What better way to segue out of my recent torrent (pun very much intended) of anti-copyright, free culture hippie posts than to talk about an excellent documentary which I’d never have seen if it weren’t for the horrible, illegal practice of pirating movies on the high seas Internet? Blue Gold is a film I heard about when TorrentFreak reported the fact that the director was embracing the piracy of the movie, happy that more people would see the movie, and can they please donate. That’s not what the movie’s about, though. It’s about how the dwindling water supply on Earth could make us slaves to corporations if we don’t do something about it. Have a look at the trailer:
The film is excellent, showing why the water’s disappearing, why it could kill us all, how governments and corporations (the line is blurry) are exploiting it, and how we can fix this whole fiasco. It proposes “the blue alternative,” which is a bunch of simple ideas that can be used to help rainwater get back into the ground and heal the disrupted natural cycle, among other things. I guess now we have to go blue as well as green. Can’t we just simplify it and go turquoise?
Colorful buzzwords aside, everyone should see this movie. It’s available free on The Pirate Bay, and you can buy the DVD or donate from the official site.
The Indie Paradox: Paying Rent Without Depending On Corporations
Large corporations have come up with a solution: go into the manufacturing business. They are now Digital Rights Manufacturing companies, creating new rights for themselves using a revolutionary new process known as “fellating lawmakers”. Their revenue stream comes from licensing these digital rights at high prices, and suing people who don’t pay. But it’s too expensive for indie artists and creators, and it doesn’t win you any friends.
Because of this situation, indie game developers are doing horrible things like experimenting with in-game advertising. I’m not saying this as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of annoying ads bombarding us. I’m saying this as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of depending on the advertising industry for revenue.
Think about it: TV series with devoted fanbases are cancelled because they don’t make enough ad revenue. Millions of websites depending on Google AdSense would go broke if their accounts were inexplicably terminated (I’ve read about this happening before but can’t find a link detailing it. Maybe I’m typing the wrong words into Goo…gle…wait a minute). And remember when GameSpot fired Jeff Gertsmann when their advertisers didn’t like his reviews? For people who call themselves indie, it’s not very indie-pendent.
The best way to be indie in any medium, be it game development, filmmaking, music, writing…hell, even running a business in general, the only party you should be depending on is individual people. Some may know them as “customers”, or “users” who “generate content” on your “social media application”, but let’s avoid such corporate-speak, as it makes baby Jesus cry and is killing America. But there’s still the problem of how exactly to make money on individual people anymore. In a world where art is hard work and people don’t seem to want to pay for it, one man will stand up to explain his opinion. That man is me. Reread the previous two sentences in a movie trailer guy voice, then click the jump-cut-continue-reading thingy:
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