About Viral

Mash Ups Help Test the Line Between Media Giants, Prosumers and Innovation

The newest injection of mash ups into the online video world seems well timed with the head honcho appearance of Viacom’s lawyer on Ad Age. It seems like the lawyers are the ones dealing with the center of a problem that governments don’t know how to ignore or deal with effectively; intellectual property.

Mash ups like the recent wave of Christian Bale remixes (also David after the Dentist) may be the on the radar for content that needs to be checked over to ensure there is considerable creativity added.

While lawyers pick their battles with backing from conglomerate media owners little sprouts of economic hope spring up. Hulu for example is one web platform that has a viable means of creating a revenue stream. That stream is nowhere near the size of the torrent flowing behind the scenes. Peer to peer sharing in 2006 accounted for 2 thirds of Internet traffic and 71% percent of that was tied up in video, according to research by the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Source: Pirates and Samaritans: a Decade of Measurements on Peer Production and their Implications for Net Neutrality and Copyright by J.A. Pouwelse, P. Garbacki, D.H.J. Epema & H.J. Sips.)

The introduction of the popular term “wikinomics” brought to light a new way of thinking about the digital media landscape. The battle ragging between media companies, artists and consumers is one of the results. Consumers and innovation pioneers continue to test their limits and have lawyers and judges decide their fate when it gets too far (piratebay.org).   Governments try to make bills to catch up with this paradigm shift but the reality is that policy making is too slow for an information system bred for speed (not to mention the various compenents helping to spread sharing are dispersed internationally).

A macro reality of the ongoing battle is that the outcomes will either benefit protected enterprises with policed revenue streams or innovation. Considering the views that spinoffs and mash ups get from associating themselves with something popular (Darth after Dentist, Feb. 15th 900 000 + views) the prosumer’s content pieces act as front line soldiers testing the frontier of protected intellectual property.

There is one trend in the evolution of the technology/consumer world that should help those struggling to grasp these changes: evolution moves to benefit the majority. Consumers are this majority. When an independent force tries to stop or restrict consumers from an obvious increase in value, like Sony tried to do with its rootkit, it will only create a speed bump but nothing more.

Cheers