The "Sita Sings the Blues" Distribution Project

         

The Recipe

This distribution model puts the artist squarely on the audience's side: instead of telling people they shouldn't share, the artist encourages them to share. But the key is to do more than just put the work out there and hope for the best. You have to set up infrastructure that makes the artist the focal point for economic activity around the work — not the exclusive owner of all economic activity, just the focal point. Instead of imposing a monopoly on the work itself (which pits artist against audience), let the work flow freely and take advantage of the one natural monopoly that comes from being the artist: attribution, that is, credit for having made the work. Audiences appreciate proper attribution, and will enforce it, because they want to be on the artist's side. So:

• Make it very easy for people to donate to you. Remember, if your work is good, some percentage of your audience will want to support you.

• Sell containers, not content (see Understanding Free Content for more).

  For example, the Sita Sings the Blues Merchandise Empire sells DVDs, t-shirts, pins, stickers, and other merchandise. It also makes clear exactly what percentage of the money is going to the artist — people want to know this! While some of the items sold are utilitarian (a DVD is a more convenient way to have the movie), many of them occupy the grey area between utility and "karma value": people purchase them because they want to show their appreciation of the work to others, and they know that their purchase benefits the artist. (Think of why people who go to a concert will buy the band's CD there, even when they know they can download all the songs online for free. It's the same thing.) Don't worry about someone else setting up a store; you're the artist, people want the stuff to come straight from the source, and in any case you have first-mover advantage.

• Encourage commercial activity around the work, and give people a clear route to include the artist on the proceeds.

  For example, people hold screenings of Sita Sings the Blues and charge admission. Often, they'll send Nina Paley a percentage of the proceeds — even though they don't have to do it, they do. Again, people want to support artists. All artists have to do is make it clear that they're on the audience's side, and audiences will reward them for it.

• License your endorsement.

  If you are an artist, your reputation travels with your work, and grows with your work's. That reputation cannot be replicated and cannot be diluted — it's a natural monopoly, so use it!

  Tell distributors they can claim to be endorsed by you, the artist, as long as they share a certain percentage of revenue with you. Given a choice between two distributors, one that is clearly sharing profits with the artist and one that is not, people will choose the former. Distributors know that, and in any case they want artists to succeed too. (Another way to say it is: middlemen perform a valuable service, but they perform it better without a monopoly.)

• Encourage the audience to get involved: the people who do get involved will really appreciate it, and even those who don't will sense that there's something interesting going on.

  For example, the subtitles on the commercial DVDs of Sita Sings the Blues were done by volunteers who coordinated on a wiki.

• Encourage remixture and re-use — it will only help spread the word about your work.

  Some of our favorite examples: a fashion line and this truly stunning film-as-print re-use from Bill Cheswick.

Further resources:

Nina Paley's preliminary report from five months after the free release of her film, including the talk she gave at DIY in Philadelphia.

See also The More She Shared, The More She Made by Mike Masnick at TechDirt, for a good writeup of the talk.

The "Sita Sings the Blues" copyright situation:

As Nina Paley told us in her interview here last November, in order to release Sita, the monopoly holders for some of the musical compositions used in the film have to be paid off (yes, even though the songs were written in the 1920s). The approximate cost of this is US $50,000. Nina took out a loan to pay this up front; the funds we raise go toward paying off that loan and toward other expenses related to distribution. QuestionCopyright.org takes no percentage for operating expenses; all funds raised go directly to this project.

Make a directed donation to the Sita Distribution Project here:

Yes, this donation method is approved by Nina Paley. Note that Google Checkout sometimes has problems with donations over $1,000, so if you'd like to give that generously, just divide the amount across multiple donations. You can also use PayPal or regular mail; see below for details.

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If you prefer to use PayPal, a credit card, check, or wire transfer to donate to the Sita Distribution Project, then please do so using the information on the regular donations page. If using PayPal, remember to write "Sita Distribution project" in the notes field ("Add special instructions to the seller") after logging in. If writing a check, make it out to "QuestionCopyright.org" and write "Sita Distribution Project" in the memo line. All directed donations to the Sita Distribution Project go to that project; they are not used for QuestionCopyright.org's general operating expenses.

If you know of other works in copyright jail, please put them in this free transparent PNG jail cell (click on the image to get a larger version):