AnyClip Finds The Scene

September 17, 3:26 PMSF Movie ExaminerChristopher Smith

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Where'd this logo come from?

The TechCrunch50 conference was held here in San Francisco a few days ago. This two-day, internet-pitch-a-thon showcases 50 up-and-coming internet companies and gives them a chance to show their stuff in front of the Silicon Valley Cool Kids. There were all sorts of whiz-bang new companies unveiled but one, in particular, struck my film-driven fancy - AnyClip.com. AnyClip won the Audience Choice Award this year's TechCrunch50 and I've heard a good bit of buzz on them.

AnyClip is an ambitiously simple idea: Index every movie and make them searchable and clipable. Meaning that you, the viewer, can pull any clip from any film and use it for any reason. Need a scene from The Perils of Gwedolyn in the Land of the Yik-Yak to work into an art film? Or maybe you want to use the scene of Tom Hanks gazing at the moon as he floats, abandonded, on several trunks in the middle of the ocean in the film Joe Versus the Volcano? Done and done.

VIA About AnyClip:

At AnyClip, we have two mantras.

- For consumers: Empower you to re-live any moment, from any film, instantly.
- For content creators: Compensate you -- the content owners and artists behind great works -- for the enjoyment you've brought the masses.

Pretty awesome stuff. I love the idea and think it'll be tons of fun.

But then I remembered that high-dollar content owners (Hollywood studios, TV networks and the like) usually aren't all that excited about people messing with their products. This goes waaaay back to the Mouse Liberation Front and continues with daily copyright battles on the front lines of YouTube. (Catch Rip! A Remix Manifesto to get a good background on the issues.)

Here are a couple companies from the near-past that I think provide a good indication of where AnyClip may be heading.

CleanFlicks
Sometime around 2004, this Utah-based company began renting edited versions of popular movies. With an eye firmly on the Mormon/family market, CleanFlicks would, well, "clean up" popular movies - remove the sex, violence, drugs - and re-sell them. The company was sued for copyright violation in 2006 and on July 28th, 2006, the company was kaput. They've relaunched as a clean version of NetFlix.

Red Lasso
In 2005, this company launched a proprietary media platform that made it possible to search, clip and share TV and radio content with rapid-fire ease. Predicably, content owners were not excited about their content being shared and passed around to thousands of new eyeballs without being able get a cut of the pie. Red Lasso was sued in July 2008 and operations were drastically altered and/or ended. (They've since made a deal with Fox News - PDF)

On the surface, it looks like AnyClip is slam dancing in the same mine field. While they are not really re-purposing other peoples' content and making a profit off it like CleanFlicks, they will need to make some money somewhere down the line. And that money will be generated by a service based on other peoples' content. And they share a plank with Red Lasso as they provide the basic infrastructure and functionality to cut-n-paste links to clips (add commenary, vote, tag, etc...) to blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly, they don't seem to allow for embedding of the edited clips.

AnyClip doesn't really go into a lot of detail on the copyright/ownership matter.

"...we believe strongly that AnyClip solves major problems which currently exist in the market. For more on our values regarding content owners and how AnyClip helps the film industry, visit our blog.

I checked out the blog as I am really interested in seeing how AnyClip is planning on addressing the unavoidable run-ins with content owners but was let down. I didn't see any mention of a compensation programs, rights managment or anything of the sort. And what are these major problems that are being solved? Are mash-ups too hard to make?

Crunchbase says "AnyClip works in partnership with Hollywood studios to unlock the value and enjoyment in their massive and important libraries of films." but I don't see anything listed on the AnyClip website or blog.

I wonder how soon Big Media will come knocking on AnyClip's door. Are they in any danger? I imagine it'll come down to where the content is actualy hosted. If AnyClip is hosting pre- and post-edited clips, I think they'll be a much bigger target than if simply facilitating the editing of content. Will direct links to Amazon and iTunes be enough to keep the Big Boys off their backs?

But I think the larger, more immediate challenge is to make the service a bit easier to use. My initial experience was a bit frustrating. I spent 30 minutes or so trying to encapsulate the THIS IS SPARTA! scene from 300 but was unable to do so. The editing timecode standard is confusing and there doesn't appear to be a way to scroll the clips so you can see where you are. (Ha. The player window's volume goes to "11").

They are counting on crowdsourcing their way to success, but when I tried to help ID clips from Blackhawk Down, I was unable to do so. This is a proven approach to gathering data but only if it is super-simple for people to contribute.

And the site suffers from a couple other bumps and missing pieces that makes the overall experience, well, not all that hot. For instance, when searching under Actors, I'm given 50 Cent - Aaron Ekhart but no option to flip through the alphabet or look under the letter "M" or the like. I get a search bar that seems to work well but it'd be nice to have other options. And some of the cool stuff I watched in the video of their presentation seems to be non-op at time of writing. (I'm wondering if they are experiencing post-conference traffic overload?)

I love the idea, personally and professionaly, and know that it would draw a serious fanbase if executed a bit better. Like any data-intensive effort, the pay-off increases with how much data you can offer - and how well you can present it. Right now, AnyClip seems to be short on data and the ability to capture it for future presentation.

UPDATE: Areader pointed out that TechCrunch asked AnyClip some of these rights questions a few days ago.

+++++

Oh - AnyClip is going to make it that much easier to make awesome post-death tribute video montages of our favorite movie stars. Heck, they should have a category just for things like Patrick Swayze.