Tech Mediums

I’m not much of a comics buff.  But what I like, I really like. 

Spawn is one of my FAVORITES (I also like Blokhedz, a cool hip hop cartoon, the movie version I hope will be out sometime in 2009).  I popped in HBO’s season 1 in the DVD player so I’m ampped, even though it came out in 1997 (the comic edition came out in 1992 after creator, Todd McFarlane, left Marvel with some others to form Image Comics). 

Basically, Spawn was a former CIA covert ops guy named Al Simmons.  He was one of the agency’s best hit men until Jason Wynn, Director of the United States Security Group (which oversaw the CIA), agreed to have him killed for asking one-too-many questions of missions having increasingly questionable purpose.  Wynn made the deal with Malebolgia, ruling demon of the 8^th Sphere of Hell, in exchange for psychoplasm, thereby giving Wynn super powers. 

Malebogia officially made Simmons a Hellspawn (a general Hell’s army against heaven), in exchange for allowing Simmons to see his wife again. 

Spawn has these really cool powers too (teleportation, quick-time healing, super-human strength).  Spawn has a symbiotic relationship with his costume, which protects him (his cape can attack and help him fly, and even creates a shroud to transform Spawn into anyone he wants; his chains can also attack).

Wikipedia does a really good job of giving you a more detailed background.

Last May 2007, Todd MacFarlane, creator of Spawn, came out with Spawn: Godslayer.  Here’s a free peak at the first edition.  He’s on his 8^th edition, now, which came out in April 2008.

Before we get into piracy, a word from McLovin (of SuperBad) on the topic.

Matt Mason, in his book “Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism” discusses a fascinating look into what is very possible a mega trend…piracy in other forms – not just music but everything, how technology is making piracy easier and how, on some level, it should be embraced.

As far as the first two points, sure, there have been bootleg BMWs, watches, software, but Matt’s talking about a world where it’s becoming much easier.

An example, is the 3D printer, which has been talked about for a while (heard about this at about the same time I heard that someone built a PC accessory that could replicate smells over the internet).

As far as it being embraced, I remember an old professor of mine, Pete Fader, a marketing professor at Wharton who’s known for his patented rants, arguing that file sharing was actually good for copyright holders (primarily record labels and their artists). It created buzz. Matt also talks about this in that the demographic who would get pirated material is not the demographic who would actually buy the material. Fader argued that the labels were wrong when saying that they lost $X amount in revenues due to pirated materials. “That’s ridiculous!” Fader said. Just because you can’t get something for free, doesn’t mean you’ll buy it otherwise.

While thinking that copyright laws should be updated, Matt likes the idea of piracy (mentioning that he can’t wait for his book to be pirated).

I actually agree, in concept. I like the idea that new business models need to emerge. That’s why I like open markets. It forces companies, and thus, products, to evolve.

But if I spend a lot of money to make intellectual property, I deserve the right to protect it, regardless of borders.

That notwithstanding, I also think some forms of IP can be seen as marketing materials for a greater thing. Classic example is music. Because of the amount of music put out yearly and the lack of distinguishing characteristics of some tracks to others, music seems more like a commodity. As such, it could be effectively used to market the artist. Artists can let viral marketing take over, bootlegged or not. In fact, in this scenario, you want people to pirate it because it costs you nothing…free marketing to create demand.

The model that I favor is a controlled “open” IP.

Software companies have been doing things like this for a LONG time. Adobe let people get Reader (reads pdf documents) for free to help create demand for Acrobat (to make pdf), for which it charges.

This model might be able to be used consistently for all IP and is a direct link to revenue– that’s why I like it.

Here’s Matt’s video. Enjoy!

Thanks to ProHipHop.com for the video.

Courtesy of Graffiti Research Lab (who knew such research existed…hip hop is EVERYWHERE)