Given that Limewire is estimated be installed on an astonishing 17% of all home PCs, this is a big win for VODO artists seeking exposure and the chance to connect with new fans.

It’s fantastic that Limewire is supporting creators’ use of P2P and helping establish an important new distribution channel, at a time when it’s getting harder than ever to distribute independent culture through traditional means. Thanks Limewire: we welcome you to VODO & the DISCO family.

It’s great  to see a ‘traditional’ TV magazine, Germany’s ‘number one TV magazine’ Hörzu, reviewing a VODO release. We’re grateful for progressive print media realising that ‘real’ films don’t have to come out in the cinema or on TV – a proper net distribution can easily rival the amount of viewers associated with a small terrestrial or cable screening, so shouldn’t viewers be entitled to a review from their trusted source? They sure should. Here’s a translated excerpt of what Hörzu’s Tanja Beeskow had to say:

“Copy me!” is the call of David Miller. His documentary “In Guantanamo” should see as many people as possible. He makes a close examination of the U.S. prison camp in Cuba, and shows how reporting is controlled by the U.S. military.

In May 2008 David Miller travels with his team for three days to Guantanamo. Together with other journalists, he was there to look around the site. But he finds that critical reporting is impossible – the U.S. military makes the event into a PR event.

The reporting is carefully controlled. The censorship of the images is evident in almost every scene. Everywhere are signs to draw attention to the recording ban. People whose faces can not be filmed are seen in abundance. As a journalist accidentally films cameras that he hasn’t seen, he has to go through all his shorts and delete these scenes. Carefully controlled, the military presented the clean side of the prison.

They also include a link to the film so that readers can download it and share it. Without wanting to be patronising, we think that’s pretty cool for a TV magazine!

From the article:

Right now one’s stance on movie piracy doesn’t really matter – because it’s happening. But there’s a wonderfully viable response to this fact in the new upstart VODO, founded by STEAL THIS FILM moviemaker Jamie King. They’ve struck deals with the biggest P2P sites (BitTorrent behemoths Pirate Bay and Mininova included) to promote the independent films that VODO recommends. opening these small films up to an unprecedented number of viewers – who are then encouraged to donate money to the moviemaker.

If anyone knows where we can buy a copy in Berlin, let us know so we can check out the full story. Update: Moviemaker were kind enough to send us a copy so now we can reproduce the article, below. Thanks!

]]> http://blog.vodo.net/2009/moviemaker-magazine-vodo-one-of-the-25-companies-every-indie-needs-to-know/feed/ 0 http://blog.vodo.net/2009/vodo-brazilian-digital-culture-forum/ http://blog.vodo.net/2009/vodo-brazilian-digital-culture-forum/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:37:32 +0000 admin http://blog.vodo.net/?p=94 VODO’s Jamie King will be taking part in Da Forum Cultura Digital Brasileira in Sao Paulo next week. The ‘Brazilian Digital Culture Forum’ is hosted by the Ministry of Culture and the National Education and Research Network (RNP). Its purpose is to  produce public policies for the contemporary Brazil. The Forum intends to propose guidelines for access, production, dissemination,preservation and free movement of culture in the digital age across these five ‘axes’:

1. Digital Memory (archives, history and future);
2. Economics of Digital Culture (shared economic benefits, public interest and market )
3. Digital Infoway (infrastructure, access and inclusion);
4. Art in the Digital Age (language, democratization and remix), and
5. Digital Communication (language, media and convergence).

VODO is honoured to be amongst the international invitees and to be taking part.

If anyone could help us update the translation of this, we’d be grateful!

Amidst all the proposals to fight piracy, new approaches other than the repressive  route are appearing. The latest is VODO, a platform that acts as an intermediary between download enthusiasts and creators. The latter make their works avaialble on the site, which makes possible a direct return through discretionary donations.

Logically, the system shouldn’t win over the American majors who won’t find it cost-effective given the huge budgets of their films. Instead, VODO is focusing on independent productions and filmmakers.

The increasing number of downloads of Us Now seem to support the principle. The documentary looks at the phenomenon of emergent economies, following a football team run by its fans, a bank where management is shared between each employees and couch surfing, sharing ones apartment with travelers.

(Thanks for the help AT.)

VODO means ‘Voluntary Donation’ (Catflap, P2PNET)

Just a few years ago this might have been an unattainable pipe dream. They said it could never be done. But we have news for them. It is being done. Right now… Artists, writers, and creators, don’t wait for the trickle-down effect for your royalties after your masters grab the lion’s share of profits from your talents. Go VODO. Get noticed. And start earning.

VODO Embraces BitTorrent to Distribute Movies, Compensate Filmmakers (Janko Roettgers, New Tee Vee)

Free movies through torrents (My Broadband)

Having been vilified by the big business of Hollywood and record companies, the benefits of peer-to-peer technology are often overlooked.

Miller’s film, which explores the US military’s presentation of the infamous detention camp during a three day tour granted the filmmaker in 2008, is a premiere Bittorrent release.

Guantanamo naval base, ‘Gitmo’, covers forty five square miles of Cuba inside an area under a controversial ‘permanent lease’ to the United States. Since 2002, the base has become synonymous with its detainment facilities for suspected terrorists. Although Barack Obama has given orders for the detention camp to be closed, the facilities remain open to this day. David Miller’s quiet, powerful film is the result of three days the filmmaker spent touring the camps in May 2008 as part of a small group of media representatives allowed there. Although the event was presented as a chance to ’see inside’ the working of Guantanamo, it was in fact a carefully staged PR exercise designed to yield predictable, stale, controlled media images.

The film was produced in 2008/2009 in conjunction with Yvonne Ridley, PRSNL Pictures and the VODO team. Special thanks to Editor Luca Lucarini.

IN GUANTANAMO is released via VODO under a Creative Commons Non-Commerical No-Derivs Attribution License. The filmmaker does not permit remixes but would like the work to be shared freely for non-commercial purposes.

The recent Power to the Pixel conference in London was focussed around questions like the one raised by digital film consultant Brian Newman - in a free world, how can we make content pay? We have to move with the times and stop wasting our energy on battling P2P sites which are, in a nutshell, what most people want. Sites like The Auteurs and Netflix are aware that online audiences want instant access to a wide selection of films and if they can’t reach it by conventional means at a reasonable price, they’ll head straight to pirate sites. So, what’s to be done? How can the industry move with the tide and begin to make revenue from this set-up? Filmmaker Jamie King asked himself this question and came up with VODO (short for ‘voluntary donations’) – a distribution model that he suggests ‘filmmakers all over the world have been wanting ever since they knew about distributing films online.’

VODO has teamed up with pirate sites in order to seed films far and wide. If you’ve made a short, why not put it out there? Especially if it’s finished the festival circuit – even if it hasn’t, do it anyway. By making your film available for voluntary donations you immediately increase the chance of making some revenue (not an easy task with traditional forms of distribution). Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation are one of the key organisations supporting the enterprise, having realised that this unmapped territory needs exploring. It’s an exciting time for independent filmmakers and I think we should all get in on the ground level – there’s lots to gain.

An important new weapon in the arsenal for filmmakers who are bucking the system and choosing to self-distribute, VODO is incredibly subversive…

So what is VODO? Simply put, it’s an additional distribution option for filmmakers, one that utilizes and consolidates existing file-sharing systems --as they put it: ‘a distribution system for the post-copyright age’.

What VODO proposes is that P2P filesharing services (such as The Pirate Bay) can be utilized by filmmakers to reach an unprecedented amount of potential viewers. What makes VODO’s service special is its use of the ‘Distribution Coalition (DISCO)’–  a coalition of the P2P/filesharing sites. VODO acts as a pipeline of content, populating the various P2P services with the films it represents. This, in turn, allows filmmakers to get their content released in the P2P universe in a cohesive way, with the chance of an income through crowd-sourced donations. The purpose, then, of  VODO is to harness the filesharing world and distribute content in it in a way that benefits filmmakers (and, eventually, creators of all stripes).

What VODO proposes is that P2P filesharing services (such as The Pirate Bay) can be utilized by filmmakers to reach an unprecedented amount of potential viewers. What makes VODO’s service special is its use of the ‘Distribution Coalition (DISCO)’–  a coalition of the P2P/filesharing sites. VODO acts as a pipeline of content, populating the various P2P services with the films it represents. This, in turn, allows filmmakers to get their content released in the P2P universe in a cohesive way, with the chance of an income through crowd-sourced donations. The purpose, then, of  VODO is to harness the filesharing world and distribute content in it in a way that benefits filmmakers (and, eventually, creators of all stripes).

What this means – in layman’s terms – is that if your film gets selected for VODO, it will get a cohesive release across across a wide selection of filesharing sites and services, complete with an actionable donation capability which will allow people who watch your film to support you with money.