Creative Commons & Advertising models

I recently came up with what I thought was a super way to leverage the tools and content at Eyespot.com for submission into the Current TV V Cam program. Eyespot is a video space designed to give users an environment to share content in the form of clips and mixes. They encourage re-mixes and provide a very easy to use editing tool. The site is a lot of fun and I believe has done it right when it comes to creating an engaged audience.

The V Cam program at Current, http://www.currenttv.com/make/vc2/vcam, is designed to drive users (Current calls them Viewers) to create enticing advertising content for Current's sponsors with the potential for some real money if ads were theoretically used in conjunction with internet, broadcast, Current TV, cable, and satellite, or even a Super Bowl jumbo tron.

I downloaded a particular sponsors logo from Current for use as an end tag, per Current's instructions, then decided to post the logo to my account at Eyespot where I edited the sponsor's logo within a 30 sec. spot I created mixing Eyespot content. The content on Eyespot is made available through Creative Commons (Attr. 2.5) which means that: others may copy, distribute, display and perform your content, and to make derivative works and commercial use of your content without paying any royalties to you. However, users are required to acknowledge your authorship and may only reuse or distribute your content under the same Creative Commons License. Nutshell, user-submitted clips and mixes are free game as long as the C.C. is honored in any distribution.

The conundrum is that since advertising doesn't provide end credits or acknowledges authorship, that I am aware of, one cannot really honor the C.C Attribution 2.5 in this case. I will admit that I took a very easy approach to Current's challenge of creating viewer generated advertising. I cut together the content at Eyespot in about an hour, and didn't have to shoot anything. There was also zero cost. I was really just experimenting with the entire process. I could be way off base using Eyespot to create a commercial, but their Terms and Conditions say it's okay as long as the Creative Commons license is in place. I have an e-mail out to Current awaiting response that addresses the question of Creative Commons. I will report what I learn from that response.

In the meantime, of course, I am thinking of creative ways to produce sole proprietor content for Current's V Cam program. I do think this raises an important issue. Eyespot is making it possible for people to make derivative works of anything they wish to, as long as the clips and mixes are not premium content and that Creative Commons license is engaged. The clips made available at Eyespot are very tantalizing for the purpose of cutting together commercials. Especially for the internet. Take a look at the site and see for yourself.

There is a win-win scenario here I think if Eyespot and Current could partner up. Imagine, the possibilities if a 17-year-old needed footage of a hopping club scene for his T-mobile spot, and couldn't afford the location, and wasn't old enough to get inside and sneak the footage. Eyespot has that and much much more at your fingertips. The end game in the video space is always to encourage expression in engaging ways and gain new content providers.