Recordings and SF Conventions
Posted on July 12, 2008
Filed Under conventions |
Tom Spurgeon points out that the panels he moderated at Heroes Con were recorded for posterity by the Dollar Bin guys. I’ve been listening to these and really appreciate them since I wanted to go to the convention this year and couldn’t. This brings up a point I’ve been meaning to blog about for years and keep forgetting to.
When I was a guest at Orycon 2006, on top of interviewing Cory Doctorow I was on a lot of panels. I recorded 5 of the 6 panels I was on. At this point, the only thing I’ve ever done with those recordings was to excerpt a snippet of my closing remarks on one panel in an episode of EGC. However, I do have them and could always do something with them later.
The act of recording them was a pain in the ass - not technically which was very easy - but permission-wise. Every single time, I’d put my Marantz in the center of the table and tell the panelists I was recording. Every single panelist was cool with it every single time. After all, we are there to speak publicly and on the record so why wouldn’t we be? Every single time, though, some bristling occurred from the audience. They always wanted to know what I was doing with the recordings and why I was taping the session. It might have to do with the Oregonian contrarian nature because on the Heroes Con sessions they announce they are taping and no one says a word against it. I hope I don’t seem elitist and like I’m pulling rank but it always bugged me to get push back from the people whose contributions were limited and who might not even be able to be picked up on mic when the panelists were all cool with it.
This did lead me to a way to get around all the painful negotiations and explanations. I think SF and comic conventions should explicitly declare themselves, their grounds and the events that occur during their time period as Creative Commons licensed NonCommercial/ShareAlike/Attribution. Anyone can record via audio or video or photograph anything in public convention space and publish under those terms. 90% of this happens anyway. Flickr is full of photos of any such event you can think of. It just makes it easier and standard how to deal with the issue of recordings. It’s in the best interest of the conventions to spread their mindshare about what makes their shindig unique and this reduces the friction of that. If the convention declares this licensing regime upfront then everyone understand the terms going in.The convention as a whole is on the record and no one should have any issues. It just makes it simpler, and it frees the pros and fans up to do creative work without lots of overhead, which creative work is what they do.
I love the idea of video fanzines published via podcasting mechanisms. It’s the same urge that led to the mimeographs of last century, just realized via a different technology. Let’s make this happen. If you work with a convention, talk about this at the organizational meetings. I’d love to see this adopted around the place.
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One Response to “Recordings and SF Conventions”
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agree 100% dave - i've also spoken at lots of conventions on panels or individually where either i've recorded, someone in the audience did or the actual organizers did it - the last one is usually where the rub comes in when they want to own and control exclusively all of the content captured so they can garner additional revenue after the event - in today's open world that closed attitude just seems so antiquated - i've never had an audience complain or ask questions though, that would be strange
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I'm thinking particularly of fan organized cons here. Commercially run cons like Wondercon may be unwilling but I think all of them could do this profitably - in cash or whuffie. No one is going to pay cash for the recordings of SF panels but if you make it available, or even if every fan in the audience makes it available, it helps the con.
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And even if the con provides official recordings, why not let the fans have at doing it too? It doesn't detract and could conceivably add to the energy and increase the personal investment of the fans in that con. Let a thousand flowers bloom! Make your videos, record your podcasts. Its what fans do so let it rip!
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yup agreed - i was on an organizing committee for a pretty well known commercial conference years ago (early podcast days) & recommended exactly what you just stated - they couldn't get it then due to the newness of the capability but today there's no excuse - especially funny when the theme is social media yet they ban/embargo ugc during the event (blogging etc...) - the wuffie point is key to me...
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Agreed. And this sort of thing is where Doug Kaye at least partially appears to be going w/ phase 2 of TCN and the Podcorps stuff. It's alot about findability, really, which it sounds to me will be a big part of Doug's curation/playlist vision. Already happening in other media; DragonCon 2006 took a LONG time to get official photos up, but Flickr's dragoncon2006 tag had thousands of photos within days.
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I think by us announcing that we were recording the panels and sending around a mic for questions ahead of time we avoided those who would complain about their questions being recorded. I received not a single complaint or concern from the audience. Those who didn’t want to be recorded would simply approach the table after the session. I was more worried about panelist not being comfortable with it even though no one complained. I have done panels in the past where a panelist requested I edit something from the record and I gladly did. I recognize there is a difference between saying something to 100 people in a contained room and talking to millions in the world on a permanent medium. We shouldn’t be here to “catch” what people say, but to “share” it.