Cc-hk mailing list

[Henry Oh <henryoh AT gmail.com>]

Dear all,

Sorry I can't be there for the meeting.  I'm in the Netherlands for the
world premiere in 35mm screening of a film I did some production and
marketing work for (at the Rotterdam Film Festival).

In case you are curious, the film's festival page:

http://tinyurl.com/ywnedx

Aside from self-promotion, I just wanted to catch up on some recent comments
on the list in advance of the meeting tonight.

Comments below:

On 1/22/08 12:46 PM, "Oiwan Lam" <oiwan.lam AT gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> i think the creative sector is most important. we may need to create a
> mythical / representational figure - an artist becomes successful because of
> cc... or a popular and famous artist standing out to support cc... something
> like that.

I have written songs for an Brazilian rock album, available on iTunes (DRM,
boo!) and have done some film & music work with U.S. and Brazilian
filmmakers and musicians.  I, of course, tell them about how we should use
Creative Commons for our projects.  Surprisingly, given the Brazilian
government and Gilberto Gil's (the Brazilian Minister of Culture and a
beloved Brazilian musician) support for Creative Commons, I was unable to
convince any of the Brazilians artists I know, both in film and music, to
use Creative Commons with the projects I was working on.  Ditto the U.S.
artists.  

The problem is that people in this industry are a bit myopic and they do not
see how CC can help them, aside from publicity.  You have success stories on
other "platforms".  You have Rebecca Strachan, Charice Pempengco and Marie
Digby getting record deals through their use of Youtube.  The Hollywood
Undead got a deal through their page on Myspace.  There was a European
filmmaker who released his film materials using CC for remixing/mashup of
his film and got some attention that way (he was the first one that I know
of but I have forgotten his name and I'm away from my file archive and can't
dig up his name).  The issue that I have always encountered is that no
artist knows of someone who has used CC to "make it big".

So the question is one of incentive and support.  More filmmakers abroad are
using CC, Wired Magazine a while ago released a CC CD with stars like the
Beastie Boys, Chuck D, David Byrne, Gilberto Gil, and others.  Link:
http://creativecommons.org/wired

But these artists are already established.  The question all non-A list
artists face is that they have no idea how CC can help them "break into" the
mainstream.  Most media players (even in Brazil) are very wary of CC and
many artists that I have spoken to are scared to death that using CC may
sabotage a potential deal with a big media player down the road because of
the way these industries continue to cling onto their (outdated, IMO)
business models.

The next is support.  I believe I mentioned that one of my friends works
with the founder of the world's first 1 minute film festival.  I was pushing
both of them hard to use CC but when they went to CC Brazil to get some very
basic non-technical assistance in integrating CC into their festival's
online video website, they were told they would have to pay a fee to
basically just have a conversation about CC and an explanation of how it
would work in their circumstances.  That basically ended their interest in
using CC for now.  I hope CC HK doesn't go down this route.

A certain segment of the artist population "gets" CC and is willing to use
it, for philosophical (e.g. Gilberto Gil) and novelty reasons, mostly.  But
the big, looming question is whether CC will in the end help them earn a
living from their art (it's all well and good for established stars to use
CC and useful from a marketing standpoint but at the end of the day, all
artists want to see someone else, who wasn't already "famous" to begin with,
using CC to help them advance their art and "career").

> Does anybody on this list have any idea for a band or musician who
> might be interested in participating at the iCommons summit in
> Sapporo (see below)... and hopefully also perform at the cc-HK
> launch? They don't need to promise to release all their songs under
> CC for the rest of eternity, but if they would agree to release one
> song under any CC-HK license, that would be tremendous.

I know of some bands in HK through some friends.  One may be too hard rock
(think Danzig) but I guess that ultimately depends on the character of the
event.  They've played at the Fringe Club and other small, but well-known
venues, and continue to play regularly.  I will reach out to some of the
other bands I know as well that may be more suitable for a non-hardcore rock
audience.  ;-)

On 1/23/08 2:16 PM, "Rebecca MacKinnon" <rmack AT hku.hk> wrote:

> Thanks Oiwan these are great thoughts.
> 
> For each of the five sectors you list, we need one person to take
> responsibility for leading engagement with each of them. These people need
> to agree to meet certain goals by the time of the launch, and/or in terms of
> getting these sectors involved with the launch.
> 
> Volunteers?
>
> If possible I hope those who volunteer to take the lead on engaging these
> sectors will be able to come to Saturday's meeting.

So far, we've gotten limited, concrete feedback on outreach and comments on
the draft license.  Please, contact Ben or myself for an invite to the
Google Doc where we are coordinating our outreach.  We really need each
member of the CC HK community to take action and accept responsibility for
outreach to the people they know.

On 1/10/08 9:38 PM, "Kenneth Yip" <kyip AT stanfordalumni.org> wrote:

> Hi Henry,
> 
> I am planning to contact lawyers at Deacons, Bird & Bird, Jones Day,
> Morrison & Foerster and Lovells for comments on the draft in the next few
> days.

Kenneth, any updates?  I checked the Google Doc but did not see any followup
mentioned.  Thanks!

I hope the meeting is productive.  Sorry I can't be there...

Bedankt,
-Henry Oh