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French anti-piracy law delayed

Valerie | 24 Jul 2009, 16:04

A vote on the controversial French anti-piracy law has been postponed until September. The bill, known by its acronym Hadopi II, has undergone a number of amendments but has been delayed due to a lack of available time to examine the bill before the summer break. 

The bill has been substantially watered-down, largely as a result of opposition from the French Socialist Party, including a restriction to the sanctions that can be brought against offenders, and the removal of a ‘creative contribution’ which would have amounted to a surcharge of $2.80 (€2) for internet users, apparently intended to benefit artists.

While this does not impact on the eventual introduction of the law, the delay is another blow for a project that was first launched two years ago.

The French music industry has greeted the news with disappointment. In a statement, trade body SNEP, lamented that “once again, rights holders are hostages of some deputies’ political manoeuvres,“ and reiterated its call for clear “rules of the game.“

In a statement expressing its “great disappointment and genuine anger” on the vote deferment, SACEM the society for authors, composers and publishers, echoed SNEP’s frustration: “At the end of this process, it will be important to assess the scope of the text and engage an essential debate on the funding of music and remuneration for rights holders, authors, composers and publishers having fully suffered the consequences of this crisis without having benefited in the least from any measures of support, whether on a national or a European level.“

The law will take a three-step to illegal downloaders, who will receive an email in the first instance, followed by a letter and finally, if they continue to offend, their home internet connection will be cut for a period of up to a year.

Frederic Mitterrand, the county’s new Culture Minister, called in ministers not to allow pirates to “drag culture into the gutter”.

‘Crowd-sourced’ film brings animation to the masses

Valerie | 20 Jul 2009, 17:33

Still taken from the Live Music trailer

The power of community is, some argue, often grossly underestimated, with collaborative trends on the Internet from Web 2.0 to Wikipedia seen as merely social or informative in nature. 

However – a new project that engages amateur animators to contribute to the making of a five-minute animated film using the Wikipedia model – illustrates that community works on the Web are powerful ideas in action that transcend geographic boundaries and political restraints.

The brainchild of Hollywood veteran Yair Landau, the former Sony Pictures digital chief, Mass Animation, a web site that enlists animators from around the world contributing shots, and Facebook users voting on their favourites was launched late last year and has since morphed into ‘Live Music’, a completed short based on Romeo and Juliet that Sony Pictures Entertainment will be bringing to the multiplex masses in November.  More than 50,000 people from 101 countries signed up for the group experiment that is being billed as the largest global collaboration in animation.

As an earlier New York Times article explains, advances in technology and soaring box office receipts for family films has seen a broad range of new animation films entering the cinema, including Imagi Studios’ “Astro Boy” lined up for an October release,  “Up,” from Pixar, and “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” by 20th Century Fox.  In 2008, four of the top 10 movies at the US box office were computer-animated films; the marketplace is clearly hungry for more content, animated in particular, that is done in a faster, cheaper way.

Michael Lynton, chairman and chief executive of Sony’s entertainment division said:

“Social networks can operate like automated talent scouts, helping the cream rise more quickly to the top, and that’s what happened with ‘Live Music. While creativity has been pretty evenly distributed in society, it hasn’t always been easy to tap into.”

The project hasn’t been well received by everybody however –some professional animators are unhappy with the idea, denouncing Live Music as a “cheapskate” film using an “exploitative” method.

Speaking to the Guardian, Landau said the resulting short film is “a clearly less professional product than you would get from animators who have been in the industry for years. But it’s a start and an indication of what can be done.“

The finished film, which saw winning animators hailing from 17 countries including Kazakhstan and Colombia and featuring eleven female animators in the final line up – in what is a male-dominated industry – signals the possibilities that can come from democratizing the creative process: Facebook has since indicated that it would be keen to work with Mass Animation on more “ambitious ideas” in the future.

Full-HD Gaming: The market has reached the tipping point

Valerie | 17 Jul 2009, 20:22

The c&binet interview: Takeshi “Jumbo” Sato, Mitsubishi Electric

HD technology continues to be at the forefront of the battle in the gaming market as it becomes an increasingly essential part of the entertainment experience. Discussion at the recent Developer Conference in Brighton however illustrates that there is further to go to encourage take up of the format.

Takeshi Sato is one of the world’s leading experts on High Definition projectors. Since the launch of the XBox 360 in 2005, HD technology has been touted as a key differentiator for the latest generation of games consoles. But Sato San believes that demand for Full-HD gaming is only now entering the mainstream thanks to the rapidly falling prices of Full-HD display technology. But Full-HD alone won’t deliver true immersion – in gaming, he explains, size matters.

“It took time for the display systems manufacturers to catch up with the console manufacturers, who always have to price their products for the mass market. Even though games consoles offered HD gaming in 2005, it wasn’t until the following year when the technology became a mainstream proposition,” he says. “Top of the range Full-HD projectors and large size flat screens cost around 10,000 Euros at that time, where the main consumer for Full-HD projectors were not really the Movie enthusiastic or game freaks, but simply people who wanted to have a `Rolls-Royce’ display. Therefore. Full-HD gaming was really only available to a very limited number of people – very affluent early adopters. This demographic wasn’t enough to drive serious demand for Full-HD displays.”

“But by the second half of 2008, retail prices had fallen drastically to around 1,200 Euros, bringing the Full-HD experience to within reach of a much wider market. Gamers now take HD seriously and developers have begun to explore the potential of the format to its fullest.”

“With games developers and manufacturers now in alignment, gaming is at last really driving demand for Full-HD products, particularly as there are still relatively few programmes broadcast in HD and Blu-ray sales are still in their infancy.” 

Sato points to research which shows that for HD to really enhance the gaming experience, the image has to be big enough to fill your field of vision:

“The magic number is 50 degrees. As the viewing angle gets beyond 35 degrees, people begin to experience a feeling of real presence – a cinematic experience. A sense of true immersion comes when you reach a viewing angle of 50 degrees – that’s when your field of vision is filled by the game. It’s a very different sensation for the player than just ‘watching’. If displays can deliver that for the gamer, Full-HD really will become the killer application for new games.

”However, to create that kind of experience, a gamer sitting one and half metres from the screen would need a 100 inch screen.  Even with the advances that TV manufacturers have made bringing down costs, a screen that size is beyond the reach of most consumers, but projectors can deliver massive displays at much lower cost. That’s why Mitsubishi Electric is keen to work with games companies to educate the developers and the players about the true potential of Full HD and the role that Full-HD projectors can play in delivering true immersion. At trade fairs now, video games – rather than movies- are often used to demonstrate the potential of projection systems. We want to send the message that if you haven’t played Full-HD games at this scale, you haven’t really experienced Full-HD.  Some consumers will always want a screen, but in markets such as Germany (which accounted for 23% of the EMEA market in 2008), projectors take a large and growing slice of the HD market

“The games industry has been able to grow the size of the market whilst sustaining their margins through a process of continuous innovation. Immersion through 50 degree HD images will be an important part of the evolution of gaming. The manufacturers and the developers have now created a virtuous circle, which will open up a new frontier for gaming – truly immersive gaming for the mass-market.”

Microsoft to launch new music streaming service

Valerie | 16 Jul 2009, 17:15

Paul Sakuma, file / AP

Spotify may soon face a new competitor in the guise of Microsoft, which, according to the Telegraph, is gearing up to launch a music streaming service by the end of this month.

Speaking to the Telegraph, MSN executive producer Peter Bale said:

“Music is an important area for Microsoft. We are looking at launching a music streaming service imminently. It will be a similar principle to Spotify, but we are still examining how the business model will work.“

Bale hinted at a possible tie in with the Xbox which the company is eager to promote as an entertainment hub.  As this blog points out, as Spotify isn’t available in the US, if Microsoft uses the service on the Xbox 360, the “software giant can practically guarantee itself a sizeable user base from the beginning”. It could additionally help increase the popularity of the Zune music player, a high definition version of which is due to be launched in the US.

As Spotify’s popularity continues to grow, the question remains of whether it can convert enough free users to paid and whether it can profit from the advertising served to the majority, free users. As CNet notes, Microsoft already has a strong advertising platform to earn money from the site, and, by integrating the new service into the Zune Web site and/or Zune software, it could help upsell customers to the paid version of the Zune Pass.

More details are sure to surface in the coming few days but no doubt the likes of Spotify and We7 will be watching this space closely.

Report finds illegal filesharing declining among UK teenagers

Valerie | 15 Jul 2009, 12:51

A new report suggests that illegal music downloading has fallen by more than a third in the last two years, as teenagers are increasingly turning to streaming sites, such as YouTube, Pandora, Grooveshark and others.  This might sound like music to executives’ ears but does this necessarily spell good news for the music industry?

According to research by The Leading Question and analyst firm Music Ally, Illegal file-sharing declined through 2008, from 22% of web users in December 2007 to 17% in January 2009. The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many 14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using legal services such as YouTube .

However, in this article, the Guardian argues that the picture may be more complex than a simple shift from filesharing to streaming, with people sharing music in new ways such as via bluetooth technology, on blogs, and through copying, also known as ripping content from friends’ MP3 devices.

The point remains that many people turn to file sharing networks precisely because they are unable to find the music they are looking for from legitimate sources.  As this BBC article argues, this is not surprising, since the “services that the record companies provided were unwieldy, expensive, limited and intrusive”.

Inaccessibility is at the core of the problem and is, as Stephen Fry admitted earlier this week during a speech condemning the music and film industries’ prosecution of small-scale internet pirates, the reason why he turned to BitTorrent software to view episodes of 24.

Demand is clearly undoubtedly growing for legal options. A separate survey by Ipsos MORI confirmed that two thirds of people who illegally download music online would switch to legal models if the price was right.  It argues that the creative industries need to address a gap in what they are charging and what the majority of people are willing to pay – a sticking point in these difficult economic times that has seen many creative sectors (the newspaper industry being the most prominent) reviewing their business models and striking a balance between revenue generation and giving consumers what they are demanding.

Despite the view that the research data may not be providing an entirely accurate picture, it does offer some encouragement to the music industry and shines a light on the opportunities to continue to tackle online piracy.

In a statement, Tim Walker, CEO of the Leading Question commented:

“Ultimately we believe that the best way to beat piracy is to create great new licensed services that are easier and more fun to use, whether that’s an unlimited streaming service like Spotify or a service like the one recently announced by Virgin which aims to offer unlimited MP3 downloads as well as unlimited streams.“

C&binet Ambassadors ranked in MediaGuardian 100

Valerie | 14 Jul 2009, 09:14

The Guardian has published its annual rankings of the most powerful people in the media, digital and entertainment businesses, based on their cultural, economic and political influence in the UK.

The 2009 MediaGuardian 100 reveals that amidst the current economic downturn which has seen unprecedented upheaval over the past year, Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have held onto the top spot for the second consecutive year, confirming its position as the world’s most powerful media brand.

There was also good news for c&binet ambassadors including the chairman and chief executive of Universal Music, Lucian Grainge (33), Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan (24) and Nicholas Coleridge of Conde Nast (58) who all maintained their places in the top 100. 

The list also includes a number of key advisors to c&binet, including Patrick McKenna, chief executive of Ingenious Media Group (36),  John Smith, chief executive of BBC Worldwide (31) and BBC director general Mark Thompson (2).

2009 also sees new Culture Minster Ben Bradshaw debut in the list, who the Guardian notes is “perfectly placed at number 50” but could be “one of next year’s biggest risers”.

Other prominent new entries this year include Jason Kilar, the chief executive of the US video-on-demand website Hulu (19); Daniel Ek, the co-founder of the music website Spotify and advertising guru Rory Sutherland (32).

But despite the dominance of digital brands in previous years, the addition of News International’s new CEO, Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) and Will Lewis, the Telegraph titles’ editor-in-chief who broke into the top 10 this year signals that traditional media is not to be written off yet.

The evolving digital landscape and its implications for the future of the content industries will be a key theme for the c&binet forum in October, which will see creative business leaders address IP challenges, the development of new business models and future creative cash flow set against a backdrop of the economic downturn.