Category Archives: Managing Risks

One small step for CGI, one giant leap against piracy

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siggraph-logo

Whilst walking the exhibits at SIGGRAPH 2014, I noticed how CGI could cut media pirate profits. With CGI Cultural Dubbing.

SIGGRAPH 2014 is a five-day interdisciplinary computer generated imagery (CGI) research conference and trade fair showcasing the latest in digital art, technical collaboration, and emerging tech. This year, 175 companies from 18 countries; and 14,000 artists, software developers, research scientists, filmmakers, academics and students from 75 countries attended the fair.

Stopping Piracy Profitability

Right now, movie companies lose billions of dollars to international pre-release piracy. By one estimate,  a 7% lower return on 70% of revenue.

Here’s how:

Pre-release lag windows

Piracy takes advantage of the premiere lag window

Could we advance the gift of the actor with CGI . . . dealing piracy a body-blow? Here’s the idea – modify facial features, speech, and cultural nuances for each target audience.

The Cost-Benefit Question?

If you live in Dhaka or Lagos or Caracas, would you pay for a poorly dubbed copy if you could get the original?

  • . . . in your language
  • . . . with the hero looking and sounding
  • . . . like someone you’d pass by at the local market,
  • . . . or share a coffee with?

siggraph-01-graphics-002Maxon-Hranitzky-cropped

I’m an (on leave) member of AB/BC Cave Rescue, and got this idea by combining what I saw at Maxon’s booth (Cinema 4D™ 3D rendering software and Robert Hranitzky‘s cool helicopter and lighthouse image which led me to think about rescue practice) with what I saw from Dynamixyz (their Performer™ facial capture and analysis software) and 3DMD (ImageFusion™ craniofacial virtual reality medtech modeling).

I got to thinking Performer™ could be used for “mouth-shape mirroring” during speech therapy, and learned that it has been used this way: 1-4% of North Americans naturally stutter, and additional speech disabilities arise from the adult neurological effect of Parkinson’s disease, Stroke, etc. I could see speech therapy as a use case: someone looking at themselves stuttering, learning-by-seeing-how-to-change enunciation and mouth-shape to minimize the stuttering event, whilst working with the therapist to use the tool to practice voicing and mouth-shaping.

And then thought about the insignia emblazoned on Mr. Hranitzky’s Sea King helicopter image: imagining that image modified to display the insignia of each national market.

And then thought about new disciplines coming over from the medtech side to the CGI digital media industry side:

  • – CGI Ethnographers
  • – CGI Anthropologists
  • – CGI Linguists & Translators
  • – CGI Speech Pathologists & Audiologists

siggraph-01-graphics-page4modified-004siggraph-01-graphics-page4modified-005Could CGI grow the industry by changing the cost structure of pre-release piracy?

  • – Using artistic wizardry to globally grow local markets, without changing the internal technical practices of the industry?
  • – Cutting into the margins of media pirates, using technical advances to modify legacy release date cycles?
  • – Extending the professional ranks of colour and detail specialists by adding networks of specialized skills to build local markets?
  • – Using demand, economies of scale, and a global network of specialty skills to make a big chunk of piracy unprofitable?

If we could cut piracy losses to 1% or less, would there be sufficient net balance sheet, economic, trade, and stock price materiality ROI to justify the change?

Moon boot imprint – US Public Domain via NASA

Helicopter & Lighthouse: © Copyright Maxon Computer, Artwork by Robert Hranitzky. Used with permission. Cropped for blog post.  Original is here.

Images in notes – citations here [huer-image-links-siggraph01]

Should Patent Terms be Auctioned like Electromagnetic Spectrum?

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AFVPR is a public resource conservation framework: calculating the AFVPR of a limited resource, so that we can plan for recovery and return of the value of those resources back to their original value, the intrinsic state we all enjoy.

Electromagnetic_spectrum-fr-svg

Electromagnetic Spectrum

I wonder, could we apply the framework to patent rights?

Since (Quoting USPTO) “the term of a patent for utility/patent patent(s) is no longer based upon a term fixed at grant, the number of factors that must be considered increase the difficulty in calculating the term of a patent. A patent owner or the public must consider the following factors in calculating the expiration date of a patent for utility and plant applications. The factors include the following:

  • – type of application(utility, design, plant);
  • – filing date of the application;
  • – the grant date of the patent;
  • – benefit claims under 35 U.S.C. § 120, 121 or 365(c);
  • – patent term adjustments and extensions under 35 U.S.C. § 154;
  • – patent term extensions under 35 U.S.C. § 156;
  • – terminal disclaimer(s); and
  • – timely payment of maintenance fees.

Electromagnetic Spectrum is periodically auctioned off.

Governments reserve spectra for small players to prevent anti-competitive private cartel dominance of the public resource; and encourage full and frank ownership disclosure to get the license.

In the Age of Patent Aggregators, do we not have the same need?

  • – Are patent “barons” discouraging innovation outside University-Aggregator partnerships?
  • – Will more entrepreneurs leave jurisdictions that think that control of the patent sector in partnership with Aggregators mean that entrepreneurs will simply buckle?
  • – Will more entrepreneurs simply take their minds and wallets elsewhere, or simply expose patents, or simply sit back to watch patent portfolios drop in value if markets slowly decide that portfolios (and all the threatened “Pay Us or Else” lawsuits) have become a millstone around the necks of investors, and financiers, and insurers?

Since term duration is now malleable, should we manage patent rights differently?

  • – Should Patent Rights be treated as electromagnetic spectrum?
  • – With a segment reserved for small players;
  • – With full and frank ownership disclosure (including shell and associate companies):
  • – Periodically shuffled to encourage maximum competition?
  • – Foreign government-owned companies and entities required to adhere to the same transparent rules that domestic companies face?
  • – Foreign government-owned Aggregator partners made to face the same rules, or be excluded from the domestic marketplace?

 

Spectrum Image by: Sharayanan (Creative Commons license via Wikipedia)

Anticipated Future Value of Public Resources (AFVPR) – a shared resources’ framework

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The common ground for Oil Sands Float Rights and Hydrological Spread water tax credits . . .is a public resource conservation framework: calculating the AFVPR of a limited resource, so that we can plan for recovery and return of the value of those resources back to their original value, the intrinsic state we all enjoy.  

  • – Using the AFVPR framework, we obtain market incentive to maximize self-interested conservation of the common resources we all depend on as a species and a civilization.
  • – Using AFVPR with Hydrological Spreads . . . we can manage limited supply, drought-induced shortages and over-pumping shortages, and minimize contamination of surface supplies, the water table, and local aquifers.  See the AFVPR water discussion here. 
  • – We can use AFVPR for . . . liquid water and water vapour for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use; energy supplies (hydroelectric, oil, gas, oil sands, solar), public forests, and topsoil).
  • – We can use AFVPR to . . .  create market incentive to cut industrial waste and contamination to zero (100% Zero Waste),
  • – Using AFVPR, governments offer incentive to create new technologies, such as vapour loss monitoring tools, to incentivize zero waste.
  • – Using AFVPR, entrepreneurs obtain incentive to create that new technologies, and the jobs that go with it.

 

The countries, states, and provinces that put AFVPR in place get market advantage first.

Are there ways that AFVPR could be used in your country?

 

Creative Commons Credit: – Video by Mr. Rain and Thunder