Benefit for the Living Dead

clipped from nldfilm.com I posted a small, very low-resolution demo of my 72-minute re-edit, called the “Night of the Living Dead Survivor’s Cut” on Archive.org. Within a day I had 50 downloads, then 100, then it was 100 per day. I figured at this point, why not go for the gold, so I asked for the opinion of someone that had experience with re-imagining the film. I contacted Tom Savini via email. He just happened to be connected with writer Dave Dreher, who was writing for Creature Corner. Dave wrote an article…and boom! From there the Internet publicity went global – respected sites like Diabolical Dominion critically acclaimed the Survivor’s Cut. After just a few weeks I was seeing articles being written by International sites like Oh My Gore and Zombis among others!) �

The Net Generation is redefining intellectual property

clipped from www.wikinomics.com If Hollywood had its way, it would be all too easy to extinguish potentially lucrative sources of user-driven innovation and creativity on the flawed assumption that any form of creative “remixing” of intellectual property is tantamount to piracy. Instead Hollywood should look at the N-Gen’s proclivity to hack and remix digital products as a business opportunity. For example, why not create or encourage the growth of online communities where participants pay a fee to get access to powerful new editing tools along with the raw materials (including the latest music and movies) to fashion their own media creations? Issues surrounding intellectual property will be pivotal in the coming years as N-Geners move into positions of authority in government, business, and the community. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and you can be sure that folks at New Paradigm will be watching closely.

The Force will be with you… because you control it

clipped from www.wikinomics.com As YouTube gets hit with yet another lawsuit, it’s becoming�increasingly clear that the fate of content creation and distribution on the web will be bogged down by legal wrangling for years. However, at the same time there are a lot of interesting innovations happening that demonstrate how companies and content creators can effectively leverage the Web 2.0, rather than trying to fight it. The most�recent of these is Lucas Films and Eyespot.com teaming up to allow users to create their own Star Wars movie. Rather than trying to prevent fans from�creating and sharing videos related to the popular movie series, users are being given over 250 scenes/ musical selections to mix and match, and they are also free to use their home made material as well. To quote the press release directly:

Copyright Doesn’t Cover This Site

clipped from www.wired.com To prove that open sourcing any and all information can help students swim instead of sink, the University of Maine’s Still Water new media lab has produced the Pool, a collaborative online environment for creating and sharing images, music, videos, programming code and texts. “We are training revolutionaries — not by indoctrinating them with dogma but by exposing them to a process in which sharing culture rather than hoarding it is the norm,” said Joline Blais, a professor of new media at the University of Maine and Still Water co-director. “It’s all about imagining a society where sharing is productive rather than destructive, where cooperation becomes more powerful than competition,” Blais said.

The Song Doesn’t Remain the Same

clipped from www.wired.com Budding musicians who want to make an impression online don’t need to download fancy software, set up a website or scour MySpace for potential friends. In fact, they often don’t even need to know how to play a single note. Community sites like Jamglue, Splice and SingShot are combining social networking with innovative tools that let users create, share and remix each other’s songs inside a web browser. Interactive software like Flash and Ajax are fueling an explosion of online services that give the web’s artistic amateurs a stage on which to display their talents.