BigShinyThing

As part of its California Video exhibition, The Getty launched a website called Video Revolutionaries. This website invited the public to upload their own video art inspired by the works of the artists in California Video collection. In spite of this request for work influenced by many of the outrageous and transgressive artists in the show, the website also lists criteria that the public’s videos must abide by. A list of rules and regulations imposes traditional censorship upon the applicants. The site then also gives the public rules on how they can interact with the videos on the website.

The “Video Revolutionaries” website states that all video posts will be reviewed by the Getty and deemed acceptable before being posted to the Video Revolutionaries website. It further explicitly forbids sexually explicit material, certain kinds of violence, and the use of any sort of automated voting methods. So much for artistic freedom.

Now, there’s nothing like a little bit of censorship to provoke the online anarchists. Hence a collective known as The Infinity Lab took it upon themselves to produce a number of very silly videos for the site which they then pumped to the top of the ‘most viewed’ list. They pretty much own this section of the site now. Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters would be proud. Small act of subversion? Yes. But also a reminder (as if one were needed) that the Internet remains an anarchic space. And one which brands and institutions should still engage with carefully.
Getty’s site rather archaically doesn’t allow their video to be easily embedded elsewhere, so you’ll need to click here to view the currently-top-rated content.

Via Nettime.

See more at SCOTTO.

Via WOW.

We’ve said before that the corporations and content owners who will survive in the convergence age are the ones that set their content free to proliferate. Warner Music have today demonstrated that they utterly understand this. As Warner proudly exclaim on their press release:

Warner Music Group becomes the first media company to embrace power of user-generated content. YouTube to deliver innovative new architecture to help media companies harness the financial potential of user-generated content.

What Warner have done is hand over all their entire library of music videos as well as behind-the-scenes footage, artist interviews, original programming and other formerly proprietary content. In doing this Warner have given YouTube users creative carte blanche with both the footage and their music catalogue to remix, mess up and distribute as they please. WMG has thus become the first music company to exploit YouTube as a distribution channel — as the press release goes on to state:

More importantly, [Warner] becomes the first global media company to broadly embrace the power and creativity of user-generated content through a wide-ranging agreement with the category leader, enabling its artists to connect with a vast new audience in an entirely new way.

So far so thrilling. But how (I hear WPP, Viacom, Fox et al cry) does anyone — the artists, Warner, YouTube — plan to make money out of this? Here’s the science bit:

WMG will have the opportunity to authorize the use of its content by the YouTube community by taking advantage of YouTube’s advanced content identification and royalty reporting system, set for release by the end of the year. YouTube and WMG will share revenue from advertising both on WMG’s music videos and user uploaded videos that incorporate audio and audiovisual works from WMG’s catalogue. WMG’s music video library and special artist content will be made available simultaneously with the launch of YouTube’s content identification and royalty reporting system.

Some guy who runs the company, with a nice turn of phrase which we plan to nick, adds:

Technology is changing entertainment, and Warner Music is embracing that innovation. Consumer-empowering destinations like YouTube have created a two-way dialogue that will transform entertainment and media forever. As user-generated content becomes more prevalent, this kind of partnership will allow music fans to celebrate the music of their favourite artists, enable artists to reach consumers in new ways, and ensure that copyright holders and artists are fairly compensated.

We wish Microsoft and Viacom all the best in playing catch up.

enjoy