Anarchy, Integrity, and the Digital Marketplace
Pages: 1, 2

What I'm saying is this: I believe in a free-flowing global exchange of information. I believe free flow is important to continue advancements in art, science, and commerce. And I believe in Fair Use. But I also am not a communist, and I enjoy getting paid for something I work very hard on. I think the artist (or content creator, if you like) will do well to learn what all the various options are, all the different levels of copyright, copyleft, free, and pay, and adjust accordingly on a project-by-project basis.

Don't believe the pundits, intellectuals, or dumpster-diving squatters who tell you that any one way is the right way or the wrong way. Don't let anyone guilt you into doing anything you don't want to do with your art. Your art is your baby. Respect it, love it, cherish it, but don't devalue it just because "everyone's doing it."

Art belongs to the ages, but it primarily belongs to the artist. To you. You are free to do with your art as you please. And that's true anarchy.

The little film that could.

Case Study: D.I.Y. OR DIE

I've done many projects in my life, including music, books, podcasts, and films, but the one that's gotten the most word-of-mouth attention was the film D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist .

You can watch the trailer here:

The entire film went up on YouTube this month as well, split into chapters:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8

"D.I.Y." stands for "Do It Yourself." Fittingly, not only is the film about D.I.Y., it was made and promoted in a very D.I.Y. manner.

D.I.Y or DIE sold only about 5,000 copies on DVD, but there are a lot more copies out there in the world, because I released it with no region encoding, no copy protection, and no restriction on making personal copies.

I did make it clear: if you make commercial copies and sell them for profit, I'll come after you, lawyers blazin'. But you're free to make up to ten copies and give them away, or sell them for a dollar (the price of a blank DVD and what I figure is the value of the time to burn a copy). And anyone who receives a copy is free, in turn, to make their own ten non-commercial copies. And so on.

I even sold burned copies of my film after it was already licensed to an independent distributor, and the distributor didn't care, because the attention and press we got from releasing it with the "burn ten copies" model sold more copies. I also made more money from sales on the road, and didn't have to bring a lot of copies with me. I burned more as needed at people's houses along the way.

Burned copies of my film at a café showing in Germany. Yup — I bootlegged my own film.

I've done other projects that sold many more copies, and I've done projects that made more money, but this one really hit a chord with a lot of people. It's more of a short (55 minute), portable mission statement than a standard documentary. The movie examines the motivations of artists — starving and famous — and explains, in their own words, why they do what they do, regardless of a paycheck.

The inventor of industrial music, Foetus, looking much like Vincent Van Gogh. (Still from D.I.Y or DIE.)

The D.I.Y. Ethic

I didn't decide to be a filmmaker and then make D.I.Y or DIE. I taught myself filmmaking because I wanted to make this film. I needed to make this film. It needed to exist. If another documentary that expressed the same idea had already existed, I wouldn't have bothered.

I made the film by hook or by crook. I ran up credit cards. I flew, took busses, and rode bicycles to interviews. When I couldn't get to a city to interview someone, I e-mailed them the questions and either had them interview and film themselves and send me the tape, or I had a friend in their town do it. I wrote an article called "MAKE a Mailbox Movie" for Make magazine detailing the process.

Filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern interviewing himself for the movie.

The other reason D.I.Y or DIE was such a success (and I measure the success of something by the effect it has on people, not on units shipped) is that I got out there and took it to the people. I did three US tours and one of Europe, personally working 77 cities; did Q&A after; and planted seeds of copies everywhere for people to copy. You can see all my photos of my European tour, as well as my tour diary, here.

I made it easy for people to book the film by putting the trailer, one-sheet description, flyer, promo stills, and downloadable contract on the film's site.

Flyer for D.I.Y or DIE in France.

I left for all the tours hoping to break even, and actually made money on all of them. It was great. A paid vacation, spreading an important message, and I had the time of my life. And six years after the film was completed, I still get checks in the mail for sales and showings every month.

Goodwill Ambassadors

People still e-mail me from all over the world and ask if they can show D.I.Y or DIE in their country. Sometimes they show it even without asking, and I find out from a Google Alert. I'm fine with that. I made the film to reach people, not to make money. So if someone helps it reach people, they're doing my work for me.

I'm a cat lover, and allow and encourage anyone anywhere to screen the film as a benefit showing to raise money for their local animal shelter or rescue. (I only ask that they buy one copy to do so.) I'm able to approve things like this without the authorization of partners, producers, co-owners or investors, because there are none.

When you do it yourself, you may end up not shipping millions of "units," but you also don't have to appeal to anyone else to do whatever you want with your art. And if you make something that people want, that people need, they're willing to step up and help you get it out there.

If I'd sold D.I.Y or DIE to a major media corporation, I wouldn't have had the freedom to tour with it at will without asking permission. I would never have gotten away with releasing it without copy protection. And I could have gone to jail for bootlegging my own film, because once you sell something, it is no longer your own.

A window sign in England.

Selling Out vs. Cashing In

After I posted the whole movie on YouTube, I posted a bulletin about it on the Yahoo Podcasters' Forum. This wasn't "drive-by spam"; it was a notice to my friends on a group where I'm a long-running regular.

What happened next is a testimonial to the potential of D.I.Y. promotion. Another regular on the board had recently been hired by Microsoft. He was the podcast acquisition coordinator for the upcoming launch of the Zune Marketplace (Microsoft's equivalent of the iTunes Store) and Zune.net. He contacted me off-board, said he'd checked out the movie, and asked if I'd like to make it a high-quality download as an episodic video podcast on ZM and Zune.net? He said he'd make it one of the top-four featured video podcasts. I immediately said Yes.

No money was exchanged. Microsoft got content, and I got hits — many, many terabytes of downloads (with unlimited throughput hosted on Libsyn).

I see no problem dealing with Microsoft. It's no violation of the imaginary "punk code" to me, though I got a few snitty e-mails implying that it was. Anyone making any new media is using tools — at least hardware — made by major corporations. When was the last time you saw some punker running Linux on a laptop with integrated circuits burned in his own sterile laboratory? Can't be done.

But even people who didn't think I'd sold out my punk ethic wondered about my reasons for putting the whole movie on Zune in near-DVD quality (30fps, 900kbps MP4 files at 640x480-pixel resolution with 128kbps stereo audio) and no digital rights management or copy protection when the DVD version is still selling.

I have a lot of reasons, but here's a good one:

Since all media has more or less become free (or at least free to people willing to just take it), I've discovered that the easiest way to make a living is to work on making my name into the commodity.

I never turn down an interview, I answer all e-mails from people who check out my stuff, and I give art away. A lot. The point is not to generate money, but to generate more "ink," more of me on the Internet, the press, podcasts, radio, TV, etc. As of this writing, Google listed 13,500 hits for the title of the movie — more than the number of DVDs sold. My name, "Michael W. Dean," generated 33,000 hits.

Me in front of graffiti in Dublin. This phrase is my personal motto. Apparently it's someone else's personal motto, too.

Frequent positive attention on the Internet increases your value as a "name," making it easier to get quick-money side gigs, lecture work, book deals, consulting work, and other opportunities. Also, when you do a project and go to sell it, having your name out there means the media middlemen, as well as the consumers, are more likely to say, "Oh yeah, I've heard of that (director/photographer/musician/writer)."

I keep my soul happy by making art. But I make my living mostly from explaining my production and distribution processes to other people who have similar goals — people who want to produce quality art and get it out into the world. I didn't make DIY or DIE to make money, though the Zune feature, and the resulting press, may well help sell DVDs. More important, the massive downloads from the Zune feature will help spread the message of the film. For a digital artist and for audiences worldwide, it's a win-win situation.

Michael W. Dean is an independent filmmaker who runs the well-known pop-culture blog, Stink Fight. He is the author of $30 Film School, $30 Music School, $30 Writing School, Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women, and DIY Now! Digital Audio. He also directed the film D.I.Y. or Die: How To Survive as an Independent Artist. His books $30 Film School, $30 Music School, and $30 Writing School have sold over 45,000 copies.

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