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The Digital Executive
Owning the Digital Sky: Neil Mandt on AR, Real Estate, and the Future of Digital Rights |Ep 1122
00:19:39
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive podcast. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Neil Mant. Neil Mant is a five time Emmy winning producer, seasoned Hollywood director and pioneering entrepreneur at the forefront of digital rights for real estate. Over a 30 year media career, he has produced more than 3000 episodes of television and multiple feature films for studios including Disney and 824. He produced the first super bowl in virtual reality, co founded an MMA league in China, built one of the earliest AR platforms for true crime storytelling, and has developed immersive content across AI, VR and gaming. Well, good afternoon, Neil. Welcome to the show.
- [00:52]
B
Thanks for having me, Brian.
- [00:53]
A
Absolutely, my friend. I appreciate it. And I know generally you're out of la, Los Angeles, but you're currently traveling, so I appreciate you making the time being, taking this call from Saudi Arabia, which is amazing. Again, I appreciate that. So, Neil, I'm going to jump right into your first question. You built a distinguished career in television and film, over 3,000 episodes, multiple Emmys, before turning your attention to the intersection of the virtual reality and augmented reality, real estate and digital property. What was the turning point when you realized digital airspace would become as important as physical space? And how did your entertainment background prepare you for this leap?
- [01:32]
B
So in media, as a film director, movie producer, television producer, I understand how media plays in the real world when you're activating content. And what that comes down to is if I was going to shoot a movie or a TV show on your property, in your lobby, in your house, in your backyard, I would need to obtain permission from you. You know, you would never expect me to. You wake up in the morning and there's a film crew in your backyard. Wouldn't that surprise you, Brian?
- [01:59]
A
Yeah.
- [02:00]
B
Yeah. And he'd be like, who the hell are you? Why are you in my backyard shooting a movie? Or you just call the police on me this darn way? Well, when I noticed Pokemon Go, I was thinking about that and I said, you know what? If no way I would be on this guy's property and shooting a movie without permission. So why is Pokemon Go allowed to set up a commercial business on his property and not go through the same procedures? And of course the response that came up with is, it's illegal. You can't do that. You cannot go on someone's property and set up a commercial business without permission. And so then I realized that real estate owners were not aware that their invisible airspace would be valuable and that others would want to use it for commercial purposes. Selling Things directing data and perhaps even more disturbingly, telling people to trespass on their property, which is exactly what happened with Tokyo. And so I saw that and I thought, okay, well, we're moving towards a future where companies like Meta and others, Google, will be creating augmented reality wearable eyewear, glasses and contact lenses. And when that future is mature, they're going to want to put media in the real world to experience it. And I just did the math and I said, you know what? The real world has rights. They should be determining if there's something happening on their property, especially if it's commercial in nature. And so that's where I sort of had the aha moment. I said, okay, there's going to be this massive change if Meta has their way. And they've spent a hundred billion dollars plus getting into this space in glasses. So I think they're going to get their way. And I thought, wow, there's an opportunity for the real world to benefit and open new revenue streams. And that's what inspired me.
- [03:40]
A
I really love that story, and again, I've heard that term so many times that aha moment. So many guests have had said that. And I just love that, really embrace these stories, but love your background from media and TV and you transitioned and just like in the physical world, you got to obtain permission to access somebody's property or to film there. I think that aha moment is going to be invaluable going into the future because you're absolutely right. The big players out there have invested a lot of money because they know the future is in augmented and virtual reality. So I appreciate that. And Neil, you've produced VR, AR content immersive storytelling around true crime, for example, Crime Door and more. How do storytelling, narrative and emotional resonance play a role in securing adoption of immerse immersive experiences, especially when those experiences inhabit real world spaces owned by others.
- [04:35]
B
Yeah, I think the key thing in your question, Brian, is to understand how the human brain works as it relates to media in 2D and in 3D. And so the future of this content in the real world will be three dimensional. We're used to consuming content two dimensional, either on your phone or on your computer or on your TV. It's all in 2D. However, when you experience things in 3D, it impacts a different part of your brain. And so when you're reading a book or you're going through a website or you're looking at an app, the part of your brain that goes through a learning process which includes reading or viewing content and the memory of your brain, it records it in a specific way where you have to almost memorize things and probably remember. In school, some kids were good at just reading the books and taking the tests. And other kids like me, I was better if it was a demonstration in the class. If you showed me what was going on, my brain would remember it better because I've experienced it in my real world. And so when you experience things, it doesn't go through that learning memorization process. Experience leads to the word understanding. You can't understand anything that you didn't experience. And so again, let's put that together in a commercial nature. So the phone, you can point the phone using the Ikea app or the Wayfair app. You could point it at the floor and you could augment a chair or a couch or a table in your room using the AR function phone. Are you familiar with that, Brian?
- [06:10]
A
Absolutely. Yep. Use it all the time.
- [06:12]
B
Okay, Yep. All right. So with that technology you could, like I said, you could drop the piece of furniture in your room and using the phone as the display mechanism, the chair would appear to be three dimensional actually in your room. And so now that you experiencing it in the real world, you understand what it looks like in your room, you understand the size of it, you understand the color of it. And so this leads to a greater confidence in purchasing. And so this is factual data. I'm not making this up. You are. Now if you, if you augment that chair in your living room, you are 45% more likely to buy it and you're over 90% less likely to return it. And so just from a commercial buying and selling perspective, this is going to create an enormous amount of efficiencies in the world which will save people money and time. And so just from that sales perspective, it's going to prove to be wildly successful. And then from a content and experiential success, well, when you and I take a picture with our phones now, there's a good chance that your phone has more than one camera lens on it. And what that means is the image quality is actually in three dimensions because you have two cameras taking an off axis image. If you and I tagged ourselves on a photo in front of the Best Buy and we came back in five or six or 10 years, that's assuming Best Buy still in business, we could access the Internet using our glasses and say populate photos of friends on Facebook. And if we plaguin ourselves on Facebook, you and I would be standing in three dimensions from the past. And so you think about how cool that would be to experience your previous moments. Where I go to a restaurant and I say populated celebrities and the Kardashians are sitting there at the table that they were at six years ago or six months ago, that would be cool. And so from an experiential standpoint in a social media, it'll be wild on the content, something that converts to sales. It will be very successful. So these are. The reason they're going to be adopted is because it's going to significant value in the real world.
- [08:23]
A
That's awesome. And you're right, you're almost bringing that experience to life. I like some of your examples there. The brain does react differently between the 2D versus 3D. And you brought up that example. And I 100% agree with you. You learn a lot better through an experience versus memorization. We know the future of the world's going to be 3D. And so bringing those experiences into our homes, into our lives, into our restaurants, as you mentioned. And I like that little statistic you brought up, that augmented reality shopping. Right. You increase that buy by 45% and reduce the returning of merchandise by up to 90% less, which I think is awesome. So thank you. And Neil, you've coined the term digital rights management applied to real estate, enabling property owners to register, protect and monetize their digital airspace. Could you unpack that concept? What exactly is a digital right in this context? And what constitutes infringement? How is DRM in real estate different from copyright or IP concepts in media?
- [09:26]
B
Right. Well, I. What the DRM system does is it allows for protection and monetization of the digital rights. And again, I'm going to impact everything you asked for. But think of the way ASCAP or BMI works for music. Person who owns the song registers their song within either ASCAP or bmi and then they track that across the Internet or other usages and make sure people are getting paid. Are you familiar with that and ASCAP and bmi?
- [09:52]
A
Yes.
- [09:53]
B
Okay, so in that scenario, the copyright is the product is the song, and the song does in fact have a copyright to it. Correct?
- [10:01]
A
Correct.
- [10:02]
B
Okay, so let's think about a building historically. Or a piece of land doesn't have to be the building could just be raw land. So in the history of real estate, you have three major rights, which is land rights, which is owning the land. You have mineral rights, which is the ground, which is underneath the land, like. Like old gold or oil or water. And then there's the air rights, which is the air above the land. And air rights really come into play. Like if you have a two story building and I have, I'm looking to build a high rise up and over your building, I'd have to buy the air above your building to go over the top of it. And so people sell that because New York City and other places people want to build over the air. And so those are the three rights that have been around since Roman Law. And now as we look at the digital usage, like with Pokemon Go, I've decided to coin this as a digital rake. And the digital right encompasses all digital connection to the property in every way and whether that's a virtual engagement to augmented reality. If I'm wearing glasses and I look at your building and there's some sort of media, perhaps the building, your digital right, is that media. And you should be the one to determine if anyone can put media on your building that is commercial in nature. I tell people you're going to lose all day on free speech. There's just no way undo that one. But if someone's going to assert the right to a brand and sell my building, then they need to obtain permission from me. And people ask me all the time, they'll say, well, Neil, what is it about a photograph? I took a photograph of New York City and do I own my photograph? Do I have to pay somebody? I say, no, you own your photograph. The issue is when Snapchat goes and sells the building to HBO and they put a dragon on it and they don't call the building and say, can I put a dragon on your building and can I take money from HBO and not give it to you? Of course it's absurd. You'd have to share the money. And so there is a property right that is a new identifiable property, right, which can be bought, it could be traded, it could be licensed. And so maybe I have this great building and you know, Brian, you come to me and you're like, I want to buy those rights some year, say, okay, well could they be worth and come up with a number and you can write me a check for it right now. So that's an entirely new revenue stream. But also in this future where Meta is successful and they do get their glasses, they're going to need to put the advertising someplace. What people don't understand is, you know, there's no such thing as free media. You either look at an advertisement or you buy a ticket, you know, a movie ticket, or you pay for a subscription or something like that, but there's no free media. You scroll through Instagram and you see all kinds of photos and then every once in a while you get to pass by an ad, just how it is. And so in this new world we're wearing glasses, they'll need to put the to see that Kardashians image, to see that video of them in the past at the dinner table, you're going to need to pay for it. And so there's going to be either a glowing vodka bottle on the middle of the table that paid for it, or on the wall in the back corner of the restaurant is going to be a picture of a Nike ad or something, you know, something subtle. But there will need to be media licensed in the real that we need to be advertising paid in the real world to finance the content. And it is my belief that the decision maker should be the property owner because the building was designed by an architect, so it in fact has the same copyright. And a song or a book or a movie or a TV show has. And so as this most story, I will have more and more conversations with the folks at Apple and Google and Meta, and I've already had some conversations with some of the company explaining to them that they protect songs, they protect movies, and they protect other copyright. They will not need to stop the Pokemon Ghost from happening because if they don't, as people get injured and die, they may find themselves inside the lawsuit as well. And so this is a property right that is governed by the owner of the property and they determine how it can be used in any digital sphere of any kind.
- [14:12]
A
Thank you. That's a lot to unpack there, but it makes total sense. And with this digital rights management drama as you've coined it, is a protection and digitalization of digital rights. The idea that owners govern their property rights through any digital connection to their property. It protects owners, of course, but also brings in some revenue streams for the economy. And I think that's pretty cool. So thank you for that. And Neil, the last question of the day I have for you. As augmented reality and virtual reality overlays increasingly become part of city experiences, like you talked about, ads on buildings, et cetera, how do property owners balance the opportunity for monetization against risks like liability, unwanted digital clutter, loss of control, etc. What frameworks or guardrails do you believe are essential?
- [15:00]
B
Well, that literally is the question that I was asking myself for a number of years, is what would be the solutions? What would be required to make sure that, that, that this industry, that that advertising community will want to have happen? The marketing, computer Community that the product creators that the meta that, that the user will want, how could it work? And what guardrails would need to be in place. And you would need a technical infrastructure where all of the key parties could meet and could do business. And that key party would be, okay, I'm a property owner, so I own the ip. And then the licensee, whoever that is, an advertiser or social media platform, they say, you know what, I want to use the building. And so there need to be a technical platform where they can meet. And there would have to be rules in that system that must be followed. And so that is what our drm, our Digital Rights management system does. Think of it like a job board. Property owner says, hey, I'm open to people bringing me digital opportunities. Company that wants to use digital brings digital opportunities, comes there and they meet. So those are the two key parties, but there's two other parties that are necessary for this to work. So did you ever see the movie back in the future too? Yep. You remember the scene when Marty and Fly's walking down the street and that. That augmented shark comes off the building? Okay, so Marty looks like he's gonna get hit by a car in that scene. He's not paying attention. And so the question I ask myself is, who gets sued when Marty gets hit by the car and his wife sues somebody, I think for sure the movie student that made the shark is gonna be sued. I think for sure the guy that's the, that's renting the movie theater guy who's renting the space is gonna get sued. And I think, unfortunately, the guy who owns the building who may not even be aware that his tenant is augmenting 150ft in the street with a shark. And so fundamentally, the problem with that is insurance. Because if I'm going to make a movie and shoot on your property, I got to bring you a liability policy. If that movie's going to air on tv, I have to buy an errors and emissions policy. And because this is now the Internet, you need a cyber policy. And so the third party that lives in our system is the insurance companies. And so as a building owner may say in the background, okay, I'm okay with red car ads and sneaker ads. And then Facebook shows up and they're like, okay, I got a red car ad. Well, the insurance industry sits in the middle of the platform and they, they do a bid on the. The ad because only one person like you may, the only guy that sees this ad because it's all personalized. And so the insurance industry would then sell a policy, this is all new remedy for them, to the licensee, which would be meta or the advertiser. And then when it comes to the building with the ad, the building owner gets three insurance policies with the ad because it cannot have any of this happen without insurance. So those are the three parties. Now you have a building owner who's the licensee. You have the whoever wants to use it, which is the license, or that's a advertiser probably, and then the insurance company, and then they issue the policies. And then the fourth and final player is the government. And so maybe the building owner says, okay, I'm good with red car ads. And Facebook's like, I got a red car ad. And the insurance companies, here's the, here's the policy for a red car ad. And it goes to hit the building. And there's one layer before the building gets the government. And the government could be the federal government, could be the state government, or it could be the guy that owns a condo complex, North Dakota, who says no red car ads allowed on those real estate. And so those are the four players that would need to sit in one system that has a checks and balances, issues the payments, tracks it all appropriately, and records everything on blockchain so everybody can see it. And that is the company we built, the digital rights management system.
- [18:40]
A
Wow. Lot there, but I love it. And I like how you dealt with the example and you used the movie Back to the future 2 with that. Again, an augmented virtual reality type shark. But going a little bit deeper into that, I like how you will have to build some sort of technical infrastructure or you have with your DRM system where these parties could come together, meet and sit down and negotiate agreement, whatever that is. But then you had to throw that curveball in there of insurance and liability, which makes total sense. And then we need some sort of governance around that, which is typically the government. There's laws that need to record these types of things. So I really appreciate that. There's a lot to impact there, of course. And Neil, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
- [19:27]
B
Hey, Brian, thank you. It was great to be on your show.
- [19:30]
A
Bye for now.