We will be making more announcements soon, so please watch this space…

Hosted by Iceland’s New Business Venture Fund, this workshop began with an explanation of who the NBVF are and how they operate, by Helga Valfells, Managing Director of the company. We learned that the company was founded in 1998, has invested in around 150 (Icelandic) companies, are shareholders of around 39 companies, and have made a total investment in the creative industries if around 1700 million ISK.

Among the companies they have helped are Gogoyoko, Grapewire, Nordic Photos, Lazytown (recently sold), Gogogic and design company Nikita.

Ms Valfells explained how NBVF, despite being government owned, enjoy a great deal of independence, and how they tend to invest in technological companies, many of which have a creative bias. She commented that one of the most important element in pitching is showing the strength of one’s team: their knowledge, skill set and/or attitude. “An A team with a B idea is better than the other way around,” she claimed. The company then look at the business concept, what problems the pitching company might be solving in the world, financial planning (“essential, even if plans don’t always follow that path in real life”), plus how the pitch addresses markets and things like competition.

In front of a “Dragon’s Den” style panel that consisted of Ms Valfells, Egill Másson (Investment Manager at NBVF), Svana Gunnarsdóttir (Investment Manager at Frumtak) and Eyþór Ívar Jónsson (CEO of Klak – Innovation Centre and Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School), YAIC participants were then invited to present their concepts to see how they might be received in a real environment.

The first pitch was by a lady involved in an improvisation vocal and dance project consisting of nine women from four Nordic countries, who wanted to plan musical experiences and perhaps a school that taught improvisation. Not the most obvious pitch, but it was popular with the panel, the majority of whom said they would back it, albeit with an urge to focus more, and be specific about who the audience might be, how the project would make money and how much would be needed.

Next came Christine from NYC, a music writer who had the idea of creating a “musical exchange” between musicians from NYC and Iceland, to help foster creative enterprise as well as travel experience. This was also well received, despite being a very sketchy idea in the first instance, though again the panel specified they would need more information regarding funding, and more specific dynamics.

The third, and most comprehensive pitch was from Icelandic Cinema Online, who have already begun their business without funding, but who are looking to expand and bolster what they have. Again, it was unanimously agreed that the project was a great idea, and had great potential in a variety of ways. Whether real pitches to investment funding companies would be quite so relaxed and full of fun brainstorming is a moot point; but the workshop really did give an insight into the kinds of things potential pitchers would need in order to make a serious bid for money.

Also present in the workshop were Þór Tjörvi Þórsson (IS), Project Co-Ordinator at The Icelandic Film Centre, Stefanía Thors (IS), Co-founder / Owner of Icelandic Cinema Online, Ari Kristinsson (IS), Producer, Writer and Director

Many points were raised in the workshop, with some key points being that 1,400 to 1,500 films are produced in Europe annually, and the importance of providing customers with ways of filtering them (or filtering for them.

The discussion revolved at one point around how to make Icelandic cinema more visible, the expenses involved in “hidden” aspects of film distribution such as support (90% of costs in some cases), and led on to the future of VoD in general. “I am not sure where the future is,” admitted Scheel. “But maybe it is to try and be niche. I think Iceland is already niche, and in a very positive way. It is also important to market and promote well, otherwise nothing happens.”

Darren Web, online marketing manager for Sigur Ros (photo by Arnar Bergmann)

Darren Webb from the Sigur Ros online team and Johann Agust Johannsson of Kraumur – a non-profit music office and operation based in Reykjavik – hosted an intimate, informative workshop on maximising the online experience for bands and the merits of the tools and services currently available.

The audience was a great cross-section of people, including members of Gogoyoko and Projekta as well as music managers, musicians and performers, all keen to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to online engagement with fans and consistency across platforms.

She was joined by Guðrún Björk Bjarnadóttir (IS), General Manager of STEF, The Performing Rights Society of Iceland, Einar Tönsberg (IS), Musician, Pétur Jónsson (IS), Music Producer and Manager of Medialux Music Productions. The guests at the workshop included local artists, representatives of Gogoyoko, and a publisher of sheet music and books.

After underlining the fact that TV and film are one of the best ways for musicians to make a living, Staci began explaining the best ways for artists to get their work heard by the right people. Pétur Jónsson (IS), Music Producer and Manager of Medialux Music Productions also rightly pointed out that the perception of music has changed to the point where it is nowadays much more acceptable for musicians to have their creative goods used in film and TV.

Some of the main points raised were that artists should always send instrumentals, as almost every commissioning producer wants to hear an instrumental version of a song, even if the original comes with lyrics. (Make sure you master them too, urged Peter, show them the same respect as the originals). Secondly, make sure you tell people you are from Iceland, as this is a very popular and buzzy place as far as film people are concerned right now — be sure to write it in big letters to help your pitch stand out.

One of the main “don’ts” was to make sure not to send hundreds of unsolicited CDs out to mailing lists. Resources like www.filmmusicstore.com are a way of researching more specifically what people are working on…

Photo by Arnar Bergmann

Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth are collaborative visual artists who have done everything from re-enacting David Bowie’s final performance as Ziggy Stardust, remade a bootleg of the Cramps with Holly Golightly as Poison Ivy, created the feted ‘Moby Hotel’ and built a machine that can embed a subliminal message into music for ‘Silent Sound’.

When it comes to bringing music and digital together in an innovative creative, these people are at the top of their game.

They discussed the five main factors they apply to each project:

1) Aim – what do you want to do? Is it achievable?
2) Voice – is the project tailored to the artist?
3) Innovation – is it a good idea?
4) Audience – are you reaching the audience?
5) Value – are you getting the right value

For example, when Pulp reunited to play live, they grabbed attention with the way they put it across, in the form of an enigmatic film of the band setting up in a studio with a stream of consciousness narrative provided by Jarvis Cocker. Fans were also invited to cover Pulp songs to ‘help them relearn the songs. The brief was to make it not look like marketing.

With Adele, the aim of her initial campaign was, as Pollard put it, ‘How do we put across this remarkable voice?’ Rather than making a regular website with news stories and a run of the mill design, the main page featured solely a video of Adele’s incendiary performance on Later…with Jools Holland – that was the first and main thing fans saw / heard when visiting the website. Simple but effective…

Pollard and Forsyth basically gave a masterclass in quirky ways of approaching marketing – another example was a sinister cut-out ‘man’ listening post, which toured London’s landmarks allowing people to listen to Thom York’s solo debut ‘The Eraser’, garnering masses of press and interest. The video for Nick Cave’s ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!’, kept it simple, understood that Cave fans just want to see Cave, rather than a complicated narrative, and unlocked the humour of the record in a successful bid to change perceptions that the band were ‘gothic’ or miserable.

The pair continued to show a slew of impressive campaigns, from the Moby Hotel to their celebrated  4AD Sessions, with lucid explanations of their principles and working methods along the way. Not only that, but they then publicly brainstormed with three companies (chosen via a previous application process) to try and find ideas to promote and market their artists.

Copyright Panel (photo by Arnar Bergmann)

The copyright panel was a fiery affair, with some understandable  locking of horns between Levine and Klang, representing the two sides of the copyright argument.

Robert Levine, on the subject of the Creative Commons, within which Klang is Project Lead for Sweden, argued that the “Creative Commons licenses are practially written in crayon.”

He observed that CC only has one copyright, as opposed to two: mechanical and composition. “Why?” he asked. “Here are some possibilities: some of the smartest lawyers in the US forgot about it? They wanted to create confusion? If I record Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, they want to create a  situation where those mechanical royalties are impossible to collect?  I’ll give you a clue, it ain’t the first.”

Klang refuted this, adding that: “Creative Commons are doing it for no money and they are not financed by Google, the whole connection with Google is confusing me,” he said, in reference to Levine’s previous claim that many law schools are funded by Google.

Designer Sigga Heimis, who works for Ikea, cut in to put forward the argument that instead of discussing the past, “Why not try to reach young people? Ten years ago people were sceptical about selling ecological products, (they) cost more, no one is going to buy them…now they sell like candy. Why not put energy into educating young consumers, try to talk towards the future rather than nag about the situation today?” She also raised the concern that while millions are pumped in to protect brands, more money should be pumped into creativity.

On the subject of downloading and watching material online for free, Levine observed that there is an assumption among young people that “if something is on YouTube, it’s legal.” Klang, as a university teacher, spoke of his concern of criminalising young people: “I don’t want to teach a 13-year-old ‘You know that thing all your friends do? You can’t do that.’ I don’t want to make children outlaws.”

While there are benefits to artists’ work being shared and played online, Gudrun Bjork Bjarnadottir, former lawyer and general manager  of STEF, the performing rights society of Iceland, said there is hope for the future for those concerned about the lawlessness of the web: “YouTube is currently making contracts with (Scandinavia) so we are slowly making the internet a regulated place. We cannot take a part of our culture and say: this is a place where no regulations apply. We need regulations in that sphere as in other spheres of our lives. The goal is to make money for artists. I would be very glad if at least some could make a living from being an artist.”

A round up of other interesting thoughts from the panel:

Njordur Sigurjonsson, lecturer at Bifrost University: “We shouldn’t  
let the unions dominate the most important question of our time –  
where is culture heading? We need to open the discussion, ‘Free Ride’  
is a contribution, this might be one of the most important issues of  
the future. This should be a wider topic in terms of democracy and  
business interest.”

Gudrun: ‘Interesting times ahead. I was moved by Ralph’s speech about  
what was up and coming in technology. I do also have hopes for the  
future, and as we discussed educating hte young re copyright, it  
actually is so that the youngest generation is the quickest at  
picking up on Spotify – it’s the older generation that is using peer-
to-peer illegal file-sharing, there are signs we are going in the  
right direction,”

Klang: “I feel that part of what exists in other cultures, you should  
be able to opt out of copyright and put your work in the public domain.”

Sigga: “The word copyright, it’s a problematic kind of thing and  
people don’t address it but it is something we have to solve rather  
than debate about, integrate it into education.”

And the final word from Alex MacNeil, CEO of Gogoyoko, a service that  
allows artists to sell directly to fans: “The future is artists being  
paid fairly, responsibility being taken by the companies that make  
distribution, not hiding behind lawyers and double speak. That’s the  
future.”

Mathias Klang (photo by Arnar Bergmann)

Mathias Klang, a lawyer and lecturer from Gothenburg, presented the  other side of the copyright argument after Robert Levine’s talk with an entertaining, thought-provoking presentation.

“Where were you when they locked up culture?”, asks Matthias Klang,  challenging the dominant myth that ‘everything is property’ and ‘creation needs cash.’ Cash is not required for creation, argued Klang.

“It will work if it’s providing for the common good,” we don’t need to cling to the economic and creative myth. His take on stealing and sharing? “Stealing stuff is creative, by the way; Piratebay is a really creative community.”

“My problem with copyright and the chasing and enforcing of it is the people who get caught in between. The people who don’t have or can’t afford lawyers, the people who (don’t) realise they need a lawyer. The galleries, libraries and museums are also suffering. Culture is proving a casualty of this war.”

On the subject of participatory democracy, Klang said that we have felt for a long time that we don’t have the tools for it. “We now have, thanks to digitilisation, connectivity, storage and devices. We took the content from the content carrier and removed the physical  item. Connectivity is the basis for everything. With modems we used to pay by the minute, it was awful. With fixed rates you stay online more, and start file-sharing etc. We are saving more stuff, creating more stuff, storing it.”

Devices are “the most important, they are the interface to the world, the way in which we see the world, they change our life.” He joked that we have become so used to the ‘pinch’ mechanism on our iPhone and iPad screens that he is waiting for the day a child goes up to a TV and tries out the pinch mechanism on it, and gets angry when the picture doesn’t enlarge.

Ultimately, Klang feels that culture “shouldn’t be so focused on fixation. It’s depressing when artists talk about copyright, I know it’s important but when we equate the successful artist with the one who makes the most money, when the artist becomes an entrepreneur, aren’t we changing the game-plan?”

Levine claims in his book that the internet is destroying creative industries, and discussed how culture needs to fight back against the idea that “everything being free is the future.”

“It’s painted as a progressive struggle,” said Levine. “A conflict between the rights of the people and the media companies.” He insisted that despite accusations of being “anti-technology, it couldn’t be further from the truth.” He admires the innovation of
Facebook, Twitter, Bjork’s Biophilia, and acknowledges that “these couldn’t exist without copyright.”

Levine shared some sobering thoughts: “People who distribute creative works without paying for them, the Piratebay, Youtube, they’re there to make money and if they say they aren’t, they’re lying.

He argued that the value of music sales is down to half of what it was.  On paper more music is selling than ever, but, as he said, “this is like saying ‘If I give you 15 pennies for a quarter, you now have more money.’ The value is going down.

He also claimed that, “a lot of activists fighting for copyright are covered by Google, they donate millions. Many law schools (also) get a lot of money from Google.” Levine argued that copyright lasts way too long, covers way too much, but hasn’t enough depth – and that it would be preferable to have a shorter, narrower monopoly, but with greater depth.

So, how important is copyright, in his opinion? “It’s very relevant,”  said Levine. “The basic idea of having a temporary monopoly of your work is a good one… We hear about copyright as a barrier to human rights – copyright is a human right.”

Robert Levine has been covering pop culture, technology, and the awkward dance between them for 15 years. Most recently, he was the executive editor of Billboard, charged with running the influential music business trade magazine. He has also been a features editor at New York magazine and Wired. His first job was at HotWired.com, the Wired Web publication, where he was hired several months after it sold the first online banner ad.

His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Fortune, Rolling Stone, and the arts and business sections of the New York Times. He has offered commentary on the media business for CNN, CNBC, and VH-1, and spoken at the World Copyright Summit and the CMJ music conference. He holds a B.A. in politics from Brandeis and an M.S.J. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

His first book, Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back (Doubleday), was called “brilliant if depressing” by the Times (U.K.) and garnered praise from the Guardian and the Financial Times. He now covers the culture business from New York and Berlin.

For more than a decade – since the introduction of Napster – we have been hearing about the conflict between large, old media companies and young, technology-savvy consumers. It’s a compelling story, with obvious heroes and villains, but it’s wrong. The real fight on the Internet is between the media companies that fund culture, and big technology businesses like Google that want to distribute it – legally or not. This has enriched technology companies and decimated the media business. But since most Internet traffic still involves copyrighted content, this trend could eventually leave technology companies without much to distribute. Entrepreneurs need to work with artists, rather than against them, so we don’t end up with a 21st-century infrastructure and a 17th-century conception of artists’ rights.