Got An Idea? Make It For Mobile...

Submit it to www.iThentic.com. We're dedicated to bringing the best
independent, mobile content to cellphones. This isn't just repurposed TV
shows or movie trailers - it's fresh, original mobisodes produced by
filmmakers, animators and creators from all over the world.

Keep it to under 3 minutes / 15 MB file size and make it brilliant.
Please visit www.ithentic.com for details and to check our production
suggestions (i.e., what makes a video mobile friendly). Also you should
review our Terms of Use and Content License Agreement. Contact
info@ithentic.com for more information.

Get your entries in before August 15th to be considered for our
September release!

Thank you very much for this opportunity, especially from someone who has been spending a lot of time investigating this field of endeavor, including discussions with a major animation school. And considering that I have a very healthy fan base of my work from comics material such as Sandman for Vertigo, Green Arrow for DC and many other comics for other comicbook publishers plus game art, I feel I'd have something to gain here as would your company from my work (fans mean likely purchases). So, as per your post above, I checked out the site, the Terms of Use and Content License Agreement, and have some basic (but lengthy) questions ~

1: it's stated that the animator will receive 25% of the net profit from each purchase of their clip, depending on gross-cost RE carriers/affiliates/etc. to our company. After checking out sites like bango and safira, it's become clear that these gross costs can vary significantly from country to country. Therefore, since I and several other animators are interested, I'd like to know a little basic math: Let's say that I put up one clip at your site, and it is purchased by 1000 fellow Australians (I'm in Australia, btw, like Jessica Beirne Acquisitions, Australia, from the "management" section of your site). Bearing in mind the "gross costs" of selling clips here in Oz, what would be the likely "net" that I and other Aussies would receive 25% from?

If it's $1 AusD net to you per purchase then we'd receive 25 cents from you, if it's $2 AusD net profit to you, we'd receive 50 cents, yes? So what would the net be per Aussie Puchase of a clip? I believe this is a fair question.

2: As Jessica Beirne might tell you, we here in Australia are taxed quite heavily, suffer some heavy fees for cashing foreign checks (like my royalty checks from the USA), other fees on top of that for such checks, and have very few tax deductions for anything RE animation, so our "take home" pay is lower. Therefore, for Australian resident animators who'd love to offer material to your site/company, would it be possible to be paid via PayPal or equivalent web-payment services rather than the quarterly-check stated on your site? If you confer with Jessica Beirne I am confident that she'll confirm that this too is a valid question, since she resides in Melbourne.

3: We also have very different standards here RE "offensive content"; we are allowed to use certain "blue language" after 9PM on free-to-air TV (the equivalent of CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.). My fan base comes from material that would be considered (by the USA rating system) "PG-13" at best. Often times "R" but never "X". That's what my demographic and likely fan base/customers will want to purchase, not "G" or "PG" material. Do we need to "bleep" the "F" word and "damn" and simlilar expletives for material to be accepted? (better to ask now then both you and the animators taking the time to submit something then have to realize a simple sound-edit could have solved the problem; I went through this RE a film festival in which I was a finalist). "Spawn" the animated series for HBO did well, and likely would do better at your company; would material such as this be accepted or need to be "toned down"? Easier to "tone it down" in the edit phase then send in something inappropriate, but again, here in Oz, we have full frontal nudity on "Big Brother" on our "NBC" after a certain hour before midnight. And we've had worse than that.

4: Here in Oz we are one of the most "pay for mobile" crazy countries on earth, but my fellow Aussies don't like to think too much, especially about their downloads and sms-purchases. Seems we like simple, short, funny clips we can relate to or gambling via "what to bid.com" crappola etc., but funny will always sell, especially short funnies from our own culture which is MASSIVELY different to the youth of the USA and Canada (I mention Canada due to how many people in your crew seem to have worked/lived there). So aside from well-written and conceived "webisodes", will simple entertaining clips be considered? You know, like the retarded frog riding the imaginary/invisible motorscooter from 2 years ago that was so incrediblibly popular? But in 2D format exported into Flash instead of 3d/CGI to keep the file size down? (Apologies if you or anyone at your company is friends with the creator of the retarded frog clip). I'm working on such a simple clip right now and can always upload it and post a link it that would be helpful. It's *very* "Aussie".

5: RE intellectual property rights, they vary from country to country, region to region, and it appears that you will have many carriers and third parties, so, RE ~

[B][I]"Rights Granted. Provider grants iThentic and third parties acting on iThentic’s behalf, the non-exclusive right to offer Provider’s submitted Content for download and streaming (as such terms are understood in the United States of America Internet industry during the Term hereof) by all current and future forms of electronic delivery, in all formats. The forgoing includes, but is not limited to the right to publicly and privately use, perform, post, distribute, display, edit, copy, publish, translate, promote, and license the Content for free or for a fee reproduce, license, and distribute, broadcast, promote and exhibit the Content on mobile devices, websites and other forms of online and wireless access, and through any future means or methods of downloading and/or streaming now known or hereinafter devised. Provider also grants iThentic the right to use the Content, portions of the Content and/or individual audio or visual elements of your Content at our sole discretion in the promotion of the Content or iThentic in perpetuity without any payment to you. You grant iThentic the right to format your Content for size, sound, and/or file format to be suitable for playback on different devices. Without limitation, the forgoing includes the right of iThentic to grant perpetual license to end users to reproduce and store the Content on fixed media and/or mass storage devices and to perform, display and exhibit such Content.

Territory. The rights granted hereunder shall be worldwide."[/I][/B]

~ We animators can be assured that if you sell to ANYBODY, anywhere in the world, and our stuff is deemed popular enough for exploitation/development by any company such as WB or Fox or the BBC or Nelvana, we animators will retain all rights to negotiate sale of the material for any reason, and be considered sole proprietors of the intellectual prop rights including but limited to copyright and trademark, yes?

I hope you agree that these are fair questions and ones that animators should have answers to before supplying material. I realize that you will be very busy, and shall also provide the above questions to the e-mail provided by you.

Very best regards.

LovesClassics