BitTorrent, A Boon To Independent Filmmakers
Written by Smaran & Ernesto on December 15, 2007Talented independent filmmakers are benefiting immensely from having their movies distributed for free on BitTorrent. Films that might never have been heard of before are now being watched by millions of people.
Today, several of the top movies on BitTorrent sites such as mininova are independent films produced by small movie studios. “The Man from Earth” and “Day Zero” are two recent examples of films that became known to a wide audience thanks to BitTorrent.
“The Man from Earth” in particular has become immensely popular due to its distribution on BitTorrent. After RLSlog reviewed the film and linked to a torrent of it and to the official site, the producer wrote to the blogger, thanking him for reviewing it. They had received some 23,000 hits in the days following the review and went from the being the 11,235th most popular movie on IMDB to being the 5th most popular one, and the most popular independent film in a matter of days. He said:
Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download. After that happened, people were watching it and started posting mostly all positive reviews on IMDb, Amazon and other places. Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded “The Man From Earth” has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!
“Day Zero“, too, hasn’t even been released yet. But a leaked DVD screener of it has been making its way around the Internet. The movie premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival , but will only open in a few theaters in the US on the 18 of January ‘08, which will be followed by a wider release in the weeks after. Despite mainstream audiences having practically no access to this film, it has become popular online and is the 5th most seeded movie in the Drama category on mininova.
Of course there are still several independent Film producers that would rather not see their creations up for grabs while they are still running in theaters. The following quote is taken from an email that was sent to a BitTorrent site by one of the producers of Cashback. The film in question was downloaded nearly a million times over the past few months, reaching a much broader audience online than in the movie theaters.
Is it possible to remove it from your site for say 6 months? At least then it gives the filmmakers a chance to see how popular viewers really think it is, and for us to make our living. I can’t really attack film piracy, because reality is, it’s inevitable.. but until we find a real solution that works for everyone is it possible that we could have a bit of compromise from your end?
The reaction from the producer is understandable, but I dare to argue that the popularity of independent films on BitTorrent does more good than harm. A pirated copy does not equal a visitor lost in the movie theater, similar to music, independent films might actually profit from filesharing. It generates a lot of word to mouth advertising.
More and more people start to recognize the potential BitTorrent has. Last year filmmaker Mark Achbar released a torrent of the award winning Canadian documentary ‘The Corporation’ here on TorrentFreak. He was one of the first to realise that filmmakers can profit from BitTorrent, even though the official distributors did not agree.
It isn’t hard to see why filmmakers are starting to look at “piracy” in a different light. The more hype their movie gets early on, the greater the chance of someone wanting to buy the DVD or go see it in the cinema. It’s really as simple as that. Independent filmmakers don’t have the same promotional and marketing budgets as Hollywood studios, and getting the word out about their film is really the biggest hurdle for them. We’ve seen producers of TV shows start to leak content to BitTorrent and embrace filesharing, so why not movie producers too?
Previously: Create Your Own BitTorrent Blog With Diferior
Next: uTorrent Gains Popularity, Azureus Loses Ground
63 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Pages: [1] 2 3 » Show All
woooo bittorrent FTW!
Good story, but you should have included the facts of the early release of American Gangster that came to bittorrent 2 weeks before it even hit theaters, and then went on to easily become #1 in the box offices.
Would have been quite relevant to this story.
[quote comment="239834"]Good story, but you should have included the facts of the early release of American Gangster that came to bittorrent 2 weeks before it even hit theaters, and then went on to easily become #1 in the box offices.
[/quote]
That’s not really an independent movie though ;)
All manner of independant artists can benefit from free systems of distribution on the internet. But you have to be ballsy enough to look beyond the safety of the old institutions (studios, labels, publishers, etc) and go your own way, accepting all the risks and reward that may come…
and about
Person break, Lost, Heroes, i never knew about these before.
BITTorrent really helped them, now everyone knows all around the world about Heros/Person break Series!
Shit, they get free advertise !
Torrentsites paying for dedicated servers and advertising their shits for free and still they are not happy ! ! !
[quote comment="239841"]and about
Person break, Lost, Heroes, i never knew about these before.
BITTorrent really helped them, now everyone knows all around the world about Heros/Person break Series!
Shit, they get free advertise !
Torrentsites paying for dedicated servers and advertising their shits for free and still they are not happy ! ! ![/quote]
Well To Be Honest … I never Heard abt them ..
Then When I started visting mininova and isohunt .. it showed Heroes / Lost As No.1 And No.2 Popular searches /// Thts how i came to know abt them mm
I really hope that independent filmmakers can continue to benefit from P2P. They deserve our support much more then the makers of the generic hollywood films that only get watched because of marketing and not because of a quality good film.
Good start but we still have a long way to go… even IF this ever does become a trend. Think about how many people that may still be sitting in jail and wont be realized just because a law changed. Yes this is bound to happen or it may not. One thing that is for sure is that just because laws change… doesn’t help people that were caught before the law came to play.
None the less… still good publicity for BT all over the world.
they should release the movie via bittorent and include a link to buy the dvd if u like it and if i liked it i would add it to my vast collection but i refuse to buy a dvd of something i dont know if i’ll like
That’s also how I came to learn of the show “The 4400″, seriously the GREATEST Sci-Fi since X-Files, and whose ideas were somewhat ‘copied’ into Heroes, also a great (but more abstract) show.
And when the prices drop I want to go out and grab the dvd box sets.
The whole way that TV works is a little hectic anyway, people don’t generally feel they “pay” for a particular show with their monthly sky or cable payments, so why would they feel it’s stealing?
Eventually, and sooner rather than later if the big companies behind TV and movie production outfits dont want to lose all their money, the system will have to evolve to a different way of operating. Perhaps at the Theaters for 3 months and then straight onto bittorrent (similar to the Cashback producer) at a reduced quality, thus still enabling the DVD industry through much greater screen and sound quality. I think DVDs should have more to them also, more extra features and background information.
1. We HAVE to find a way for the motion picture industry to still be able to survive and profit
2. BUT the public ALSO KNOWS the sickness with the current set up of the big companies reaping BILLIONS and our contempt at ACTORS’ over inflated budgets, Its WAY over the top (like sports players)
3. AND we as a public generally think it’s DISGUSTING to hear of PRISON SENTENCES for people SHARING, not PROFITING from P2P!!
Does anyone REALLY think this “law” would hold if our “governments” were to hold a vote on the topic?? (as in, DEMOCRACY!)
No.
Please understand that BitTorrent should be used first and foremost for education. Anyone and everyone should be getting education from this first. If this disappears, you movie downloaders will regret missing out on the best of the Information Age in the here and now.
Yeah nice article and to be honest I like to support these Independent Filmmakers. Sometimes I buy a DVD even if it wasn’t that good, just to support them, but I will never ever buy again movies made by those big studios (Universal, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., etc.) because I decided to stop making the rich richer.
Some people will tell “Yeah but what about their business”? Well, I have only one life to live and I simply don’t have time to think about Angelina Jolie’s future, I don’t give a shit if the studios could not pay Keanu Reeves $256 million to entertain us for a few hours. Even if I find in stores “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” offered for 0.5 EUR I would not buy it, simply because Angelina Jolie received only for that, $20 million. For that amount she must entertain us all, all her life, otherwise no deal. :D
Why some people are being paid so much for doing nothing Extraordinary? Why the doctors who save lives don’t get more? Yeah I know, because the life is not always fair. Well, if life’s not fair, I don’t wanna be fair, either. So all those huge studios can go to hell, they will never see my money again. Oh no, not in this life you fat bastards!
I downloaded and watched The Man from Earth, loved it, then went out and bought 3 copies of it as Christmas presents. :-)
Only if the fat cats would start realizing the good potential in putting their works on torrent sites.
Maybe some day.
–
http://madtorrent.com
i like all the comments, alex especially because we need to keep on stating the truth the way we see it
torrentfreak also takes a step forward today, it is like wiping your knive after you butter your toast, but for Ernesto it is a huge step away from ‘The Pirates’ who pay his ass
freak, your article is clean of enemy language and symbols, the most middle of the road reporting from this site i have read in months. more power to you dudes
http://www.h33t.com in it for the long haul
is this the dawning on freak that language has a symbolic meaning that we already own and is our to keep?
we are not on the back foot fighting a last ditch defense! ffs
nervous? get a life, get some new m8s, ditch your burnt out gf who refused to drive on the fukin road …
get a driver with a fukin license dudes
OMFG!! The Man From Earth is like the best low budget no effects film i have ever seen shot from one room!! it was definaltey worth the bandwith and ive already ordered a copy from amazon and im going to recommend the film to the local privite video rental store!!
ps:heres a good review…http://uk.dvd.ign.com/articles/833/833098p1.html
It’s great to see so many intelligent comments to this articles, especially on an article that’s made the front page of DIGG.
I doubt I would’ve ever heard of The Man From Earth if it wasn’t for BT.
Really enjoyed the film. Will be buying a copy for sure. Mainly because the director was more open to BT,
If.. on the other hand he was threatening to sue etc. etc. I wouldn’t pay him a cent.
The Man From Earth was really an awesome movie.
We Are The Strange is also a perfect example of a film who benefited through BitTorrent.
I would of never heard of the movie, “The Man From Earth”, if it wasn’t for BT. I happened to think that movie was well done and I am planning on buying a copy for my collection as well.
Recently, quite a few celebrities were said to appear on the millionaire luxury
club “Meetrich.com”. OMG!!! Are these famous guys fond of internet dating for now?? Maybe they are indeed so rich that they feel boring sometimes to need new things?
I still don’t think they know that all promotion is good promotion. Ah well.
http://paidandpopular.blogspot.com
Whoa… The Man From Earth is amazing :-)
1 references to this post
Pages: [1] 2 3 » Show All
Add your response