Filmmaker Celebrates Torrent Leak
When Michael M. Belmont, a.k.a. M dot Strange, heard that his recently released animated movie We Are The Strange had been leaked onto torrent sites, he immediately fired up his email client. But he didn’t send out DMCA takedown notices to stop the unlicensed distribution of the movie he had worked on for three years. Instead, he thanked the pirates for the free publicity: “I’m glad to see it being released and possibly finding more strange people who appreciate it.”
In fact, Belmont was so happy about his movie being pirated that he recorded a hilarious five-minute rant on video and uploaded it to YouTube. In it, he explains that he’s gotten tons of new traffic, sold “more than two” DVDs, and overall really appreciates what he calls the “torrentrical” release of his work.
If only all filmmakers were so forward-thinking. Hollywood’s current business model is based on an artificial scarcity of entertainment goods. This independent filmmaker realizes that, when it comes to digital goods, abundance leads to value — and when you create that value without intermediaries, you keep all the money.
By the way, here’s the trailer for We are the Strange. I’m definitely loading this baby into my torrent client. If I like it enough, I just might buy the DVD.
1 opinion for Filmmaker Celebrates Torrent Leak
Happy Slip DVDs
Dec 6, 2007 at 4:24 am
[…] demonstrated by CBS and Michael Belmont, freely superdistributing your online video increases the value of your offline video. That’s […]
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