Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video]

I have to say, prove it. My theory is that most people don't care about DRM the same way you do, and that more people like owning something than want to make it widely accessible, based on the abundant evidence already available about their willingness to buy exclusive rewards. What do you base your assertion about the potential number of backers upon?

This sounds sick. I don't care for exclusivity, I care for art.

That's nice of you, but it's a fact that we live in a consumer society and one of the most common sales tools is to exploit the law of supply and demand by creating artificial scarcity - even by limiting the numbers of Kickstarter rewards designed to get people to donate before someone else. You can effectively solicit a higher donation level by restricting the availability of the perk, and I find it hard to blame people for exploiting a business strategy that is known to work.

In all seriousness, how much do you care for art? What $ amount would you be prepared to donate or put at risk by investing? I'm not asking this to win an argument, I'm genuinely curious about the economic value you attach to your ideological position. Would you be influenced by some combination, eg for $x you become a patron of the DRM-free copy but you also get a special T-shirt or other item that's not available to others, and if so to what degree?

And actually such kind of attitude in the project would make it feel repealing for me.

You've gotta sell what people want to buy. If you say you're going to be making the top-of-the-line quality product available as widely as possible later, then many people will reasonably ask why they should bother giving you money now. I don't think that people in the aggregate are as generous as you may be as an individual. Now, if you're quite wealthy and in a position make very generous donations that could balance out beautifully, but the basic business model of Kickstarter and similar sites is about raising lots of small donations from a crowd rather than targeting a smallish number of more substantial donors.

That's all besides the fact that Youtube doesn't have DRM.

Yeah but YouTube video quality is shit. Of course it's good by historical standards but then TVs used to be much less capable than today. Many people do not find the quality satisfactory for leisure viewing. If you watch the same video on YouTube and Vimeo (eg many people upload camera tests to both websites) you can see a substantail difference on Vimeo, and mp4 quality would be better again. I don't like watching YouTube on a television, in general. Admittedly this is more of a short-term problem, and it will all be 'good enough' soon enough, just as Netflix streaming was mediocre in quality for the first year or two but now looks fine most of the time (at least on a HDTV).

It's a common practice for many crowdfunded projects to pitch for more backers by stating that release is DRM-free. You can see people commenting about it, if it's not stated (and projects clarifying this point).

Take a look at fiasco with Veronica Mars crowdfunded film which was released with DRM. Backers of the film said all they thought about this failure. Interest in DRM-free releases was expressed very clearly there. If anything, crowdfunding is a major driver in putting an end to approach of the sick-minded publishers obsessed with DRM.

> In all seriousness, how much do you care for art?

As much as I'm interested in something. If I see a project that's interesting to me, I consider supporting it on condition that it doesn't plan to use such unethical garbage as DRM in result. How much would I invest in it? That depends on the project. I don't do it out of having unlimited funds. Not at all - my funds are pretty limited. I do it because I care for those projects and without my support they are less likely to be created. I don't see how exclusivity fits into this. It doesn't mean I'm against perks - if someone wants to invest more, it's OK if they get more rewards. But DRM is not something that should be added as a distinguishing factor to anything. Because it shouldn't exist to begin with. Would you support the project which says that if you pay more, they'll give ecological wrap for you, but for the rest they'll ship the product in poisonous package?

Another reason to support some projects is to demonstrate demand. For instance, I would support games which are released for Linux (if I'm interested in them too), but won't support those which don't plan a Linux release.

For instance, Underworld Ascendant added Linux support to the base goal after getting feedback about it. As you can see, this also reduces exclusivity - it's inclusive, because more users are reached when release is cross platform. DRM-free release is similar in this sense.

Here’s something instructive: YouTube: A Dinosaur Story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfdZju4J0Y4 That’s a three-hour movie done by two kids in their loungeroom with toy dinosaurs. Ridiculously low production values, make-it-up-as-we-go-along story by a couple of kids who seem to be about nine or ten. It’s genuine unintermediated young children’s folk culture, on the internet. HOLY CRAP. PUNK ROCK FOR EVERYONE.

The reason this is noteworthy: it’s one of my five-year-old’s favourite films. She’s watched her assorted Disney DVDs about half a time each, she’s watched this movie repeatedly and tells bits of it to her classmates. I boggle, but I cannot deny the observation that they’re doing something right that Disney isn’t, on a budget of zero.

She was also incredibly excited when she saw YouTube videos of kids making Thomas the Tank Engine fan videos using wooden railways just like hers. “They’re making their own stories!” (Example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg1cUl9rd9g Of course it’s rubbish. That’s not the point.) The powerful drive for a culture of your own starts early.

The recording industry used to try to justify not being taken out and shot by claiming blockbusterism was necessary to music, which was of course just a lie. Bands can (and do) now do albums with a microphone and a laptop. Microphone optional. Record at home, put it up on Bandcamp, the physical barrier to recording and distribution is gone. I remember the eighties, and just how bloody hard it was even to record, let alone distribute the result. Sure, the studio result is better, but that’s optional now. For getting the damn song out of your head and into the world, convenience beats quality every time the two are head-to-head.

Culture is everything humans do to impress each other, and it’s diseased unless it’s owned by all of us. The arrangement where you have creators here and consumers here and never the twain shall meet is a twentieth-century perversion we are well rid of.