Last week, B-Side launched the feature documentary RIP: A Remix Manifesto as high quality, DRM-free download on a Pay What You Want model.

In RIP, which made its US debut at SXSW earlier this year, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, raising fundamental questions about the nature of creativity and commerce.  The documentary features mash-up artist Girl Talk, Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, and BoingBoing.net founder Cory Doctorow.  A participatory media experiment from day one, Gaylor shared his raw footage online throughout production at opensourcecinema.org, incorporating sequences remixed by other filmmakers, animators, and students into his final product.

When tackling marketing and distribution for a film about free culture, it was clear to all of us at B-Side that our approach had to fit the subject matter. The core audience for RIP is made up of exactly the kind of fans other distributors fear most: tech-savvy, anti-DRM, Creative Commons-loving downloaders.  So rather than treat our audience like Hollywood does – as distrusted adversaries – we decided to embrace the principles of RIP.

Visitors to ripremix.com can name their own price – including free – and download RIP in any one of multiple formats. Current download formats include an iPod / iPhone compatible portable file, a DVD resolution Quicktime, and a standard ISO format DVD image – all free from copy protection of any kind.  Starting next week, HD versions will be made available, as will additional special features including unreleased performance footage of Girl Talk and extended interviews not included in the film.

This is the first time that the name-your-price model pioneered by the band Radiohead for the release of their album In Rainbows has been employed for a major feature film.  Along with the download program, we’ve introduced an Open Source Film Tour, where organizations, non-profits, and fans can sign up to host digital screenings of RIP without paying the screening fees typically demanded for public exhibition of other films.

We’re thrilled to be able to release RIP in a way that is so in tune with the spirit of the film. For that opportunity, I have to thank our 3 forward-looking partners: RIP production company EyeSteelFilm, the National Film Board of Canada, and RIP Home Video distributor The Disinformation Company. Without them, this groundbreaking release would never have been possible.

Here are 3 more ways to check out RIP:

Watch RIP in streaming chapters on the NFB’s web site at nfb.ca
Remix RIP yourself and contribute at opensourcecinema.org
Buy RIP on iTunes

Enjoy.

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RIP screening at NYU

A missive from Liz Ogilvie, our VP of Marketing in NYC, about the May 1st screening of RIP! A Remix Manifesto.

With New York City being bombarded by a massive rainstorm it did not come as a surprise when we received an update from the director Brett Gaylor that his early morning flight from Montreal was delayed into JFK. Thinking the weather would pass in time for the RIP! A REMIX MANIFESTO screening and panel discussion, we were on the edge of our seats when the Twitter updates throughout the day from Brett informed us he would be arriving into Manhattan just as the intro was taking place at Wollman Auditorium, Cooper Union at 6:30 p.m.

Wearing waterproofs and galoshes we headed downtown to meet with Howard Weinberg, President of The New York Film/Video Council and Rina Pantalony, Professor, NYU Tisch School of the Arts who had organized the event where we reluctantly accepted the fact there would be no filmmaker and no audience. However, it takes more than a downpour to keep a New York audience away and before long the theater filled up and within seconds to screening time Brett rushed in, set up his laptop, and screened the Ann Arbor Film Festival audience award-winning version of RIP! [it had been mashed since its premiere at SxSW.

The audience responded with boos and cheers and when it came time for the panel discussion Rina was joined by Brett (center in the picture above), Brad Lichtenstein (Director/Blogger, What We Got: DJ Spooky’s Journey to the Commons at left in photo) and Bruce Sinofsky (Co-Director, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, at right) to a very heated debate about the copyright war from both the audience and panelists.

Photo credit: Peter Bihr

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