Google Reportedly Investing $30 Million in Machinima.com -- Now's a Good Time to Promote SL Machinima, Linden Lab!

This could be really big: Google is reportedly investing up to $30 million in Machinima.com, according to AllThingsD, which has a YouTube channel of over 100 million subscribers. The money would be a huge boost for user-generated 3D digital content; YouTube has been pushing to create more original videos, and this could do just that. Assuming this happens, I do have some concerns: A lot of machinimators are not wild about Machinima.com's restrictive contracts, and from a content perspective, most of the stuff on Machinima.com are just stunt videos and other in-jokes for fans of the games, with little appeal outside the fanbase. Even more concerning is this:

While I still think Second Life is in many ways the best platform for making general interest machinima, there's not much SL machinima on the Machinima.com YouTube channel, and I believe the company is leery of adding more, at least until they see an audience for it grow. Great SL machinima like "Tall Buildings" will generally get just a few thousand views at most, compared to the hundreds of thousands or even millions a so-so Call of Duty machinima can typically get. Linden Lab could do a lot to boost the viewing base of SL machinima, which would also boost revenue for SL content creators, and by extension, help grow the user base in general. I wonder if the company has talked to YouTube about this -- after all, YouTube's product director, Hunter Walk, helped found Linden Lab and (as I explain in Making of Second Life) is the very guy who gave Second Life the name Second Life.

Hat tip: Mal Burns.

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Comments

[shockwave yareach]

They don't even promote SL itself -- why would they promote anything within SL?

[Indigo Mertel]

Because it never hurts to ask and be propositive, @shockwave. What good does it bring to always be negative?

[shockwave yareach]

I'm terribly sorry if my pointing out that the Emperor is not, in fact, clad in the finest of silks disturbs you. But hey, let's let the facts speak for themselves -- show me where LL has promoted SL to non SL folks. Hm? Where have they advertised SL or parts of SL where folks not already inworld can become interested in it and join up?

You call it negativity -- I call it spelling out the barest minimum of facts. If this starts getting LL to recognize that advertising is a part of doing business, then yippee skip and praise the baud. But I doubt that's going to happen.

[Lani Global]

There has been a lot of wonderful machinima made in SL, and I agree that it could be promoted as a machinima user platform.

I've dabbled in a little machinima.

From the perspective of technology and intellectual property, OpenSim provides a far better machinima platform:

1. Running an OpenSim server on my own LAN has much higher rates of Frames Per Second than SL. The movement and animations are more instantaneous, and motion is easier to synchronize in frame capture.

2. SL's texture limit of 1024 x 1024 pixels gives it a lower grade cartoony quality. This is a big factor in making HD video capture, even for YouTube and other web markets where higher resolutions are becoming more common (780p +)
I am using 2048x2048 pixel textures in my OpenSim region, and could go even higher. The resolution is far superior, especially for objects that are at slanted angles to the camera.

3. Since a standalone OpenSim instance does not touch the Linden Labs servers, there are no complicated SL TOS issues, no LL copyright claims, and no hodgepodge of copyright conflicts to taint the final machinima work product Intellectual Property. This is a huge consideration for serious machinima artists and producers. With the egregious SL TOS, it is not surprising to see why Google and Machinima.com are reluctant to touch SL for a platform. SL may be SL's worst enemy.

4. All the sets, terrain, NPCs, OpenSim simulator ( *.oar files) and user inventory files (*.iar files) provide the producer a complete copy or backup for future reference, ongoing production, sequels, or sharing the work between camera or editing people in different production locations. SL does not even provide the most rudimentary backup file for one's own inventory, much less a whole production company's work.

5. One could argue that SL has a larger array of off-the-shelf scene and wardrobe content from many creators. However, if such content is used in the machinima production, the producer must then chase down the derivative copyright legal agreements and sign-offs from the content creators. This could be more costly than making it from scratch.

I could go on about other aspects, but those 5 reasons are enough to make any serious machinima maker or investor think about looking into comparing the platforms.

Lani

[Machinimamaker]

@Lani:
If all what you explain above would be relevant - why are more than 90% of all SL/OS machinima coming from SL?

"This could be more costly than making it from scratch."

Making it from scratch is the same work in SL and OS. And the copyright questions for existing content are also the same for both platforms. But in SL you will find a lot of machinima friendly regions and creators. The only thing is to ask. The most creators are happy, if their content would be part of a machinima. And with all the thousands of SL videos on Youtube, I never heard about a legal action against one of them.

[allfrog anywhere]

everyone is "friendly" until the 30 million dollar check is written.. then come the lawyers.

[foneco zuzu]

Im glad to see one of the most amazing creators of virtual worlds content(Just for once waist a few minutes, login into OSgrid and jump to Lani's virtual worlds!)pointing another way then SL to do machimina!
Still is all about maintream, and despite all, SL is not mainstream, will never be, and as fast ans any deals with that fact, the more SL and virtual worlds can improve and keep being alive!
Cause i rather prefer to be on a community of 100 users that will be here in 5 years time then belonging to a 1 billion 1 that will disappear as soon as the next Hot will show!

[Lani Global]

@ Machinimamaker

Response to your Questions with some Answers:

Q: " why are more than 90% of all SL/OS machinima coming from SL?"

A: Perhaps, lack of education?

=
Q: "And the copyright questions for existing content are also the same for both platforms. "

A: Wrong, you are, Machini. There are no longer any Public Domain or Collective Commons or other types of open licensing works of content in SL; all of it ended on 30 April 2010 in the massive LL Content Grab TOS. If you make your machinima in SL, then SL has an additional layer of copyright over it, and thus you have a muddy ownership of your work, and this applies also to the sets and props... and even the avatars. Read the LL TOS and weep.

=
Q: "I never heard about a legal action against one of them."

A: That could be because...
1. There hasn't yet been legal action. -or-
2. You haven't heard of any. (These days, a lot of legal action is private confidential settlements).

Lani

[MinDBlinD]

I think that SL is a great platform for making machinimas not related to video games fan community. I mean for making 'indipendent' machinimas able to compete with other audiovisual products. But for this reason, in my opinion, these machinimas should not be promoted because they come from SL.