** Submission deadline: March 19 **

The Open Video Alliance is now accepting proposals for panels, workshop sessions, demo sessions, and other programming for the inaugural Open Video Conference in New York. Join us and over 400 participants during our groundbreaking two-day conference and make your imprint on the online video space.

Visit http://openvideoalliance.org/proposals/ to make a submission.

Open Video Conference
June 19-20, 2009
New York City
40 Washington Square South (NYU Law School)

The Open Video Conference
The conference is a co-production of the Yale Law School Information Society Project, the Participatory Culture Foundation, Kaltura, and iCommons. The conference will feature talks from internet luminaries, panels and discussions, screenings of video art, and demonstrations of the newest internet video technology. We expect more than 400 participants. Here are some goals for the gathering:

1. Bring together stakeholders in the online video space (video makers, coders, lawyers, academics, entrepreneurs, etc.) for cross-pollination and development of the Open Video movement.

2. Raise public interest and awareness around the Principles for an Open Video Ecosystem, a community effort to define best practices in online video.

3. Raise the public profile of video creators and artists working in the online space.

4. Foster a narrative — why should organizations and individuals value openness? How does it affect their work?

What Types of Proposals are You Seeking?
We are requesting proposals and ideas for panels, presentations, workshops, and other sessions that will address how we can shape online video and the public debates around the medium. Proposals may be intended for the main conference track, or for more focused unconference-style sessions. Proposal topics may be legal, technical, or cultural in focus, though we encourage proposals in all relevant areas. The more complete and fleshed out a proposal, the more likely it will be accepted—but we welcome the submission of all good ideas.

We are also seeking submissions of video art to showcase the creative potential of artists in the open video space.

To submit a proposal or idea for Open Video, please visit http://openvideoalliance.org/proposals/. The deadline for submissions is March 19, 2009. If you have any questions about the Alliance, the conference, or the submission process, please contact Ben Moskowitz at conference@openvideoalliance.org .

Why is Open Video Important?
YouTube and other online video applications are rightly celebrated for empowering end-users; however, online video lacks some of the essential qualities that make text and images on the web such powerful tools for free speech and technical innovation. Email, blogs, and other staples of the open web rely on ubiquitous and interoperable technologies that have low barriers to entry; they are massively decentralized and resistant to censorship or regulation. Video, meanwhile, relies on centralized distribution and proprietary technologies which can threaten cultural discourse and innovation.

Open Video is the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and participation in online video. These qualities provide more fertile ground for bottom-up innovation and greater protection for free speech online. Many organizations are already taking steps to change the nature of video on the web: Mozilla is moving to support open video formats in Firefox, the Participatory Culture Foundation promotes open source and standards in video publishing and distribution, and Wikipedia has increased its focus on the open Theora codec.

Yet Open Video is more than just having a functional open source video codec. It’s all the legal and social norms surrounding online video. It’s the ability to attach the license of your choice to videos you publish. It’s about media consolidation, aggregation, and decentralization. It’s about fair use. In short, it covers the new media gamut—and that’s why this conference is guaranteed to be very stimulating.

About the Open Video Alliance
The Open Video Alliance is a coalition of leading organizations dedicated to fostering the growth of open infrastructure, tools, and standards for the online video medium. Yale Law School’s Information Society Project hosted a stakeholder meeting on October 31st, 2008; representatives from nearly 30 organizations convened to discuss common goals for technologists, maker communities, and legal experts.

For more information, see http://openvideoalliance.org.

This is a post to circulate our current research on the availability of open source software for video:

Open Source Video Software: An Inventory (OpenDocument Text file, 52 KB)

This inventory is the result of an ongoing effort at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision R&D Department at creating an insight in the current availability of open source software for video. The main reason for this research is the current development of Open Images, but it is also aimed at expanding our institutional knowledge and expertise, and to share this within research projects and (collaborative) software development. The goal is to get an overview of the available tools for the whole spectrum, from production to distribution and ultimately consumption. Next to this, we also consider processes involved with preservation, interaction and creative reuse of video.

The publication of this document is meant as a first step towards sharing this knowledge and transforming this research into a collaborative effort. We hope this document can become a starting point for a more comprehensive and elaborate inventory. To make this possible we have used an OpenDocument Text file for this document and licensed it under a Creative Commons license. So feel free to correct and/or add information to this inventory, or – for instance – convert the document into a wiki!

For the less ‘open’ readers, there is also a PDF version.

UPDATE: The Open Video Alliance has adopted the inventory on its wiki, making it possible for anyone to contribute!

As part of Images for the Future the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and Knowledgeland are developing Open Images. The aim of this project is to offer online access to a selection of archive material for creative reuse. Reuse includes remixing of archive footage in new videos. Open Images also supports interlinking with other data sources (like Wikipedia), allowing the easy creation of mashups. Access to the content will be based on the Creative Commons model which proposes a middle way to rights management, rather than the extremes of the pure public domain or the reservation of all rights. The ‘open’ nature of the project is underscored by adapting open formats and using open source software. Software resulting from Open Images will also be released under a open source license.

The development of the project started with a kick-off meeting at Knowledgeland in Amsterdam, earlier this month. The aim-of-the-day was to map the (open source) digital video solutions that are available today and to get feedback. Eight experts in the digital video field where invited to this informal brainstorm session. After an introduction of Images for the Future and the Open Images project plan, the invited experts gave inspiring presentations of their current work. At the end of the day there was a general discussion about the project plan and the first steps that ought to be taken.

Please find a report of this day below. Open Images aims to launch a Beta release by the end of the year.

(more…)