On Friday 13 February 2004 05:39, Chad Smith wrote:

Hi Chad, and thanks for the offer!

We are aiming for broad distribution for the film. We have several different distribution plans, and Paul Donahue has won awards for his filmmaking, and so he is plugged into that industry. I personally am interested in selling the movie for cheap over the Net, to increase access to the film. Our initial goal is to make back our costs, including lost wages, or lost time from work, and any money over that is probably going to get plowed back into more open source advocacy. (Documentary films usually are not huge money makers, and the vast majority don't make back their costs of production). I'm in the process of starting a non-proft for open source advocacy. The name of the non-profit will be the Open Source Banyan Tree. The OSBT will focus on local advocacy (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, etc. and the State of California); media content provision, such as this film; and giving away computers to other non-profits.

Of course, funding is an issue, and we will be seeking funding from various groups, which might affect our distribution plans, since funders usually purchase rights of control of content in exchange for funding. I personally would like to have a few constraints as possible on distribution, which is why I am hoping to maximize the Net distribution aspect of getting the film out.

So to answer your question, we are hoping for theatrical release, but unless we really hit it out of the park, it is unlikely that our film will make it to your local multiplex cinema. In the last 5 years, you can probably count on your fingers the number of documentaries that have had that much of a broad release.

However, one of the things that excites me personally about this film is that it hopefully will be an example of the power of the creative commons. I am hoping that we will be able to show that the creative commons is reshaping the way that content gets created and distributed. Currently, there are a handful of music studios and movie studios who decide what we all will see. With the on-demand capability of the Net, it will be possible for the consumer to have greater choice. Sure, for big multiplex movie releases such as Spiderman, there will always be the need for big movie budgets and big Hollywood movie production houses.

But not going Hollywood will not always be a measure of a film's success. Due to the ability of computer users to personalize their entertainment tastes from the huge sea of annual entertainment production, you will start to see smaller companies making a bigger impact in acting as brokers of entertainment content. Those smaller brokers will have a different business model than the big Hollywood studios, who sink tons of money into production and distribution, and so are forced financially to go for the big box office kill.

With smaller production and distribution costs and the personalization of consumer entertainment content, it will be possible in the future for individual consumers to quickly and easy set up filters for seeking out the kind of content that they like. In fact, I'm sure that one viable commercial business model will be a google-type of model for providing and selling search engines dedicated solely to consumer entertainment content, and much of it will creative commons content, which will be sold at a low cost.

In other words, the beneficiaries of the open net and open content will be those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. There will more content avaible to the consumer at a lower cost. There will be more marketing opportunities for artists creating content, as they will no longer be beholden to the traditional labels for marketing and distribution of their creative content. The only losers will be the larger content studios, which will experience more competition for the limited attention of their consumers. They will need to improve their product, and will experience greater downward pressure on their products. On the other hand, as more conent becomes available, consumers will probably increase their consumption, so the while the big houses will lose market share, it is possible that their actually sales volume will increase, albeit at a lower per unit sales price.