May 9, 2007

Seizing Opportunities: Exploring How Global Dance Community Can Profit from the Internet

Anna Brady Nuse wrote an excellent comment yesterday in response to my post "Are Your Online Videos 'Legal'?" I figured I'd address the issues she raises in this new post.

- Dancers and dance companies need access to a large, diverse range of high-quality music that does not cost a fortune to license whether it is used for live performances or Internet distribution (via videos). What steps can be taken to compile an online database of such music that will make it easy for dancers/dance companies to find and license it? And how can such a database include listings of composers and musicians who are especially interested in working with dancers and dance companies?

- Given that both musicians/bands and dancers/dance companies want videos for marketing and promotional purposes and, possibly, to generate direct revenue, how can musicians, dancers and videographers be connected with each other to create such videos? If some type of online matchmaking service could be created, these three groups could find the right partners for future video projects. Social networking sites seem like a possible avenue for making these connections.

- What is the best way to create an industry-wide forum for addressing these topics that revolve around licensing, intellectual property issues, contractual matters, marketing and revenue-generation? Anna suggests keeping things small, using blogs, and focusing on grassroots efforts to highlight success stories and move things forward. Along those lines, maybe creating a topic-focused dedicated blog would be a good starting point.

Such a blog might consist of 10-20 primary contributors. These contributors would represent all sides of the issue. Among the contributors would be:

* Dancers (union/non-union, professional, competitive, amateur and others)
* Directors, choreographers and dance company managers
* Unions representing dancers/dance companies
* Associations or groups representing dancers and dance filmmakers
* Musicians and composers
* Musician or music-focused associations and groups
* Mainstream and alternative music licensing organizations
* Internet-based video and technology application providers
* Videographers and organizations representing videographers
* Intellectual property attorneys and other legal experts
* Others that may shed light on this topic

So each of the main participants in this forum would write posts to this dedicated blog for, maybe, a 4-week period of time. All posts would address the challenges raised above, in my post "Are Your Online Videos 'Legal'?" and in my earlier post, "New International Dance Association Needed." And, of course, everybody would be encouraged to participate via comments and trackbacks.

The end result of this online forum might be to:

- Clarify and better understand the main challenges that revolve around music licensing, online videos, IP and contractual issues, and how dancers can create new revenue sources. And,

- Determine what steps can or should be taken to address these challenges.

Conclusion

There are literally millions of dollars riding on how the dance community moves forward or does not move forward in addressing the above issues. I believe that the global dance community should start addressing these challenges in an organized and focused manner to figure out the best way to move forward.

Just to close with one illustration: Over the past week, I've been praising The Washington Ballet's "7x7: Shakespeare" program and saying how much I enjoy contemporary ballet. But how, for instance, would The Washington Ballet move forward in making videos of these performances available for Internet distribution so that all involved might benefit in financial or other ways? Yes, The Washington Ballet shot videos of these performances, but they can't just post these videos to the web. There are a huge number of complicated issues that have to be dealt with including music licensing, contractual issues (especially between the dance company and the union representing the dancers) and agreements with costume and lighting designers. Then once these issues are resolved, specific issues have to be addressed that relate to how to distribute these video online, how to promote them and how to monetize them.

The reason why it is in everybody's interest to address these issues head-on is because of the sheer size of the Internet audience. A properly created and implemented Internet video campaign can reach literally millions of dance fans around the world. If just a small fraction of this distribution can be monetized, we are talking about a significant new stream of revenue that benefits everybody involved in this project.

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