How about we try to raise a cool million like the filmaker and seek another filmaker who will make a film and release the whole bundle under a BY-SA license. Raw footage, raw sound, different edits, final edit. The whole shebang.

Or take the same million and run a song contest with ten prizes of 100,000 each for ten genres? All songs submitted to the contest must be licensed BY-SA. All original.

Or… ???

all the best,

drew

That’s true.

Well, tell me if you think this idea is useful. The reason why the Nigerian and Brazilian small artist/businessman can succeed is because they have a local market. Their competition is other small artists/businesses with similarly short reach. Our competition in the first world is the transnational corporation, with a reach long enough to get into all our local markets, and push the level of competition so high that the small artist/businessman can’t compete on their own city block, or if they can compete the returns are so small and the effort so high that any victory is a Pyrric victory.

To a certain extent the internet, relatively cheap computers (acknowledging the existance of the digital divide, not everyone can play yet), and free software even out the playing field. But it’s often twice as hard or more to figure out how to get the same effect out of free software as commercial software, and time is one thing small operations can’t afford to waste.

Maybe what we really need is a zealous base willing to support free content just because it’s free content. If that movement existed, there would be a practical merit to Drew’s approach. I haven’t connected with those people yet though, but maybe you guys know where they’re at.

This would then actually make a new type of business model. Or, similar to the devnations license in purpose http://creativecommons.org/license/devnations

And I’m still in search of an enthusiast community

Checking out pinko marketing – I’m not sure I understand this. All I do is post on the wiki?

FWIW, I think Nollywood and the Technobrega thing are more representative of a pre-Hollywood industry than a post-Hollywood industry. They show that copyright law isn’t necessary to make money, but it doesn’t mean things are fair and equitable or “better.” Do the pirates selling the $1.50 tapes really deserve to be making any money at all? Maybe they’re slowing the growth of the Nollywood creators by taking actual sales from them.

Hollywood used to crank out mass quantities of movies too – but as time went on it took more and more to impress people and the movies got more expensive to make. Thus, fewer are made. I think games are going through the same maturation process. Nollywood may be making a greater quantity of films, but because they’re at an earlier stage in the maturation of their industry, not because they have a better business model.

But yes, I definitely agree with you on all of those factors, of course. They definitely do actively work to contain and/or co-opt independent media.

Plus, there are huge amounts of people in US culture who don’t consider independently-produced media as being “worth” their time and/or money. But, then again, there are people like you who work on creating high quality content that can compete for attention with major media output.

In your case, your own enthusiast community can help spread knowledge about your content. And, this can change the perception, little by little, for people who thought that independent content was not worth their time.

There are actually people who creating knowledge bases about marketing things in this way. For instance, see Pinko Marketing:

http://pinkomarketing.pbwiki.com/

This is the type of “marketing” that will likely work well for your XTIN project.

Eh, ClearChannel, RIAA, and MPAA doing everything they can to stop it?

Lack of marketting power and payola power on the part of Indy bands and labels . . .

Lack of time/money on the part of consumers to pursue music beyond the hottest bands . . .

Also, the record labels are pretty good at picking up the talented acts as they emerge. The guy who host my website was part of a band that got offered contracts from Warner and Sony, and they hadn’t been together long before it happened.