22surf to Present at OSCOM4 (Open Source Content Management) in Zurich.


22surf: An Open Source Business Plan for Open Source CMS & DRM

OSCOM Track: Business/Legal

Title:
22surf.org: An Open Source Business Plan for Open Source CMS & DRM

Presenters:
Dr. Elliot McGucken: Founder of authena.org, 22surf.org, and jollyroger.com
Chris Mollis: Founder of objectlab.com and openipmp.org (Open Source DRM)

22surf Summary:

22surfing is a sport. It's for individuals and businesses alike. It's about surfing along with natural laws like Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and intellectual property law towards one's dreams as a creator, hacker, and entrepreneur. It's about riding technology's bleeding edge out to where artist-hackers, writers, movie directors, photographers, and musicians form their own media archives and markets, as Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS) surpass yesterday's proprietary solutions.

Digital rights management (DRM) is the holy grail of the internet. It is a multi-billion-dollar, ever-expanding market, and an apt solution will be invaluable to the livelihood of content creators, programmers, and media companies. The 22surf business plan for generating revenue with Open Source CMS and DRM has been Open Sourced in an effort to foster discussion and inspire fellow artist-hackers to build businesses. Rather than proposing another CMS, 22surf seeks the best route to syndicated commerce and DRM across existing CMS.

An Open Source solution to DRM will be important to artists, musicians, and creators, to the Open Source community, and to DRM. If only proprietary methods for DRM are developed, then corporations will be granted more power over creators, and too, it will be difficult to realize universal, robust standards, as hackers around the world won't be allowed under the hood to improve the system. Furthermore, an Open Source solution to DRM will provide countless business opportunities and jobs for Open Source programmers with record labels, stock photography archives, and movie studios, all of whom will save money.

An Open Source solution to DRM and syndicable media markets is a natural destination for the Open Source movement. DRM and syndication are based on methods and algorithms that must be transparent in order for DRM and syndication to be trusted, secure, and universally accepted.

The internet favors the direct connection of the creator and consumer. In the emerging webscape defined by the Open Source CMS renaissance, creators will be able to define the rights determining how their content is used, and consumers will be able to support their favorite artists and musicians without large corporations taking a cut.

Open Source is granting the creator the power to create their own media markets. Oscommerce is fully capable of handling pay-per-download models alongside physical media sales, bypassing the often greater than 50% cut into an artist's profits that older models centered about large, proprietary online markets claimed. Open Source CMS also allows the creator to maximize their own brand rather than building amazon.com's or barnesandnoble.com's. Future 22surf models are explored, including scenarios wherein open DRM protocols such as openipmp and Media-S are married to Open Source CMS such as xoops, postnuke, tiki, gallery, and oscommerce to provide content marketplaces connecting creators directly to consumers.

22surf encourages artist-hackers to download the 22surf business plan for building profitable archives and marketplaces with Open Source CMS, change and build on it, and join in the following revenue streams: 1) sell keyword advertising throughout free OSCMS hosting services (blogs, galleries, etc.), 2) sell advanced hosting options/extra disk space, 3) charge 5% on content marketplace transactions, 4) charge 5% on Open Source Arts freelance services marketplace transactions, 5) manage/host media assets of large businesses (record labels/movie studios/etc.) with openipmp or Media-S for DRM 6) sell printing services (or partner with businesses) for hard-copy books, prints, CDs, DVDs, etc. 7) create a syndicable friendster/FOAF (friend-of-a-friend) network.

All of the above revenue streams may be realized with a small team surfing along with Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Copyright Law, and delivering maximum value by leveraging Open Source CMS such as vvgallery, oscommerce, cafelog, postnuke, and gallery. With common standards for syndication based on RSS/RDF suggested at authena.org, bands, writers, photographers, and friends will be able to enjoy syndication across multiple archives and marketplaces. Working together, trusted marketplaces utilizing open standards for syndication will prosper.

22surf proposes that DRM standards will be architected by artist-hackers utilizing an Open Source philosophy based on creators' rights, such as that promoted by Authena. Major corporations have been unsuccessful in implementing popular DRM standards, largely because such standards tend to enrich the major corporations at the creators' and consumers' expense.

Security standards will only emerge if artist-hackers trust them. While Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law make processing power and software free and abundant commodities, talent and trust will never be commoditized. Over time, marketplaces that are best able to establish trust will prevail and snowball. These will become tomorrow's media companies, and first movers in "trust" will have a lot to gain. Like the mathematical algorithms they are based on, DRM standards must be transparent and free.

Up until now the corporate conglomerates have viewed the majority of artists as commodities--the corporate marketing muscle often determined the success of the author or artist more than the creator's inherent talent. This led to a bloated, centralized industry with thousands of agents, marketers, and middlemen that cut into the artist's profits, while often replacing quality with hype. But technology is reversing the commoditization. Online record company startups and print-on-demand services are a dime a dozen, while an artist's talents remain unique. 22surf encourages artists and authors to sell in traditional markets including amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, but also to always use Open Source CMS such as oscommerce to sell their creations directly to their fans, simultaneously undercutting the traditional marketplaces' prices, building their own brand, and retaining a greater profit for themselves. Thus fans can enjoy supporting their favorite artists, and artists can receive greater revenue, which they can invest in better equipment, another CD, or a video camera. As the Open Source CMS renaissance progresses, fans will be afforded more music, movies, and books at lower prices, and creators will make more money.

The business model of centralized conglomerates marketing the digital rights of a handful of artists is outdated. Both the artists and end-consumers have become flustered. A new model, consisting of a distributed network of thousands of creators hosting their content on Open Source CMS and syndicating it to trusted archives and marketplaces, is emerging. In order to build a trusted network of marketplaces supporting common standards for syndicated commerce, the business plan should be shared openly. The transparency provided by Open Source will foster the adoption of open standards for DRM and syndicated commerce.