Writer and director, while “not excited that people are seeing the film without paying,” love the fact that BitTorrent has given Ink an “enormous amount of exposure.”
Many of us BitTorrent users are well aware that at best there’s a casual relationship between availability on tracker sites and box office ticket sales.
For example, The Dark Knight, despite becoming last year’s most pirated movie, also earned more than $1 billion USD worldwide.
For Indie movie producers, much like up and coming music artists, BitTorrent’s potential is enormous, giving them a worldwide audience and exposure with only the cost of a few mouse clicks.
Enter the movie Ink.
Over this past weekend the movie was “ripped off” and uploaded to several BitTorrent tracker sites. While knowing that it would happen eventually, what they didn’t expect was the speed with which the movie would “blow up” afterwards. It’s currently #16 on IMDb’s movie meter and one of the top 20 most popular movies in the world.
Ink’s writer and director are both pleased with the turn of events. Though obviously not “excited that people are seeing the film without paying” they are definitely enjoying the “enormous amount of exposure” that availability on BitTorrent has given them.
Yesterday they sent an email to those involved in the project, acknowledging what happened, and also emphasizing their happiness with how piracy has given them “unprecedented exposure.”
It reads:
Dear Fans and Friends,
Over the weekend something pretty extraordinary happened. Ink got ripped off. Someone bit torrented the movie (we knew this would happen) and they posted it on every pirate site out there. What we didn’t expect was that within 24 hours Ink would blow up. Ink became the number 1 most downloaded movie on several sites having been downloaded somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 times as far as we can tell. Knowing there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, we’ve embraced the piracy and are just happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure.
As a result, Ink is now ranked #16 on IMDb’s ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071804/ ) movie meter and is currently one of the top 20 most popular movies in the world.
This all started as a result of the completely underground buzz that you’ve each helped us create. We’ve had no distributor, no real advertising and yet the word of mouth that you’ve generated has made the film blow up as soon as it became available worldwide. So many of you came to see the movie multiple times, bringing friends and family and many of you have bought the DVD and Blu-ray from us. All of this built up and built up and suddenly it exploded.
We don’t know exactly where this will all lead, but the exposure is unquestionably a positive thing.
Ink hits Netflix ( http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Ink/70125584 ), Blockbuster (http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/movieDetails/439536 ), iTunes ( http://www.itunes.com ) and many more tomorrow! Remember to get your signed copies, t-shirts and posters at the Ink Store ( http://www.DoubleEdgeFilms.com ).
Thank you so much for the constant love and support.
Jamin and Kiowa Double Edge Films ( http://www.jaminwinans.com )
The letter belies the usual MPAA line that one illegal download equals one lost sale and that file-sharing services and applications, BitTorrent in particular due to its speed, have no useful purpose and should be throttled by ISPs.
Ink is just but another example of how P2P can put content in the hands of fans where it belongs and I think Jamin and Kiowa would agree.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
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Watch the Trailer
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Looks like a cheesy sci fi flick that would only be popular through cult followings. It is a show that I would be surprised to see by popular as a tv show let alone a movie. To be honest I don't blame people for filesharing the movie, as its one of those films where I would be reluctant to pay 10 to 15$ to see it. Personally I've always believed that there should be tiered ticket pricing in theaters for lower budget films. This would encourage people to view smaller budget films that in reality probably have a different optimum profit curve than big budget films.
Lolo…yah tried to watch, lasted about 10 seconds.
I think 25-30$ total is more reasonable.. Last time i paid 10-15$ was like 1995-2000.. Prices have only gone up..
Well the prices in your city are downright stupid, at 25 30$ I would never go to the movies. Cost here is $10 for regular movie $15 for a 3d movie. Although concession is stupid, but no one buys concession.
Now that I actually watched the movie, I can further my claims. This movie is very amateurish work. Half the movie is filled with over the top, needless camera and effects that do nothing to drive the story. The rest of the movie is mostly cheesy acting with scripts that move forward with the complexity of a preschool book. What are we gonna do, oh funny you should ask that, we are going to do so and so and so which is explained by so and so and so, wow we solved the problem as soon as it came up. The movie has a promising skeleton, but is terribly fleshed out and came across as very amateurish, wouldn't bother with it.
Film history is filled with movies like this I think, the kind of movies that Mystery Science Theater was built on. Does this movie aspire to be anything more?
I like B for budget movies a lot, from The Brain that Wouldn’t Die to The Last Man On Earth I think they are great!
My specialty is cheesy family movies with Dogs in them, like Chomps, Poco, Digby, Summer Dog, Dog Trouble and many more.