made a dime from them, could never find out exactly how many copies of my work were sold or printed, and the work that went out was low quality with text that was sometimes completely unreadable. And it was depressing knowing I was producing work that a for-profit company was going to take and make money off of (if they made a profit, the American comic industry being what it is and all) and not give me anything but a lot of sugar coated promises.
IF people had been interested in participating and expanding the universe, things might have ended different, but the reality is, very few people have the skill to do so and those that do usually have their own ideas to work on. Ideally, sure, it would be great to allow commercial usage, but in practice it’s not worth trading the leverage it takes to finance/produce the work in the first place. Maybe that will change in the future as more people become aware of copyleft works and start using them, but there’s an intermediate step we need to take before we can get there and NC is right for where we are right now.
“Maybe that will change in the future as more people become aware of copyleft works and start using them, but there’s an intermediate step we need to take before we can get there and NC is right for where we are right now.”
Well, I don’t buy that and I will not give my money to finance it and I will not give my time to promote it.
Hey, isn’t this an effort to raise the money for production up front?
Now, before anyone brings up putting my money where my mouth is:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=47354
that is a link to the daily word production of a novel I wrote last year as a aprt of NaNoWriMo 2005. It is under a BY-SA license.
Here is a link to the actual text daya by day:
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937
I am planning on doing it again this year but with a twist:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=33654&forum=157&post_id=528358#forumpost528358
NC is no good for “community” projects. There are other ideas to experiment with in terms of the leverage you speak of though. Anyone want to discuss them?
Now, perhaps split all profits with “investors” and put a timed release from BY-NC-SA to BY-SA when expenses are recouped double or X years, which ever comes first. (Whre X is 2 to 5 years say.) Thoughts?
all the best,
drew
Drew
You should read the considered views at The Nine Orders http://www.aswarmofangels.com/thenineorders/
You obviously have a different agenda. Good luck with it.
But what we’re doing with A Swarm of Angels is far from evil. In fact we are looking at creating a viable business model rather than a utopian idyll, which has the potential to be much more self-sustaining and rewarding for members than the simple investor model you mention (you bring that into it and it becomes all about a ‘return on investment’ rather than a ‘return on entertainment/art’ which is the alternative the Swarm is building – not to mention the regulatory/financial headaches of such).
I’ve already mentioned any profit from A Swarm of Angels will feed into additional materials and benefits for members, and other possible worthy causes. I’m currently readying a Swarm polling day about some of these issues, and one such poll will look at how Angels want to disperse any excess revenue created by having the NC license.
So I’m not going to go into what I consider the ‘investor’ cul-de-sac of an alternate model with you (too much other stuff to do!). But, I hope you can offer us the same amount of goodwill as I’ve mentioned to your venture.
-matt
Couldn’t help actually say I quite like this suggestion, though.
It would be great if you could write more on OB about the progress of the project, because I think its a great example of new and mor “open” approaches to finance projects…..
Drew – I can possibly see the timed release idea working. It upsets me to think a work produced this way might, in a short period of time, enter the portfolio of Warner Brothers or Disney. I think they are morally disgusting (Sonny Bono copyright extension, etc, etc.) if not outright criminal (Path to 9/11). And then you’ve got fly-by-night guys who will crap out a shoddy product in order to make a quick buck. I want them all locked out. I don’t want the reputation of my project damaged either by guys selling low quality copies, or by association with war criminal promoters like Disney.
There’s no reason why a project has to have just the one license. It can have a layered system of licenses (which I think is what Matt is trying to accomplish). If you don’t want to have any involvement with the project, you get NC rights. If you want commercial rights, ask. I’d be perfectly fine with putting the question to the community. Some people will say, sure, go for it. Others might want part of those profits returned or reinvested in the community. Why not let them have a say, instead of deciding it for them?
I admire your position though, let’s keep talking about it.
Since you’re not against other people using the work for a profit, I assume you’re not against the creators making a profit?
“You obviously have a different agenda. Good luck with it.”
Thanks.
“But what we’re doing with A Swarm of Angels is far from evil.”
I don’t think I said anything about evil.
“In fact we are looking at creating a viable business model rather than a utopian idyll…”
I think you misconstrued (misunderstood?) my ideas as being centered around an investor model.
“I’ve already mentioned any profit from A Swarm of Angels will feed into additional materials and benefits for members, and other possible worthy causes.”
Fine. And how is the project organized legally? And why should anyone trust those who came up with the idea? (This is not a personal attack as I don’t know any of them.)
“So I’m not going to go into what I consider the ‘investor’ cul-de-sac of an alternate model with you (too much other stuff to do!).”
Again, I think you misunderstood me. My point was that if people are funding up front, why not produce a Free work as opposed to a non-Free work?
“But, I hope you can offer us the same amount of goodwill as I’ve mentioned to your venture.”
I don’t hold any particular ill will, but I think using the NC in supposedly community type projects is a serious mistake and may hurt the prospects of the Free works in the short term. That being the case, I can’t wholeheartedly wish the project hugh success. Now, if the timed release was a part of the picture, things might be different.
all the best,
drew
“It upsets me to think a work produced this way might, in a short period of time, enter the portfolio of Warner Brothers or Disney.”
It is precisely these concerns which leads me not to want to support projects with NC licenses. What is to stop one of these big guys from buying out the rights to such a project? And if they get their hands on it, the license will mean that only they can make money from it. With BY-SA, anyone could still make money on it even if they got their hands on the copyrights.
“And then you’ve got fly-by-night guys who will crap out a shoddy product in order to make a quick buck. I want them all locked out.”
If you with a good product can’t out do the shoddy guys…
“If you want commercial rights, ask. I’d be perfectly fine with putting the question to the community.”
What community? Is everyone in the community on equal footing with respect to this project? Or are some in charge and some only fund it?
“Some people will say, sure, go for it. Others might want part of those profits returned or reinvested in the community. Why not let them have a say, instead of deciding it for them?”
This options would still be available were the project to use a BY-SA license. There may be those who want to make derivatives that are not under a BY-SA license and would pay for the right to do so.
“I admire your position though, let’s keep talking about it.”
Thanks, and I am very happy to keep talking about it.
“Since you’re not against other people using the work for a profit, I assume you’re not against the creators making a profit?”
I am definately not against the creators making a profit. I hope to make profits on my stuff. I wrote another nanowrimo novel in 2004 and raised funding / support for that effort, so I have already made profits on these sorts of things and I am looking to raise support again this year. I am thinking on a per word support plan. (The reason my first novel is not available online yet is that I made the mistake of quoting lines from songs of the era it is set in and have to figure out the copyright issues or pull the quotes. It is in the process of being edited at the moment and I have also just re-read the whole thing recently.Right now though, it is taking a back seat to the nano 2006 planning process.)
Drop by ##zotz on irc.freenode.net with an irc client to watch me write it in November or to chat before then.
all the best,
drew
[...] I’m going to change the goal of the project, initially, from creating a live action movie, to creating an Advent Children style 3D anime. I’m going to follow the example of Elephant’s Dream and A Swarm of Angels and make the art available under a copyleft license. Probably (99.999%) the one A Swarm of Angels is using, though there is some discussion on OpenBusiness.cc about whether A Swarm of Angels is Open enough. I won’t go any more Closed than what they are doing, only more Open. [...]
I’ve just announced the first fund raising test for my project –
http://www.extinctionlevelevent.com/wordpress_ele/?p=22
I’m not 100% comfortable with the “gated community” idea A Swarm of Angels is using, so I’m going to try to keep it open and use a donation system. Please check it out and take part if the project interests you.
Drew –
“It is precisely these concerns which leads me not to want to support projects with NC licenses. What is to stop one of these big guys from buying out the rights to such a project?”
Reputation and Global Humiliation. We know who Matt Hanson is. If he screws us over, he’ll never do this kind of work over the internet again. He’ll be damaged goods, maybe the studios won’t want to touch him. Whatever he does, there will be somebody on Ain’t It Cool News to tell the world about what he did to A Swarm of Angels.
I’m feeling your concern on that one though. I feel confident that Matt is gong to stay on the right track (and Matt, I will be joining as soon I can get fund transferred into my PayPal account), but what if a meteorite crashes into his head tomorrow and whichever one of his relatives gets the project wants to sell it? What if he gets sued and a court seizes A Swarm of Angels as an asset? Maybe he gets divorced (if he’s married) and his wife takes it.
You’ve made a good point which I’m going to have to think on.
And if they get their hands on it, the license will mean that only they can make money from it. With BY-SA, anyone could still make money on it even if they got their hands on the copyrights.”
“but what if a meteorite crashes into his head tomorrow and whichever one of his relatives gets the project wants to sell it? What if he gets sued and a court seizes A Swarm of Angels as an asset? Maybe he gets divorced (if he’s married) and his wife takes it.”
Bingo… First we have to trust him (generic him) but once we do, that is not the end of it. So, how is it set up to handle these issues?
Even so though:
“Reputation and Global Humiliation. We know who Matt Hanson is. If he screws us over, he’ll never do this kind of work over the internet again. He’ll be damaged goods”
I think you seriously “misunderestimate” the greed is good crowd.
My guess is that a person pulling a scam like this would not lack dinner party invitations where he can schmooze with other wealthy “smart dealers” and joke about how gullible so many are. (Again, this is no indication as to how I feel about anyone in particular involved with this project or the project itself.)
Again, if enough people are willing to consider it well spent “entertainment” money to fund a movie like this (or other artistic project for that matter) why not make a Free work? Why not be a part of building a pool of copyleft works that any creative person can use to build upon to make more Free works? The people making it can be paid an honest pay fo rheir efforts. Why the need to reserve the exclusive rights to profit? That is my honest take. That is what I am personally working towards.
all the best,
drew
http://www.archive.org/details/Tings__Anuddah_Bahamian_Novel_raw_and_unedited
That is an alternate link to my CC BY-SA novel “Tings” as the ourmedia site seems to be down for a while now.
I don’t see the “greed is good” people pulling the kind of stunt you describe. Besides, it’s going to reflect on Cory Doctorow and Warren Ellis, and I don’t see how there’s anything in it for them to back a fraud. You can probably look at me and say it with more justification, I’m not backed by anyone big, and pretty much the only thing I have to show for myself is the art skill I’ve developed. I don’t see any reason to doubt Matt is who he is or is going to do what he says he’s going to do.
I’m going to sign up, and I’m generally comfortable with the licensing scheme Matt’s come up with. The only thing I would like to see is an arrangement made to continue the project under the current license if anything should happen to Matt, and a commitment to not sell out to a for-profit studio.
“I don’t see the “greed is good” people pulling the kind of stunt you describe. Besides, it’s going to reflect on Cory Doctorow and Warren Ellis, and I don’t see how there’s anything in it for them to back a fraud.”
Hey, just so I am not misunderstood, I am not saying that any of the possibilities I bring up are likely to occur in this particular case. I am pointing out possibilities that go with the choice of license. I am also pointing out that, absent a large profit motive and only looking to fund expenses and pay those involved, the NC options is perhaps not needed and a BY-SA would dod just as well.
The big thing for me is that I am into promoting Free (think GPL and BSD for a quick take) works of art/culture and especially copyleft type ones. This is where I want to put my efforts, time, promotional efforts and the like.
That is why I brought up possibilities of the work transitioning to a non-NC version in some reasonably short time frame.
all the best,
drew
matthanson,
I have been looking at your faq and thinking about the project some more.
From the faq:
“05. Why are you giving the film away?
I’m not alone in believing you can’t control media these days. You need to go with it, rather than fight it. We’re part of the remix generation, with the DIY digital tools to make our own digital media, whether that’s film, music, or whatever.
I think building a feature film from the ground up to be ready for remixing, easy to view, ready to share, and perfect for download, is the way to go. This is the way to invent the future of film…
So as much of the project as possible will be licensed under the more flexible ideas of copyright embodied by the Creative Commons licenses.”
and
“Activists/Copyfighters – A Swarm of Angels is intended to be a showcase project for Creative Commons licensing. The project is developed from the ground up to offer best practice and be a case study in how a large-scale media work can be licensed, and made remixable and shareable by a global audience.”
It is in these two areas where I think you are making a mistake or possibly not being straight with the people you hope to attract to the project. (Let’s assume the former for the sake of what follows.)
What sort of a remix culture do you envision where only those in the seats of power can make a living from their work in remixing culture but hte rest are relegated to a non-commercial ghetto? BY or BY-SA are the only reasonable licenses that CC has for those who really want a remix culture future. The other options are attractive deceptions when it comes to a remix culture and community projects.
If you really can’t control media nd need to go with it, why not really do so?
In this regard, who is to hold the copyrights with respect to this project.
Now to the second quote, I just don’t see how a license with the NC option can ever be considered best practice for a remix culture.
all the best,
drew
Drew,
I am actually glad that you brought it up. Because, people are likely going to start trying to emulate ASOA in different ways, and these people need to think about the dynamics of the licenses they choose. So, it is a good and worthwhile debate.
Personally, I think that it’s fine if someone wants to create a peer-produced work and use NC, as long as they are up-front with the community they attract about their intentions. That is the most important thing in my mind, that the people who initiate peer-produced projects do not screw over their community in any way.
I have to say, Drew, that I like your idea of people co-creating in a BY or BY SA CC social agreement/license. This could be a great basis for communities of media artisist to tray and make a living off of a shared media commons.
But, I also like the idea from ASOA in terms of giving media content consumers a new experience for their (roughly 25) bucks. Because, it will be increasingly difficult for digital media content creators to make money by directly selling works to other people. Especially if you are giving it away online. But, if there is some type of experience that people enjoy (such as co creating a movie in this case), this could give them some incentive to pay for the experience.
But, this brings us to your central point, Drew, which I believe is worth really thinking about for people who will try to create and sell these experiences. What are the short term and long term possible consequences of the license that is chosen by the project? I think that ASOA is going to very likely be a big success. I also wish you and Jeremy great success in your peer production endeavors. I think that this is a vital set of issues to consider for all of those peer funding or community funding efforts that are likely to come soon.
I’ve raised the issue on my forum. When I did the Open Content comic, nobody cared about the Open Content license. One guy who did donate said he would prefer a gated community so people who hadn’t put in wouldn’t benefit from what he’d put in.
My guess is more people will come in who feel that way than who object to the NC clause in the license. And even more will come in who don’t care about the license issues one way or the other but like the project.
I’ll listen to what the community says as the situation develops.
“I’ve raised the issue on my forum. When I did the Open Content comic, nobody cared about the Open Content license. One guy who did donate said he would prefer a gated community so people who hadn’t put in wouldn’t benefit from what he’d put in.”
This is not too surprising, but I ended up here from the Free Software world. And shareware is not where it is at. And crippleware is not where is is at. And usage restrictions is not where it is at. And there is no popular license that I know of with an NC option and certainly one with an NC option would not be considered Free Software.
Like I say often in many forums, it is early days yet for Free Content / Culture / Art, etc. Those who thing it has a future, need to get to it and produce some, fund the production of some, promote some, and yes even sell some and make a profit on some.
Now, I would not expect those who don’t believe that a Free future will be beneficial to be as concerned with these matters and issues.
Mind you, sampling plus is not terrible but where would the Free Software world be if they insisted in something like GPL-NC and sampling plus? Not as far along as it is I think.
all the best,
drew
You’re painting an overly pretty picture of Free Software. It usually catches up to closed source software, but there are few areas where it’s in the lead, and plenty where it lags behind by years. And that’s software, which is much better suited to the Open idea than media is. Media is an entirely different beast. There aren’t the same kind of obvious voids to be filled in media as there are in software, to draw us together on projects. Software guys can say, alright, I want to surf the web but Internet Explorer sucks – let’s work together to make our own browser. They can all agree on the need for a browser. Media is more personal – we all have our own stories and would rather work on them than the next guy’s stories. The Open way of doing things is less useful because the next guy would rather work on his own stuff than on mine. That was my experience with the Open Content comic – there were a couple people who thought they’d give it a try, but it’s really hard work, and they didn’t produce anything. The people who were making progress with their talent were off producing their own work.
“You’re painting an overly pretty picture of Free Software.”
I don’t see how. Did I make any comparisons of Free to non-Free Software? I think I just said that Free Software was way ahead of Free Culture or whatever we want to call it.
I don’t worry about it being in the lead or behind. It does mostly what I want and way more besides. I certainly have more things to do on the computer using Free Software than I have time to do them in. And the situation is improving all the time. (With respect to things to do, not to having more hours in the day.)
“There aren’t the same kind of obvious voids to be filled in media as there are in software.”
Perhaps not obvious, but the voids are there.
You want to make a copyleft movie. Where are the great songs to use in your soundtrack? You want to make a cpoyleft course on how to play an instrument. Again, where are all the songs to illustrate the things being taught? Really, when you go and buy a book on how to play X instrument, why do they not include the songs they refer to as part of the package? Why must you go out and hunt down obscure songs that may net even be available?
“Media is more personal – we all have our own stories and would rather work on them than the next guy’s stories.”
Perhaps that is becasue those who would naturally work on the stories of others don’t bother as they know it can’t go anywhere. That or do it solely for private enjoyment and it never sees the light of day. And not that I am into it, but isn’t fanfic quite a big thing?
“The Open way of doing things is less useful because the next guy would rather work on his own stuff than on mine.”
If that were truly the case, plain old copyright law would be more like sampling plus wouldn’t it? Didn’t the rap guys get in hot water for their sampling activities?
I have a novel I wrote for nanowrimo in 2004, I have not released it yet because I made the mistake of including short snippets from songs of the era it is set in.
And what of photographers wanting to make and sell photographs in public spaces where sculpturs are putting their sculptures? Free (I prefer to think Free rather than Open) is certainly not less useful in areas other than code in my mind. I think it is more that we haven’t really thoguht things through yet, or we haven’t been bitten yet, or we are comfortable with the old ways and don’t want to leave our comfort zone.
“That was my experience with the Open Content comic – there were a couple people who thought they’d give it a try, but it’s really hard work, and they didn’t produce anything. The people who were making progress with their talent were off producing their own work.”
Obviously, we do not need to try and discount each other’s experiacnes (or anyone else’s for that matter) but lone sample points are not going to settle this area one way or the other. I think things are not going to settle down for a long time to come and I see what I am doing as trying to provide a quantity of raw material for future people to play with and re-use. (Well, that is one angle, I have other more personal reasons for what I am doing as well.)
If you were to take my Free Software as sample points, you would not say Free Software has been very successful either.
http://zbcw.sourceforge.net/
http://nanoppix.sourceforge.net/
http://code.google.com/p/drsoundwall/
I still have hopes for some of them though. (However ill founded.)
It is still early days yet. We are still at the bottom, flat part of the curve.
One thing I do think though is that others need to be able to make money from spreading the word about our stuff. That is one of our secret weapons against the boys with big money. And when we put NC on our works, a lot of our advantage goes out the window.
all the best,
drew
“One thing I do think though is that others need to be able to make money from spreading the word about our stuff. That is one of our secret weapons against the boys with big money. And when we put NC on our works, a lot of our advantage goes out the window.”
I think you have a great idea here. this is going to be a ramble of sorts, so please bear with me:
I think, first and foremost, any project would need to clearly define the goals. What you as an individual, and as a collaborating group envision that you’d like to be doing, and the plausible alternative directions that it could go in? What do you as an individual, and the collaborating community envision as the satisfactory reciprocation, the satisfactory return on your investment of time/energy/resources/money? This exercise will help reveal the likely sustainable business models.
if your goal is to be a somewhat private enterprise that opens up some of your processes, and I guess I can lump A Swarm of Angels into this rough category, then the NC is basically telling your participating community that their reciprocated payback for their investment of time, money, and energy will be something other than being able to copy and resell the content that they help create. Perhaps their reciprocated payback is an experience that they enjoy? This model can work well for people who are satisfied with this return on their time/energy/money investment.
I would venture to guess that the NC model would probably not become the Universal model for co-created content, though. I think it would be most successful where the project leaders are people who are recognizeable, and who already have access to channels like blogs and websites and conventional broadcast media, where they can spread a “buzz” about their project. So, people who have some degree of celebrity and media “clout”. Although, anyone who can create a fired-up enthusiasm abot their project could attract a community who would be satisfied with the plausible community reciprocations and returns that NC makes possible.
But, as we see with Shirky’s “Power laws, Weblogs, and Inequality” http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html , more people are not going to be in the “hub” position to attract people who’ll participate like this, generally speaking. That doesn’t mean that Jeremy’s project won’t, for instance. Jeremy’s project could easily tap into these networks if it has the type of experience that would attract people to talk about, and generate hype around it. But, there are lots of other independent media projects that won’t reach people in the same way, and so likely won’t have an easy tiem using the same model that A Swarm of Angels is using.
So, this leaves us looking for other possible alternative sustainable individual/community models. drew has suggested that a possible collaborating community incentive might be for people to “make money spreading the word about our stuff”. Which is roughly the idea that we talked about in the Nollywood thread. I think that this is one component of an overall satisfactory community recirprocation. I think that also, there should be a general worthwhile/enriching experience, which has been the foundation of all successful open source and collaborative edeavors. Perhaps there can also be a pooling of money into a shared and co-managed fund. Check out what we are working on at:
http://barcamp.org/BarCampBank
http://www.communitywiki.org/en/CommunityWikiBank (an interlinks therof)
http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/PeerInvest
These are some different experimental money sharing and even for-profit models that might be useable, depending on what initiating individuals/community are willing to accept as being a satisfactory recirprocation for their time/energy/money. it’s important to negotiate this with your community, in my opinion, in an open and transparent way, when possible. Unless you are able to entice people with a preset system of conditions, as in the case of A Swarm of Angels, and perhaps other (comparatively) higher profile projects.
So, for drews idea, where there is no NC clause, we see that one incentive is the ability for people to re-sell the content. drew rightly points out that you can benefit by promotion when allowing people to sell your content. But, what if you also gave them some tools that made it easier for them to sell your content? What if you gave them a little referall widget to put on their blog, or in myspace, that lets them resell your content, and mark it up so that they take a percentage? What if you have a system where, if people voluntarily pay that wholesale payment back to you, they get a profit up front, but also may get a dividend from shares in your company or for-profit cooperative? What if you made contests, wherein people could win prizes for the best remix of your content, or for the best promotional video for your content? What if you added bonus content when people buy your BY SA content? What if you sell subscriptions to the content, and figure out a good way to deliver it, so that even though your content is BY SA, as drew suggested earlier, it could be a timed BY SA,or even not timed, but just so popular that people are willing to pay for it as soon as it comes out, but they get it delivered automatically somehow?….
So,those are just some ideas off the top of my head. I think the important part is to map out:
What you as an individual, and as a collaborating group envision that you’d like to be doing, and the plausible alternative directions that it could go in? What do you as an individual, and the collaborating community envision as the satisfactory reciprocation, the satisfactory return on your investment of time/energy/resources/money?
Then, use this as a guide to structure your OpenBusiness model.
Eh, just when I get ready to join A Swarm of Angels, their forum goes down –
“Did I make any comparisons of Free to non-Free Software?”
Crippleware is a scheme often used to get people into a commercial software package, so what you wrote could be interpreted as saying free software is “where it’s at” even compared to commercial software.
“I don’t worry about it being in the lead or behind. It does mostly what I want and way more besides. I certainly have more things to do on the computer using Free Software than I have time to do them in. And the situation is improving all the time. (With respect to things to do, not to having more hours in the day.)”
It doesn’t do everything I need to do to be fully competitive with closed businesses using commercial software. I’ve spent several hours trying to find a simple plug-in for Blender that will put a glow around an object. I eventually found one that more or less works, with an older version of Blender but not the latest version, but it’s light years behind the RealLensFlare plugin 3DS MAX had 10 years ago.
There are areas where the artistic tools I need are very good, but there are so many areas where they’re shoddy to non-existant. To me this is not the ideal example to follow – a media work with gaping holes in it is not going to be competitive. To fill out those holes, people need to be paid to do work that is less than sexy.
hey Jeremy, in regards to your thread about the tools available for 3D art like what you are working on: I am only very vaguely familar with this type of software. But, I wonder how big production companies like Dreamworks are using Linux clusters to render their movies? Is this some kind of custom programming that takes proprietary software tool outputs and exports it to the clusters, or?
Found this: http://www.newsforge.com/os/02/04/24/1643238.shtml?tid=23
Also this http://www2.linuxjournal.com/article/4803
although these are 4-5 years old. But, for your project, Jeremy,if you were able to raise money to create a renderfarm, and were able to use open source tools, and you were able to create a business model with a satisfactory reciprocating incentive, I believe you’d be able to attract a lot of people.
“drew has suggested that a possible collaborating community incentive might be for people to “make money spreading the word about our stuff”.”
Just a point of clarification here. I see that people with no community thoughts in mind at all could be seen as working for me to promote my stuff when they try to sell it for thier own profit. Now if people with ideas to support Free Works do this, so much the better. If they choose to send something my way in thanks, even more joy.
Now, some thoughts on how I may be able to get in on the action, other than by selling my and others’ Free Works:
I could perhaps “brand” my works where the “brand” is not Free. (Sort of like what Redhat does or once did.) Take my brand out if you want to sell my stuff without giving me a cut. Could this work?
I could develop an “Approved Official Artist Supporter” badge and license it’s use, free of charge, to those who agree to give X (say X = 10) percent of their sales amount to the Free Artists whose works they sell. (For Free think BY and BY-SA or BSD and GPL, whichever set rings a bell. And I know there are others, these are for illustration only.) Could this work?
Other thoughts?
“What if you made contests, wherein people could win prizes for the best remix of your content, or for the best promotional video for your content?”
http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=949&forum=207&post_id=441928#forumpost441928
I really need to get moving on that contest. (ourmedia is having issues lately, if you don’t get through fro mthe link, try later.)
“What do you as an individual, and the collaborating community envision as the satisfactory reciprocation, the satisfactory return on your investment of time/energy/resources/money?”
Here is the thing, I figure I have already been “overpaid” by all the Free Software people in the world and I am trying to do my bit, both in the software and in the Art/Literature/Culture realm.
One of the beauties of dealing in the digital realm is that we get to magnify our production so. We can easily take and benefit from way more than we could ever hope to produce on our own.
One other thing to think about. One this “copyleft pool” of Free Works starts filling up, the ”
“cost of goods” on many of our projects can go way down. How much could you save when making a movies if all of the songs you needed for your soundtrack were available under a license where you did not have to pay?
all the best,
drew
“It doesn’t do everything I need to do to be fully competitive with closed businesses using commercial software.”
Obviously, you have to make the final call on that for you, but are you so sure of that. Is there no way to think outside the box and still succeed even though you lack such a plugin?
“I’ve spent several hours trying to find a simple plug-in for Blender that will put a glow around an object. I eventually found one that more or less works, with an older version of Blender but not the latest version, but it’s light years behind the RealLensFlare plugin 3DS MAX had 10 years ago.”
Now, although the often gratis part of Free Software can be nice, the important thing for me is the libre which is what the Free actually means in this context. If all the people who wanted such functionality would fund the production of a Free Plugin, I recon it would cost the group far less than they spend on getting the same functionality in a Non-Free context. Organization is the problem. Well that and inertia.
“To fill out those holes, people need to be paid to do work that is less than sexy.”
Sure, but why not pay them to write Free Software instead of Non-Free Software.
all the best,
drew
[...] OpenBusiness » Blog Archive » A Swarm Of Angels:Open Business Meets Filmaking [...]
related to some of what we’ve discussed here:
http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/nettwerk_pr.html
Sam –
“hey Jeremy, in regards to your thread about the tools available for 3D art like what you are working on: I am only very vaguely familar with this type of software. But, I wonder how big production companies like Dreamworks are using Linux clusters to render their movies? Is this some kind of custom programming that takes proprietary software tool outputs and exports it to the clusters, or?”
I wouldn’t be surprised. I only worked at one but they used a helluva lot of custom built in-house tools. They even had people from Alias there on a full time basis.
“although these are 4-5 years old. But, for your project, Jeremy,if you were able to raise money to create a renderfarm, and were able to use open source tools, and you were able to create a business model with a satisfactory reciprocating incentive, I believe you’d be able to attract a lot of people.”
Check me out right here yo -
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=78602
It’s already happening
Drew –
“Here is the thing, I figure I have already been “overpaid” by all the Free Software people in the world and I am trying to do my bit, both in the software and in the Art/Literature/Culture realm.”
I’ll agree with that, unfortunately I’ve been underpaid by the free food, shelter, and sex people, for my Open Content artwork.
“If all the people who wanted such functionality would fund the production of a Free Plugin, I recon it would cost the group far less than they spend on getting the same functionality in a Non-Free context. Organization is the problem. Well that and inertia.”
Part of my plan – I will gladly give a percentage of my profits to the Blender Foundation if they promote my project the way they promoted Project Orange.
[...] Por ejemplo, Open Business y Smart Mobs han publicado posts donde explican lo fundamental del proyecto para promocionar la participación de “ángeles” inversores: [...]
[...] O caso do “A Swarm of Angels” é ainda mais gritante, uma vez que se trata de uma iniciativa montada desde o início com intuitos comerciais, sendo inteiramente concebida graças à contribuição dos utilizadores. Ao não autorizar que todos os membros da comunidade tirem financeiramente partido da criação, está-se automaticamente a criar um fosso entre uns poucos privilegiados e a grande maioria, remetida a um guetto não-comercial. Ora, como se pode ler num dos comentários a um artigo do OpenBusiness sobre o filme, isso acaba por ser contraproducente para um projecto que pretende fomentar uma cultura da remistura. É claro que, no final, a decisão de ser mais uma ovelha no rebanho do “crowdsourcing” é sempre uma questão de ética pessoal… [...]