RealmIQ: SESSIONS with JOSHUA OTTEN

RealmIQ: Sessions – Episode Summary

In this thought-provoking episode of RealmIQ: SESSIONS, Curt Doty interviews media entrepreneur Joshua Otten, a veteran in IP monetization and emerging technologies. The conversation dives deep into how generative AI is disrupting Hollywood’s traditional studio model — not by replacing creatives, but by empowering them to bypass the system entirely.

Otten shares his vision of a new, creator-led production paradigm where AI tools enable filmmakers to produce high-quality, cost-effective content, own their IP, and control distribution. He argues that the real opportunity isn’t building another AI tool, but applying existing open-source solutions to rethink workflows, rights management, and storytelling.

The duo critiques Big Tech’s race to commoditize AI and extract profits, emphasizing instead the importance of collaboration, hybrid workflows, and public benefit. They address the legal gray areas around copyright in AI-generated content and advocate for workflows that ensure both protection and originality.

Curt and Josh also spotlight the CLOWD AI Film Festival, which promotes ethical, hybrid AI filmmaking and champions creators with real storytelling chops. They discuss the importance of elevating AI films beyond YouTube virality, envisioning a future where real humans and real tools work in concert to reimagine what filmmaking can be.

Whether you're a filmmaker, technologist, or IP nerd, this episode is a compelling exploration of AI’s promise — and peril — in the future of storytelling.

Topics Discussed

• AI disruption in media and entertainment
• Hollywood’s outdated studio system and distribution monopoly
• The studio vs. creator power shift enabled by AI
• Copyright law in the age of AI
• Creative ownership vs. public domain issues
• Commoditization of AI tools and open-source alternatives
• Importance of hybrid workflows for copyright protection
• Opportunities for collaborative, independent filmmaking
• Role of AI in post-production vs. content creation
• CLOWD AI Film Festival and ethical filmmaking
• Transmedia storytelling and future of interactive content
• Public benefit vs. shareholder capitalism in big tech

URLs Mentioned

• Likeness Labs: https://www.likenesslabs.ai
• CLOWD AI Film Festival: https://www.clowdfilmfestival.com (user's implied)
• 24i (CTV platform mentioned): https://www.24i.com

Quotes

“Let’s stop trying to get our movie made by the studios and start making our own movies using these tools.” — Joshua Otten

“The real disruption is not AI replacing artists. It’s AI replacing studios.” — Joshua Otten

“If you’re a filmmaker, your strategic advantage is storytelling. Most AI users have no idea how to tell a story.” — Curt Doty

“AI is not the enemy — it's the tool that gives creatives more control over production, IP, and distribution.” — Joshua Ott

Transcript

Hey everybody. I had some very interesting conversations with a gentleman named Joshua Otten. I call him Josh, and he's an amazing guy. With over two decades of experience in media IP monetization, emerging technology, he's worked with content producers, IP holders, celebrities and creators to utilize technology, AI, and omnichannel distribution platforms in order to create interactive, scalable content experiences across digital, virtual and connected TV ecosystems.

That's one hell of a compound sentence. I really feel he has the finger on the pulse of where this is all going. So, let's get into it.

Hey, Josh, how are you? Welcome to the show. Great to have you. What's going on, my friend? Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here, Curt, and really excited to talk about the future of AI and media and technology and all that sort of fun stuff and, and also cloud. Excited to be part of that.

Yeah, so well, let's just talk about AI and you know, you and I have similar paths as creatives and creative technologists and you know, being in that space. And I just loved that we had so much synergy in terms of our past and, and where you've gone, where you're going. With ai. So, speak to me about your take on it as it relates to Hollywood.

What's going on, the disruption, and what do you see as the solution? Yeah. So, you know, my first sort of real introduction into ai was maybe early for the sort of current phase we're in, but, you know, certainly not, was not some sort of, you know, developer doing this 10 years ago, but. In 2021 we started to work with some content creators looking at how we could use different tools and solutions to you know, create more interactive solutions for fans.

Obviously, most of the content creators and influencers are one to many. So, you're creating content, you're broadcasting it, you're trying to reach millions of people, and then how do you have one-to-one interactions? And so, we were looking around early in 2021 through 2022 and sort of work as some content creator.

It, it wasn't until 2023. And really open AI came out and sort of opened the floodgates of, of the ability to utilize a lot of these systems through open-source APIs and start to implement them into workflows that it started to explode. And so, you know, certainly I've looked at it. I think in the same way, Curt, you, you look at it where it's a tool and a tool is only going to be as strong as the person who knows how to use it.

And so initially like most technologies that come out, a couple of things happen in the media ecosystem. The first thing is establishing media ignores it or thinks it's a threat or doesn't really know how to implement it. So, you've seen that with. The music industry and Spotify and YouTube you've seen it obviously with streaming where, you know, Netflix is a tech first company came out, you know, a decade ahead of everyone else.

And so, I think AI is a similar, it's, it's having a similar path where I think it's a little more complex in that it's also directly impacting the artist or the creative side of the community. So, whereas before, you know. In the early days of music streaming a lot of artists were concerned because.

They weren't monetizing their content correctly. You know, the reality is once the music industry sort of wrapped their hands around, and UMG did big deals with Google and Spotify, they still weren't monetizing it correctly. But, you know, the people that wanted the control sort of regained some modicum of control over it.

I think. The major difference with AI is that not only is the cat outta the bag, but it's, it's, it's outta the bag, its open source, it's exponentially getting better, and it's just, it's, it's going to, it's not something that can be ignored or sort of wished away. And so. You know, I think the big existential crisis in media today is on the studio side.

There's a lot of eagerness and excitement to implement these things, to make more content, potentially cheaper content. And this, this, I. Realistic fear by the creatives who work with the, within the studio system, that they're going to be cut out of it, right? Because they're already seeing, you know, feeling the impacts of lower episode orders and decreased budgets.

But I sort of look at it the other way, which is to say, instead of looking at it as a creative saying, oh, well I'm going to be replaced by ai, let's replace the studio system. Mm-hmm. The reality is every single great writer. DP actor I know has 10 amazing projects that have just been sitting on a shelf, not because they're not good, but because of a thousand reasons they'll just never get made in the current Hollywood studio system.

So, imagine if you can make a hundred-million-dollar movie for $500,000 and it was, the quality was there and you controlled it, and you and your team and your partners owned 75% of that as opposed to, you know, five points on a mythical backend you'll never see. And you own the IP, and you created the process.

So, you know. Love that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's tough. It's tough to monetize, it's tough to make money even on a gross, you know, point basis when the studios own not only the distribution of their production, but they own all the marketing channels as well, and they're paying themselves back in first position for all of that stuff.

So, but yeah, you know, it's two ways. It's, it's a, it's a double-edged sword. And so, I think the one thing that. People can't do is just sort of stick their head in the sand or wish it away or think that there's going to be some massive public outcry that's going to ban it or regulate it out of existence.

Well, yeah. Regulations out the window at this point, right? Well, for this point Yeah, exactly. For the next couple years. Well, so I, I love the fact that you're seeing disruption not only on the studio side, where you also see excitement. You see fear on the creator side. But you see it as an opportunity to disrupt the entire ecosystem, what is known as the studio distribution system.

And so, talk a little more about that because I know you have some plans and certainly underlying technology that would enable that. And I, I don't think that's talked about enough. Right now, the conversation is around special effects. You know, Netflix did this movie with one scene where AI was used, and it's creating this furor, and it's like, okay, that's, it's just like, so, you know, tip of the iceberg.

Let's talk about that distribution model and how that's going to change. Absolutely. And, and I want to throw this out here too. You know, I work within the reality of the world. So, when I talk about these things, this isn't, you know, like, it's kind of a side note, Curt, but, you know, I believe that.

Capitalism is currently constrained and built in, this specifically in America, has lost public benefit. And I don't, and I don't think that's a good thing. I think that we are building things to build things sake, to make wealth, to grow. You know, wall Street is focused on ever increasing profit margins, and so there's a lot of things that we're doing that Don.

Of a public benefit outcome at all. It's not even, it, it, you know, we can get into the granular where like you can't even think of public at benefit when you run a company that's a publicly traded corporation. You have to think of the shareholders and their stock buybacks. And so, there's very sort of complex you know, sort of structure.

In the first place that has sort of led to where we are today. And so, when I start to go down the path of like, here's different ways we can do it, by no means am I sort of a tech absolutist who thinks this is all going to be good, right? I don't think the outcome is going to be a hundred percent rosy. But I am a p I'm, I'm a pragmatic, I'm.

Pragmatic. Yeah. And I look at things as they are and sit there and say, okay, well, again what can we do? what can the creative community do within the reality of these tools coming out, these different platforms coming out, and, and how can they use that to their advantage?

So that being said yeah, I think it's, it's fascinating. I mean, I have a small tech team, you know, we're building a couple of different applications in the space. You know, I look at. What's happening on the AI platform side. And, and by that, I mean open AI and Eleven Labs and I mean, there's dozens at this point.

And what I'm seeing happen is that it's commoditizing itself and it's almost sort of eating itself in real time. And by that it's like, Hey, here's this brand-new model. You know, everyone declares this is dead, this is the new thing. And then two weeks later comes out, and I'll give you a quick example.

You know, we've been focusing on a bunch of different. Text to, you know, text to speech solutions. And we were using 11 labs and then Sesame came out. And so, we, so we, you know, we sourced, we put that in a server and started playing with that. And then I think I might, might be not, I might be saying it right, but it's D-I-A-D-I-A or D-I-A-S-I think is, is even now beating sesame.

And this a matter of months, you know, maybe six to 12 weeks, not years. And the point is. Not only are these systems coming out that are quote unquote better, and they are, I mean, they're objectively better than the previous solution, but they're open source, they're hosted on GitHub. You can host on your own local server.

You can pay for your own compute. And how do you compete with that? If you're building a business around the tech side, you can hope to scale quickest. You can try to hope to buy out your, your competitors. But that real, that, that sort of, that that market doesn't work anymore. The market of build something, build a little gate.

Build a walled ecosystem, SaaS it out, do special licensing deals, those deals will be had by, by no means is it going to limit access to the rest of the world to, you know, similar solutions that may be even better than those. So, I think the first fascinating thing is that whatever, if someone's sitting there.

Building the next better mouse trap. Mm-hmm. Text to video or photo to animation, whatever it's going to be. Good luck to them. I, I, you know, and I don't mean that to be, you know, pithy or, you know, sort of sound, you know, like a dick. But yeah, I mean, good luck. Like, it, it's, it's, it's in real time. We're seeing new solutions come out quicker and quicker, and I think the people that will win in the long term are the people that already have.

Customers, audience distribution, Adobe, Google, all these Apple, these places that already have users are going to ultimately win. So where does it leave everyone else? And I think that that leaves the application layer of building on top of these things, and that leaves intellectual property or being creative.

Right, and I, I've always said that as there's this race, like this exponential hockey stick of a race towards feature development. Model development, right? That's what the tech leaders, big tech are in the race for. Meanwhile. It's creative people and people with experience in their business verticals that are going to recognize, like yourself, the technology that's coming so fast, and how do we build new business models utilizing this, this technology, and focus on that, not the next widget.

It's about how to revolutionize new business models. Yep. And certainly, Hollywood needs a new business model because it's not working well though I think the one thing everyone can agree, you know is that it's broken, right? The current Hollywood system is broken. You could talk to writers, directors, you could talk to studio executives.

So that, that's the one thing. So, I don't think AI can necessarily break it further in the way. And when I say that I mean it's going to disrupt it and change it. But I don't know if it's, I, I think there are better. Possible economic outcomes for the creative community with AI than without? It. I, I think it's possible.

It's not definitive, but it's possible. As far as where we are today, I, I've, you know, I read something funny on x can you still call them tweets? I don't know their posts, whatever they are. I'm, I'm, but somewhat I left. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I'm there and I, I'm sort of watching and, and it's this, you know, people call it AI content slot, but the idea is there's these prompt engineers who are creating content for content's sake, or they're not even creating it for content's sake. They're creating it for engagement's sake. And so, someone pointed out that like, look, that's not who's going to win. Like the person who's using, you know, mid journey to create a really cool seven second loop of a Nike turn, Nike turning into a shoe or the vice versa.

Yeah, that's cool. But like. What, what are we doing here, right? Like that's not, like, you're not going to get a job creating that and you're not going to work for Nike creating that. You're not going to be able to monetize it because you don't own the trademark or the logos, right? That's where they're farming engagement, which we understand.

But again, this is, this is where there's a big disconnect between the storytellers, the great storytellers who understand the craft and the medium of storytelling across multiple different, whether it's animation, live action, print, whatever. And the people who are currently just completely adopting the use of the AI tools.

And so. I think that's a great opportunity. If I'm a creative person, I'm going to be looking at these tools saying, well, wait a second, I'm a better storyteller than all these guys. Right? 90% of the people that are creating content don't know how to storytelling. And I can, I, I have that strategic advantage.

So, the only thing I'm lacking is understanding how to use these tools. And the good news is these tools are so simple to use to a certain. Degree that, that you don't really have to code to use them. That's the kind of the value proposition. It, you don't have to be some tech genius. I mean there are people who vibe code.

Yeah, exactly. Well, vibe coding is like, vibe coding is a whole nother problem. cause people vibe, code an application and then their user list gets tripped off and they get hacked within five minutes. But the idea is, yeah, you could definitely implement some stuff. So, I think, you know, we're just, I, I think where I'm seeing is like I've had some really great meetings.

You know, with, with various different artists and, and pe you know, I, I had a, I was at a dinner, and I happened to talk with the cinematographer, John Schwartzman. And you and I both know Tim Tenet really well, and I had a meeting with his brother, Andy Tenet, who's a great director. And I just had a meeting with a writer, and you know, just a bunch of friends of mine.

And, and again, their first instinct was just, oh, this is a bad thing. We already just went on strike. I've heard This is bad. Don't worry. Our unions are going to squash it. Yeah, sure. Good luck and this is bad. And so, then I was like, Hey, check this out. Look at first of all what the out output is, number one.

Number two, how many projects are you schlepping around right now trying to get made? And of those projects you're trying to get made, how many of them will never get made? Right? And on top of that, what is that process like? How, how long does it take you to make an amazing movie? By the way, how long does it take you to make a hitch or Sweden, Alabama, or, you know, some of these writers or, and, and you know, you might get it, you know, if you're really, really, what's that?

They don't make the movies anymore. Well, they don't even make those. Right. So that's the Netflix and the Hallmark. Right. You know, those aren't even made true. But pretending they were made. Yeah. Even in the best of days, you're getting one every couple year, three years. And then even the best eps are working once a year.

You know? Maybe. So, my point is, it's like imagine if you could go out and you could spend the next three years making your fork. Passion projects and not really worry about who's going to finance and who's going to distribute and all those other things. And number two, bring your DP on board. Bring, bring, you know, you can use live action.

You, AI can be a post effects. AI doesn't have to replace everyone. You can still use real voices. And that gets into another challenge, which we talked about, Curt, which is copyright in the age of ai. Right? How do you, how do you respect existing copyrights and how do you create new copyrights using AI tools?

But I, I think that, again, that. That initial conversation has started to turn people's thoughts around and I've, I've seen a really interesting leaning in now of like, actually how, you know, I, I'm interested, I want to learn more. That's great. Well, you speak to storytellers, and you speak to bringing in your crew, your posse, and that is about collaboration and the main difference between these YouTube.

And LinkedIn influencers who are just putting up the AI slop, they're not collaborating, right? They're just doing what they can with what they know and what they're learning. And that's cool. It lives for, you know, seven seconds on the internet and then dies, as you know, quick death. But this collab, this idea of collaborative AI production using experts who have decades of experience.

Of the craft of filmmaking. It is a craft. Okay? And those people who have that eye, that discerning taste and track record of creating fantastic stories, those are the people I am most interested in seeing what they're going to do, the technology, because it's those people that will take AI to the next level and get us out of this sea of sameness, this AI slop, and, and.

Wow, what a future that could be. I agree. I mean, I think collaboration is all great stories. Have a collaborate, are collaborative in nature. Whether it's, you know, a writer plus a director or working with Dp’s, working with actors. I mean, that's how you get the, the best creative content. And so, you know, will, in five years from now, someone.

You know, quote unquote prompt code or vibe code out a feature film by themselves sitting in their parents' basement. You know, not to be disparaging, but whatever, sitting in their basement or whatever. But the point is, will someone one-on-one use these? Absolutely. I think in five to 10 years there's going to be somebody who's going to make a movie individually doing everything.

Voice facting all this stuff and it'll be this big sort of thing. Is that the future? Absolutely not. I mean, again it's no different than, you know, when people first started using digital to make films and everyone was like, no, no, no, I'm never going to shoot digital. I'm only going to be featured. And then someone made it, you know, something on digital and it did well.

Again, it's not that everything then had to be digital. Everything then had to be filmed. There was success there, but it's just, again, it's, it's, it, at that point it was a medium. So, I think. In general, collaboration is going to be key. And I would also say there's a great opportunity where there's a lot of, lack of work for people in certain departments in Hollywood, whether it's below the line grips, key grips, gaffers you know, people who had steady work because not only is not as, you know, there's just not that much work happening right now in. LA specifically or in the States. And so, now's a great time to learn a craft that you can learn and then become an expert in something.

Because the reality is, I don't think some of the best writers or best dp’s or best directors are going to bother necessarily learning how to prompt. They're just going to want to work with someone who knows how to use these tools. Right? So, this is a great opportunity to say, you know what? Like let me, you know, they're automating.

The Model T Ford has now been automated. What used to take, you know, 10 people to build a car is now one person, a robot. It's less about like, let's build the robot that's going to replace me. It's more just about like, Hey, let's start using these tools to again, get power of content creation in the hands of the filmmakers.

And when I talk about a team, I mean a team, like literally, you know, I was talking to my buddy who's a producer and a location scout, and he's always running around and I'm like, this doesn't mean the death of location scouts. This means you as a location scout are going to start to use these tools to make sure that.

When you're creating environments whether it's in a post process or to completely replicate it in ai, they have certain qualities that are one-to-one with the original, right? Because you are an expert in those locations and you, you know, you can do all these things and so now you're still a department head who's working with the team to make sure the locations in an AI workflow still have, you know, still look well.

And I think again, it, there has to be. There has to be an understanding that Al also part of the teamwork initiative is public benefit. Meaning, meaning we as society do better when we're working together, when we're working on projects together. You know, I don't see how society's benefited when Microsoft is firing six to 9,000 people a quarter, other than, you know, BlackRock and some of the shareholders who are, you know, looking for stronger stock buybacks and more growth and, you know.

Demanding those things, I think those 6,000 people go home and they have to lay off people in their community who work with their kids or take their kids out. I mean, it's just, it's a really sad sort of domino that's happening and that's going to absolutely increase. But the flip side to that is we, as society can also demand that, you know, there's public benefits in some of these tools.

Just we can't expect that the large corporations are going to willingly take that along. You know, they're not going to willingly. Do anything except extract as much profit as possible. So, it is up to us to sort of take these tools and, and sort of reign them in and figure out how to use them. Yeah. Look to was it the UAE that made ChatGPT available to everyone in the country?

Right. It's a radical move. It's not tied to universal basic income. It's about access. Right. And then let them figure out what to do. And I, I will add that, you know, Hollywood has always been scrappy in terms of creating products, creating stories, creating teams, creating your posse, moving from film to film to film throughout people's careers, and that spirit of collaboration and teamwork and really.

What is a hundred-year-old tradition of, of entrepreneurship people wanting to get their story heard and then making it happen with this team that, you know you can build. I think that spirit is, is what's going to propel the format, the technology that goes against what's happening in big tech. As they're developing features, right?

And trying to monetize it. Meanwhile, hey, let's talk about story, right? Right. Let's talk about my team. Let's talk about how we disrupt and, you know, re reinvent, reimagine what has been a very old studio system with the thing. Well, Curt, here's interesting about technology, right? So, the cost of spinning up a CTV subscription.

Video on demand service, which you know, 10 years ago is so costly that. A lot of the major studio systems didn't do it. And then when they started getting into it, you know, I think it was Viacom bought Pluto TV for $380 million. Right. You could spin a really powerful, you know, I'm working right now with the team and a company called 24 i, and they've, I think they do like, they power some really powerful, I, I can't say names because I'm under NEA, but like you could Google 24 R and see what they do.

They do some really big, well known. Media platforms online, and there's a cost to it, but it's not millions of dollars. So, my point is, what's to stop 20 of the biggest directors and writers in Hollywood who can take each of them three of their best projects? And put 'em together and raise a hundred million dollars.

So, they're making one movie, you know, make 20 or 30 movies. Oh yeah. And then put, put together an exclusive distribution network, but do everything super cost effective, where you know, majority of the money's going on the screen and then they own the IP forever. They're not having to sell it to Netflix.

And now you're competing. I mean, you know. I know it sounds kind of like, oh, it's just easy, but it's easier than it ever was to do those things. And technology is commoditizing itself. I mean, I used to have a company back in the day where we would buy short codes, which were like text pizza to 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, right?

And so, you buy the short code, and you would own all the keywords. Then you would sell the keywords, almost like you would sell a website. Hey, I'm going to sell you pizza. And you're going to pay me this much a month. And for everyone that texts pizza, I'm going to drive that person to you and you could talk to them.

And I'm also going to charge you 2 cents per message and I'm paying a penny and yada yada. Well, that entire business lasted, I dunno, 24, 36 months until you know that, and everything became free. And iMessage, Andy Ringtones, remember that ring? Yeah. Ringtones or then the ring back. All these things, right?

And so, what ended up happening was these things became ubiquitously integrated into whatever, you know, you didn't have to pay for messages anymore, text or Yelp took over, whatever it is. But I think the reality is AI is not going anywhere, but they're moving into a token-based ecosystem, and what that really means is that a, the only ones that are going to be able to compete are providing services at scale to the billions, and they're monetizing compute.

That's it. I mean, whatever their output is, however cool and sexy it looks, or fun, it looks, it's just they're monetizing transactions. And those transactions can create a sound, or it can create a voice, or it can create a message, or it can create a video or create a fixture. But they're essentially, it's costing them $5 and they're trying to charge 10.

And I, I don't want to be in that business. I've tried to run those businesses before and they're just a race to the bottom. And the flip side to it is. How do you compete in that business when there's competitors who are not only doing what you do, but doing it probably better, cheaper. And again, it's open source and you have everything on GitHub.

So, I look at that, like if I had to pick a lane to be in today and someone gave me, Hey Josh, here's a hundred million bucks. What are you going to do with that? I'm not going to create a competitor, VEO three or 11 labs. Or in world or any of these platforms, I'm going to create ip, great IP and storytelling, but implement all of these things and swap them out to use the best, you know, sort of processes, workflows, and technology solutions to get the output that is going to work the best for whatever the creative team wants to work with.

cause you own that forever. You know, Disney may not own all of Epic or Unreal, or. Meta or these things, but they own Darth Vader and they're going to be able to put Darth Vader in any environment that comes in and controls it and they're going to monetize it. And so, they can afford to be a little lazy, right?

They can afford to sort of sit back and be like, Hey, you know, we'll see what else comes out. We'll let the world test it. cause we know at the end of the day our IP is going to have a place there and it's going to monetize there. And we get dictate those terms. And the only way you can compete with that is create your own ip.

Which goes into the next challenge, which we talked about, Curt, which is copyrights in the age of ai, right? Yeah. How do you own an ip? And, and also you mentioned story world. I think the play isn't just for the movie screens, it's, it's also for video games and, you know enhance experiences in retail and, you know, all kinds of different ways to connect with and engage with consumers that it isn't just about tv.

It isn't just about movies anymore. It's about moving your IP across all different types of what used to. They used to call it transmedia. Sorry, transmedia. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Transmedia was a fancy word for just saying we'll distribute the same product everywhere. Yeah, I think, I think in third, and again, I'm throwing, it could be 10 years, but I think, I think certainly in the next 25 to 30 years that whether that's generation, alpha or whatever comes after them, they're going to look back up the fact.

People sat there and stared passively at those screens to; to consume content as bizarre and archaic as probably this generation looks at records, right? Like sure. You know, you look, but yeah. You know, it's like, it's like it's. It's like if it's not interactive, if it's not personalized, if it's not, if it doesn't have some way for you to, not even control, but just interact in a more game-like experience, I don't think it's going to be around that long.

There will always be people that'll watch television passively and, and or screens passively, whatever that content is, whether it's short form or influencer or anything like that. But I think interactivity is going to be, however that's defined, but the idea that as an individual I can connect much more deeply and personalize that experience is, is absolutely going to have to be a part of the future of content.

Versus, and I, again, I think this idea that everyone's going to sit there, what really you just, you just sat there and stared at this picture on the wall for three or four hours at a time watching 90-day fiancé. Yes, I did. It was very you have no idea how fun it was. And then, and then furthermore, so when you go to the copyright, you know, I'll give you another sort of fun.

Exchange, I watched where this person was starting to complain because. All of this content they were creating, they on mid Journey and VEO three and everything else, someone pointed out that it's public domain content. And they were really, they were really upset because what do you mean I, I'm doing all this work and I'm prompting it and it's, you know, never mind that, like 90% of what's that for?

No apparent reason in terms of Right, right. And never mind that, by the way, 90% of it's like filled with brands and logos and, and IP that they, trademarks don't. They have no idea that they don't own. But and then you go back to this person's tweets, and the same person was basically talking about how people who create content shouldn't complain.

That AI's training on it. So, it's like, okay, you don't care about copyright protection for all the work that was created to train the machine. Yeah. That's now outputting something that you also can't copyright. And so, you know, the irony of course was lost in this human, but. Yeah, the bottom line is you can't, you know, anything you create using pure ai, generative solutions is public domain.

It is what it is. I mean, there's no argument to be had. I mean, the courts have been, they, they've been fairly consistent these days on a couple things. One is if you can legally obtain content, you could train on it for the most part. If you're illegally obtaining content, like meta bragging about the fact that they basically ripped and torrented a bunch of stuff, then you can't, you know, there's going to be a price paid for that, but it'll be probably so insignificant they won't care.

But the outputs. Number one by itself cannot be copywritten or trademarked. If all you're using is AI generative solutions, and if the output's infringed, they can be sued or challenged. Meaning, if I create something using AI generative, not only do I not as solutions, not only do I not own that.

Necessarily, I mean, you know, that's public domain, but I could also be potentially sued because if I'm using storm troopers or Nike logos and all this other stuff, I'm infringing. So, there's just a whole bunch of unknowns that haven't been answered. And one of the things that we're working on is to develop workflows that ensure.

Number one, the output can be copywritten. So, if I'm building a movie or a TV series or a short film or whatever it is you know, working on a brand ad, then the end result of that thing can be trademarked and copywritten and protected. And then number two, that that output also isn't an infringing. And so that's a big piece of our workflow to make sure that that'll stand up to, as currently, you know, the courts are currently sort of outlining what those rules are.

Right. And do you think that hybridization plays into that and, and the percentage game, right? Yeah, so, so what's interesting is these laws by nature are actually incentivized to promote. This collaboration we talked about earlier. So, if I'm creative, I'm actually going to use these laws to my advantage and create a strategic advantage that the solo vibe, coding, prompt, engineer, filmmaker, will never be able to compete with.

Right. Right. Because he is going to have to rely so heavily on AI generative solutions to, to story tell that he's going to run up into real problems protecting the work he creates. Right? Whereas someone who's already working with a team of real humans and they're using these things as a tool and a part of the process are going to have.

Complete copyright protection at the end product. And that, that could mean that even, even I'll, I'll have a 10-year-old screenplay that's exactly really copyrighted and protected by the WGA and, and then they're going to bring that into the equation and there's going to be live action footage And live action.

Exactly. And they own their likenesses, right? Yep. And so, so it seems like the more complex approach. And the more hybrid approach that you use, the more protections you have in terms of owning your IP on the output, because you can say and go back through the process, it's like, no, this screenplay existed 10 years ago.

These are real actors. And, and we used real musicians, but we sampled a few things to ground out the score. And, and you're just showing you're using these tools to like. Make a more efficient filmmaking process, but the ip, the story, the characters, the actors, they own their day. They own their shit.

Right, right. Exactly. Well, I'll give you a great example. There was someone who was promoting a new music platform and they were promoting the fact that, and they, you know, I'm, I'm, I am paraphrasing, but basically you don't have to worry about stealing music anymore because you can just steal it. You can just upload the original song, tell this thing what you.

Create and keep, and then it'll creates it. And I'm thinking to myself, that's insane. cause first of all, that's totally not true. Yeah. Musicians get sued all the time for theft of other musician’s work, whether it's a. Sampling a beat or, you know, whatever. I mean, it's like, it's very nuanced, but the idea just be, you know, the idea that AI is transforming the original thing into an output, the transformation in and of itself doesn't make the new thing free from infringement claims, number one number two.

Okay, let's just say you have cleared that hurdle. The music you just created is also public domain. So, what does the world look like when we're vibe making music, ripping off everyone else? Throwing it up there, and then 50 different people are uploading that same track. Right every hour because no one can claim authority or ownership over it because you just made it through ai.

So, I think these things are going to figure themselves out, and I think actually this copyright opportunity, this copyright existing copyright, law, trademark Law, how it's interpretive is very advantageous for the world. There's public benefit there, and again, because it will sort of automatically incentivize people to work collaboratively, it'll de-incentivize people to just quote, unquote rip things off or steal them or use them because ultimately those things won't be able to be monetized or protected even if you do get away with infringement issues.

Number three, it's going to, we're already seeing it happen in real time with I think it's Google and YouTube started to demonetize channels that are overtly using ai. Yeah. Now of course, yeah, they'll probably re monetize it. Three months from now when you can one click put VEO content, VEO three content into your workflows through Google.

I'm sure they're going to integrate this stuff, but the reality is, I think even they understand it doesn't benefit their ecosystem to just flood the lane with a ton of disposable. Yeah, just the AI slop, right? And so, it is fun to see. I, I, I am, I am fascinated with it. I mean, like, you know, I could spend 30 minutes just scrolling through mid-journeys, explore video tab.

I mean, some of the stuff that's created is absolutely gorgeous and, and, and compelling and visually stunning. And then after a while you're kind of like, okay, you know. Next. Well, yeah, you got to get to the one frame you upload and then it takes that one frame and then does amazing thing for five or seven seconds and Right.

10 80 p you know, and it is amazing and will only get better. And they don't even have any storyboard features yet, like other platforms? Yep. Like, like runway. Speaking of runway. I've been tracking them and their AI festivals, of which they're in their third year. They had over 6,000 entries this past year, which shows this appetite to create AI films wherever you are in the world.

Yep. Yes. You can be the guy in the basement in Pacoima or in on the battlefield in Kyiv. Doesn't matter. Yeah. You know, people, people want to, want to do it and. So, you know, and you're helping me here, but I've developed this film, AI film festival called Cloud. Yep. And we are just we're excited. We did a soft launch with our you know sign up and get on the wait list.

And you thankfully have agreed to be a judge and thank you for the offer. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, and, and the idea you know, when I was reading the terms and conditions in the runway AI film Festival, talking about ip, they said you have to create it on runway if you're going to enter their film competition and.

They say they own it once you submit it, which is ironic because you can't own it anything, right? What are they owning? They're own; they own public domain content. Okay. Shit. You know, whatever that means. Yeah. It's like so, so crazy. So big tech and the big leaders in in, in all this aren't doing things ethically as we know.

So, the whole notion behind cloud is to try to do it ethically and promote a hybrid model. And also use qualified judges who know what they're looking at and know the, this whole aspect of storytelling and then crowdsource the voting. Yeah, I love that because these things are insanely popular.

I mean, I have a friend I hear Con, who's, you know, gets millions of hits on his AI films on YouTube, and of course people grab key frames from his films and then make their own films and their own films that but, but the fact is there's a rabid appetite to consume the content as well. Right. Even though it's AI slop, but some of it's actually pretty good.

So, so tapping into that hunger to create, tapping into that hunger to consume, I believe that cloud is a festival that can really. Do things right. Innovate for good. And that's, that's, that's the whole idea. And I'm, I'm glad you're, you're participating because you're, you're a big part of that equation.

Well, thanks and No, I appreciate that, Curt. I think I agree. I think it's necessary and the timing's great. You know, the idea that you would have a platform specific festival or anything is, is, I mean, it's just the antithesis of, of. Not just filmmaking, but content creation in general and certainly not going to be the most effective way to make content, right?

You want to be able to pick and choose the tools you use based on really the output or the, the type of content you want to create. Now, I get it for runway, it's like they, their, their purpose is as a marketing system. Michelle, great. Their platform is cool but that's not. To the public benefit of the creative community and to the consumer.

What I love about your vision, Curt, is number one, it's just getting the best content out there. Like what is the best storytelling? And we could have sort of interesting things like best visuals, and you can have sort of categories that sort of, you know, allow unique ways to do things to sort of be rewarded or sort of applauded.

But in general, it goes back to storytelling and, and being collaborative and, you know, I'm. You know, look, I'll post stuff on AI every once in a while, on LinkedIn, and I have a very healthy discourse of people that are very supportive and people who think it's you know, not me necessarily, but certainly that the idea of a, of AI is sort of this platform.

And again, I'm trying to really sit there and say, Hey guys, like, let's, let's use this. As a tool to create great content, and that content needs a platform like cloud, or which is cloud because it, it, it is important, right? Film festivals have, are a great way for marketing. They're sort of a great tool and, and a, and a great way to you know, create.

And make, make things valid. I guess I'm, I'm, I'm not saying it the right way, but you know. Yeah. Well, south by Southwest, Tribeca, all these great festivals, were always sort of part of your, not just marketing, but creating a validation on the quality of the content. And so, I think having, where we're in the middle of this sort of like.

AI fear and is it bad? Is it good? You know, it's like, hey, let's, let's, this is a home for people that are, who are part of the creative community to start playing with these tools and adopt it and utilize it. And then also have a home where that could be, you know, shared and adored and, and engaged with.

Yeah. And just lastly about cloud, I also want to show these fantastic films. In a big theater, you know? Yes. Get them off YouTube. Yes. Get them off to Netflix. It's like, no, there's the real test. These people sitting in a theater seat watching short films made in a majority way with AI tools and, and, and not in a hotel ballroom somewhere in across the country.

I love it. So yeah, kind of elevating it, elevating that experience to have a Hollywood impact versus. Just looking at YouTube and, you know, let, let's see, let's, let's really test it out. Let's look at it on the big screen, and more than likely it'll look fantastic. Absolutely. Resolution is such that. You can't even tell.

And so, let's put it on the big screen. That's the, that's the ultimate test. Oh, you want to be an AA filmmaker for YouTube. Or you want to see your stuff on the big screen? Let's put it on the big screen. Yeah. And, and also, I think, again, it's a great chance for people to collaborate. What did you do? That's really cool?

How did you get this shot? How are you getting this? You know, it's like, there's so many different ways to do it. John Finger. Who, who's kind of created a really cool career, and I think he's at Luma Labs right now. He's really focused on sort of AI as a layover or a post-process of real acting, which I love because, you know, he's much more interested from the work that I've seen him share.

He. With keeping real people engaged and not replacing everyone, but using this as, as an enhanced way to story tell. And I think that's really cool. And so, I'm excited to see people use that cause that brings that collaboration with real actors, real writers, DPS directors and the ability to, you know, turn.

You know, someone into a six-foot five alien you know, with a push of a button that looks great and is real, but the base of that acting is a real human. So, you're getting real quality acting out of that. Now, you know, AI enhanced alien creature action of real human movement. That's right. That's right.

And acting. Yeah. Cool. So, we're getting towards the end of our podcast. Anything you want to plug or promote or how can people find you? What's your website? All that good stuff. Yeah, so I'm terrible at LinkedIn, but I do try and post once or twice a month, so sorry about that. I'll, I, I'll try to get better.

We have a website that's mostly in transition, but the company's called Likeness Labs. You can, you can certainly drop in on, on LinkedIn if you want, or you can email me at Joshua dot Oh, at. Likeness labs.ai, the website's, likeness labs, dot ai. The website is not indicative of what we do.

It is what it is. We have something up there. I would say unfortunately, a lot of the stuff we do is kind of a little bit behind closed doors right now. We work a lot with NDAs. We've done a lot of interesting things. We've, we've created. We're, we're working a lot with what, what are AI game hybrids?

So, like game engines like Unreal Five with AI plugins and, you know, there's a lot of interesting things you could do visually that's much more cost effective to scale. So, our team's been working in Unreal for a couple years now. We're also doing a lot of just pure play ai. And AI generative solutions for content creators.

We're starting to get really heavy into this film studio process. So, talking to some people in that space to, you know, again, this idea of being, you know, it's like a, it's like a. United artists, right? The back in the day, what it wanted to be. It's like how Charlie Chaplin, everyone got together where it's like, Hey, artist, first let's shit the paradigm.

If I'm an investor and I invest $2 million into an indie film that looks like a $2 million indie film and God blesses Indy films cause that there would be no Tarantino and Rodriguez, there would be no amazing filmmakers and Lynch without that, that access to the capital and that support of the Smally film, but.

You know, the reality is, you know, you can now make, you know, and, and again, it's a work in progress, but you can make. Big looking features with the right team and the right post-process and the right workflows. And so, you know, that's something else I'm working on with the team to bring that to fruition.

So, and I think it'll fit perfectly into cloud, which is why I'm really excited to be a judge because my goal would be to start to find high quality filmmakers. Prompt pair them with people who are technology first. Pair them with people that are creative first, and that's a win-win. You know, the technology person who knows how to use the tools the best, you know, great avid editors still need directors and actors and writers and things to sort of help them be part of that process.

So, I see it the same way. Awesome. Well, it sounds exciting. Thanks so much, and thanks to all of you for tuning in and catch more of our Realm IQ sessions on your favorite podcast platforms. And please follow and smash that fricking subscribe button. You can also follow us on TikTok, LinkedIn, and now Blue Sky.

So, thanks again, Josh. Take care. Good luck with everything. Thanks, brother.