Annapurna Pictures in Dec 2022 produced Nimona for Netflix which debuted at #9 globally and was as high as #3 i.e. it was a massive hit.
So they now have the Stray IP which could be extremely lucrative and are looking at how CD Project Red handled their successful Cyberpunk integration on Netflix as a model. Which is where you cross-promote a game add-on or sequel with the movie.
Which means for the gaming side they really wouldn't have any control over their direction as it would be entirely driven by the movie side. Not exactly compelling for them hence why they want to leave.
With the success of Fallout, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk Edgerunners etc there's definitely big money to be made from video game IP.
IP, content, blobs - container words - a sure-fire indicator in any conversation that , that the parties involved areunable to accurately value, evaluate, organize and produce, the valuables that should reside inside the container. So here the daily reminder, that logistics is a commodity now, but producing something of value, is not.
I've always had an intense visceral distaste for referring to podcasts, videos, and long-form writing as "content," especially when creators use the term. No matter how well-meaning or neutral its usage might be, I always involuntarily picture an old-timey cartoon farmer dumping slop into a giant trough when I hear phrases like "bringing you better content" or "being an influencer producing the type of content you want to see." I think you've just helped me solve the puzzle — hopefully, this will help me shed my negative association with the term. Many actually respectable internet personalities I follow use it, and I don't like being "that guy."
I share your distaste for "content". To me the word speaks of a lack of interest, understanding, or even respect, for what creators are making.
To some extent it does serve a useful purpose in that it makes it clear that it is in fact the ads that are the main event on these platforms, and that the "content" is merely a palatable delivery mechanism for adverts... which is a pretty depressing realisation.
in 2024 there are so many one-click-install adblockers for your browser, phone's DNS, router... anyone still seeing a sizable amount of ads these days has to be the most complacent, easily manipulated, lucrative demographic imaginable
Viewing an ad is not “giving back” in any meaningful sense. Modern adtech primarily benefits the infrastructure providers, rather than providing a service to its “clients” or a revenue stream to site owners.
Adblocking is the only meaningful objection that the consuming public can raise to the inefficient and wasteful adtech situation. Depending on how you feel about your obligations with regards to civil society, you might view it as a moral imperative.
Your other option is not consuming ad-supported content. There's no natural entitlement you should be able to view all content in a form that suits you.
In the context of certain YouTube communities - a couple of examples I'm aware of are synthtube or watchtube - "content" is also an advertising term for advertising, since this is really what many of the demo or "review" videos are.
People hawking products on Instagram, TikTok, or wherever fall into the same category. The reality is that the whole influencer industry is pretty much just hawking products and services to people.
IP has pretty clear connotation in games. I don't really think it shows what you say. Characters and worlds are IP and that IP can be used across media types. Gameplay is not IP. A game project can swap or take in IP.
In context of the discussion here - people who are talking about "content" or "IP" mark themselves out as not having a nuanced understanding of what intangible assets they hold.
I think what you mean to say is:
- writing and depictions of characters are copyrighted
- writing and depictions of worlds are copyrighted
- some of the names involved can also be registered trademarks
They are intangible rights that someone can own. The insidious term "intellectual property" is used to reframe the understanding of rights granted by copyright, patent and trademark law by comparing them to real property, which they are not.
When was the last time someone was allowed to live in your house, legally, because they're making a parody of it? When was the last time someone was allowed to take your house apart to find out how to make something compatible with your house's design? Owning a copyright is not like owning property and does not give you carte-blanche control over your intangible asset like real property law more-or-less does.
Some examples:
- I can write a book or game about a boy wizard who goes to a magical school, as long as I didn't base it on Harry Potter. JK Rowling can't stop me.
- I can write about a pirate who acts like an aging rockstar, provided I didn't copy Johnny Depp's depiction of Captain Jack Sparrow. Disney can't stop me.
- I can write about a martial force voyaging through space by analogy to a similar force on the Earth's seas, so I can call them space marines. Games Workshop® can't stop me, provided I don't implicitly or explicitly claim they are Games Workshop® Space Marines®
Assuming that “property” is always short for “real property” will lead to some interesting errors, as illustrated above.
Proprietary rights are varied. If one kind of property relates to a kind of right that doesn’t apply to another kind of property, that’s not a good reason to decide that one kind is not actually property.
While property has a number of meanings, including "intrinsic quality of a substance" and "something that can be owned", I think it tends to bring about an image of tangible objects in the listener's head.
I prefer the term "asset" to describe owned intangible things of value, such as rights, licenses, financial instruments, etc.
> Criticism of the term intellectual property ranges from discussing its vagueness and abstract overreach to direct contention to the semantic validity of using words like property and rights in fashions that contradict practice and law. Many detractors think this term specially serves the doctrinal agenda of parties opposing reform in the public interest or otherwise abusing related legislations, and that it disallows intelligent discussion about specific and often unrelated aspects of copyright, patents, trademarks, etc
If you use a catch-all term like "content" when you could've said "prose", "video", "music" and so on I'll assume you either don't know about the difference or you don't care - or indeed both.
The same goes for "IP" when you could've said trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets and so on, whatever is actually relevant.
IP is the standard way of describing pre-existing content e.g. games, books that is available to turn into movies, TV shows etc.
You can go on and on about whether this is accurate or not but no one cares. Because this is the term that the entire industry has adopted because getting into the specifics of trademarks, copyrights etc is irrelevant for most parts.
I can assure you that the accountants and executives at these studios can absolutely value, evaluate, organise and produce the valuables that should reside inside the "container".
It's what the entire movie and TV industries have been about ever since the idea of sequels e.g. Aliens, Terminator and worlds e.g. Marvel took off.
? Everyone of these products, took of as a high risk venture- a risky bet, mostly guided by the assumption of the success inherited with a producer - aka the talent. The sure-fire successstory brand names they became after the risky bet paid off. Which makes them - yes, transportable, containerize-able, high-value "content", in hindsight.
And hindsight is not the same game, with all information revealed. And mass-producing them, has steadily deteriorated the value shipped in the containers. Which made more of them necessary, better organized, cheaper. Which looks like a great success until you realize that the value of anonymous goods traded in the standardized box has deteriorated and the impressive need for volume is a sign of decay.
I don't think that's true anymore, I believe Mike sold the IP to CD Project and has a stake in the company now, but I need to find a source to confirm this.
In this context is referring as Cyberpunk the role playing game, rather than just the genre. Cyberpunk 2077 has a setting based on the role playing board game (that’s where some characters come from, like Silverhand), and that setting is the original IP.
If you got a few of those motorized windows and hooked up a laptop running MS’ operating system to control them all, but only during certain times of day, there would be a window where your windows would be Windows windows.
You could set up a sweepstakes to install them with some complicated terms. Then you could explain to the local Vietnamese baker how the rules work — in other words, when does Nguyen Doughs win doze Windows windows?
// How can anyone hold IP over an abstract vibe? //
Same way somebody can hold a patent to a cartoon drawing of a mouse. It's not any individual picture of Mickey Mouse which is (solely) copywrited; even if you draw Mickey Mouse from a different angle, or upside down, or turn it into a plush toy, or a popsicle.....or if you drew Mickey's twin brother, or even his younger brother who bore a family resemblance....
...what do all those things have in common? If its not a "vibe"--a certain essence of Mickey-Mouseness.
You can't hold a patent to a cartoon drawing of a mouse (that you're implying is the character Mickey Mouse)
You can hold a design patent for the look of a tangible object - e.g. the rounded corners of an iPhone. You can also hold a design patent for particularly novel typefaces (fonts), the layout of a screen (e.g. like Norton Commander's twin directory listings on the left and right) and for computer icons, but that only covers them when they're displayed on screen.
So you could get a patent for the stylised depiction of a mouse as an icon, but only in that context.
If you wanted to flex ownership of a fictional character design, you get that by copyright, not patent. And the copyright law on derivative works is what protects that fiction character design from being copied or evolved by others. But it can't stop them parodying your design in order to ridicule it (specifically), so you don't have absolute control over it.
This is why I don't like the use of the term "IP" or "intellecual property", as it completely muddies the waters as to what your actual rights are, and what limitations of "ownership" there are.
// You can't hold a patent to a cartoon drawing of a mouse //
No, cartoons are protected by copyright, not by patents. And if I'm not mistaken, the original comment which wondered if a general vibe could be intellectual property was talking about something which would be protected by copyright as well.
But the same principle holds for patents. E.g. patenting an algorithm. It doesn't matter what language the algorithm is implemented in, whether you are running it on a binary computer or on some kind of a Chinese room set up, etc etc.
Think about how different two turing machines can be which implement the same algorithm. They don't even have to use the same symbols or states. They could print their outputs in English, French or any other natural language. The only thing that all Turing machines which implement the same algorithm have in common is a "vibe". Same kind of general vibe which the original commenter was talking about.
You definitely can't patent or copyright "a general vibe". You can copyright a specific expression; "Harry Potter" is copyrightable but not "boy wizards".
You can patent the novel parts of an invention (and in the US, business processes), but most things are not novel, and fictional things are not patentable.
The "Harry Potter Universe" is a collection of specific characters and specific locations. That is what's protected by copyright. You can totally make your own original story about a boy wizard, a school for magical people somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, and so on. You can totally repeat the "vibe" if you like, provided you don't base it on the specifics of Harry Potter.
To give some concrete examples:
Sherlock Holmes (and the "Sherlock Holmes Universe" if you like) used to be protected by copyright. While it was, there were thousands of competing books about detectives, including Maigret (with his distinctive pipe and overcoat, really rather a lot like Holmes), Miss Marple, Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey, and so on. "The vibe" of detective fiction was very much not copyrightable.
Furthemore, Dracula was a specific book, and certain works like Nosferatu did copy it. However the "vibe" of Dracula is vampires, and vampires are ancient folklore. There have been countless works of vampire fiction not infringing on Dracula's copyright. They just didn't copy Dracula. It's not that hard to do.
Musicians can copyright the melody and lyrics of their music, but they can't copyright the harmony, rhythm, and arrangement. If they could, we just wouldn't have music. An entire genre - blues - uses the same chord progression to produce hundreds of thousands of unique songs, but all within the basic structure. They are not copying each other, they're following the rules of a genre -- a "vibe". You can't copyright a vibe.
Patents only last 20 years in most countries. Design patents for 15 years in US (I think 25 years in EU.) Mickey Mouse has be around for a lot longer than that.
I was going to say. Patents expire. Copyright effectively extends beyond human lifespan and doesn't, making them forever. Patents are more useful because the public gets access once they expire.
This seems like the same way to look at it. The only disagreement between these two comments is if the potential integration is motivated by a lack of success, or the outlook of even greater success. Those are is, at least economically, identical motivations.
Annapurna Pictures in Dec 2022 produced Nimona for Netflix which debuted at #9 globally and was as high as #3 i.e. it was a massive hit.
So they now have the Stray IP which could be extremely lucrative and are looking at how CD Project Red handled their successful Cyberpunk integration on Netflix as a model. Which is where you cross-promote a game add-on or sequel with the movie.
Which means for the gaming side they really wouldn't have any control over their direction as it would be entirely driven by the movie side. Not exactly compelling for them hence why they want to leave.
With the success of Fallout, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk Edgerunners etc there's definitely big money to be made from video game IP.