How to Decentralize Media Production and Funding

Okay one of the major arguments against P2P and decentralization on general is that it will threatens Hollywood and if Hollywood is threatened then we’ll have no more movies or music etc etc ad nausium. I’d say this is totally untrue. Was it true when the printing press was invented? No. Was it true when radio was invented? No. Was it true when television or the internet was invented? Also no. Art will still be created and people will still make a buck off of it. The only difference will be how. What I want to illustrate in this post is one path that could be used to ascend one from home creation to a full length feature film or rock stardom using the features of SAFE at one’s disposal.

Phase One

Let’s start from the ground up. Instead of writing a script or song for some big publishing house, movie producer or band instead start small and assume you will be publishing to everyone. Let’s use theatre and movies for our example.

  1. One writes a script for the home user with a camera phone. 2 or 3 characters max, probably more like 1 or 2. When writing a story you need a protagonist, an antagonist and possibly a nemesis. That’s it! 2 or 3 characters. You can even get away with writing a script using only a single character if you do it in journal or letter writing fashion or perhaps alternate between characters. Example: Scenes in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog or keno entries in Stargate SGU. But it would be easiest to write for a handful of characters that could then be played out by a small group of friends.

Assume that your prospective actors do not have a ton of resources, they don’t have money for fancy props or costumes and they don’t have a ton of experience. K.I.S.S.

  1. Submit your script to an online repository of some kind where it can be rated and shared and where potential respondants can enter their return entries and plays. Make sure to attatch a walletmark so you can get paid for your work. The better the script the more popular it will become and the more people will act it out.

  2. Actors can then download these scripts, rate and review them and use them in their own skits. They can them submit the recordings of these skits on SAFEtube or whatever and gain recognition and safecoin for THEIR acting ability.

  3. As both writers and actors gain more reputation and safecoin the more they are able to advance to Phase Two.

Phase Two

  1. Write scripts that require more characters and require a more advanced setting. Include props and/or costumes. Perhaps require higher grade cameras in order to film it. But still remember these are people on a budget and are still probably making their own stuff. Essentially enthusiastic cosplayers. Collaborate with actors and fans that have previously liked your work before. Maybe add an optional music score.

  2. Submit your work and get it rated, shared and downloaded as before. Continue building your relationship with your audience.

  3. Actors do much the same. Perhaps joining acting groups or guilds/clubs. They could also use crowdfunding to raise money for supplies and equipment. Also note that whoever is holding the camera by this point is also getting experience as a cameraman. Note that all these groups of actors uploading skits will be competing with one another for producing the best version of the same skit/play/movie as they’re all based on the same script. Also note derivitive works might, and probably will be created and those too will compete with the original script for safecoin and ratings.

  4. As before the more your writers and actors gain reputation and safecoin the more they can advance.

Phase Three

  1. Once again you write a script and this time take your time to write something of length and quality. It requires a professional cameraman and equipment. Quality costuming, props and a set. It’s something one would need a fair amount of effort and investment to pull off. This is movie studio or theatre level quality here. Think perhaps the Original Star Trek. Low budget but high quality.

  2. Submit your work and get rated. Start making contacts with music artists and film producers that might want to support you or be included in your next script.

  3. Actors can band together into groups and crowdfund for this kind of action. They can collaborate and pool funds and by this point with any luck they’ll have developed enough reputation to attract some investors willing to sponsor them.

Part Four

  1. Finally you write a script for a movie, a small low budget movie but a movie. Again you keep it simple with minimum special effects and affordable music. You focus on writing a good script instead of writing for flash and bang.

  2. Again your movie is rated and downloaded but this time you’ve got artists, actors, cameramen all collaborating and competing to make the best version of the movie. Rating and crowdfunding to produce the best product.

  3. Actors and crew can crowdfund, get investors and collaborate in order to fund such an endevour. By this point surely there’s a following of viewers that would also contribute to such a crowdfund.

Phase Five

By this point everyone is going all out. We’ve got an established fanbase, scripts can be written to include everything and creators/actors can crowdfund monies easily due to their established reputation.

Anyway that’s the gist of it. I’m going to stop here for now because I need to go do stuff but just thought I’d post that.

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With this, we could build a better ghostbusters movie with the choice of actors we all want! Not that gimmick dumb (I wish it was never made) ghostbusters movie.

+1

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Something you might find interesting and useful and that is an example of a successful crowdfunded film “Iron Sky”

And it has a sequel http://www.ironsky.net/blog/the-story-of-a-crowdfunding-campaign-iron-sky-the-coming-race/

And the web page explains their take on the crowdfunding process and how to be successful.

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Holy cow. This is absolutely hilarious. It got all of the conspiracy ideas into one movie. I must see this!

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The Hollywood thing is not a Russian argument against decentralization. It’s an industry argument channeled through the US government. <insert the old debate whether piracy is theft, 'cause I’m not going there again>

Indie movies: it’s been done for decades and general public isn’t too interested.
My case: I’m quite busy and usually watch 1 movie a week and “culture” (whatever that is) isn’t high on my shopping list. I want to see shit blown up and stuff. So I watch nothing but Hollywood movies.

Thing is, to create content costs money. The same copying stuff also hurts small-time commercial indie movies. What’s left is free indie movies. When it comes to those it’s probably “watch 10, find one that you can finish” so I’d have to watch crappy movies for 9 weeks in order to hit the jackpot the 10th weekend. What a waste of time would that be. At least IMO.

I support (with my money in the movie theater and video store) Hollywood because it saves me time and maximizes my utilization. I also don’t mind that indie movies flourish, I hope they do, but based on the economics of it for my own situation it’s much cheaper to go with the expensive Hollywood solution.

The “fight” between the two is imaginary. Decentralization is a completely different issue and has nothing to do with this stuff.

Tell us, how much would you like to invest and how much do you plan to invest in indie movie making in 2016 and 2017?
Or - let’s make it much simpler - how much would you like to invest in original SAFE content providers who aren’t pirating, but creating original content for SAFE?

This sounds awesome; a decentralised Hollywood protocol that all aspiring actors, screenwriters, directors, camera :camera: men, video editors, etc etc are always participating in around the world at all times, and they all come together for big productions through crowd funding.

Sounds very efficient; the crowd funded funds could be locked into escrow and released bit by bit as the film progresses, so the people making it are guaranteed their funding and profits, and those watching are guaranteed exactly the movie they want!!

Win win win!! No middle -men!

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Then why is youtube so successful?

Not so much if you use SAFE and have PtP implimented. Also remember it’s not the copies of the movie you’re making money on, it’s your reputation you’re making money on. You’re CROWDFUNDING your monies, selling personal altcoins, and getting people to invest in you the artist be you an actor, a writer, a cameraman, whatever. We need to get away from this idea of selling copies in order to make money. It just doesn’t work.

That’s what the reputation system is all about. Did I not mention reviews and ratings during every step of development? Save some time, look at how other people have rated the videos and scripts. If you’re short on time go straight for movies that are only have 5 stars or whatever and tons of good reviews.

Depends on how good the project was, if I enjoyed their work, if I had disposable income at the time, etc etc but to keep it simple if they produce good work yeah I’d throw some safecoin their way. Just like how if a movie is good enough I’ll actually go out of my way to buy it so I always have it on hand. But I’m not going to spend $20 just to watch a movie once. I’m not even going to spend $5 for that. I’ll pirate it, watch it and then if it’s worth anything, that is if it’s a movie that catches my interest and that I find myself watching over and over again, I’ll go out and buy it when I can afford it. Movies that just make you go “meh” aren’ worth spending money on. Money should be reserved for the movies that keep you on the edge of your seat or that make you laugh or cry every time, or that have those characters you just fall in love with. You know the good ones, not the crap you randomly watch for 15 minutes on the television because there’s nothing better to watch and it’s better than silence. In short I treat pirating much like I treat the library. I take data out, review it and then if it’s any good I THEN consider buying it and adding it to my personal collection.

I plan to BE an original SAFE content creator and support other content creators. But not on the form of just buying copies of their work. If I support them and like their work I’ll just send money directly to them. It’s much more efficient that way.

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All right, I look forward to see if the theory works in practice!

P.S. YouTube: ads (your privacy) is what’s being transacted with. The content doesn’t make any money.

Intriguing point of view. Without using examples, would you expand on this paradigm for me? For instance, why has the idea of selling copies failed (physical vs digital price of copying), and at what point in the process should the monetization take place (development/pre-production and post-consumption voluntary payment and whatever you might call the equivalent of “social engagement speaking fees”)?

I don’t care what comes after, I just want to see Hollywood and the mass media oligopolies figuratively dynamited sky high. I could not care less if there is no longer a viable economic model for movie production, or for journalism (nearly all the latter belonging in ironic quotation marks).

Why pander to the complaints? F**k 'em.

Please, please, like Sampson in the temple, PLEASE let me be part of pulling those whole stinking structures down.

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It all goes back to scarcity. Back before the printing press books had to be copied by hand and so literature was scarce because it was difficult and time consuming to produce. Therefore literacy was also scarce because with nothing to read it follows that the skill of reading isn’t something practical for everyone to learn. The control of information was in the hands of the priests and other literate members of society. When radio and television came out similar phenomenons occurred. Not everyone could afford the new technology, the control of information was in the hands of newspapers, then radio, then television media. Now the battle is the MPAA vs the very decentralized nature of the internet. You ask what should be monetized. Nothing. The idea of quid pro quo no longer works here. You can’t monetize ideas and that’s exactly what is scarce: creativity and creators. But ideas are inherently spreadable just like the internet is designed from the ground up to be decentralized. So the idea of REQUIRING payment for x action or service doesn’t work.

The closest you could come to monetizing a creator is if they each got their own altcoin and then you bought or sold their coin depending on how much you valued them. That would be a form of “monetization.” But as for the ideas they produce themselves? No there is no way to profit directly off of those. You can measure and monetize the resources used by those creations, like computer resources or physical resources for storing data like books or cds, but the actual data itself cannot be monetized. Patents do not work and are an obsolete concept.

Paying for say a book makes sense because it costs ink, paper, physical resources in order to produce. It’s like exchanging safecoin for network resources. But paying for the same book in digital resources makes no sense because it’s just information. It could be argued that the artist spent time to create that and needs to be supported but no effort was spent to create that copy. Therefore the argument is not that the copy is of worth but that the artist is of worth so why not support the artist directly instead of buying copies? I love Jim Butcher or Tanya Huff, a couple of my favorite authors. Why could I not just send them money directly instead of buying tons and tons of copies of their books? Or if they had an altcoin to their name I could buy their coin. Basing support in the form of sales of copies limits the amount of support fans can provide to their favorite authors. Just look at how many people in this community have repeatedly bought Maid over the months in support of the project. Same concept.

I cannot monetize the IDEA of Mario but I can make a clay model of him and sell that. As far as the digital world goes it should be assumed that if you share it publically it’s out there and you no longer control it. It is no longer scarce. Therefore anything uploaded publically cannot be monetized directly. However physical merchandise can be. Or value associated with a creator or fandom can be. That’s where altcoins and reputation comes in. If the creative work is of value the person that created it is of value and therefore THEY can be monetized because they are scarce. So yes it comes down to pre-production (altcoins, reputation, crowdfunding) and post production (merchandise, additional reputation, backstage passes and the like).

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@luckybit, you brought up the decentralized payment culture thread. What is your take here?