By Jon Reiss

In my Top 10 Tips column for this month — posted right here — I outlined a general introduction to DVD sales and the digital rights that every content creator should be aware of. In this article, I'll introduce you to three Web-based companies that have developed very interesting yet distinct paths for you to exploit your digital rights.

Distribber
iTunes is still the biggest moneymaker on the Internet for content providers. However, in order to get onto iTunes and a number of other sites you have to go through what is called an aggregator. iTunes will not interface with individual filmmakers partly because they don’t want to deal with small suppliers struggling to deliver to their very strict compression specifications.

With Distribber (www.distribber.com), filmmakers can avoid the traditional gatekeeper deals that aggregators require. These involve the Internet rights for a film several years between 15% and 50% of their revenue for the entire term of their deal.

Distribber instead charges a one-time flat fee (currently $1,295) to encode, match or create chapter breaks, and to chaperone the film through the iTunes QC process. The filmmaker keeps all rights and 100% of their money collected. There is a $59 per year charge that covers the processing of quarterly reports and checks.

Distribber also is now finishing deals with many of the major download and streaming companies, with the intention to offer clients a one-stop menu of outlets; each filmmaker will be able to choose a combination of platforms that serve his/her film's goals and that work within his/her other rights commitments.

So, if you think you will sell a decent amount on iTunes, this deal does make sense. Even though the $1,295 fee feels high initially, when you realize that you get to keep 100% of your revenue — it's pretty reasonable.

Youreeeka
Youreeeka (www.youreeeka.com) is a groundbreaking DIY solution for filmmakers. It is the one of the first — if not the first — company that's offering filmmakers a way to sell their films off of their own Web site in a relatively seamless fashion.

For a low startup fee of $99 you give Youreeeka your content (on ANY format, including tape, for the first five films) along with the pricing structure you decide upon. Youreeeka will create a streaming and/or downloadable “product” for you to sell from your site. In addition, you'll receive embeddable text that will essentially give you a widget that you can share around the Internet. This essentially allows other people to post your store to their site, allowing your store to become viral.

For this service, besides the $99 setup fee, the split of revenue from sales is 60% to you the producer and 40% to Youreeeka for their services as a wholesaler. Besides the encoding and technology, the 40% also includes any credit card fees (including international) and streaming costs that Youreeka incurs when your film is sold.

Youreeeka offers a few options that you as the producer set in creating your product(s):

• Whether you want to provide streaming or download to own or both. Most of their clients choose streaming since it prevents the client to make copies and passing them along.

• For Streaming, you can choose any viewing period for the consumer: one day, one week, or unlimited. You can also offer a menu of different times for different pricing. The consumer has a library — similar to Amazon’s Unbox where the customer has access to their purchases.

• For Download, you can also offer different resolutions, the most common one being "iPod." The rationale is that even if the iPod version is passed around, it's a very low-quality image on a large screen. Their download files are agnostic meaning that they can play on iPods as well as MP3 devices.

You can also offer other files to be downloaded as well as different packages — such as a teaching guide for an educational version for a higher price. Or since they also have a fulfillment company you can package any type of merchandise with the streaming or download – such as a hat and a week of streaming for $14.99.

To get a sense of the player with the Youreeeka buy button in action, check out Taylor Steele’s surf film site: poorspecimen.tv

 
MeDeploy
This is a fascinating hybrid blend of dealing with your rights in a DIY fashion as well as becoming part of a distribution catalogue. The MeDeploy (www.medeploy.com) concept is to enable any fan-oriented site or blog to be able to offer films of their choice for sale on their site. For instance, a surfing blog would be able to choose from a variety of surf films and offer their top 10 picks. Currently, the customer is directed to some site such as Amazon to buy or rent the film. MeDeploy’s solution keeps the customer on the surf blog and allows the surf blog to take a higher percentage of the purchase.

The customer does not know that MeDeploy exists, nor is the customer directed to a separate site for the purchase, it all remains on the surf blog’s site, for instance. Fan sites can now be their own gatekeepers to content or put a better way — any site can promote any film and profit from it. This might be an incredible opportunity for blogs and filmmakers alike. Blogs or sites will be able to profit from the films that they promote, increasing the incentive for a site to promote a film. The caution is that it might further blur the line between journalism and commerce.

Let's use my site, bombit-themovie.com, as an example. We have about 20,000 unique users — not mind-blowing, but a healthy amount. Through MeDeploy, I could offer my visitors a variety of related graffiti films that they could access through me, including my doc Bomb It, of course. I have reason now to promote a number of films, not just my own. MeDeploy is currently negotiating deals with the major studios to have access to their content.

Simultaneously, this offers great opportunity and a potentially tricky situation. As a filmmaker, you need to become part of MeDeploy’s catalog. This allows anyone to sell and promote your film. That’s great, because exposure is what you need. You can now enlist all of your established blogger fans on the Internet to set up a store for your film and others for a profit.

The tricky part of this is that this ability to allow many sites on the Web to sell your content may violate other Internet agreements you might have made for your content. You just have to be aware of the rights deals that you have made and be cognizant of how your participation may affect those deals.

In conclusion, all three of these new services are great opportunities for all types of video content providers and filmmakers. However, before entering into any sale of your digital rights, I HIGHLY recommend that you do the following:

• Evaluate your film and its potential market.
• Consider how you are going to best reach that market.
• Determine which service will help you sell to that market.
• Make sure that you don’t give up exclusive digital rights without proper compensation.
• Receive counsel, legal and strategic, on your path and on the various agreements you may enter into.
• Make sure that your agreements have escape clauses if another potential better deal comes along.