What these videos manage to do with just image, sound, and concept (no story or characters) is absolutely amazing.

Symmetry from Everynone

WORDS from Everynone

via Everynone Production Company and RadioLab NYC

Permalink: A Portfolio Without Gimmicks Cliches or Pandering

A good chart from Chilling Effects about the 206 complaints filed by IP holders to get apps taken down from the Android app market in February 2011.

And some discussion about why some of these takedowns are more questionable than others.

Unique among the copyright complaints in its indirection, the RIAA filed three complaints naming dozens of apps that allegedly “facilitate the unauthorized streaming and downloading of popular sound recordings, the vast majority of which are owned or controlled by RIAA members.” Its complaints, complete with screenshots, asked for the removal of apps for ringtone creation and MP3 listening. This is an attenuated claim. RIAA isn’t alleging that Google, or even the apps, are direct infringers of member copyrights. Rather, it claims that because Google hosts apps (or in some cases, serves ads inside them) that enable end-users to make infringing copies of music, Google should be held responsible for the users’ infringing conduct — a sort of once-removed contributory or vicarious liability claim. Is there a law of contributory inducement, after Grokster?

via Chilling Effects – Takedown Complaints in the Android Marketplace

Permalink: Android Marketplace Takedown Notices

Great graphic showing the relationship between challenge level and skill level and what types of reactions those relationships create.

via Csikszentmihalyi, M., Finding Flow, 1997.

Permalink: Challenge Level Versus Skill Level

A step in the right direction against Righthaven and for sanity.

Judge Hunt criticizes how Righthaven has attacked opposing counsel, writing: ‘There is an old adage in the law that, if the facts are on your side, you pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, you pound on the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, you pound on the table. It appears there is a lot of table pounding going on here.’

via Paid Content – Righthaven’s Secret Contract Revealed: Will Its Strategy Collapse?

Permalink: Righthaven Table Pounding

The good news…

“2010 seemed to be the best year yet for solo/small-team indies working on what previously would have been considered niche or cult games. As a hobbyist, I’ve found this past year extremely encouraging –– my impression is that it’s never been more possible to make a living from independent games than it is right now. It’s still not easy, but it’s clearly doable! App stores, open digital distribution, gamer disillusionment with AAA titles ––whatever it is that’s changed, it’s led to a fantastic situation where indulging in a passion for games isn’t equivalent to financial suicide. Nice change, that.”

The bad news…

“The game industry is shifting, becoming polarized. Development seems to be shifting away from the middle as companies either invest in cheap, fast mobile games or large, expensive blockbusters. This is creating a greater divide as entry-level positions at smaller companies aren’t preparing developers for the paradigms of larger studios.”

via Ryan Newman, Tenth Annual Salary Survey, 2011 WLNR 6294490

Permalink: Good News and Bad News for Game Developers

Put simply, most films lose money, but nevertheless hundreds of films are produced each year–almost in defiance of the laws of supply and demand.

Moore proposed two rationales for this: (1) the “sex-appeal” of being in the business; and (2) the chance for a big payoff (while 600 to 700 movies are produced each year, only 200 movies may obtain a theatrical release; of these two hundred, a handful see a profit; but rare “blockbusters” produce exponential returns, and may offset the loss suffered by dozens of films.) As he points out, this is gambling in its purest form, tax-credits, therefore, would be analogous to playing with the house’s money.

via Alexander Malyshev, Financing Film Through Aggressive Tax Incentives – A Losing Proposition for the States?, Media L. & Pol’y, Fall 2010, at 229, 233

Permalink: Why State Filmmaker Tax Incentives Get Used (And Sometimes Abused)

In 2006, Blizzard Entertainment sued Michael Donnelly of MDY Industries over Glider, MDY’s trainer/gameplay-automation-software for World of Warcraft. Allegedly the software violated the game’s terms of service. Donnelly claims this is how Blizzard Entertainment announced their plans to sue him.

On the morning of October 25, 2006, three representatives from Blizzard appeared unannounced at Donnelly’s home, including in-house counsel Fritz Kryman, litigation counsel Shane McGee, and an unnamed private investigator. Donnelly felt threatened and intimidated as Blizzard’s representatives demanded that Donnelly immediately stop selling Glider and pay Blizzard all the profits that MDY had earned to date by 5:00 p.m. that day. They said that if Donnelly didn’t comply with their demands, that they would file a federal complaint that they presented to him.

Showing up at the guy’s house instead of a call or a letter? They don’t mess around with World of Warcraft.

See First Brief on Cross-Appeal, MDY INDUSTRIES LLC and Michael Donnelly, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, INC. and Vivendi Games, Inc., Defendants-Appellees., 2009 WL 6382212 (C.A.9), 9-10

Permalink: World of Warcraft Mafiosos

Credibility has been making a slow but steady return to advertisement. It’s a return to the “brought-to-you-by” in-show endorsements of early television:

For a child of the 80′s like me, this seems like a ludicrous notion. Advertising in that decade was so transparently slick and false that we quickly grew inured to it and scorned it. It seems designed to trick people into buying things they didn’t need. Arguably that is still, at base, the aim of advertising. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With targeted ads there is a chance to serve the consumer with something that she actually *wants* to see. The ad becomes both a form of entertainment and a service to the consumer.

Media companies that accept advertising should become increasingly picky about the ads they accept. They will accept ads that align with their values and their mission.

As an example, look at Penny-Arcade: the creators of the popular web comic have stated that they will only accept advertising for products that they themselves believe in. That endorsement is a HUGE win for both the consumer, who is a fan of Penny-Arcade and of their values, and for the advertiser.

via Game Girl Advance: The Futures of Entertainment

Permalink: Credible Advertising

Internet ad buyers track results and Return On Investment with a fine tooth comb. For lots of reasons (some good, some not-so-good), traditional ad buyers still buy on instinct.

What YouTube is missing is the “Great Irrationality of Marketing Spending,” something I’ve grown to understand even if I disdain. I’ve seen it closely from all three perspectives: as a content creator, a buyer, and an intermediary. While we direct-response oriented marketers (the ones who track A/B campaigns on Google OCD style) are about results, the vast majority of advertising spending is not rational or performance driven. There. I said it. Try to refute that fact.

via Will Video For Food

Permalink: Why Ad Dollars on Youtube are Harder to Come By

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Great article explaining the myth of the Cambridge University meme. Mis-information like this keeps being spread because its so seductive to believe at face-value.

Permalink: Why interesting mis-information spreads