Writeup over at Qassia- New Business Platform for Sellers of Digital Media

We've done a lot of explaining here at Cutcaster about what we are building. Every new idea takes some explaining so it's really exciting to see when others see the value in it and get it.

Here is the staret to an article that was written about us by one of our Contributors over at Qassia.

"Some months ago I was contacted by an entrepreneur preparing to launch a new site for sellers and buyers of digital content. John Griffin and his newly launched site - Cutcaster - are aiming to please both the producer of digital media content, and the purchaser. It's a tough job, but I think they may be on the right track..."

There's more so Click here to read the whole article.

Updates- Marketing and Development work

For the last month we have been focusing on a few things and I thought it would be a good time to give everyone an update. That is why I have been a bit slow on the blog updates and I miss not writing more.

The first has been the implementation and introduction of the bidding system, a multi-file uploader which captured metadata during the upload process, clipfolders and making the site more user friendly. We hope you have noticed the differences and are pleased with the improvements. Let us know where we can improve or if you want something else. We are real people listening to what you want.

The next step has been to plan out our marketing strategy to bring buyers and more sellers to the site. This has been a team effort and everyone at Cutcaster has done an awesome job. I particularly want to thank Barbara, Victoria, Shaolan and Martin for doing such an awesome job and I am happy to have them on my team any day of the week ;-) They have worked tremendously hard over the last year and while they are sometimes behind the scenes, I couldn't do it without them.

The marketing effort will begin next week and will consist of submitting press releases, reaching out to our friends in the industry, getting bloggers to write articles about us, advertising in traditional media outlets, connecting with new people on our social networks, beginning an affiliate program, starting our Google Adsense campaign, re-organize our site a bit to make it more SEO friendly, adding the "invite a friend" functionality so you can invite some new members (thank you of course) and reaching out to our list of potential buyers to re-introduce them to the site and start getting feedback from them on the content they need and what prices they are willing to pay. We are really looking forward to getting this underway and thank everyone who has uploaded content to this point and those who have been super patient as we grew up a bit ;-)

If you guys have any more ideas to help us we are all working together and would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks to Gracey, Henrik, Chris G., Julien T, JB, Richard B., Dan P., Tommy, Michael T. and the *Muse* to name just a few (Thanks as well to the others, I haven't mentioned. You are not forgotten). You have all provided some nice feedback and helped us a bunch.

Here we go!!!

Gracey's Promo for Cutcaster and some Updates

Thanks to Gracey Stinson for making a great promo for Cutcaster just before we are about to start our first real marketing push.

My Marketplace - Selecting your Price and Negotiating your sales for Content is here!

For the first time in content licensing history, buyers and sellers can negotiate seamlessly over prices on the internet. We have just released into your Studios the My Marketplace (on the left-hand side), which is a section where you can manage any negotiations with buyers or sellers. A buyer of seller can now accept, decline or submit a new price for content they want to buy or sell.

We are really excited about releasing this and can't wait to get our buyers onto the site to test it out. Let us know if you have any questions but here are some Questions and Answers which will help you understand better what the My Marketplace is all about ;-) Please let us know if you have any suggestions or how you like the functionality.


BIDDING FAQ – It’s pretty easy!

1. How does bidding work if you’re a buyer?

If you’re a buyer, search for content you need and click on the thumbnail to preview the media details. On the media details page, where you preview the content, you are given two pricing options as a buyer. The first is you can add the media file to your cart or buy it now if it fits your needs and check out, seamlessly buying the content ala carte and on demand.

If, however, you think the file’s price is above your budget or should be priced lower, you have the option to click on Suggest a Price (bid for the content) to the right and submit a price directly to the seller, who then receives an email notification of the bid you just made (note the price needs to go out to two decimal places if your price is less than one dollar).

Any bids you’ve placed as a buyer can be found in your My Studio page under Content I want to Buy (which is within My Marketplace on the left-hand side). Anytime a seller accepts, declines or re-submits a new price back to you, you will receive an email to the address you provided during the registration detailing the seller’s response and how to proceed.

Finally, any deals that have been accepted or declined can be found under My Marketplace (Accepted Deals and Declined Deals) for your own reference.

Accepted deals will stay in your Cart for 72 hours and after that become void and must be re-done.

2. How does bidding work if you’re a seller?

When a buyer submits a suggested price to you as the seller, you will receive an email from the Cutcaster Community detailing which piece of content has received a new suggested price and what the price was. You can follow the link within the email and go to your My Studio page where you can click on Bids for My Content to review the buyer’s proposal. Under the thumbnail of the media file, you will have the option to Accept, Reject, or submit a counter-offer to the buyer.

Accepting a price will alert the buyer of a completed deal and move the thumbnail to your Accepted Deals window. The buyer will then have 72 hours to buy the file or the deal will be void and must be re-done. The buyer is under no obligation to buy the file. Rejecting a proposal will also send an email alerting the buyer, who could then submit a new price. If, however, you decide to negotiate with the buyer and offer a different price, an email will be sent to the buyer and the thumbnail with the negotiated price will be sent to My Response under Bids for my Content. The entire process can continue from there.

It’s important to note that the whole bidding and negotiating process takes place under the My Marketplace section, but the emails will always be there as alerts.

3. How long do bids and counteroffers last?

Bids and counteroffers are only valid up to 72 hours from the time they’re submitted.

4. Can I change a suggested price or cancel a suggested price as a buyer or seller?

Yes. Go to you’re My Marketplace and find the thumbnail of the file you want to decline and you can delete the deal from there. The seller or buyer will be notified of a declined deal by email and can find that in their Declined Deals page. From there you can re-submit a price if you choose.

5. As a seller, does the price of my content change for good, when I accept a bid from a buyer?

Currently, your content’s price will not change unless you go in and manually change it but if you agree to a price with a buyer they will be able to go in and purchase it within 72 hours at that price. Your starting price or the algorithm price will stay the same on the media details window and no one will know you brought your price down.

6. Can I communicate directly with the seller (or buyer) during a bid or counteroffer?

In the My Marketplace section, you can see how you responded and how the other party has responded. This can be seen above the thumbnails of the associated piece of content in red writing. Cutcaster is currently in the process of rolling out site messaging platform, which would enable buyers and sellers to negotiate more directly over pricing and licensing terms. It will then be possible to negotiate extended licenses with buyers.

Sites to help you copyright your Images and Footage

Here is a short list of places you should visit to copyright your content. Doing this is an important step towards ownership and helps you out immensely in any court proceedings. You must take action to protect your work. In addition to protecting your work, when you register your copyright it becomes easier for a potential infringer to track you down and legitimately and legally obtain a license to use your work, thus avoiding the hassle of having to go to court.

Copyright Office Website:
http://www.copyright.gov

Copyright Submission Form For Visual Artists (Form VA):
http://www.copyright.gov/forms/formvai.pdf

Published vs. Unpublished: This is an important distinction to make when filing your copyright submissions.

For Published Works:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl124.html

For Unpublished Works:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl107.html

Quick Reference or Copyright Fact-Sheet Topics:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/index.html#fl

Frequently Asked Copyright Questions:
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

Email a Copyright Question to the Copyright Office:
http://www.copyright.gov/help/general-form.html

Online Submissions: Be on the lookout for the ability to file electronically. Online Beta Testing began summer 07'. Once the testing is complete, the system will be available to members of the general public.

Fees: The current Basic Filing fee is $45. The fee for online submissions will be $35 once the Beta Testing is complete.

Phone Assistance at Copyright Office About Submissions:
Phone: 202-707-5959


John Harrington has a step by step walk through of his experience copyrighting his work.

Big News and Updates coming this Week

We have some big news and updates coming this week at Cutcaster. It's a lot of work we have been busy doing over the last two months so I am excited to be able to report some of the news. Keep your eyes out for the update and as always if you need to get in touch with us please just email me at john AT cutcaster DOT com.

CutCaster Creates an Efficient Photography Marketplace Article

Thanks to Dean Shanson over at Photopreneur for a great write up describing our idea for Cutcaster to his audience. Dean has some great tips and advice for Photographers of all skill levels so take a look and let us know what you think.

Cutcaster offers royalty free images, stock photos, stock footage and stock photography for advertising, publishing or web design.

How Cutcaster will Protect your Images and Video

Cutcaster is uncompromising when it comes to providing submitters with secure, trustworthy uploading, promoting and distribution services for their media files. Protecting our submitters content is one of the highest priorities we have at Cutcaster while maintaining a secure marketplace that has the trust of all participants. Most submitters of content, who are looking to sell/license it to others, are fearful that their footage or images will end up being used without their permission or being paid for it. A lot of people fear that their content will end up on YouTube or on someones compact disc that they are selling on eBay. We want to STRESS AND ENSURE our submitters that we have one of the highest levels of backend security. What are some ways to protect your submitters of content?

1. We will watermark your content and display your content in a lower resolution.

2. We will work tirelessly to identify any footage or image theft and make our users aware of it at once.

3. If you want to embed a file into your content to track it and see how it is used we can help you do that.

4. We will throw out unscrupulous buyers who use a piece of content in ways that aren’t allowed under the content license agreement or attempt to steal your work.

5. We will post up offenders of our rules in our Wall of Shame area so people and our competitors know who to look out for. We don't mind working with our competitors as long as it helps everyone in the market.

6. We will work with our buyers to understand and let submitters know as best we can how your content is being used.

7. We will monitor our server logs so we can fish out suspicious behavior when people are searching for your content.

8. We will monitor all our content for trademark, copyright and clearance issues.

9. We are working on providing some feedback options like what they have in eBay.

10. your suggestions

How else can we help submitters of content to our site protect their work while at the same time making it available in the Cutcaster marketplace?

A Small part of Cutcaster's Value Proposition

Similar to the benefits a stock exchange brings to an otherwise un-transparent stock market, a centralized, organized and regulated environment would provide a number of basic services for registering members and processing transactions in digital media that do not currently exist in one online package. Oversight, efficiency in execution, transparency, listing standards, asset protection (DRM; copyrights), centralized billing, transaction history, and most importantly the ability to quantify demand to determine fair value pricing, are the primary components.

Moreover, when all trading activity occurs in one location, the transactions themselves become easier to monitor, track, and analyze. Together, this valuable “market data” can be consolidated and then transmitted to both the internal community or sold to outside third-parties. This information dissemination should help create a fairer trading environment, as sellers can control their inventory by segmenting the market to achieve the highest sales prices, while buyers interact with the creator community by bidding for and requesting content.

Currently, there are a hodgepodge of different systems, services, and web platforms that make connecting content creators and media buyers in an effective and dynamic way all but impossible. There have been some attempts (Mochilla.com, for example), but these have tended to only focus on the professional space (i.e., connecting professional artists with major film studios and media companies). Cutcaster will instead focus on the entire spectrum of amateur and profesional buyers and sellers; we simply want to be a home for the monetization of user-generated content.

Pretty Amazing Visuals of Underwater shots- Drowned Circus

Haha. I am not a huge fan of advertising but I found this advertisement really funny from Farmers Insurance. Check out the unique and amazing underwater footage at the start of the commercial. The director, Dante Ariola, used performers from Cirque de Soleil to create the dream sequence. It's amazing what people create and think of. This is a great example of that.

Featured over at Talent Database

Thanks Talent Database.

It's Friday and 4 Years strong!!!

Today is not only Friday, which is the best day of the week in my humble opinion, but also my 4 year anniversary to the love of my life, Ashley. I try to keep the Blog very professional...well at least most of the time...but I'm so happy and blessed to have such a great woman in my life who supports me every step of way. Here's a picture of Ahley with her dad Howard which was just recently taken.

Have a great Friday and nice weekend everyone.

Mike Huckabee uses Gmanvideo clip

Chris Grafing, or better known around the net as Gman Video, got a nice wake up call today and almost spilled his morning coffee on his lap, when he saw Mike Huckabee's concession speech from last night. Not because he's a steadfast support of the Arkansas Governor and was bummed to see him pull out but because one of his great American flag backgrounds was used on a monitor behind him.

Well done Gman and for more of his videos click on the links below or visit his studio.


HD USA Flag

One of my favorites, the Missile Launch.

Here is a link to Chris's studio page where you can buy these and others.