How to make money by distributing your film via open source
I love stories of people sidestepping gatekeepers. At WordCamp in San Francisco, Karl Vogel of QuestionCopyright told a great story of how one animator and filmmaker, Nina Paley, chose to distribute her film, Sita Sings the Blues, completely open source. The open source distribution was so complete that she even let other people profit from her film and the character likenesses. You could, if you want, show her film at a theater, charge admission, and keep all the money. Or you could sell products with images of the characters on it and keep all the money.
Unbelievable.
Paley didn’t make a fortune, but she did make money, about $90K in profit.
Except for a music licensing deal that cost her $50K (she had to take out a loan to pay it), Paley didn’t deal with any gatekeepers, or have any additional film distribution expenses beyond site hosting fees. She made her film completely free via an open source platform and made money using these techniques:
Test, don’t take unnecessary risks: Paley first tested the waters to see how interested her audience might be in purchasing a DVD of the film. Getting this feedback let her know how many DVDs to print in the first run.
Make it easy for people to give you support: If you give something away for free, there will be people who will want to tip you or give you a donation. The obvious first step is to post a very visible donation button. Take that one step further and make the donation part of a challenge. Show an actual goal that you want to reach. Paley created a percentage bar to show how close she was getting to paying off her $50K music licensing fee. By providing this information, showing her fans where their money is going, she was giving her audience a reason to give money. People like to donate in such cases. They like to be rewarded by pushing you over a significant milestone.
Sell products: Paley sold everything from her site. Obviously she sold CDs, DVDs, and t-shirts. But because it was an animated feature with iconic characters, she also sold other items such as prints and jewelry. In some cases product makers, such as handbag makers, approached her to put her character designs on their bags. In return but not required, they gave a percentage of their proceeds. Fans like to buy these products because they act as physical containers or tokens that connect the purchaser with the artistry.
Utilize a “Creator Endorsed” badge: Since Paley’s film was completely open source, anyone could sell the movie or related products and not give her any share of the profits. While anyone could sell the product, Paley placed a “Creator Endorsed” badge on sites where proceeds from the sales of items would go directly to her, the artist. Since people want to support the artist, Paley rightly assumed that they’d choose to purchase items from “Creator Endorsed” sites.
This was advice that Vogel offered that I believe can easily be spoofed with a simple copy and paste of the badge. But I guess you can put a qualifier in the open source agreement that you can’t lie that something is endorsed by the artist, when it isn’t.
Encourage commercial activity: Since Paley wants people to see her film, she encouraged people to hold screenings and sell tickets. The people who showed the film were so grateful that they often sent a percentage of the proceeds back to her, or put out a donation bucket at the screening and announced that all donations will be sent back to the artist.
Encourage involvement: Ask viewers to get involved with the film. That can take many different forms. For example, some audience members created subtitles for Paley’s film, and also translated the subtitles in many different languages. You can crowdsource fans for information. Paley asked her fans what products she should sell.
Fans will also surprise you. Some of them remixed the film. One guy created a poster of every single frame of the film. And another person produced a fashion show based on designs from the film.
While making $90K is not an astonishing sum of money. Paley completely avoided the gatekeepers and made some money. So often gatekeepers buy films and all that happens is everyone loses money. Paley only had one risk, a loan of $50K for her licensing fee. After that, most of the revenue that came in turned into profit for Paley.
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