Independent Film Makers Thrilled That People 'Pirated' Their Movie
from the understanding-buzz dept
On the same day that the guy who was caught filming the Simpson's movie with his mobile phone (which still doesn't make sense to us) was fined in Australia, some independent film makers are talking up how wonderful it is that people are "pirating" their film. The website rslog.net reviewed their film, The Man from Earth, and pointed out the many places online where it could be downloaded. It turned out that people really seemed to love the movie. Thousands downloaded it... and they started promoting it to others. The movie's ranking on IMDB shot up and it's getting attention from all over the place. The producer of the movie wrote to rslog to thank them for promoting the movie, noting that next time he'll probably upload his next movie to various torrent sites himself.The director of the movie also chimed in with his support. He notes that they definitely view this a bit as "doing a Radiohead," but that's perfectly reasonable. They're hoping many people do decide to buy the DVD or donate money to the project, which seems like a reasonable request. However, what may be more likely is that they can use this groundswell to push for both theater showings of the movie and a distribution deal for their followup. And while this shows an example of moviemakers using the Radiohead example -- there's a big difference here as well. Many critics have been falsely dismissing the Radiohead experiment by saying that only big, well known bands can pull it off. However, what the folks behind this movie are doing is exactly the opposite. They're smaller names, who are generating tremendous publicity and opportunity for themselves by not treating their fans as criminals -- even those who clearly are downloading unauthorized versions. Instead, they're embracing them for the free publicity they're providing the movie and helping to turn it into a hit. Once again, the old saying is true: obscurity is a much bigger threat to creative works than piracy.
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not the first
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Producer has the final choice
I'm not in the movie business but it seems to me that it might deter a studio from picking up the film for distribution now. Has this ever been done before?
Sure it has some publicity but I want to see if a studio would distribute a movie that has already been shown so much online.
Of course the producer of the movie has the final say of how he wants his work distributed.
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You clearly don't seem to understand the way this type of promotion works.
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Actually, no. We're not. We're pointing out how yet another artist has learned to embrace it. That doesn't condone it for others. It shows more artists that they can embrace it. Quite different...
while it may be good for publicity for unknowns, eventually people have to make real money, and if you think it's going to come from donations you need a reality check.
Um. Did I ever say that it was *all* going to come from donations? Nope. In fact, I said something quite different. I said it should help them sell more DVDs and also line up theater showing -- as well as more interest from studios the next time they want to make a movie.
In other words, it's opening up many different new business models that have nothing to do with donations.
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Re #3
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Erp
".. not making it just the same old you can get for free (if you choose not to download). "
Should be:
".. not making it just the same old you can get for free (if you choose to download). "
Not is not supposed to be there =P
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Huh
Does someone finally get it?
The only person who needs a reality check is someone who thinks they can eliminate piracy. The closest you can get is minimizing the impact of it, and if using pirate distribution channels to offload distribution costs benefits you, I do not see how this is "piracy".
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I can also see how it works for unknowns. They get free publicity, no problem there.
What I don't know about is the majority of artists in between these two categories. But apparently the rest of you are very knowledgable in this. You extrapolate a nice linear line from being unknown, getting little donations and a lot of publicity, all the way to being really well known and getting lots of donations; but, I doubt it's that simple. I would imagine after the artist's initial publicity boom they would start to decline, and lose money. Unless they had a lot of capital to keep them alive during those "in-between" times, they probably wouldn't make it.
Besides, this "Radiohead" thing is still fairly new. You are not accounting for the novelty of it and therefore the increased donations just because it's new and different and people want to support business like this. If everyone did this, twenty years later would they receive money proportionally? No one knows, but I would venture to say no. I'm not saying it won't work, but please think about things like this before you make definitive conclusions that free music or art will work for everyone forever.
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Besides, in this model, you aren't giving money for something unknown. You aren't buying a CD that contains songs you haven't heard. You can listen to it or watch the movie or whatever and THEN decide to pay. Are people willing to pay for something after they already have it for free? Absolutely, the whole idea of "tipping" is based on that and tips account for huge portions of many people's revenue.
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And considering that the cost of music production is dropping I don't see why artists should expect to make money hand over fist anyway. If one were to base salary on the vitality of their work then garbage collectors would be some of the richest people on earth.
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I have a pot of money waiting for the artists. Since RIAA is not worthy of the payment, they get none.
Trust me... I am just as pissed about all this, if not more. I used to be a DJ and I had to pay to play. ASCAP and BMI are leaches. I had to pay a percentage of my income to them every month. Imagine making 10k on a rave and then having to pay out almost half to IRS and then another 20% to the industry. What a farce. Again... if I had a direct route to the artist, I would have paid them.
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But I suppose the key point is "provided they're offering what people want". Maybe this means only the most super-popular music can survive? Otherwise, you assume that if an artist's music is good, then people will respond and donate proportionally. Well, it's been my experience that people go and buy what they see on MTV. So, good luck artists!
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DRM-free, free movie from indie filmmakers
http://www.chrisblanc.org/projects/tufa/
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funny story ...
It was almost like some folks who really, really knew their way around video encoding and had bandwidth out the wazoo, had gotten their piratey little hands on some real quality booty with that pre-release version, and oh my were they ever sharing.
And Michael Moore had just been out on a speaking tour of Universities across the country.
I'm just sayin'.
Now, I'm sure Mr. Moore would never subvert his film's distributor's rights to get rich or anything, just to get his message out to a wider public audience before an election. Heavens no. But whatever did happen, that was indeed the result. Didn't save us, but hey, someone was at least trying.
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Yes, I do know. Look at my first post, where I offered the example of webcomics. It is possible to survive on donations even when your fanbase is not very large. To make 40k a year you need to make $110 a day. If you have 1000 fans and they each donate $0.10 a day ($36.50 a year), you make that 40k. If 10 000 people download your movie but only 1000 people pay $10 for it, you still made $10 000. That is peanuts to a big studio, but it covers the cost of production of an indie film. And we're only talking about 1000 people paying! There are millions of people on the internet, and you only need to grab the attention of a fraction of them.
It's easier for musicians than filmmakers, of course, since they can survive on concert proceedings.
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performer is the "hat" In the hat is money, not everyone has donated, but the performer continues, day after day. He is
getting his talent heard, people pay, people talk, people pay and talk. either way, it works.........
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Thoughts
As for the movie theathres sucking, that is their problem anyways, not the movie distributors.
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Donate!
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