Entries Tagged 'Films' ↓

The Sherlock Holmes series of films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce has been a favourite of mine since childhood. They were often shown on a Saturday afternoon so I decided to revisit one today. Sherlock Holmes Faces Death is an adaptation of The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual set against the background of the Second World War. If you enjoy old movies, then you can’t go wrong with them (you can watch Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon for free at the Internet Archive).

At the end of Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, Rathbone delivers a short speech which seems particularly relevant to Karmafan:

There’s a new spirit abroad in the land. The old days of grab and greed are on their way out. We’re beginning to think of what we owe the other fellow, not just what we’re compelled to give him.

Of course it didn’t really turn out to be true in 1943, but perhaps we can make it true today by thinking of how we can all give something back.

TorrentFreak has an interesting piece about how independent filmmakers are reaching incredible numbers of fans through alternative distribution channels. The Man from Earth is a great example. It has become one of the most popular downloads over the last few months (the film “went from the being the 11,235th most popular movie on IMDB to being the 5th most popular one” after being ripped and uploaded). This quote from the producer of the film says it all:

“Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download. After that happened, people were watching it and started posting mostly all positive reviews on IMDb, Amazon and other places. Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded “The Man From Earth” has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!”

They are also accepting donations on their site because they recognise that the film is already out there. It’s the perfect model. Make something really good and let as many people see it as possible. You will benefit - although maybe indirectly and in a different way from the old idea of selling individual products. The Man From Earth might have languished on a shelf, waiting for random shoppers to be distracted from mainstream movies long enough to take a chance. Instead, it has been seen by thousands in a short time, and it continues to remain popular. The fans have even taken on the task of distributing and marketing the film, keeping it available and recommending it to friends. The main thing for the creators to worry about was to make something worth watching in the first place. And they certainly did that.

There are two news items that if put together raise an interesting question about how artists should a) distribute their works and b) make money from their works. We suggest artists give away their works on the Internet and use the Internet to receive voluntary payments from their fans.

First the two news stories

1. The strike by the Writer’s Guild of America continues and AMPTP has agreed to resume talks with the the writer’s guild’s representatives on the 26th of November. How the dispute will be resolved is anybody’s guess.
2. Amazon released an ebook reader called Kindle. It apparently handles a whole lot of formats and I didn’t see a mention of DRM anywhere.

So if you are a writer and want to make a living from your work you have a choice. You can either write a book, get it published and hope it will reach enough book stores to provide enough sales so that you can make some kind of living. Or you can write a book, a short story, a poem and publish it via the Internet.

A lot of books these days are being sold as PDFs for a discounted price. Interestingly, the distribution of books is not being as tightly controlled by DRM - even the music industry will give up on such models soon. In fact, if we look at most of musicians on MySpace a lot of them are selling their music through CDBaby, PayPlay and other such sites.

A smart writer or a musician will instead give away his writing, music, programming code or anything they create freely on the Internet. This will result in more people reading or hearing your works than you can hope to reach with book stores or iTunes.

But How Will Authors and Musicians Make Money?

Before answering this question we’d like to point out the problem that musicians and writers have these days. Most musicians and writers struggle to get their works read. Utilising the distribution modes that the Internet offers can only be a smart move. Much smarter than trying to sell your poems on the streets.

So how does an artist make money? The answer is simple - patronage. Open as many channels as you can for your fans to show their appreciation, to give something back. That is exactly what we provide with Karmafan. So why aren’t you using it yet?