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NESTA project summary

Ian Poitier from NESTA has helpfully provide a section of his final report (see below) for comment on by Tuesday to ensure that the project is fairly represented.

Any comments on whether these sections fairly represent the proposal from your angle, please advice via comment.

THE PROJECT

The proposal is to develop tools and resources, which will allow film sampling (audio/visual assets) to become as commonplace as music sampling.
The idea is to produce a short film, ‘Sanctuary’, which will act as a demo to show how it can be experienced as passive entertainment (a DVD film) as well as a re-mixable film to be played with on a gaming console as well as in an online environment.

Key Features & Benefits

A re-mixable film product will allow the consumer to:
o Watch a film as normal on DVD
o Play a rhythm game to experience how the cinema mix is constructed in real-time (out of video, audio, 360 degree panoramas and 3D animation) and explore how it is malleable
o Re-cut the film or extract elements of the film for use elsewhere
o Insert content from elsewhere into the film experience
o Re-mix (and even re-code) the film experience for performance and gameplay
o Share re-mixes by uploading them to the Internet

THE MARKET

Three key markets exist:

1. Filmmakers who can generate additional revenue streams by shooting films in a way which allows elements to be re-mixed by consumers in a gaming environment, or exploit their existing film libraries further by finding new uses for films which are otherwise past their active shelf life. Merchandising opportunities will also be enhanced.
2. Game developers who will have additional tools to provide a wider range of gaming products
3. Consumers who can interact with films in new ways

Market Trends

In line with the overall trend for entertainment products, both the film & game markets are still growing, with even the sleepier demographics (35yrs+) displaying growth for appropriately targeted products.
As ever, most revenue is channelled back to distributors with small producers (films & games) relying more on ancillary products for revenue (e.g. DVD sales, merchandise etc)
These observations hold true at global, regional and national levels, although with the global market for licensed entertainment property generating $42.5 billion in worldwide retail sales in 2002 (interestingly at the tail end of the global economic downturn), trying to put valuations on the market potential of individual products is not very meaningful (e.g. the Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings/Matrix film & games products while generating strong individual performances have arguably also helped to grow the categories significantly)

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

At this stage, technology IP will be protected via copyright and confidentiality agreements.
Software patents are, at present, not considered the most viable form of protection for this idea given the requisite costs and the social dimension of the project, which concerns wider sharing. Legal advisors will be monitoring the project and this position may change based on the outcome of the development phase. Traditionally game developers have not patented technology and game publishers often take the view that "ideas are cheap, development is expensive".
The project will carry out "defensive publication" of the technology to avoid someone else patenting the idea. Websites and key industry publications will be used defensively as a place to publish research in order to make it "prior art". The principal revenue stream will come from copyrighted assets but this tactic will protect against the possibility that someone else patents the relevant material.
It will be at the company's later discretion as to what modules of the eventual console software (excluding whatever engine is licensed) will be released as open source code to support wider take-up. The remainder of the code base will be a key asset.
The company will allow unprecedented access to film assets in order to maximise public exposure to the business model in order to encourage take-up of assets for commercial use (under license for further interactive development and with clearance fees for broadcast and synch rights).

Posted by .M. at February 27, 2004 03:07 PM