# The More She Shared, The More She Made



## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

"The business model -- and I do want to make money -- I very much want to make money, and I chose this because I felt I'd make more money doing this than with a conventional distribution deal. What I'm doing is that I'm not selling the content. The content is free. The content is Sita Sings The Blues. It's digital. It's made of 0s and 1s and 0s and 1s can be copied freely and easily by lots of people.... Containers are not free. And where the money comes from is the containers. And the containers, for example, are DVDs, merchandise, t-shirts, 35 mm film prints, physical screenings. The film is free, but the container of that film is not free. And that's what we're selling...

The more the content flows freely, the more demand there is for those containers. So I want as many people as possible to share Sita Sings the Blues because that drives up the demand for the containers... That was the theory when we started this, and so far it has proven correct. Yes, I love money."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1723375986.shtml


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Confusing situation as the article describes, but if there is copyrighted works in her 'containers' that she is not paying the privilege for usage.....I suspect there will be news on her being sued in the future ..........

Lame


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Confusing situation as the article describes, but if there is copyrighted works in her 'containers' that she is not paying the privilege for usage.....I suspect there will be news on her being sued in the future ..........
> 
> Lame


You need to read.

She made the movie. She paid $50 000 in licensing fees for the music.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> You need to read.
> 
> She made the movie. She paid $50 000 in licensing fees for the music.


I missed that, my bad.......
The title was misleading and I should have read a lot closer.
Nothing was really shared, she had a license to distribute that involved the contents of the 'container' being used as a lost leader in the sale of the physical container.

But there does seem to be some unresolved issues going back to my original comment.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090305/0218454004.shtml
excerpt>


> Still, now that the agreements are signed -- even though she doesn't have all the funds to pay the fees yet (she's still raising money) -- she is apparently able to release the movie with just the agreements. Rich now alerts us that, despite the restrictions on some of the music, Nina has put up a full website for the movie which links to an Internet Archive page where you can stream it or download it in a variety of formats. And, of course, she's set it up to be downloaded via BitTorrent, as well.


Here is part of her business model:


> The business model -- and I do want to make money -- I very much want to make money, and I chose this because I felt I'd make more money doing this than with a conventional distribution deal. What I'm doing is that I'm not selling the content. The content is free. The content is Sita Sings The Blues. It's digital. It's made of 0s and 1s and 0s and 1s can be copied freely and easily by lots of people.... Containers are not free. And where the money comes from is the containers. And the containers, for example, are DVDs, merchandise, t-shirts, 35 mm film prints, physical screenings. The film is free, but the container of that film is not free. And that's what we're selling...


to review:


> What I'm doing is that I'm not selling the content. The content is free.
> ............
> The content is Sita Sings The Blues
> ...............
> ...


But wait...........she is giving away that content with out necessarily selling containers!

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090305/0218454004.shtml
excerpt>


> I'm downloading a copy now, and hope to watch it this weekend while flying to Scotland.


LOL!
I suspect some of the copyright holders are going to be speaking to their lawyers about that


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> You need to read.
> 
> She made the movie. She paid $50 000 in licensing fees for the music.


BTW....the article says she has yet to pay off that $50,000
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1723375986.shtml
excerpt>


> But, all in all, it looks like she'll easily be able to pay off the $50,000 it cost to officially license the music


If she does, good for her.....but these free downloads aren't adding much to the pot.

Here are restrictions she posted to her license http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/license.html#restrictions

Looks like a nightmare to enforce, imo


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> BTW....the article says she has yet to pay off that $50,000
> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1723375986.shtml
> excerpt>
> 
> ...


I believe they meant recapture. I can't see the RIAA allowing it to be released/downloaded without having been paid. Can you?

The free downloads have brought in better than half her take it looks like to me. If that is what you meant by "adding to the pot."

You weren't talking about your stash/crop were you?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> I believe they meant recapture. I can't see the RIAA allowing it to be released/downloaded without having been paid. Can you?
> 
> The free downloads have brought in better than half her take it looks like to me. If that is what you meant by "adding to the pot."
> 
> You weren't talking about your stash/crop were you?





> I believe they meant recapture. I can't see the RIAA allowing it to be released/downloaded without having been paid. Can you?


It was your article.



> The free downloads have brought in better than half her take it looks like to me. If that is what you meant by "adding to the pot."


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1723375986.shtml


> So, how much money? Well, she details all the different areas of where the money came from, and it comes out as follows:
> 
> * $21,000 in donations (most at the very beginning)
> * $25,100 from the store for merchandise (which cost $8,500). So, net: $16,600
> ...


Depends on what the 'donations' represent. And it sounds like they have petered out.
And I should point out 21K is not half of 50K.....close, but not 'better than' and there are sure to be a lot of other expenses associated with the business venture that aren't mentioned.

She may be giving too much away to make it a profitable venture, but as an experiment it is interesting.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

I get $40 600 for her take so far. $21 000 is a little more than half. I omitted the only other cost we were provided as we are talking about applying it to the $50 000

Not bad so far considering her advertising expense has been $0

Anyways, it relates to the new business model Techdirt promotes.

Give fans a reason to buy. I remember when I was a kid, taped from a friend, liked, bought album. I wanted the original and the artwork and the other tidbits that used to come with albums. I'd even buy every album by a band if I liked the band regardless of what I thought of album. Collections.

These things cannot be downloaded. They will have to wait until we have replicators(from Star Trek).


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> I get $40 600 for her take so far. $21 000 is a little more than half. I omitted the only other cost we were provided as we are talking about applying it to the $50 000
> 
> Not bad so far considering her advertising expense has been $0
> 
> ...





> Not bad so far considering her advertising expense has been $0


That is doubtful.......there are always expenses in self promotion if only in travel.
Her web site has expenses.
Probably not much for a business like hers, but not 0.



> Anyways, it relates to the new business model Techdirt promotes.


I saw it in another thread.
Personally, I doubt it will go anywhere till she starts getting paid tours and that's dependent upon many things from her own talent to promotion and name recognition.
And those people behind the scene are seen as enemies to the 'fans' 
'Free' is a lost leader associated with another product. As long as the 'free' is free with out a purchase, the business model looks pretty weak, imo.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

It will be nice to see and hear things that are making it because of talent, not because of promotion. :up:
IMHO


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## ozziebeanie (Jun 24, 2009)

Reckon she knows what she is doing, she got dontations in one month of over 20 grand, to help pay for licences, by now its prob paid for.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

ozziebeanie said:


> Reckon she knows what she is doing, she got dontations in one month of over 20 grand, to help pay for licences, by now its prob paid for.


It also noted ......those donations tapered off quickly.
An update would be nice.
Here is what I found
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1723375986.shtml
The article dated Aug 26 listed $41,900 in 'receipts.

At her site, Aug 5, http://blog.ninapaley.com/ ,she lists an approximate of $34,883 plus an estimated $3000 to $5000 from 'indie cinemas' or at best $40,000.

That's $2000 to $4000 generated in 3 weeks.
But read below about other costs.

I tracked down Nina Paley and found out her 'film' was flash.
This is not a condemnation, that's what it is.
Paley, at her web site, describes herself as America's Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist.
So it's really a cartoon movie/video with songs, not exactly a 'film' as techdirt.com posted.
Looked cute in the stills. Haven't watched the video , though.
With good promotion, professional promotion.....her artistic skills as an artist could probably sell quite well, imo.

There is some interesting commentary at her site about her business model and her debt from licensing and legal fees......$70K, but nothing listed for making the flash video.
http://blog.ninapaley.com/
excerpt>


> For each disc sold, distributors must pay $1.65 to these faceless money sinks. Transaction costs raise that amount to about $2.00 per disc. That is why my own Artists Edition is limited to 4,999 copies.


But is that another $10K to pay off, or included in the original $50K? Very unclear, but I'm assuming it's extra as a royalty adjusted for volume.

So if she sells all of them......that's a minimum of $80,000 of generated sales of containers, donations and indie cinema showings needed to break even.
She's actually better off in this model selling no DVDs and giving the flash video away in free downloads as promotion of her skills.
But I'm a bit skeptical of her defining what she is selling.....the 'container' for sale, the contents for free.
I can only say that if I held rights to music that was being licensed where there was an agreement for royalty on each DVD sold, I'd be seriously talking to a lawyer about the digital equivalent being given away for free.
In contracts, there is a concept of the meeting of the minds resulting in an agreement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_the_minds

An agreement on royalties based upon sales seems violated if the intent of one party is to distribute the 'object' for free. More like fraud.
And if it sticks, I suspect the holders of copyrights will have more concise agreements drawn up in the future, to protect themselves.

I found this interesting article on Masnick and techdirt:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/techdirt-puts-money-where-mike-masnicks-mouth-is/

this excerpt stood out:


> For $5,000, Techdirt offers review your business plan through its Insight Community.
> ..............
> Depending on what a band needs or can pay for, he says hell offer two levels of support in the areas of sales, marketing, communication, PR, management, touring, merchandising, social networking, coaching, production, artistic development, publishing and synch rights  basically, a condensed, turnkey version of the whole music industry.


Now there's a great business model 
Advertising and promotions 
All from a guy that describes ways to avoid them.
Good hustle. 
'Give me at least $5K and give your product away for free' advice............


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