This presentation summarizes Brain Candy, LLC's alternative content model that balances the benefits of participatory entertainment with the needs of content owners: co-creating value through collaborative commercial entertainment; building bridges between content creators and audiences; and creating new revenue streams for content owners and fans.

2. Remix Realities & Participatory Possibilities
Audiences have long expressed their creative interest through the lens of others’ intellectual
property. Remixing, sampling, and mashing up content is now cheaper and easier than ever,
thanks to the digital age we live in.
Examples are abundant: the Youtube “Downfall” film remix meme, countless derivative
works of copyrighted comic and anime characters on deviantart.com, fan fiction, the Star
Wars Uncut project (http://www.starwarsuncut.com/), etc.
Irrespective of the legalities of such derivative works – fair use notwithstanding – the reality
is that audiences will interact with content on their own creative terms with increasing
frequency. The desire, the skills, and the tools are here to stay.
One response is to continue the whack‐a‐mole approach of relentlessly stamping out never‐
ending copyright violations that pits creators and audiences in an adversarial light.
Another is to channel the audience’s enthusiasm and creative competence in ways that
benefit creators and audiences alike. Some creators doing just this by experimenting with
new forms of legal licensing, audience participation, and collaborative storytelling:
Creative Commons licenses, especially non‐commercial versions, are being used by
filmmakers (the “Cosmonaut” project, http://www.thecosmonaut.org/), published
authors (Jim Butcher, Cory Doctorow, and Charles Stross), and musicians (NIN’s Trent
Reznor).
Collaborative storytelling is now a fundamental aspect of some projects (“Cathy’s
Book” (http://www.cathysbook.com/) and Disney’s take180.com).
A great illustration of crowdsourced marketing is Kraft Food’s “Love in Action” film.
The story was sourced from the public, and consumers chose the lead actors, the
names of the protagonists, and the clothes they wore (some were even extras in the
film!).
These examples hint at the possibilities of co‐creating value through collaboration and
demonstrate individual pieces of the larger collaborative puzzle.
The audience participation tide is rising, and content creators can either ride the wave it’s
bringing or be washed out to sea by it.
2

3. Co-Creating Value Through Collaboration
What if…there was a way for AUDIENCES to actively participate in the creative process of
commercial entertainment?
And what if…audience PARTICIPATION did not jeopardize property owners’
commercial and editorial rights over their content?
And what if …there was a way for property owners and
audiences to CO‐CREATE VALUE?
Brain Candy, LLC (BCL) believes the answer is a collaborative approach to commercial
entertainment properties that builds a bridge between official content (canon) and user‐
generated content (fanon or UGC). This bridge allows property owners to co‐create value
with their audiences while still retaining commercial and editorial control over content.
Importantly, co‐creating value with fans does not require a loss of ownership, commercial
control, or canonical authority for property owners. But it does require a new way of viewing
how audiences engage with content.
Put simply, traditional entertainment is a monologue; collaborative entertainment is a
dialogue. Converting entertainment into a conversation yields benefits that cannot be
achieved with traditional create‐distribute‐consume content production. Further, including
audiences in the creative process sets up a situation where value is co‐created by property
owners and audiences.
Value co‐creation solutions:
 View fans as a source of competence
 Find ways to constructively integrate UGC into entertainment properties
 Recognize that contributing canonical content is the deepest form of engagement a
fan can have with an entertainment property
 Provide the mechanisms for accessing value in UGC
3

4. Traditional entertainment content management ignores or actively suppresses UGC. It is an
‘either‐or’ mentality that forever separates official content from unofficial content, locking
out property owners from the value of UGC.
FANON CANON FANON CANON
Unofficial Official
Non‐Commercial Commercial Unofficial Official Official
UGC
Collaborative
Creative Space
Traditional Entertainment Model Collaborative Entertainment Model
A collaborative approach to entertainment actively seeks value in UGC by working with
audiences to create content within the property. The result is the emergence of a third kind
of content, generated by audiences and acknowledged by property owners. This ‘and’
approach to content generates value for audiences and property owners alike.
BCL works with property owners to develop, launch, and maintain these collaborative
creative spaces with audiences, providing the following benefits to property owners:
 deeper engagement with existing audiences
 ability to secure new audiences
 new sources of monetizable content
 lower production/acquisition costs of content
 cheaply/quickly gauge audience interest in digital content before committing costly
resources to producing physical content
4

5. The Collaborative Property Model
BCL’s Collaborative Property Model (CPM) is used to prepare for, develop, and implement
collaborative creative spaces within intellectual properties. The CPM outlines a
comprehensive approach to extending properties through collaborative creative spaces. BCL
uses the model as a method for working with clients to construct custom licensing
frameworks and narrative structures that will support a co‐creative approach to content
generation.
The model is flexible and scalable, works with new, active, and dormant properties, and can
be utilized across many mediums: video games, movies, television shows, role‐playing
games, etc. Importantly, the CPM balances the needs of property owners with the benefits
of including the creative community in a collaborative process.
Opening up an intellectual property for collaboration requires new skills beyond those used
for traditional entertainment content creation. There are significant considerations that
separate collaborative properties from traditional properties: creative, operational, and
legal.
The CPM helps clients and BCL methodically work their way through these considerations.
5

6. The World Narrative
The heart of the CPM is what BCL calls the “world narrative.” The world narrative is a
comprehensive way of viewing entertainment properties. The world narrative may consist of
a single story told in a single medium, or it may be a collection of stories distributed across
many mediums.
Each story is managed with the larger world narrative in mind, and collaborative creative
spaces and world extensions are built out in a way that naturally expand the world narrative
without corrupting continuity or coherence.
World Structure Stories : Mediums World Narrative
Monomedia 1 : 1 story
Multimedia 1 : Many story
story 1
story 2
Transmedia Many : Many
story 3
story 4
Whatever the nature of the intellectual property, the CPM provides the mechanisms for
installing world narrative “entry points” where audiences can contribute content within a
collaborative creative space. Entry points are explicit calls for collaboration with audiences.
Entry points can be small and limited in scope (“Please submit a drawing of Savage Kor
fighting a skeleton” or “Please write, in 1,000 words or less, a story about Alison discovering
she can see ghosts”) or more open‐ended (“Please submit a short story, image, or video set
in the “Dawn of Time” world). Entry points can span one or more mediums, characters, and
stories within a world narrative.
The ease with which UGC is integrated into the official world depends greatly on how the
entry points are constructed and how the collaborative creative spaces are configured.
When done correctly, the UGC can provide multiple uses within the world narrative through
re‐contextualization (remix, re‐use, and repackaging).
6

7. Collaborative Entertainment Services
Every entertainment endeavor should begin with top quality content, but that’s just the
beginning. Without the necessary operational systems, appropriate legal frameworks, and
measurable metrics, even the best content can fail to meet the goals of property owners.
This is even truer for collaborative commercial properties.
Given the unique nature of collaborative entertainment, BCL provides a variety of services to
help ensure their success. These services range from initial recommendations to
development of content/tools/systems to ongoing support and management of content.
While BCL does not and is not licensed to provide legal advice, it has spent considerable time
working with national law firms to explore how collaborative creative spaces can exist within
U.S. copyright statutes. We work with our clients’ legal representatives to successfully blend
the necessities of copyright law with the possibilities of creative content.
Collaborative Services Overview (Summary)
Assessment/Evaluation
A typical engagement for strategic recommendations involves an assessment and evaluation
of the world narrative. BCL conducts an inventory of existing resources, legal limitations and
7

8. restrictions, and desired performance criteria. This inventory informs the specific
collaborative recommendations for the property, including how content should be
structured, identifying additional resources required for implementation, documenting legal
considerations, and identifying appropriate metrics for measuring performance of the
collaborative project.
Development
From a development standpoint, BCL can create new content, collaborative entry points, and
collaborative creative spaces. BCL can also document operational and legal
processes/procedures/policies, as well as assist with developing metric tracking systems.
Implementation
Additionally, BCL can provide on‐going support of collaborative creative spaces, including
management of content and community, integration of UGC within canonical content, and
metric reporting/recommendations. For on‐going collaborative properties, the metric
reporting becomes input for iterative improvements of the content strategy.
Collaborative Services Overview (Detailed)
8

9. The Possibilities of Collaborative Entertainment
Recent advances in technology and alternative legal frameworks like Creative Commons are
providing the creative community at large with new and exciting ways to create and
distribute their content as well as engage and interact with their audiences.
Whether your focus is marketing or monetization (or something in between), there have
never been more ways to interact with audiences. Additionally, there have never been more
ways to invite audiences to engage constructively with entertainment properties.
The proliferation of distribution channels, platforms, and mediums are adding to the creative
possibilities available to content creators.
BCL helps property owners turn these possibilities into opportunities for co‐creating value.
9