"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." Howard Aiken, American computer pioneer.
Projected users:
- 100,000 thousand users with in 6 months of launch
- 1 million users within a year
Marketing
- First scaleable, broadcast quality internet TV channel.
- Legal P2P champion; P2P is huge world wide with tens of millions of users, most of its popularity is down to the free distribution of copy-right material. This would be a “legal” use of P2P technology. The US government is trying to make P2P technology illegal, so there would be good publicity in making a widely used “legit” use of P2P.
- Works at many levels – it will also be the first video Blog, thus riding the wave of the other fashionable tech phenomenon.
- Use tech publicity to start up chattering classes publicity to build mainstream publicity.
- It is inherently a global project; users and producers can access and add content from any corner of the world. Simple subtitling technology can make this global media accessible to all. The subtitling technology is working already for the ENR project, so there is an example website of co-operative translation that works now.
- The project uses the “creative commons” licence and “open source” code. In this it becomes a practical example of copy-left knowledge industry.
- Every part of the project is using mature technology which works now – the is no technological barrier to having a P2P TV channel serving millions of users. the content could then also be re-broadcast on progressive satellite and cable channels around the world. We could charge a "small administration fee" to clear the rights and help fund the project.
- The start up could be funded by NGO’s paying to setup NGO TV channels, Amnesty, Greenpeace, friends of the Earth etc. This would also add much reasonable quality content if users subscribed (for free) to all channels.
- Funding could come from progressive foundations and audiences funding drives.
- The cost of starting the channel are minimal, and the continuing costs small; P2P allows huge distribution at minimal cost.
We spend all our time complaining about how difficult it is to distribute our films…
This is the outcome of 3 years of work, with networking, video codec's, subtitling, P2P networks and stupidly simple philosophising in the face of "overly complex solutions". All the bits work and the project is thought-through; do we have the cohesiveness to be the ones to make it happen? Many other people are working on the same project - the corporations in a "closed way", the open-source geeks in a "incomprehensible way". Do we have the foresight and desire to slip through the middle and define the standard of future audio video transmission in a "undercurrents way"? (;
Hamish Campbell
www.undercurrents.org
Ps. If anyone has any ideas for marketing or contacts please e-mail me them.
