I am a documentary junky. I also love to talk copyright. So when a film comes along that blends these two interests I get very excited. RIP! a Remix Manifesto is probably one of the most important Canadian docs I have every seen. I recommend that you see it. Good news too, the Canadian who made it is experimenting with an interesting business model. The film is under a Creative Commons(BY-NC-SA) license. Meaning as long as you tell people where you got it, and are doing so non-commercially and you release any changes under the same license, you are free to do whatever you would like with it. The creator sells the film through iTunes as well as a “Pay What You Want” through the RipRemix.com website as well as a DVD.

But I live in Canada… Media is never simple in Canada. For some reason this “Pay What You Want” digital distribution method is only for Americans. Even if it is in the iTunes Store I don’t want to have to deal with the DRM. I don’t have a DVD player or TV to watch the dvd on and I live in a rural area that is hard to get packages to. So my last resort is to get it from the Bittorrents… Perfectly legal use of bittorrent when the film is under a Creative Commons license. The problem with this is that no one gets payed. And when no one gets payed we don’t see movies as important as this ever made again.

So I wrote a letter:

I have become quite a fan of the NFB of Canada. It is doing important work. I watched RIP! a Remix Manifesto when it was in theatres. Went to see it twice. Joined the Facebook group. Was very excited to here that it would be released on a pay what you want basis. I was clearly disappointed when I was geo-blocked apon trying to do so! This is content that I am happy to pay for, that was funded by my government and that I payed to see in theatres(in Canada). I understand that there is a DVD available, but I live in a rural area and it is very difficult to have packages shipped. Why am I, as a Canadian treated like a second class citizen while the Americans get to experiment with an exciting new business model. I want to be part of that.

I understand why many things are geo-blocked in Canada. We are a relatively small market when compared with the States. It often takes longer to work out the deals with the rights holder because they do the higher priority countries first and so media is almost always later to show up here if at all. But when the film in question is under a creative commons license that allows me to download (legally i might add) from some dodgy bittorrent site, the artist doesn’t get paid.

This movie is more, not less relevant to Canadians and they should be able to see it. If someone could clear this up for me that would be great.