Canada: true north strong and free, and "hotbed of movie piracy", if the victim statement of Mark Christiansen, VP for Paramount Pictures, is to be believed. That's what was read at the trial of Richard Lissaman of Calgary, 21, who has become Canada's first person convicted under new movie piracy legislation. Lissaman attended the opening of "Sweeney Todd" with a concealed camera with the intent of recording the movie, and at some point mid-film, the house lights went up and Calgary police arrested him. Theatre staff were likely patrolling the theatres with night-vision gear.
Lissaman pleaded guilty and given a $1,495 fine and 12 months probation. As part of the probation terms, he is banned from any movie theatre and from owning or possessing any video-recording equipment. He got off fairly easy given that he could have received a prison sentence of up to 2 years. Previously, authorities needed to prove that a cam movie recording was intended for sale or distribution, but under new laws starting June 2007, any image recording without consent could result in jail time.
[Judge] Skene said if one compared Lissaman's crime to shoplifting, it was not like someone stealing a loaf of bread or litre or milk for personal use but like someone taking a cart of meat to be re-sold for profit.
Unfortunately, neither of those comparisons are apt. Pirating a movie is copyright infringement, not stealing. Taking a cart of meat is stealing, wherein an actual unreproducable item is taken. The defendant didn't break into the projection room and steal the film reels. I would expect this kind of deceptive doublespeak from the movie industry, but not from a provincial court judge.
While I believe this law is ridiculous and represents a scary slope of our law-enforcement being willing to work as lackeys for the movie industry, I don't defend breaking the law. However, I believe there was an error in the court's judgement. The judge is quoted "You can say he and his pals will watch the movie, but he has an item that is more supportive of taking something to be used to make a profit. It's not a simple theft of an item for personal consumption." Likely correct that the recording wasn't for personal consumption, but very likely wrong that it would be used for profit.
The nature of the movie piracy/warez scene in North America is it's done for fun and reputation, not profit. Unlike in many Asian or third world countries where pirated material is often burned to disc and sold in markets, here in North America files are exchanged freely over the Internet. There's just no market for pirated materials here. Warez groups compete for the honour being the first to release a new movie, or for releasing the best quality copy, but make no money for their time and effort.
Further, within the warez scene there is low demand for low quality cam-in-theatre recorded copies of movies. The vast majority of pirated movie distribution originates from higher quality DVD-ripped copies. Sometimes a DVD-rip will emerge even before the film is released in theatres, bearing markings of promotional copies that are sent to reviewers and industry insiders.
"We would have liked to see jail time, sending a stronger message. We hope this is just a starting point," -Virginia Jones, director of policy and legal affairs for the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association
Yes, putting this kid in jail, at taxpayers expense, is EXACTLY what we need to stop piracy. Not embracing digital distribution, making better movies, improving the theatre experience, or lowering prices, but throwing a youth in jail with the real criminals. This is what happens when industries give up on competing and turn to fear-mongering and bullying.
Two other cases of cam recording in Montreal will be back in court this December and January. For another take on this story, see Torrentfreak.
InvestmentPitch, which presented at the 24th Angel Forum at the SFU Harbour Centre in Vancouver on Monday, is an information services company which uses the internet to provide financial information from private and public companies to accredited investors and financial institutions.
Key business drivers that enable a service like InvestmentPitch are high speed broadband penetration, the internet's proven ability to build community, and the effectiveness of video as a way of delivering messaging (which is only expanding as time goes on).
By combining the proliferation of online video with the large number of public and private companies in North America that spend on average $100,000 annually on promotional activities.
Investment Pitch uses professionally produced videos in a social networking platform that targets the niche they need to reach by categorizing the videos by industry. The site will also boast forums to facilitate interaction, but the main driver is the video content which will bring investors to the site. Subscribers pay to see the videos, though investors would not pay to see the videos.
Co-founded by Barry Morgan and Joseph Nuyten, the company began operations in April 2007 and was formally incorporated as IPE InvestmentPitch... [more]
The leaves are falling and that means it's awards season. Vancouver-based Invoke Media received 3 nominations and 2 Davey awards, honouring small ad firms. The two awards, Silver in the Branded Content: Video/Films/Movie category and Silver in the Not-for-profit category, were for the Wells Fargo Someday Stories campaign, using their Memelabs platform.
This is the second campaign that we have run successfully with Wells Fargo, and they have been incredible to work with as they continue to showcase creative outreach strategies, setting new marketing goals and initiatives with a keen focus on community development, on-line interaction and the alignment between brand and Non-Profit.
It's phenomenal to be acknowledged for this campaign. Invoke is extremely proud to be honoured, especially due to the nature of the campaign. We love supporting non-profits and you can expect many exciting projects similar to this to be announced in the future. — Nadia Nascimento, Invoke Media
Congrats Invoke on this recognition. Earlier this year Memelabs won a New Media BC PopVox award for Best User Generated Content site.
Invoke is an Award Winning Interactive Agency that specializes in transforming ideas into tangible results executed within a complete interactive... [more]
Google announced today that they are rolling out voice and video chat capability in Gmail chat - expected to be fully functional within the next day or so, it could end up being direct competition for Skype. ollaborating across continents and timezones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click "Start video chat" than to get on a plane."
At the end of October, Google announced that they would soon be offering SMS functionality in Gmail chat (though it hasn't yet happened). Users send messages either via chat or via SMS, and replies sent by SMS appear in the chat window. The plug was promptly pulled after the initial announcement for technical reasons; the Google blog claims that "we found a glitch. When you'd try to turn it on, it wouldn't fully enable. We thought about keeping it out there -- bugs and all -- but the experience wasn't that great." The service should be up and running soon. It looks like Google will be delivering the messages through the carriers rather than using an email gateway.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission,... [more]
MGM and YouTube announced a partnership on Monday to bring full-length MGM movies and programming to YouTube. The deal kicks off on a pretty lackluster note, admittedly - MGM is offering two dedicated channels: "Impact" is a "high-octane action" VOD channel (according to 
MGM, of course), and the "American Gladiators" channels shows, you guessed it, highlights and episodes from the "show that took America by storm." Right now "Impact" will mainly show clips designed to garner viewers to MGM's "Impact" channel on Comcast. MGM's new release clams that the channel will host clips from MGM action flicks like "Rocky," "Ronin," "Legally Blonde," and "The Magnificent Seven" (which of these things doesn't belong?), clips from MGM action shows, and a few full-length movies ("Bulletproof Monk," anyone?).
Co-President of MGM Worldwide Television Jim Packer says that "Our agreement with YouTube opens the door to a number of themed broadband channels that will both serve the consumers' growing appetite for entertainment media consumption in the digital space and ‘on demand’ space."
While this announcement doesn't seem all that exciting yet (since it is mainly just a vehicle for MGM to hawk their Comcast channel), it's refreshing to see a studio realize the trememdous audience potential of YouTube; this in unlike Viacom, for example, who are still involved in an embittered struggle with YouTube over copyright infringement. I'd argue that lawsuits like Viacom's come across as petty to viewers who are coming to expect free, easily-available programming at their fingertips.
So despite MGM's offering coming across as a little stale in its available programming, it's another step forward for viewers.
Founded in February 2005, YouTube is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide through a... [more]
Everybody wants to post video online nowadays but how's a small business on a tight budget able to to get started. Enter YoungCuts. YoungCuts offers businesses of any size an opportunity to acquire cost-effective high quality video to make their websites more compelling and increase site traffic.
YoungCuts helps companies do this with a coast-to-coast video production service that despite its low cost seems to deliver high quality video. YoungCuts has over 2,000 vetted videographers across the country that can service businesses on a hyper-local level. They have also standardized their video production process which alloes them to produce high-quality video productions fast for less that $1,000. So that company profile video you've been waiting to do isn't out of range.
YoungCuts are also experts on creating and distributing viral branded entertainment helping companies position themselves as experts in their fields. YoungCuts has been innovating distributed video productions since 2005 and has a client list that includes Pepsi, Air Canada, High Fidelity HDTV, Astral Media and Cellfish Media - check out some of their work like the piece below:
YoungCuts is a global network of the best young filmmakers and videographers. We are a complete production and distribution solution. Kick-start... [more]
Less that 24 hours after I wrote that Toronto's Tucows is divesting its non-core assets and focusing on their domain registration business for 2009, they've proved me wrong. I know that Tucows isn't just a domain registrar and it's also a popular software download site but today's announcement comes as a surprise.
Meet Tucow's Butterscotch.com, a new online video network that offers educational and user-friendly instructional shows designed to demystify technology for the average technology consumer. As with many premium domain name owners, it appears Tucows just couldn't resist the tempation of building out their own online real estate.
Butterscotch.com's Fall lineup features a range of handy tutorials and TV-like shows aimed at making technology fun and easy to understand. Hosted by tech veterans Amber MacArthur, Andy Walker, Sean Carruthers, and Molly MacDonald, Butterscotch.com aims to be the HGTV of the technology industry. The site launched with 35 video tutorials with plans to hit 500 videos by next spring.
Tucows seeks to make the Internet easier and more effective for passionate Internet users. Our goal is to reduce complexity for our customers as... [more]
For the first time, a number of United Ways across Canada have combined forces to produce a video campaign and to tap online digital audiences. United Ways in Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax and Toronto, along with support from Winnipeg and United Way Canada collaborated to create two compelling video shorts intended to open the eyes of more Canadians and support fundraising efforts.
The "A Way Out" video campaign announced today portrays vulnerable groups of people (youth and homeless) and connects donors to the positive impact their donations can have in transforming lives. Publicis Toronto, the United Way’s pro-bono ad agency created the videos specifically to ignite the emotional driver of donor behaviour – the ability to enable change in our communities. With innovative special effects, these new video shorts show and tell a story of metamorphosis, providing the heartfelt motivation to donate to United Way.
Vancouver digital media consultancy FanTrust chose YouTube’s top Canadian partner BroadbandTV to implement its distribution strategy. BroadbandTV will leverage its ‘Opti-Find’ technology to ensure that YouTube users easily connect with the United Way’s videos as well as drive traffic and awareness within its viewership. BroadbandTV ranks globally among YouTube’s 20 most-viewed entertainment partners along with media giants CBS, BBC and FOX.
There's only one problem with their distribution strategy, video embeding has been disabled - so you'll have to view them here and here.
BBTV is a media and technology company that brings together content owners, network operators and advertisers to create economically sustainable... [more]
FanTrust provides the entertainment, education and non-profit sectors with strategies and tactics for digital media growth, including raising... [more]
Two weeks ago, nPost hosted their networking and startup demo event at Columbia City Theater. It was an opportunity to get to know five local startups and the turnout was great. Seattle 2.0 was there to speak with the five founders about their new businesses - so check out the video below if you'd like to learn more about Pathable, Divvy, Tatango, ScrapWalls, or Frugal Mechanic.
Video spoiler: ScrapWalls won the top prize.
nPost.com is a site devoted to entrepreneurship and startups. The nPost.com Tech Startup Job Board features opportunities with Internet, Software,... [more]
ScrapWalls lets you build and share photo collages online. You can upload pictures, arrange them with our easy drag-and-drop edit interface, and... [more]
Everytime we publish our Startup Indexes, a few great web startups don't get the kudos they deserve as the majority of their reach is through syndication networks. Toronto's b5media (currently #1 on the Toronto Startup Index) comes to mind as we only measure traffic to their corporate homepage rather that the total traffic of their 300+ blogs .
Another startup that deserves a mention is Montreal's WatchMojo.com (currently #7 on the Montreal Startup Index). Today they announced that they served their 33,333,333rd million video stream in October and it turns out that less than 5% of those streams were served up on hte WatchMojo.com site.
WatchMojo.com's content consists of 5,000 professionally-produced, ad-friendly premium videos on Automotive, Education, Fashion, Film, Food, Health, Music, Politics & Economy, Space, Sports, Technology, Travel and Video Game categories. Through a mix of advertising revenue share partnerships and licensing agreements, WatchMojo.com has also managed to develop a business model in the otherwise murky landscape of online video, where user-generated content generates the vast majority of video streams but has thus far failed to win over advertisers.
WatchMojo.com - a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mojo Supreme Network - is one of the largest producers, publishers and syndicators of video... [more]
