RIP!: A REMIX MANIFESTO NOT ALL AUDIENCES ARE EQUAL!?
Yesterday Creative Commons Netherlands wrote that the Canadian documentary “RIP a remix manifesto” by Brett Gaylor would be broadcasted by the Dutch public broadcasters NPS and VPRO later that evening. I had heard some good things about this documentary, but hadn’t seen it yet. Since we don’t have television (a subject for another post) anymore I though I might be able to download the documentary instead. After all it’s all about remixing and download culture. At least that’s what they claim on the frontpage of their website:
RiP: A remix manifesto is a documentary film about copyright and remix culture.
So I went to their download website and went looking for a dowload option. Instead I got this message:
I interpreted this message as: the people inside the gated community may download a documentary on remixing and download culture and for those outside you may jump through some more hoops before you will be able to watch the same film streaming. As you might understand I am confused and even insulted by this difference in treatment. Why treat your audience outside (in this case the US) differently from those inside the US? Especially when the subject of the documentary is about remix and download culture. A global culture. Not just a North-American culture. What are the arguments that support this difference in treatment?
Update: Huh? Found this snippet in Brett Gaylor’s bio on the ‘global’ website, which makes the difference in treatment of the audience even weirder:
He is also the web producer of the Homeless Nation.org, a web project dedicated to bridging the digital divide – allowing everyone to participate in online culture.
(emphasis is mine)
Update2: You can find the documentary also here in case you’re not willing to be treated differently from our North-American friends. Yes, controlling downloads based on geography is a failure.
Update3: Brett Gaylor (as far as I can tell it is genuine) responded in the comments and I have responded on his comment.
Update4: Brett’s email bounched. Brett, if you’re reading this I tried to email you at your first name at opensourcecinema dot org and it did not work.
[...] @paulk, @mlinksva, @rejon, @remixmanifesto http://www.burobjorn.nl/blog/2009/07/23/rip-a-remix-manifesto-not-all-audiences-are-equal/ [...]
Hi Bjorn.
So as you saw, you can watch the entire film at nfb.ca/rip and at opensourcecinema.org. So thats the first point – anyone anywhere can watch the film for free on the website(s) that we’ve created for the film.
The site you visited, ripremix.com, is the US distributors website. In order to make Rip, we’ve been lucky to work with some great institutions like the National Film Board of Canada. They are the global distributor for the film, which is a real honor because they are motivated by serving the public. Their strategy is to sell the rights to the film territory by territory – thats the existing reality of (commercial) film distribution. So in the same way that our US distributor is making the film available as a download, we’re encouraging every territory to do that. But the infrastructure to download films is terrible – putting films on iTunes is unavailable to most filmmakers – and even when films are available there, the revenue that is generated is fairly commercially insignificant. So its really hard for the types of independent distributors that we work with. It sucks.
As you noted in your final post, you can find the film on many torrent sites – the fact that we made the film available under a creative commons license explicitly allows this. So you found the film – where is the failure? I’ll be the first to admit that Bittorrent is the most efficient system of film distribution. Unfortunately there isn’t an easy and obvious way to monetize this! So we’re doing what we can, but its not perfect.
totally lame indeed. but pick up the torrent and watch it. it’s a great doc.
Completely agree. Total FAIL for trying to control dl’s based on geography…hmmm…maybe a miscommunication? Did you email Brett? Sometimes creators get confused on options for sharing/spreading versus protecting their creations…not sure
@Brett,
Thanks for your reply. I’ll try to explain why I think you made a mistake with regards to distribution. It is this mistake which in my view is offending to audiences outside the US and thus harmful for your film.
As you correctly point out it is possible to watch your film online (streaming) on the websites you mentioned. However this takes more effort from the audience than the regular download available for US residents. It also creates an artificial divide between those inside the US and those outside. In other words you treat the audience differently. Secondly, it is useless since any US resident having access to the download may redistribute (as a download or any medium they would like to use) the film as long as they adhere to the CC license attached to it. It is this principle of an artificial and useless divide based on geography (not the distribution nor the availability through other channels) used by someone who is likely to be perceived by his peers to be on the cutting edge with regards to download and remix culture, which made me wrote the post above. My objective is to prevent other filmmakers to make the same mistake and perhaps convince you that this is harmful to both your work as well as the communities part of the remix and download culture.
Your arguments to explain this behavior:
“Their strategy is to sell the rights to the film territory by territory – thats the existing reality of (commercial) film distribution. So in the same way that our US distributor is making the film available as a download, we’re encouraging every territory to do that. But the infrastructure to download films is terrible – putting films on iTunes is unavailable to most filmmakers – and even when films are available there, the revenue that is generated is fairly commercially insignificant.”
do not make sense since -as you mentioned- the film is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA-NC license and therefor it may be distributed
? This would allow all audiences to be treated equal, allowing you to connect with audiences outside the US in a similar way while still allowing you and your distributor to sell the rights of your film to commercial parties.
by anyone adhering to the license conditions. Therefor by not offering the download on your own ‘official’ website nor your distributors website you have basically lost the opportunity to connect with your audience (outside the US). They “have” to resort downloading it from torrent sites and thus they are probably less inclined to support your work. Why not offer the download to everyone on your ‘official’ websites using this great distribution network, which – considering the subject of the documentary – I presume you are well aware of called Bittorrent
Although I might sound as a grumpy, unsatisfied cheapskate, I do like your film and applaud your use of the Creative Commons and the willingness to experiment with it. Creative Commons is still quite new and we all need to learn how to use it while still being able to produce projects like yours financially, but please don’t use silly useless old conglomerate media tycoon methods like dividing the Internet into territorial geographical controllable slices to do so. It doesn’t work and reflects bad on you. That’s where the failure lies.
I wish you all the best and I’m very interested in your reply. Don’t hesitate to contact me to continue this dialogue.
Ps: I have published this reply also on my website: http://www.burobjorn.nl/blog/2009/07/23/rip-a-remix-manifesto-not-all-audiences-are-equal/#comments
grtz
BjornW
@Marco,
Download is finished and I have watched it. The content is indeed a pretty good doc.
@Jon
I just wrote Brett with my reply as you can see here. I do think it is a mistake and I hope to clear things up for him and prevent others from making the same mistake.
[...] http://www.burobjorn.nl/blog/2009/07/23/rip-a-remix-manifesto-not-all-audiences-are-equal/ [...]
film should be put under BY-SA. same as for Girl Talk’s music.