I’m a regular reader of Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily. I think her blog is a pretty decent way of keeping tabs on all things business of Hollywood. Sure, she has some detractors, and “TOLDJA” (which she is trying to trademark) gets pretty annoying, but she tends to have really great items on a daily basis.
So, this little item from yesterday about how she’s been getting bombarded by folks with links to YouTube user Jaron Pitts‘s superbly fan-made Green Lantern and Technotise movie trailers caught my eye for a particularly noteworthy reason, in terms of copyright and infringement issues. Before I dive in to that, though, first, the Technotise trailer he cut so you know what I’m talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPu-PRHtCWE
Basically, Pitts has assembled a trailer almost entirely out of infringing content from all kinds of sources (just as he did for the Green Lantern fake). Sure, he’s doing it as a fan and we could get in to issues of participatory culture and the work of Henry Jenkins and why this isn’t necessarily a bad thing (and we all know I’d be a hypocrite to call him out for it myself… ahem) but what is REALLY interesting isn’t so much that Pitts is doing the infringing, but rather for WHOM Pitts is doing it. More after the jump.
Finke points out that both the Green Lantern fan trailer and the Technotise fan trailer are for Warner Bros. movies, which would otherwise be nothing more than mere coincidence. However, Pitts openly admits that he cut the Technotise trailer at the behest of “Hollywood producers”. From the video’s description on YouTube:
This is a trailer I made for some producers in hollywood who are making this into a live action. Its based on a great anime film from last year, Technotise.
He even goes on to post a link to a website, http://www.technotise-remake.com/, with a link to an email address for a guy named Scott Glassgold. One can only assume that this website, which prominently features Pitts’ trailer, is something of an “official” endeavor on the part of the producers of this remake film.
Now, like I already alluded to and I constantly espouse – I really don’t have anything against the appropriation, co-option, or commodification of previously copyright-protected material, as that process helps create new cultural products, new narratological approaches, and, inherently, new speech. Memesis naturally causes user-agents to create new forms from old, to tell new stories and convey new meanings. We do live in a participatory culture, and fan fiction is a part of the dialogue that exists between content producers and their audiences. The Information Commons and the concept of social production have changed the way we use and value creative works. Infringement, like it or not, is the norm in today’s social media landscape.
So, all of that makes this fan trailer otherwise fairly insignificant, aside from it being expertly produced and interesting to watch. However, what does make this truly interesting is the fact Pitts has either been commissioned or otherwise encouraged to produce it by the actual Technotise filmmakers. While Finke merely passes this off as another WB marketing gimmick, what she fails to recognize is that this Technotise trailer is loaded with intellectual property from rival studios. In essence, the producers of the Technotise remake and/or Warner Bros are not only getting a free, soon to be viral slice of marketing material, something to track and test, helping them to gauge how well the real film may do, how they should target it, and a million other points of useful data, but they’re getting it off the backs of their competitors, too. And they’re effectively getting away with stealing content from their competitors (if it wasn’t for Pitts’ admission) by laundering it through a “fan”. That, to me, is truly remarkable – clever, no less.
Anyway, I think it’s fascinating to think about how appropriation and user-generated content is impacting marketing strategy for large media corporations. On the one hand, they slap the hands of users who attempt to steal their content, yet they rely on those same users to spread word-of-mouth and help build buzz for their films. Why do these companies “bite the hand that feeds” like that? Moreover, it’s clear that the rule of thumb is “it’s only infringement when it happens to us”. Well, it will be interesting to see how fan-made videos like this are utilized in marketing strategy down the line.
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Tags: copyright, Deadline Hollywood Daily, fan video, fanfic, Gawker, Green Lantern, infringement, Jaron Pitts, movie trailers, Nikki Finke, Technotise, TOLDJA, trailers, user-generated content, Warner Bros