The Open Video Conference is a production of Open Video Alliance, an umbrella coalition for the development of an open video ecosystem. The Conference is made possible by the generosity of the following sponsors and partner organizations. To become a sponsor, please contact us at conference@openvideoalliance.org.

Marquee Sponsors

• Mozilla is a major force for free and open video on the web. Early this year, Mozilla announced native support for the open-source Theora codec in Firefox. Mozilla also set up a grant to foster the development of new tools, player technologies, and codec enhancements for Theora. Online video is currently a mess of proprietary formats, license fees, and plugins: Mozilla is working toward a future in which all the needed playback tools work out of the box. Mozilla’s Open Source Evangelist Christopher Blizzard will be present at the Open Video Conference to showcase the video features in the Firefox 3.5 beta.
• Red Hat is one of the oldest and most well known Linux vendors in the world. They specialize in enterprise computing and provide operating-system platforms, applications, support, training, and consulting services. They have been a trailblazer in the open source business world since 1995, and became a publicly traded company in 1999. Red Hat also fosters the Fedora project, a Linux distribution that is developed and overseen by a mix of community coders and Red Hat employees.

Sponsors

• Intelligent Television produces video and conducts research on media trends in close association with leading cultural and educational institutions like the American Antiquarian Society, Columbia University, the Library of Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, and Thirteen/WNET. With support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation the company is now building a new kind of networked studio to produce and distribute video more systematically for cultural and educational organizations and advocacy groups such as Arts Engine, Creative Commons, and Opencast.
• Livestream is proud to be the live streaming provider of the Open Video Conference. Their technology democratizes television on a global scale. They provide a highly effective, easy-to-use TV studio with the power to create live original programming, controlled by users, and embedable on any website. Livestream has introduced several new groundbreaking innovations and we have even bigger plans for innovation and interactivity on the horizon! They want to help you become the next media mogul.
• Akamai provides market-leading managed services for powering rich media, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai’s services have been adopted by the world’s most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai’s global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, interact, and collaborate.
• See3 is a national provider of interactive services to the nonprofit and cause community. For years, See3 has been leading the nonprofit sector in online video adoption, working with some of the nation’s leading organizations to craft media-rich online campaigns and strategies to meet the demanding online needs of nonprofits. The folks at See3 strongly believe in the benefits of open-source technologies (they build Drupal sites and use CiviCRM and other open source tools in their work).
• Pond5 provides a unique platform for buying and selling production quality stock footage clips (short video segments that are licensed for use in other productions). Its collection is quickly growing, and currently consists of more than 160,000 clips—everything from aerials, timelapse and motion graphics to lifestyle and editorial. All clips are instantly downloadable, and available under a “royalty-free” license which allows for virtually any use at a flat price.
• Level 3 Communications, one of the leading providers of fiber-based communications services, is sponsoring the Open Video Conference. For content owners and creators, Level 3 offers advanced content delivery network capabilities to support online delivery of next-generation communications services—HD-quality video, software downloads, long-tail content or end-to-end live events—across North America, Europe, and Asia. Level 3 is the first to blend the power of a proven CDN and leading IP network, enabling customers to deliver a high-quality, end-user experience, encouraging longer average viewing times and improving online revenue generation—all backed by the most connected IP network in the world.
• The Sunlight Foundation was founded in 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency in American politics. Sunlight is actively making good on the potential of the internet to empower citizens and improve the quality of public discourse. The foundation encourages citizen participation by aggregating information about candidates, bills, campaign contributions, and other legislative data. Sunlight also lobbies to demand changes in how and what Congress makes publicly available online.
• Safe Creative is a free online global intellectual property registry, making it easy for users to register their works with licenses ranging from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved”. Safe Creative exists to fill a need: a persistent and efficient system to help independent authors specify which license their works fall under. SafeCreative allows creators to leave proof of their work by means of a digital signature, and supplies the registrant with a certificate that proves authorship. It is free, open to all from around the world, easy to use, and globally accessible.

Partners

• The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is a research center that promotes collaboration between faculty, students, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and more in order to investigate cyberspace and contribute to its progress. The Berkman Center studies the relationships between cyberspace and economics, policy, education, and law, and encourages the discussion to continue through a wide range of events, from lunch meetings to international conferences.
• The Information Law Institute at NYU School of Law is an academic center that studies information in the digital age—how it is produced, manipulated, stored, disseminated, and accessed. The ILI’s goal is to understand and guide how the law interacts with new technologies, as well as to examine the effects these modern innovations have on the social and educational progress of our society.
• Creative Commons, a nonprofit corporation founded in 2001, provides free licenses that allow anybody to easily share their works—including video—within the bounds of existing copyright law. This encourages people to build upon the works of others; the licenses give creators the power to allow for sharing, remixing, and using works commercially. Copyrighted works go from all rights reserved to some (or even no) rights reserved. Projects include Science Commons, which encourages open access to scientific research, and ccLearn, which supports the creation of open educational resources.
• Free Press is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to media reform. The group stresses public participation in the media, including supporting independent media operations and promoting universal access to communications. Free Press recognizes the educational potential of the news media, as well as its duty to keep the powers that be in check, which is why the organization is helping turn media reform into a salient issue.
• Columbia University’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning is an institution built around the purpose of utilizing new media in education. The Center helps faculty members utilize new technologies to their fullest, whether it is building websites or making videos. Their projects help make data collecting and sharing, simulations and multimedia, and interactive student activities easy.
• The Telematics Freedom Foundation is an organization based in Rome that aims to spread freedom among new technology, telematics, and the internet. Their projects include the creation of software that allows for democratic organization, completely run by the users. The group was co-founded by its current Director, Rufo Guerreschi, who will be attending the Open Video Conference.
• Big Think seeks to satisfy the gap between the community-building nature of the internet and a globe full of great minds and leaders. Users can share and discuss any content of any media with a large user base that includes professors, politicians, and celebrities. Users can also be elevated by the community to “expert” status, giving those people more content control and clout. The website features video interviews of experts powered by Kaltura and under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
• The Workbook Project, a self-described “open source social experiment,” aims to create a repository of information to help content creators maximize their potential and outreach on the internet. Users are encouraged to submit information, how-tos, and advice with topics ranging from building a fan base to dealing with international sales.
• Magnify.net provides Video 2.0 curation solutions for publishers, e-commerce companies, and web sites. Through its integrated video publishing solution, Magnify.net gives online businesses the ability to leverage their knowledge and sector expertise by providing market leading video search, aggregation, and curation technology. Curated video has editorial value and it is this credibility that permits Magnify’s customers to leverage any video content to drive audience engagement, brand awareness and, for media companies and publishing customers, higher advertising revenue. The Magnify platform currently serves 55,000 web publishers.
• Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade (CTS – Center for Technology and Society), a part of the Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a unique research and educational institution that takes an interdisciplinary approach to law, technology, and society. CTS was responsible for starting the Creative Commons project in Brazil, and currently works closely with the Brazilian government to implement free software and access to knowledge programs in the country.

Organizers

• The Information Society Project is a center that focuses on how the internet and new technologies affect law and society. The Information Society Project addresses, as they put it, the “interplay between memes, genes, and bits”–knowledge and culture, people and biology, and technology. Dedicated to democracy, human development, and social justice, the center studies access to knowledge, online civil liberties, digital education, genomic ethics, and intellectual property reform.
• Kaltura is a company that has created a widely integrated open source video platform. Being open source, Kaltura prides itself on being highly customizable, extremely reliable, and free. Over 25,000 publishers have adopted Kaltura’s advanced video platform. The company profits from offering a variety of services, such as custom work, hosting, streaming, maintenance, and more.
• The Participatory Culture Foundation is a non-profit established in 2005 with the mission of bringing people and culture together. They have done so through their flagship product, Miro, a free and open source desktop video application. Through Miro, the PCF hopes to make access to internet TV and video easier, encouraging a more democratic, participatory experience.
• iCommons is an organization that encourages open education, access to knowledge, free software, open access publishing, and free culture in order to build a worldwide commons. The group hosts an annual summit to address these issues, including tools, structures, and attitudes that will encourage participation, collaboration, and progress around the world.

Interested in becoming a partner? We’d love to hear from you. Contact us at conference@openvideoalliance.org.