Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video]

This might sound cynical, but that's how people are . There was a documentary that came out last year called I Dream of Wires about analog modular synthesizers, which are going through a renaissance right now thanks to low-cost short-run manufacturing and a much wider audience for electronic music than existed during the previous modular heyday of the 1970s. So they raised lots of money on Kickstarter, and one of the rewards for backers was exclusive access to a 4 hour Blu-Ray copy, with tons of additional footage that would be cut out of the theatrical version, but which you would certainly want to watch if this was your particular nerd obsession. Anyway, the film got made OK, but (as is very typical) the producers vastly overestimated likely interest in the film and discovered the hard way that it was too niche of a subject to appeal to regular documentary distributors. Having gone a bit over budget and spent some personal money to get it finished, they naturally wanted to break even, so after what they thought was a decent interval, they started selling the extended 4-hour Blu-ray edition to the general public on their website.

Bad idea. The people who had bought that thinking they were getting something exclusive were furious, and stalked the filmmakers across every electronic music forum where they popped their heads up, calling them fraudsters and thieves. They weren't any worse, off, as such; they had got their Blu-Rays (although I think they had to wait a long time for them, as with many Kickstarter campaigns that fall way behind schedule), and they included all the promised content delivered to a professional standard. But they thought they had bought a limited edition, and threatened the makers with lawsuits - the result being that the DVD release got pushed way back and the extended 'ahrdcore edition' has had the price jacked up to $199 (which almost nobody will ever spend) in line with the donation requirement for the original reward.

That's not reasonable. They could get more backers if DRM-free release (for everyone) was a simple part of the base goal. I.e. selling DRM-free as a perk only reduces the number of their backers. I only support those projects which have a clear DRM-free release stated in their goals. And I'm not alone.

> People want exclusivity, and those people who have the mp4 are secretly (though not necessarily consciously) feasting on your tears of DRM-frustration because they have something you don't.

This sounds sick. I don't care for exclusivity, I care for art. And actually such kind of attitude in the project would make it feel repealing for me. And of course as with any DRM, it doesn't stop one from copying. That's all besides the fact that Youtube doesn't have DRM. It just makes downloading more manual than it could be.

IMHO such approach reduces the number of potential backers instead of increasing it. Clear cut DRM-free release on the other hand attracts more supporters.

All campaigns I participated in clearly saw DRM-free release as helpful for attracting more backers (those who reject DRM).