get it while you can

Posted on June 4, 2003 by Lessig

Jed Horovitz has produced an extraordinary film about the “culture wars” which may well not be around for long. You can get Willful Infringement on DVD. Many people should. When the lawyers find this, we’ll need archives stored in many places. (Note: the web page says I’m in the film, but only for a few seconds. The really great characters are two clowns.)

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10 Responses to get it while you can

  1. Chris says:
    June 4, 2003 at 11:15 am

    It looks good, but not $54.98 good. Any chance that this economies of scall will push the price down a bit? I wonder if they mind if i RIPMIXBURN it from somewhere else…

    -Chris

  2. cavalierfh says:
    June 4, 2003 at 11:20 am

    Surely something I want to watch, but I can’t recoup Jed’s expenses for him at that high of a percentage, sorry dude. Maybe if you did the whole “price what the market can bear” thing so a bunch of people could actually buy it?

    Ugh.. (hits hand on forehead)

  3. Anonymous says:
    June 4, 2003 at 11:38 am

    From what I can gather from a cursory glance at the content, the movie looks to be quite interesting.

    I’m with the above comments, though, when it comes to price. He is asking far and above what would be reasonable.

    I understand that he has expenses to cover and I also understand that this is intended to be a low-volume work, but wouldn’t a better approach be to release it for free and then accept donations if you liked the movie?

  4. jed horovitz says:
    June 4, 2003 at 12:34 pm

    Wow. I didn’t expect to be having this discussion so soon. I am excited that people are interested enought to care what the DVD costs.

    RE: PRICES
    We just decided to go the ‘cheap’ route and not charge the $200-$300 typical of videos aimed at the library/educational market….now you tell me that’s too much for individuals. Seriously, we never expected individuals to buy many copies.

    I have two suggestions. Ask your local library or video store to buy a copy and share it with your community or wait a week until we have the streaming version set up and watch it for a couple bucks.

    RE: RIPMIXBURN?
    That’s not a simple ‘yes or no’ question for someone who has spent the last two years obsessing over Fair Use. AND if I give you my full answer you won’t need to watch the video. So I guess I am officially hoisted by my own petard you sly dog. (That’s video pirate talk.)

  5. Chris says:
    June 4, 2003 at 12:47 pm

    Do you have a notification mailing list for when the streaming version will be online?

    Alternatively, have you thought about releasing it as an MPEG4 or some non-physical format? I would be more than happy to send you some cash that way if you also had a downloadable copy.

    I really want to see it — doesn’t matter how — the price is just too high. It seems that you’re going in the right direction though, distribution-wise. 🙂

    -Chris

  6. Jed Horovitz says:
    June 4, 2003 at 4:47 pm

    Chris, I will get a notification list running. Thanks.
    James, I like your reasoning and will start working on a downloading option. Please be patient. There are only 1.75 of us. I think bits would interest general audiences and am open to any kind of promotion that gets the word out. I am not sure if we actually used anything AOL/Time Warner considers their property. If we did, it is Fair Use not infringing! As an ‘intellectual property company’ they will not like our message that copyright does not extend to even close to every pixel of a digital image or sound. It is my strongly held belief that you can’t sell something and keep it a secret at the same time so send me an email with what you have in mind.

  7. Jed says:
    June 6, 2003 at 6:18 am

    Joe,
    Absolutely. We have published the DVD and if you buy a copy you have the right to use it. I don’t think you have to ask for permission unless your use is clearly above and beyond the technically obvious uses of what you have purchased.

    In other words, I believe the right to ‘read out loud’ comes with a book and showing our documentary to everybody who can watch it at once on a television (even big screen or rear projection) comes with a DVD.

    One could always come up with an exception such as charging admission to a baseball stadium and showing the movie on the projection system to a packed house (I can dream) that would cross the line but the key point is that it should be my burden to prove that. The only copyright infringement should be clear cut piracy. Every thing else should be allowed. What is piracy? Watch the movie and listen to Carrie McLaren, currator of the Illegal Art Exhibit coming to San Francisco.

    Interepretted properly, the copyright law says you can do anything short of “usurping” the value of our copyright. What would that be? In my mind, wide performance to a mass audience of the complete work or making numerous copies of the complete work to distribute in quantity. In other words, things that would be demonstratable (by me) as directly causing net fewer sales of the complete work. I don’t believe the mere act of copying or showing or performing comes close to infringement. There has to be a provable loss or damage. Large copyright owning corporations would like us to think that the principal of equity has been repealed by copyright law but I disagree. (PS I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice but my philosophy of copyright.)

  8. DMCA Avoider says:
    June 25, 2003 at 11:35 am

    I don’t buy DVDs due to the DMCA. Can this be released on VHS?

  9. Gilland Breena Levasseur says:
    January 9, 2004 at 10:58 am

    Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

  10. Susan Edwards says:
    July 14, 2004 at 8:39 am

    I’m trying to buy a copy of the DVD for our library — I agree the price is very fair for institutions, but the links to willfulinfringement.com are not working. Is there any other way to buy a copy???

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