Just Faxed Warner Brothers about Clip Licensing

Just sent in my fax to Warner Brothers to license the Ayn Rand Fountainhead clip. They won't allow email submission which is a bit of a drag on how long this should take. Their clip licensing requirements are pretty standard. I'm thinking this is going to take a long time but will keep you up. A nice automated process online is what is needed in my humble opinion. There are too many steps just to get to some information. It is restrictive to start just trying to play by the rules when uploading other peoples work. Cutcaster is working to solve and minimize all the needless steps and confusion when licensing clips.

Advertsing on YouTube...

As Techcrunch notes in a posting from NewTeeVee yesterday, Google's first major attempt to monetize YouTube looks like it's falling flat. Their inclusion of in-video advertising as opposed to pre and post-roll ads doesn't look like its going to be a moneymaker. I guess time will tell if these less obtrusive ads can actually be effective, but for now, the formula for making money from user-generated video or content in general still hasn't been unlocked.

Survey...

abouttheimage.com recently
posted an article about a survey done by Accenture that claimed "user-generated content is the top threat to media and entertainment industry." That's right, you heard it here, a reputable consulting firm is saying something most of us already knew -- namely, that user-generated content (in our case digital video, film, and still-images) is the wave of the future.

Getty got back to me!

Hello John,

We do not own the copyright to this footage. If you wish to see the
type of footage we can license to you, please visit our site at
www.gettyimages.com/film

If you wish to license a scene from Fountainhead, you will probably
have to go straight to the studio. Stock footage houses, in general, do not
have scenes from movies for licensing.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

My best,
~Stephanie

So Getty customer service can't help me license this clip or allow me to license the clip through Getty. She was pretty helpful pointing out to go to the studio but didn't know which one. Warner Brothers as we knew already but interesting to see that is as far as getty will go.

Licensing with MetaCafe?

I tried this same licensing experiment again with MetaCafe. Apparently you can license clips on their site. It doesn't give any information on the site about licensing User-Generated content but forces you to email an address for producers rewards.

I emailed them about this clip on wednesday and still havent heard back. There has to be a faster way to do this if I really needed the clip.

Clip Licensing- Fountainhead

Warner Brothers which produced the film owns the rights to license the clip and anyone who wants to use it has to mail, not email, or fax in a request to use it. Pretty slow process and such a pain if you ask me.

You can view how slow this process is here and all the info that they need.

http://www2.warnerbros.com/main/company_info/company_info.html?frompage=sitemap

I'm going to fill this out today and send it in tonight. I'll be sure to keep you up.

Joost Raises $45,000,000

Joost which isn't lacking from buzz, talent and multiple content partnerships now just added to its bank account with a sizable round of financing. Once the investor's drooling ended, it came out with 45 million. Thanks to my friend Michael for pointing out I was missing on the blog. Always on top of your game. I'm looking forward to see how Joost will go head to head with YouTube.

How long to locate film rights?

Thought I would post this classic Fountainhead scene. I'm going to do an experiment to see how difficult it is to locate the license for this clip and get the cost so I could post it legally on the blog. I have a good idea what it will cost but not sure how long it will take. Let me know what you think it will cost, how long and then what you think about Howard Roark. I've asked Getty and Warner Brothers to see who could license the rights and how much it costs to license just this scene for my blog. Until I can post this the legal way, I'll let Youtube catch the heat for me.

This should give you a little background on the scene, courtesy of wikipedia, one of my favorite sites. Post your guesses.

Did Newscorp just buy Photobucket?

Looks like yes. MySpace is acquiring Photobucket for $250 million in cash. We’re also hearing that there is also an earn-out for up to an additional $50 million. So 300 million. This was the question and rumor that had been flying around silicon valley the last few months. I'm sure some people remember that Newscorp shut Photobucket users from uploading their content to MySpace in a beef that was most likely used for more negotiating leverage in this deal. Today it looks like Newscorp did step up to the plate and swing for the Photobucket fences. Some thought that Photobucket could go for 250 or 300 million which I think would be a steal based on the loyal user base they have and subscription model which is raking in money. Photobucket is a relatively new company at 4 years old but has seen tremendous growth in the last year. If Newscorp confirms its buy of Photobucket it is a great way to counter Yahoo's Flickr which has been going gangbusters. How do you feel about large companies buying these creative communities?

Street Art on my Apartment- Judith Supine

Some cool street art by Judith Supine has been put up on my apartment building. Definitley interesting to look at. Pretty cool to see the spread of these artist's work all around where I live in downtown NYC. That's our bench and steps to our door in the background.