Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.
That’s all I know so far – a multiple-shows-a-day run of Sita Sings the Blues at New York’s IFC Film Center, starting Dec. 25 (aka “Chrismas) and closing Dec. 31 (aka “New Year’s Eve”). More info like exact screening times and how to buy tickets coming soon. Mark your calendars! Tell your friends! Help us promote it! I love you!
I’m reposting this because misinformation continues to spread all over the interwebs. Maybe I’ll post it every month.
Dear Journalists Dear Journalists, bloggers, commenters, etc.,
Some of you are writing that I was forced to choose the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license because the film is violating copyright. That is completely untrue, but has become the dominant motif of stories I read about the project. The confusion is understandable, so I attempt to sort it out below.
Sita Sings the Blues is 100% legal. I am free to release it commercially, which is why the film is gaining a number of commercial distributors in addition to its free sharing/audience distribution, which is also legal, and wonderful.
Sita Sings the Blues is in complete compliance with copyright regulations. I was forced to pay $50,000 in license fees and another $20,000 in legal costs to make it so. That is why I am in debt. My compliance with copyright law is by no means an endorsement of it. Being $70,000 in the hole reminds me daily what an ass the law is. The film is legal, and that legality gives me a higher moral ground to stamp my feet upon as I denounce the failure that is copyright.
Having paid these extortionate fees, I could have gone with conventional distribution, and was invited to. I chose to free the film because I could see that would be most beneficial to me, my film, and culture at large. A CC-SA license does not absolve a creator of compliance with copyright law. The law could have sent me to prison for non-commercial copyright infringement. I was forced to borrow $70,000 to decriminalize my film, regardless of how I chose to release it.
Note that in some ways the film is not, and never will be free. 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. I’ve already bled $50,000 into their vampiric maws; I have no intention of paying more.
Thank you for your attention.
Love,
–Nina
A documentarian working on a short film about Free Culture wanted some images of the awards Sita Sings the Blues has received. So I gathered up most of what I have here (they’re not all in my apartment) and put them on a table for the camera man. I was so proud I took a photo of them myself, which I now am shamelessly posting to my blog. I am blushing even as I do this, but not enough to stop me. Thank you, generous givers of awards!
Here’s me presenting the latest Sita Sings the Blues Free Distribution Report at Power to the Pixel‘s Cross-Media Film Forum in London, October 14. I was actually very sick, had a terrible sore throat, and had kept quiet all morning to save my voice for this. Apparently I did a good job compensating – hooray for performance adrenaline! But my throat hurts just looking at it.
Finally, the new Laxmi and Lexi T-shirts are here! In both men’s/unisex, and wymmyn’s “girly tee” styles. Also new: prints for just $15 (unsigned)!
‘Cause it’s International Animation Day. The complete film is up in one giant, 82-minute piece, at questioncopyright’s youtube account. There are no ads in the film; we’re working on making the page ads go away too, since questioncopyright.org is a registered nonprofit.
The comments indicate that the film is now reaching an, uh, wider audience.