The Business of Multimedia

After two days of attending seminars on the business of multimedia at Inter*Active '96 in Toronto, two things were clear. One was that in the business of multimedia nothing is clear, and the second was that the more hype claims things are changing, the more the reality stays the same.

The conference was a valid attempt by the organizers -- CulTech Research Centre, Canadian Film Centre and Apple Canada -- to help educate artists about the ins and outs of multimedia and just what the deal is with getting a deal when you are an artist in a multimedia world.

But amidst all the hurrahs for the net, there was every indication that once the big guns get a grip on the internet and multimedia, life will go back to normal. Major networks and production houses will dominate, musicians will be forced to sign rights away and fine art will once again be relegated to a small audience due to lack of "sellability." But, the Internet has arrived, and in it people have a new way to ignore it.

Billed as a conference for "artists, arts executives and the software developers who cater to the entertainment industry," the sessions risked being more product showcases than a behind the scenes look at the business of new technologies. Almost every seminar had a sponsor as a speaker or technology presenter. In all fairness, these advertisers deserved the spotlight for helping subsidize a fairly amibitious program that could become a benchmark event in the Canadian arts calender.

A conference of this kind was long overdue in Canada. However, there was every indication that it was a conference ahead of its time. The "expert" panelists were themselves currently still learning the industry. Astral Media's Dan Lyon spoke about distribution, but has himself only recently released the first Astral CD-ROM, Man in the Sea. Nettwerk Records' Terry McBride, whose company has begun adding multimedia elements to their music releases, called CD-Enhanced, admitted that they had no clear indication yet whether having multimedia elements on traditional CDs had any affect on record sales.

It was the artists themselves who demonstrated as the ones who were keen on grabbing multimedia by the horns. From classical musicians looking to make CD-Enhanced CDs, to artists attempting to figure out how to market interactive art, attendees were eager to know with what ease the technology could be created and sold.

Some artists were genuinely dismayed by the attitudes exhibited by the more business-oriented attendees who voiced age-old questions like how to get artists to sign non-exclusive clauses, or interested in attending seminars with eye-popping titles like "Intellectual Property Issues", "Distribution Issues" or "The Business of Accounting For It."

One speaker predicted that the internet would become an organized system of professional networks and content providers. Another felt that distribution of CD-ROMs would be little different than videos and music. And Stephen Selznick, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property issues for Blaney and McMurtry Lawyers in Toronto, noted that the current rules governing rights to creative properties is decades old

Shmoozing, the make-or-break element of any conference, was in high form. Business people and artists were commingling, offering their predictions of where technology was headed and elaborating on how they were using it to create.

One speaker, Tom Jurenka, outputted an analogy-a-minute to describe the Internet, likely because there is no concrete way to discuss just what the hell is going on. According to Jurenka, the Internet is like, "The California goldrush."

Ultimately, Inter*Active '96 gave every indication that the rapid changes in technology were putting control back into the hands of the artists, if they are quick enough to catch on. Artists, more specifically Canadian artists, are in a position to grab hold of the new technologies and lead the pack into the dawn of a new era. Dan Lyon, VP Distribution for Astral Entertainment Group, noted that Canada was in a position to become more than an outpost for American multimedia ventures unlike it was in the area of film. "With film, Canada started as a branch plant," Lyon notes. "With multimedia we are starting out on the cutting edge."

Some artists like Barenaked Ladies' Steven Page believe that technologies like CD-Enhanced give artists a chance to strike a deal that seems fair by them. "Artists lost the battle with videos but they have a leg up here." Interactivity, according to the business seminars, is a horse race where the track has yet to be defined. The one thing that did seem to get established at the conference was the truism about multimedia: that those who will ultimately benefit are the ones who can figure out just what the hell is going on. So saddle up kiddees, it's time to blaze a trail!