The corporations that hold these copyrights are media companies that also control most of the new media that comes out. Estimates vary, but it's said that 98 percent of all culture is unavailable right now because of copyrights. So the reason they hold the copyrights isn't because they want to get paid, it's because they don't want all the old stuff competing with the media stream that they control now.
♡ Copying is an act of love. Please copy & share.
Our idea, which art in the ether, that cannot be named:
I don't think distributors are cheating or evil or anything like that, I just think that the business model is unsustainable so they truly don't have money. There's just not much money in this particular model.
Total box office so far has been $22,350 … that trickles down to $3,000 for me. Which really isn't much, but it's fine. People are seeing the film and they're seeing it the the way it should be seen. I do not feel like the distributors are ripping me off. I feel like this is the model of film distribution and this is the reality of it and fortunately my income is not dependent on it.
Because I didn't sell it to a distributor, it can be in lots of film festivals. It's been in, I think, at least 200 festivals, it's won more than 35 awards which is great. I like that! If I had gone with a distributor they would have immediately said no to film festivals which I do not understand why distributors do, but that's what they do.
Audiences want to support artists. Which is pretty much how it's always been except during the last 100 years where it's turned into this really vicious, cutthroat, nasty business with all these blood-thirsty, parasitic middle-men. But historically, artists were relatively poor and supported directly by their audiences. There's a great book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde. You know, art is a gift and it turns out the audience is happy to give back.
My grand total for the free film was $132,000, and that is a business model I am totally sticking to. And everything that I do now is totally free.
Pronounced “me-me and you-ness.” Mimi has pointy ears and Eunice has floppy ears
Mimi: Copyright’s all about balance: balancing creators’ and the public’s need for free expression… Eunice: with copyright lawyers’ need for paychecks!
Mimi: I like you! I want assholes to like me — that’ll mean I’m really special!
Mimi: Silencing you because I don’t like what you say is censorship. Eunice: The profit motive makes it OK.
I am not a copyright reformer. I am a copyright abolitionist.
When you shut down neurons to prevent them from transmitting signals, we call that "brain damage." Copyright is brain damage. It's brain damage in the great mind, and it's brain damage in the individual mind.