Filmmaker: BitTorrent Pirates Help Us Get More Exposure http://t.co/8ck2UbBn
To date I have never found a peer reviewed study (i.e. one that has some validity) that shows any harm from unauthorized distribution via bittorrent or other means. There are, however, many studies and examples that show a positive benefit from the publicity and promotion that happens when a project gets released onto a torrent tracker.
Within 24 hours 5,000 people had already grabbed a copy without paying. For some filmmakers this is a nightmare scenario, but Diestler clearly disagrees as he sees all these BitTorrent downloads as a good way to gain exposure for the film that took blood, sweat and tears to make.
“I would much rather have 500,000 downloads than 5,000, although our distributor may feel differently. The worst thing that can happen to a small film, any film for that matter, is to fall into obscurity. 500,000 people could download it and hate it, but in my mind that is better than then not seeing or hearing about it all,†Diestler tells TorrentFreak.
Once, when doing a presentation on How to build and monetize an audience for your independent project I bought up the issue of “piracy” starting with:
“If you aren’t being torrented…”
before I finished someone in the audience completed the sentence with
“… you suck”.
And that’s the truth. Â There is one thing worse than being torrented – being ignored!
“When you are a small film with zero money for advertising, BitTorrent can get your film out there and get people talking about it – that is all advertising really does anyway. It’s certainly an interesting question. Being friends with Jamin and Kiowa Winans – the filmmakers behind the film ‘Ink’ – I am very close to this topic,†he says.
You’ll notice the reference to “Ink”. Â That is an example I use in the presentation noted above:
“Ink†got heavily pirated 400,000 times, shot into the top 20 movies on iMDb up from 12,991!
Kiowa says that is really hard to put an exact figure on that – they haven’t sold a DVD or Blu-ray for every download but sales have unquestionably gone up.
“We put that [donation link] up at the urging of some of the downloaders with the message ‘if you have watched Ink online for free and would like to contribute what you can, click here’,†Kiowa explains.
Incredibly it has stayed as one of the top 200 movies in the world for the last two months, a feat that would have been impossible without the extra exposure.
And like “Ink” the results are looking good:
Thus far The Inner Room has done “great†on BitTorrent resulting in the much anticipated buzz. Just a few days after it was pirated the movie saw a huge bump on IMDb’s movie meter where it’s currently ranked 250. And although the exposure is nowhere near that of “Ink,†the makers are content with the publicity BitTorrent pirates have given them thus far.
Bittorrent exposure, and free copies, are great ways to promote a project as long as there is a business model to capitalize on the publicity and promotion.