After giving away 600 digital copies. When we had given away 0 digital copies, we had sold 10, mostly friends.
I am a former series 6 and series 7 licensed broker, so I sold commodities. I now make a living from film and television production. I don't have to wait for that one day. It gets harder and harder to make a living if people keep downloading movies illegally.
Sorry you feel that way. My personal experience is the exact opposite. I've gotten more exposure and made more money releasing our films through "piracy" channels. It's not piracy when we give it away though, it's called advertising.
"Piracy" is just advertising against the producer's will.
Understand that when you download a movie illegally, the people who made it did not get paid. You are in the vast minority of people who watched it without paying and never pay.
Where are your facts on this? The musical artist Tech N9ne sold 25,000 copies of his album Absolute Power in the first 3 months of release. Frustrated, he posted it online for everyone to download for free, with a note that if you like it, please buy it.
Over the next week his sales spiked by 57,000 copies.
What about the movies you've watched illegally that you didn't like? Because YOU didn't like it, means they don't deserve money? But you watched it.
Only because I could watch it for free. Otherwise, I would continue to ignore it. But for free? I watched Hairspray for free on a plane once, and thought I would hate it. I liked it, and have since bought 2 different copies for my mom. If I had never watched the film, would that have been for the better or worse of the product as a whole? Please, regale me with tales of "the smaller the audience, the bigger the opportunity", I could stand to be entertained.
You obtained their intellectual property via illegal means, depriving them of the money they rightfully are owed so that you could try it out and decide you won't pay for it.
Exactly. Or I ignore the product entirely. Giving them a 0% chance at earning any of my money. I think they're sporting fellows, and they'd rather have at least a 5% chance. I mean, some statistical chance is better than the void of a statistical chance, right? I ask you, having worked in commodities, you'll have a better idea of the mathematical plausibility of it.
If someone wants to give their movie away, that is their right as a copyright holder. It makes business sense if you want to try to sell 1-100 DVD's, maybe even 1,000. If you want to make a living as a filmmaker, not just be a hobbyist (which there's nothing wrong with that), but don't expect giving the movie away for free to be a ticket to building much of a paying audience.
Really, do you realize that studios do this, EVERY DAY!? It's called Test Screening. I've seen literally 20 movies at test screenings. Where studios are giving away their product, to see how people respond to it.
Because if they charged people to see a movie they hadn't heard of? People wouldn't want to see it. But since it's free, they will see it, and tell their friends. Studios get important marketing information from this process. Which is what they should do to replace piracy.
But hey, those of us making movies, growing our fanbases, and getting interest from major studios know all of this, and are using every single change in the industry to further ourselves, not complaining that it's limiting our entire industry. So keep bitching. No one cares and it can't be changed, focus on making films.
The bottom line is, if you wouldn't make films for free, as a hobby, then don't try to do it professionally. All you do is pollute film festivals with crap and bore the rest of us. If you love making films, and you're good at it (two different things) then maybe you have a shot at doing it professionally, which is really the only time you would even have to think twice about piracy impacting your earnings. And if you're worried about that, again, you shouldn't be making films if you're mostly worried about the money. It's a lot easier and safer to make money on the stock market.
