Dreamworks Want Us To Be Producers

Over at Daily Disruption is an interesting interview with DreamWorks’ head of enterprise technology, Kate Swanborg, in which she discusses the role of technology within the company and how it affects their relationship with consumers. All in all an interesting read but what is truly worth taking away from it is a quote from right at the very end:

I think that one of the most exciting things that we’re seeing is the idea that, as a consumer, I can actually create. I can go and start creating characters and imagery. Now, of course, at DreamWorks Animation we go and identify the best artists and engineers on the planet, and that talent is still critically important. But mobile technologies are really allowing the consumers to take those wonderful assets that are created and bring them into their whole lives and actually become producers in their own right.

Now that got the cogs in my head turning. Does she mean that the advances in technology mean that consumers will soon be creating content on a par with the studio, or as I believe, she wants us to use their characters in our own creations?

The reason I’m guessing the latter is because she talks about the narrowing gap between content producers and consumers. The idea is a novel one, but it does completely ignore one aspect of content: copyright! Of course plenty of people simply ignore copyright and gleefully create content independent of DW, but it’s hard to take the effort on their end seriously when studios and networks continually go after fans.

Such collaboration will come about in the end, as studios stand to gain too much from being intricately involved with the fans who provide them with revenue.