I’m a huge fan of Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture. He argues very effectively against the current way copyrights are handled. Earlier I came across a discussion about piracy where the poster summed it up with something like this “pirates feel they are entitled to the content for free. But the creator of that work deserves compensation.”

It’s very easy for me to agree with that statement as a filmmaker who wants to make a living from his craft. However, fundamentally, what every director, producer or writer really wants is an audience to view their work. I have a desire to express myself in a visual form that is stronger than the need to make money.

If I wanted to make money, I would have been a banker. There aren’t any bailouts for filmmakers.

This is not to say I don’t want to make money from my film, just that if I had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life, I would gladly do it for free and wouldn’t mind it played for free.

I’m not entirely sure what this means for me personally or for the future of the motion picture industry, but there must be a happy middle ground somewhere.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 11:22 am and is filed under Editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.