COPYFRIGHT! Conveying the Right Message: Digital Copyright and Dogwoof

Posted: 5th Aug 2010
Category: Articles
Tags: copyfright, digital copyright issues, distribution companies, dogwoof, drm, social issue films

Dogwoof is an independent UK distribution company and social enterprise. They focus on ethical documentaries, such as The Age of Stupid, Black Gold, Burma VJ, The End of the Line and Food Inc, and are known for being innovative and engaging with new technologies. A line from their manifesto reads 'The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake', which can be seen in practice through their experimental business models.

Distribution companies often feel the impact of copyright infringement first by the very nature of their essential enmeshment with rights issues. DFG catches up with Oli Harbottle for a perspective on copyright in the digital age from a distributor. Oli is well-versed in film, both documentary and fiction, having previously produced the Raindance Film Festival and is the Head of Distribution at Dogwoof, managing the process from acquisition through to release.

Do you think that free-streaming websites and illegal downloads are a long-term threat to old funding and business models in the film industry?

I would say that free streaming and download sites are an unavoidable situation, and now that that road has been made, it's going to be very hard to take it back… Our thinking is that hopefully there is enough of an audience who are still willing to pay for content. I personally think...free streaming and download sites are more of a threat to the studios who very much rely on the massive profit margins that keep big business afloat. Whereas, with independents there's more of an inbuilt loyalty from the audiences. I think there is an awareness that it's very hard for films to be made and get out there but hopefully by conveying the right message, and accepting that we need to be led by the consumer and how they want to consume films, hopefully we've been able to work out a model where there is some revenue that keeps business going.

Have you found any films distributed by Dogwoof posted illegally on the Internet? What's been your reaction?

I tend not to look online for the fear that they will be there. But it has come to my attention that they are there. There's very little you can do practically … there's very little point in trying to pursue it legally so we're trying to promote the legal way of obtaining a film better and louder, and to maybe add added value to the content when we promote. There's [the] instance of a film we did last year - Burma VJ, about undercover journalists in Burma, and the oppressive media regime there. It kept coming to my attention that the film had been posted in chapters on YouTube at the time when it was conflicting with our big theatrical release. We would [take it off YouTube] but then within a couple of days it would go back [up]. [Additionally] the director very explicitly said in all the media he did that this film was so important in its display of footage that it did need to have an airing on YouTube for the international community and for other Burmese people to see what was actually going on. We actually were relatively willing to turn a blind eye, but our feeling on that film was pretty unique. We did such a strong campaign for the theatrical release, the DVD release, and really did a lot of activity around that to give it a lot of added value.

Has there ever been an instance where you welcomed a free version of one of your films being online?

I wouldn't say that it benefited us...and I'm not sure how it would. But actually, I'll take that back. Before we adopted our new stance of social issue documentary, three years ago, we distributed a film called Four Eyed Monsters which was a mumblecore film from the US - very low budget. It brought up a very big online presence to market the film and also struck a deal with YouTube where they actually premiered the film in its entirety for an exclusive window of a month or something. After that we actually picked it up for DVD and released it here in the UK. But again [there was the] added value: Aaron [the director] had managed to secure an amazing soundtrack to go with the film, he'd got all these very up and coming New York underground indie musicians to offer tracks for free so we managed to release the DVD with this bonus CD and found that there was still enough demand. The YouTube premiere had raised awareness of the whole project as it was quite a big deal in the States. [After] YouTube took it down, people sort of accepted that its YouTube presence [was over]. In that case, it maybe benefited us, but then again that was a slightly unique multimedia project. For our current films, it would be hard to see how it would benefit us directly. We've worked with Babelgum an online streaming platform. We did a film - The End of the Line, last year and Babelgum streamed 10-15 minute chunks of it every week, and that was simultaneous with the theatrical release. That again helped as a teaser for the audience, as an awareness raiser, but it wasn't the film in its entirety. There are ways of working with these online platforms to help benefit other windows, but [streaming] the film in its entirety - perhaps not.

How do distribution territories work on the internet?

Studios control the film globally so they are able to put the film up globally without any geoblocking. But independent film distribution works differently: the producer will need representation across the world to procure sales in different countries, and will often have a sales agent. The sales agent will carve up the world into different territories - often the US is one, the UK and Ireland is one, France is one, Germany is one etc. Usually films are sold with [exclusive] rights for that particular territory, and geoblocking online is just an extension of that. If we buy a film into the UK [it follows that] the German distributor doesn't want us to profit from German audiences and vice versa. It's just an extension on traditional distribution deals, which are again fairly antiquated but worked very well before the advent of the internet. It's a logical extension [yet] fairly illogical because the whole point of the Internet is that there are no boundaries. I think that will be one of the predominant issues the whole industry will have to get its head around. Whether that means that distributors would have to take non-exclusive rights, or whatever the answer would be, is still up in the air. But as a distributor now, [Dogwoof’s] stance is to want exclusive online rights for our territory.

How do you feel about DRM (Digital Rights Management)?

I don't know if [geoblocking] prevents piracy. If people are prepared to use these legal platforms then they accept DRM. [On the other hand I don't know if] more people are going to be persuaded to go onto pirate sites if they see something geoblocked. I think people who are going to use illegal sites, will use illegal sites. i'm not convinced that people who use legal sites, will be pushed to illegal [sites] if the film isn't available. I think they will just wait for the film to be available.

What do you think the main challenges and changes are in rights exploitation in the digital age?

[Distributing] online has to be the way forwardf for the film industry, which I think is very much led from the top. I think there are a lot of very interesting smaller companies who are ready to embrace new technologies and to explore new models and revenue streams. I think from the top there's a real resistance to kind of move forward at the pace that we need to. From our perspective, we need to be consumer led because without the consumer the whole industry is dead. I think the whole mindset has to change, from the top up. The main struggle is how studios - I think they're really struggling with it - make internet work in terms of a sufficient revenue model. That's the biggest challenge. The film industry has for a long time relied on quite large profit margins especially on home video and DVD [sales]. Cinema is an awareness and profile raiser profile. Obviously online, the window that it threatens the most is home video and DVD. The challenge is trying to replicate any sort of equivalent revenue stream that's been relied on for so long. Again that's going to hit the studios the most, as bigger profit margins are relied on by bigger business. Smaller companies can do more interesting things: at Dogwoof - we're always looking for new partnerships and we're always exploring new revenue streams. We do a lot of partnerships. For example, there was Waitrose who we did The End of the Line with, and the Sunday Times, who we did a deal with for Food Inc.

What do you think the benefits or cons of the Digital Economy Act are?

I can't profess to having a very strong view. I think again it's almost a losing battle. For every site shut down, there's going to be another one that opens up within a day, and it's just inevitable, you can't prevent this stuff happening. Rather than labelling people as pirates and these awful people who are an anathema to society, we need to bring people into the fold and make them realise that the film industry does need people to pay for content on the whole. The film industry is a very expensive industry…If everyone started illegally downloading and watching films, eventually it would be a situation where people wouldn't be able to make films. We need to work with consumers rather than immediately ostracising them. We need to convey the right message how it's not all about big money, it's about supporting a film industry which is important on so many levels, helping these films get made, and just doing it in a fair way.