Alan Wexelblat in Copyfight poses a question from a reader about the future of entertainment:

what rights do you purchase/license/contract for in creating such a reproduction of a real person? Rights to the “likeness?” Performance rights? Do either of these cover things the actor never physically did or said? Is there an exclusivity clause? There are clearly some issues around the ownership of a character, if that character has appeared before (e.g. Connery’s Bond) but usually the character rights reside with the studio. But if you want the Connery Bond instead of a generic James Bond you also have to incude Connery in the deal, as well as whatever studio or estate has the Bond character rights.

The question apparently stems from a story in Slate, but I wonder how long this will remain an issue. Wexelblat notes that the technical limitations to “true-to-life, fool-an-audience reproductions” are high…for now. While flesh and blood talent rule the silver screen today, the time when they may be replaced is near. But once we cross that threshold, what’s to keep the animators from creating their own characters? And how long before animators and modelers like belaljimez, whose rendering appears above, wrest control of the screen from today’s pretty faces?

Alan Wexelblat, animation, character rights, copyfight, copyright, digital actors, digiwood, hollywood, licensing, selling yourself, synthespians

This, from Chris Anderson: The Codex is a 20 episode series of machinimas made on Xboxes running Halo 2. The result caught the attention of his six- and eight-year-old children, and then him.

Machinimas are computer animated in real-time, using video games to create the environment, and human “puppeteers” to drive the action. The action is capture, edited, and voice-overs added. Because they remove many of the economic and technical barriers to film production, they hold the promise of emphasizing story and plot, and exposing talent among those who create them.

Good stories gain fans, and this is exactly what Anderson was remarking on:

[C]onsider this: My children’s favorite film was not made by Disney, but by a dozen Dallas teenagers playing a videogame in one of their parents’ basement. By Hollywood standards, the film cost essentially nothing to make and is free to download. It’s had 13m viewers so far. There is now a DVD and a soundtrack CD.

I’m downloading it now.

tags: animation, anti-hollywood, chris anderson, codex, computer animation, film, film production, halo, halo 2, hollywood, long tail, longtail, machinima, puppeteers, the codex, videogame, xbox

Donna Wentworth is now saying what I’ve been saying for over a year now. Digital Rights Management (DRM) isn’t about preventing copyright violations by ne’er-do-wells, it’s about eliminating legal me2me fair use and locking in customers. In Your PC == A Toaster, Wentworth quotes Don Marti saying:

Isn’t it time to drop the polite fiction that MSFT and other incumbent IT and CE [CE = consumer electronics -- Casey] vendors are only doing DRM because of big, bad Hollywood? …[Having] “Hollywood” clamoring for harsh DRM (based on technical facts from the IT industry) actually helps the current market leaders…

With DRM, MSFT and Apple can keep their customers from switching back and forth (or maybe to Linux), and CE vendors can’t lock out $39 Chinese DVD players, but can at least collect a tax on them.

What could have been said is that DRM is like a toaster that only toasts Pepperidge Farm bread. You’ll pay full price for both the toaster and the bread, but they’ll sick the FBI on you if you figure out a way to toast a Thomas’ brand english muffin in the thing.

Okay, so I’m not claiming priority over Wentorth, but here are two related stories: What Does Proprietary Mean, Anyway? and Hilary Rosen: Sock Puppet.

tags: big money, copyfight, copyright, digital rights management, donna wentworth, drm, drm’d toaster, drmed toaster, hollywood, microsoft, proprietary, toaster, toaster drm, toaster hacks

Donna Wentworth, over at Copyfight pointed out a JD Lasica piece detailing the responses from seven studios to his requests to use short (10-30 seconds) clips of their films in a non-commercial project he was working on with his child.

…four of the studios refused outright, two refused to respond, and the seventh wobbled.

This is the quandary millions of us face today: The Hollywood studios demand that we ask for permission to borrow from their works — and then they deny our requests as a matter of course.

One studio acknowledged the the “worthwhile intentions” of the project and seemed to understand that it would be shown only to family and friends (not on the internet), but refused as a matter of policy:

we have had to establish a general policy of non-cooperation with requests of this nature.

There’s nothing new in this, of course. Writer Chris Turner had to pay over $4 a word to quote a few lines from some Radiohead songs in his book about The Simpsons. Hip hop, once emblematic of “remix culture,” one example of voices and venues squashed (here’s what happens when artists try that today).

Anyway, Wendy Seltzer tells me it’s the EFF’s 15th birthday and they’re doing a blog-a-thon. This isn’t really about why I joined the “fight for my right to fair use and a vibrant public domain,” but it says a lot about why I’m still in it.

Related: The People Who Owned The Bible and Orphaned Works — when you can’t even find the people to ask for permission.

tags: copyfight, copyright, darknet, denied, deny, eff, eff15, hollywood, hollywood studios, home video, orphaned works, permission, permission culture, refuse, refused, remix, remix culture, studio, video clips