Nina Paley’s Numbers: CC Licensing for Profit

30 November 2009

Some of our readers may remember a post about a year ago about a cartoonist named Nina Paley and her copyright difficulties.

A short recap: Nina produced a film based on the Indian tale Ramayana intertwined with Annette Hanshaw’s jazz music. Although the sound recordings Nina used were in the public domain, the copyrights on the underlying musical compositions were not. Nina did not get permission to use the tunes and thus infringed the copyrights. Her settlement with the various rightsholders had a step setup, the more she sold, the more she had to pay to the rightsholders. Deciding that releasing her movie in the traditional way wouldn’t make her any money because most of the money would go to the rightsholders, Nina decided to release her film under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article describing the profits Nina has made in the nine months since releasing her film, Sita Sings the Blues, under CC-BY-SA. The short article lists each source of revenue for Nina’s $55,000 total. It generally appears to be saying that CC licensing can work for smaller, professional artists, like Nina Paley, as well as the big guys that are always talked about, such as Nine Inch Nails.

There are a few more pieces of information, which the article does not cover, that give a better view of how successful CC licensing has been for Nina.

In the presentation on which the WJS is reporting, Nina reports that it cost her $80,000 to make the film, $200,000 if you include her cost of living during this time. Compared to the $55,000 she’s taken in so far, it seems like the CC licensing really isn’t working that well for her. However, when Nina approached independent distributors prior to releasing the film, she was told she would probably make only $10-$25,000, $50,000 absolute tops ‘in her wildest dreams.’ Now, comparing what she has made so far to what the distributors expected her to make total, she is doing pretty well.

A better tally of how she has done would include how the Sita copyright issue and subsequent CC licensing have increased Nina’s income from her other works by increasing her visibility; how much she makes from speaking engagements (which she says are her most lucrative work); and how much more she would have paid out under her settlement agreement had she released the film in a more traditional manner. Since all of these things only add to what she has already made, it’s clear that releasing Sita under a Creative Commons license was a good choice for Nina.

For more information on all the different ways Nina is capitalizing on CC-licensed Sita Sings the Blues, see: http://blog.ninapaley.com/category/sita-sings-the-blues/.

Comments

9 Responses to “Nina Paley’s Numbers: CC Licensing for Profit”
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Edwin said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator. November 30, 2009 3:10:00 PM PST
Nina Paley said...

"Deciding that releasing her movie in the traditional way wouldn’t make her any money because most of the money would go to the rightsholders, Nina decided to release her film under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license."

Wrong. I had to pay the same money regardless of how I released the film. Please, please read this:
http://blog.ninapaley.com/2009/07/29/correction/

My reasons for using CC-SA are here:
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/14760

As far as DVDs are concerned, the DVD IS released by a conventional distributor, FilmKaravan, as well as the unconventional QuestionCopyright.org and myself, and we all must pay the absurd extra fees to the song licensors:
http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/license.html#total-compliance

What's unconventional about the film (and DVD) distribution is that no one has a monopoly over it. That's selling MORE DVDs, which is one reason I'm getting more money than any conventional distributor said I would.

November 30, 2009 4:18:00 PM PST
FilmKaravan said...

Bring Sita home with a DVD of
SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Buy on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B002G50002
Rent on Netflix: http://tinyurl.com/ybbqd7b



Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

Need another reason why? Check out Roger Eberts Review! http://tinyurl.com/ebert-on-sita

December 1, 2009 8:32:00 AM PST

Olá tudo bem? Eu tenho interesse em colocar um banner no seu blog.
Na verdade seria uma troca você colocaria um abnner no meu blog e vice versa entre em contato comigo:
E-mail: has.25@hotmail.com
Blog: http://has02.blogspot.com

December 12, 2009 4:18:00 AM PST

"Deciding that releasing her movie in the traditional way wouldn’t make her any money because most of the money would go to the rightsholders, Nina decided to release her film under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license."

January 21, 2010 5:38:00 AM PST
Anonymous said...

This brings to my question. We have created a film using LEGO minifigs and accessories. It is a Stop Motion Animation type film. It runs 30 minutes and took many pictures to complete. We do not use the word LEGO and disclose in several places that LEGO does not endorse the product. We have been approached by many distributors. Since we have purchased the all the LEGO items, are we covered by the first sale doctrine? Thanks!

January 29, 2010 1:19:00 PM PST