Monday, April 28, 2014

Copy Me: a Web Series about Copying

Copy Me: a Web Series about Copying recently launched a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo. Their goal is to develop eight informative animated shorts on the questions people have surrounding copying. Is copying a file fair? Is copyright hurting anyone? Is the public domain a good thing? They hope to debunk the myths of copying and look at copyright in the context of the new “sharing” generation. The Copy Me Indiegogo Campaign lays out some of the topics they will cover including: fairness in the digital realm, how artists can make money without restricting their work, and the effect of copyright on society.

On the surface, these topics sound innocuous, but the producers may be hiding a more controversial message, as this quote written by the producer in the site’s comment section suggests; it’s not wrong to ASK people to pay, it’s wrong to MAKE people pay for creative works.  That message may not go over very well with many production companies, galleries, studios or other business entities who want more control over their properties’ pricing, marketing, production and distribution efforts.  But alternate approaches are starting to become very popular.
Read the whole article here.