SXSW Conference, March 16, 2009 – EyeSteelFilm, the creators of “RiP, a Remix Manifesto”, a documentary about copyright and remix culture, announced today that it has partnered with Kaltura, Inc. (http://www.kaltura.com), developer of the first open source video platform and Raincity Studios, a web 2.0 community developer and web design company, to power full video capabilities on its new online community site www.OpenSourceCinema.org.
“When we launched OpenSourceCinema.org, the idea was to promote a fair-use remix culture. With Kaltura’s unique open source tools, the collaborative concept becomes easy to implement” said Brett Gaylor, Founder of Open Source Cinema. “Now, with the online community that we’ve created in collaboration with Raincity Studios, Kaltura’s technology enables our members to easily collaborate online in the joint creation of rich-media.”
OpenSourceCinema was created to connect documentary filmmakers and audiences to collaboratively create and distribute films. OpenSourceCinema provides a full spectrum of tools to enable collaboration: a pool of footage licensed under Creative Commons licenses, Kaltura’s web based advanced online editor, social networking features that foster content distribution, and easy ways for filmmakers to find crews, audiences and collaborators. The first documentary to employ the OpenSourceCinema model is “Rip, a Remix Manifesto”, which is now available on the site for registered users to view, upload their own media, and remix reels and scenes from the film using Kaltura’s video platform.
“There is no doubt that the open source and free culture approach has proven itself in a wide range of business, technology, and content fields. We are now seeing this approach taking off in the world of rich-media creation and consumption. Our partnership with OpenSourceCinema and Raincity Studios exemplifies the great synergies to be exploited between an open source platform and free-culture movements. We are honored to be a part of this project,” said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman and CEO. “At Kaltura we believe that advanced video functionalities should be available for any publisher for free, and that is exactly what we disruptively offer. Coupled with our video-related value added services, Kaltura offers the most robust, flexible, and affordable video solution in the marketplace today.”
About OpenSourceCinema
Open Source Cinema is a social network website to connect audiences, filmmakers and subjects in the creation of documentary films. Through a suite of modules, it will facilitate collaborative editing, submission of user-generated content, viral marketing of documentary films, and the power to act and change the issues that documentaries explore. It has been created to produce the first open source documentary, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, and the site is being developed for broadcasters, filmmakers and audiences to connect, create and transform media.
About Kaltura
Kaltura provides the world’s first Open Source Online Video Platform. With more than 20,000 active publishers, Kaltura’s flexible framework empowers any site with advanced video functionality. Founded in 2006, Kaltura’s open source code is available as a free Software Development Kit and as downloadable packages for leading platforms – such as Drupal, WordPress and MediaWiki. Kaltura also provides supplementary paid services including maintenance, support, integration, professional development, streaming and hosting, ad serving, content syndication, and aggregation of related third party services. Since its public launch, New York-based Kaltura has won numerous awards, such as the TechCrunch40 People’s Choice award, Mashable’s ‘Open Web’ award, AlwaysOn’s top 250 global company and top 100 media company awards, and TV Week’s 5 Video Startups to Watch in 2009. For more information, visit www.kaltura.com.
About Raincity Studios
Raincity Studios is a full service innovation agency, strategically creating and hosting online communities for businesses, organizations and publishers. With a full crew of specialists, Raincity’s extensive list of competencies includes: Drupal content management system deployments, graphic design for on and off-line applications, strategic consultation about concept, traffic-building and monetization, information architecture design, custom code development, ecommerce implementations, plus a retinue of new and traditional marketing tactics to encourage participation in your community including SEO, blogging and podcasting. Beyond site development, Raincity Studios offers turn-key shared or enterprise-ready dedicated hosting solutions with redundant server farms to maximize uptime and performance. Additionally, Raincity offers comprehensive website support and maintenance agreements, custom training and documentation creation. For more information, visit www.raincitystudios.com
Brett Gaylor
Open Source Cinema
(514) 937-4893
brett@opensourcecinema.org
Lisa Bennett
Kaltura
(212) 981-3965
lisa.bennett@kaltura.com
Kris Krug
Raincity Studios
(778) 898-3076
kris@raincitystudios.com