Nina Paley vs. Jaron Lanier

from the take-your-pick dept

Okay, so we had said that we were just going to do one post debunking Jaron Lanier's new hatred for everything about "open culture," but WNYC recently had a nice little debate between Nina Paley and Jaron Lanier -- and the thing that amazed me is how unprepared to debate these topics Lanier appears to be. Admittedly, some of it is just that Lanier loses his train of thought a few times, but that's really not what stands out. He rarely seems to have an actual point. You can pretty much sum up his position as "but, artists need to make money and after 10 years, they haven't been able to online, so it's a failure." But that's it. Nothing in what he says explains how to change things. It's just pining for the way things used to be. And whenever he's confronted on specific points, he either falls back to saying "well, I made up that argument originally, but now I know it's wrong" without ever explaining why it's wrong, or saying "well, I'm not an absolutist, so I could maybe see how free could be helpful." His discussion about the length of copyright and whether copyright should go to kids and grandkids is quite telling. He doesn't seem to understand the issues at play, doesn't have a clear train of thought, and goes back and forth and makes totally arbitrary claims, such as, "well, I don't know, I think it's okay to pass it on to your kids, but if it's for your grand kids, okay, I guess I can see that that's starting to be too much." Why? Not clear.

The one point that really does need to be refuted is that he seems to believe that artificial scarcity somehow makes people pay. He talks about the importance of a "social contract" to have people "pay for others' brains." He says "people need to be secure that they're earning their dignity and don't need to sing for their supper every night." But that confuses a few different issues. Having the government step in and ramp up copyright laws doesn't earn anyone their dignity. Providing products that people actually want to pay for does. And that's the point that Lanier seems to miss. He tries to support the importance of "artificial scarcity" by using money as an example, saying that money only works because it's artificially scarce. But that's a total misunderstanding of money. Money works because it's a proxy for value, so it isn't actually artificially scarce at all. It's legitimately scarce, because if you print more money, the value of the money already in the system goes down (inflation) meaning that you have to pay more to get the same thing. It works because it's a proxy for that scarce value. It's not an artificial scarcity at all. He later agrees with Nina when she talks about the importance of real scarcity, but fails to recognize that real scarcity makes sense, whereas artificial scarcity is actually economically limiting.

Lanier also makes an odd claim that the old studio/label system allowed for a "middle class" of content creators. But that's really not true. For most who go through that system it's totally hit or miss, with most missing. But with new business models, we're seeing more and more people who are able to make a perfect middle class living by not having to wait for the gatekeepers. More people are making money due to their music today than ever before, and it's because they have all sorts of different ways to make money.

Nina, not surprisingly, does an excellent job responding to each of Lanier's points. He brings up the inevitable claim that "but people could take your film and do stuff with it!" and she points out that she wants that, and knows that her fans are smart enough to know the difference between her original and what others do with her film.

All in all it's a fun debate to listen to, but I have to admit that I would have found it a lot more interesting if Lanier actually sounded like he understood the topic at hand beyond the superficial level.

Filed Under: copyright, free, jaron lanier, nina paley

Is It Really Such A Problem If People Sell Your Works? Or Is It Just Free Market Research?

from the not-too-hard-to-figure-out dept

One of the key questions that comes up when you discuss the concept of a world without copyright is "what's to stop others from just copying that book/DVD/CD etc. and selling it themselves, thus making the money that you could have made." The answer is that there's usually a lot preventing it. Filmmaker Nina Paley, a big supporter of culture without relying on copyright, has a great post discussing the "what's stopping you" question, where she notes that most people simply won't go through the hassle. However, what's more interesting is that even if people do start selling your works, it's not necessarily a bad thing. This is the similar to the discussion we recently had about others making money off of your content. If they're able to do so, it often suggests some sort of demand that you haven't met. As Paley notes, it's free market research:

In general, I would much prefer you bought Sita merch from the Sita Merch Empire than from a CafePress store. Reasons include: I know the Merch Empire merch is high quality, I personally designed and like all the products there, and a much higher % of the money goes to me. CafePress merch tends to be overpriced for the quality, and CafePress takes almost all the profits unless the seller sets prices absurdly high.

That said, Drakar's store offers Sita merch that doesn't exist at the Merch Empire. If I offered mugs, mousepads and stickers, he wouldn't have needed to make a Cafe Press store in the first place. If he actually sells any, it will demonstrate there is demand for such products. Then I can offer the same or similar products at my store. Drakar is essentially providing free market research, as are any other "competitors." If any of them do exceptionally well, I'll know what merch I should be selling.

This is why old-school economists say competition is good for businesses. It is. Too bad there's so little real competition in our supposedly "free market democracy."

Indeed. This is also why we've said time and time again that it's perfectly fine if you want to copy this blog and try to sell ads against it (or make money some other way). If someone actually figures out something that works well, then that's useful info to us, and would allow us to then incorporate those findings into our own offering. That's actually good for everyone...

Filed Under: copyright, market research, nina paley, selling

Nina Paley Releases Some Data On 'Sita Sings The Blues': The More She Shared, The More She Made

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about the ridiculous situation that Nina Paley faced in trying to release an amazing film, Sita Sings the Blues. Basically, some copyright holders of the music used in the film put positively insane terms on the use of their music. This made no sense, considering that the music (from the 1920s) was mostly unlistened to these days -- and the only thing the movie would likely do is increase demand for people to get legitimate versions of the music. Eventually, Paley worked out a plan to release the film under a Creative Commons license and put in place a business model like the ones we've talked about for years: give away the infinite, sell the scarce.

And apparently, it's working. Pistol points us to a talk that Nina Paley just gave revealing some of the results. You can see the video here (it's a bit over 20 minutes): The key quote, on how she describes the business model sounds pretty much exactly like what we talk about here:

The business model -- and I do want to make money -- I very much want to make money, and I chose this because I felt I'd make more money doing this than with a conventional distribution deal. What I'm doing is that I'm not selling the content. The content is free. The content is Sita Sings The Blues. It's digital. It's made of 0s and 1s and 0s and 1s can be copied freely and easily by lots of people.... Containers are not free. And where the money comes from is the containers. And the containers, for example, are DVDs, merchandise, t-shirts, 35 mm film prints, physical screenings. The film is free, but the container of that film is not free. And that's what we're selling...

The more the content flows freely, the more demand there is for those containers. So I want as many people as possible to share Sita Sings the Blues because that drives up the demand for the containers... That was the theory when we started this, and so far it has proven correct. Yes, I love money.

So, how much money? Well, she details all the different areas of where the money came from, and it comes out as follows:

• $21,000 in donations (most at the very beginning)
• $25,100 from the store for merchandise (which cost $8,500). So, net: $16,600
• $3,000 from Channel 13 for broadcasting it (even though they didn't have to pay)

And that's not all. She also talks about a theater that downloaded her film online to show it and then sent her a check for $1,900 (as she said "the dream scenario"), and the fact that her success with the model has created all sorts of paid speaking gigs as well. Oh, and there's other things as well.

She's done some commercial distribution deals in a variety of different regions (and admits that she'd love it if she didn't have to handle all the distribution). So even though anyone can download the content online, actually distributing a 35mm print of the film (the container) uses a full distribution deal -- and, in fact, they've found that many people who downloaded and watched the film, still go and see it in the theater, because it's a different experience to go see it in the theater. Most of those deals are new, so she didn't have data on sales from that yet.

On top of that, she's done deals with DVD distributors. She offers up a special edition (signed) DVD that she distributes herself for $100. Or there's the regular version (sold via Question Copyright) for $20. This is being done to basically prove that you can sell DVDs of content that can be downloaded. In 2 months, they've sold 700 of them -- with no marketing. Then they signed a professional DVD distributor, who put it on Amazon, Netflix and stores... and they were able to sell way more than Nina or Question Copyright -- as you'd expect (though, the distributor got a bit confused and asked about trying to take the film down from YouTube, and had to be told not to do that -- old habits die hard, perhaps). Once again, this shows that having good partners helps, but also shows that just because something is available free (even from "competitors") it doesn't mean someone with a strong marketing effort can't seriously outsell the others.

Finally, there's another interesting element which is worth discussing. For the goods sold directly from Nina's site, they're using a special Creator-Endorsed Mark, so that buyer's know some money is going back to the creator. This is the sort of thing that always freaks people out when we talk about this stuff. They insist that others will make t-shirts and things and who will want to buy the official versions then? Well, it turns out lots of people. Because they want to support the artist, and having the Creator Endorsed mark does that. As Nina says:

It is entirely legal for others to sell unendorsed products. It is entirely legal to sell Sita Sings the Blues t-shirts or sippy cups or whatever, but they cannot claim that the money goes to me, unless they work out a revenue share with me first, they cannot display the creator endorsed mark. We believe that this mark increases the value of the merchandise, because people want to support the artist.

This is really great info, and she notes that within a few months, she'll have a lot more info on the theatrical distribution revenue as well. But, all in all, it looks like she'll easily be able to pay off the $50,000 it cost to officially license the music (no matter how ridiculous it was that she needed to do that), and should be able to earn a nice profit from it. And... I'll bet that her next movie (or whatever she does next) will have a nice built-in audience as well.

Filed Under: business model, data, nina paley, results, sita sings the blues

Sita Sings the Blues... Available For Free Download

from the a-step-forward dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about the rather ridiculous situation that filmmaker Nina Paley was put in, where copyright on some songs she used in a movie she made herself was being used to kill the film. It made no sense, no matter how you looked at it. The songs were all from the 1920s, and getting them new attention could only serve to renew interest in the music, likely creating new opportunities for the copyright holders to profit. Yet... they didn't care. They were demanding thousands and thousands of dollars for the use. After folks like Roger Ebert picked up the cause, the copyright holders finally lowered their demands to a mere $50,000 -- but included numerous additional fees should she ever make a dime off the movie. Thus, she's realized that she cannot make any money from the movie and is instead giving it away for free under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license.

Still, now that the agreements are signed -- even though she doesn't have all the funds to pay the fees yet (she's still raising money) -- she is apparently able to release the movie with just the agreements. Rich now alerts us that, despite the restrictions on some of the music, Nina has put up a full website for the movie which links to an Internet Archive page where you can stream it or download it in a variety of formats. And, of course, she's set it up to be downloaded via BitTorrent, as well. I'm downloading a copy now, and hope to watch it this weekend while flying to Scotland.

Filed Under: copyright, movies, nina paley, sita sings the blues

Copyright Once Again Being Used To Hinder Culture, Not Enable It

from the so-many-sad-stories dept

I'm still working my way through James Boyle's excellent The Public Domain, but it's chock full of examples of ways that copyright holds back cultural expression -- and that comes to mind in reading the saga of a movie called Sita Sings the Blues. It was brought to my attention by Rich W, who saw the film at a film festival a while back and loved it. After that, the film disappeared off the radar, but was brought back to some attention right before Christmas, when Roger Ebert wrote a glowing review of it. He, like Rich, didn't expect to like it, and didn't even plan to watch it -- but after being convinced to check it out, he loved it. But, what he discovered is that the film was unlikely to get any distribution because, despite being an animated reimagining of a classic Indian love story, it uses the songs of popular jazz singer Annette Hanshaw, recorded in the 1920s.

To clear the rights for the music, apparently more money than the entire movie cost was required. As Ebert noted:

"Don't the copyright owners realize they are contributing to the destruction of their property by removing it from knowledge?"

Exactly. Meanwhile, the creator of the film, Nina Paley, has been actively blogging about the ordeal. The attention brought about by Ebert's endorsement has resulted in the copyright holders lowering their demands, but including some pretty onerous strings that will make it nearly impossible for her to ever profit from the movie (from which she's already in debt). Basically, if she actually sells copies of the movie, she'll owe a lot more -- but that doesn't apply to promotional copies of the movie. In response, she's worked out a convoluted plan, whereby she'll pay the awful initial fees, but, knowing she'll never get direct profits from it, she's working hard to free the film up as much as possible -- by putting the entire movie up as a "promotion" on the Internet Archive, while putting it under some sort of open and free license.

From there, she goes on to list out a whole bunch of ways that she hopes to still make money, indirectly, from the success of the movie -- even as she's going into further debt to pay off the music copyright holders. Many of her suggestions for business models will sound quite familiar to folks around here (ancillary products, special limited edition signed products, sponsorships, etc.). It's a shame she needs to go to these levels just to pay off the copyright holders on these compositions from nearly a century ago -- who would only be helped by the success of this movie. Hopefully the other business models she's testing out will be able to cover those costs, but she's already in a deep hole, which is a huge shame. Of course, at the same time, this experience appears to have turned her into something of a convert when it comes to understanding the damages brought about by copyright. Separate from the movie, she's decided to copyleft an old comic she created years ago (though, she's asking for help to get them online).

Filed Under: annette hanshaw, copyright, movies, music, nina paley, roger ebert