Crowd funding if your goal isn't met?

HKB

HKB

Well-known member
Okay, I've been asked to make a short video for a non-profit, as you guessed it they probably have very little money. You're familiar with that story. For this short film, I'm roughly estimating about 10k; I will get into actual costs once I meet with the decision makers and understand their needs and film usage.

Here is the question, if I use a film funding site that doesn't have a make or break me goal limit and I feel that the project cannot be produced for the amount of money raised (significantly below the set goal) what would be the ethical way of handling those funds?
 
If you're not going to be able to finish the project then do not take the funds. Usually they don't "charge" the donors unless you take that distribution so, don't take it.
 
A word of advice. Reach your target or don't take. I did before and project took me much longer to complete because of this. I got it done, but it made it very, very hard.
 
HKB said:
Here is the question, if I use a film funding site that doesn't have a make or break me goal limit and I feel that the project cannot be produced for the amount of money raised (significantly below the set goal) what would be the ethical way of handling those funds?
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I would not take the funds of the amount of money raised is insufficient.

Also if anyone takes public funds to realize a project I strongly feel the work should be put under a creative commons license.
 
A movie that someone else wrote that you "produced?" you declare as public? How would anyone make use of it? I don't get it
 
I understand how it works for intellectual property such as open source software just not how it would work for a movie. What value is it to the community? How can it be "shared?" Plus, I've done a couple of these for short films and most of my donors were friend and family... hardly the public.
 
David Jimerson said:
That would put almost every large commercial project under public domain.
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I'm not taking a stance, just trying to clarify what it was that Cary Knoop said. He said (if I understood correctly) if you're taking the public's dollars to make something, then the public should own it when it's done.
 
Barry_Green said:
I'm not taking a stance, just trying to clarify what it was that Cary Knoop said. He said (if I understood correctly) if you're taking the public's dollars to make something, then the public should own it when it's done.
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Oh, I know. Just fleshing it out.
 
I think applying the Creative Commons licensing to a movie is nonsense. It sounds like it could be a good idea but in what universe? Do you have an example of a movie that did that?

I don’t get it. How would that work? MySQL is an open source database. I can download it and use it in a project thanks to the open source license as long as I say so. I can amend the code as long as I share it.

Now I made a movie thanks to funds gotten in a crowd funding campaign. Forgetting that those donors don’t necessarily represent “the public” how would anyone make use of a copyright of my movie? Would they find a vacant theater and show it there without having to pay me a fee? Would they extend it by changing the ending to their liking and then share that with the community? What is being licensed? The dialog? The music? The shot selection?
 
Cary Knoop said:
That's nonsense, we are talking about projects realized by donations from the public.
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Well, that's totally different. I thought you were talking about public dollars -- as in, funds that were extracted from taxpayers by force of law. Under that scenario, I could see your point. But I guess that wasn't your point?

If you're talking about donations that people made voluntarily, that's entirely different. Why would you expect to have ownership over something that someone else made with something you gave them? Giving a gift is just that -- giving. Nobody has a right to say what you do with their gift. As long as you're upfront with the people about what you're going to do, they're free to give to you, and you're free to do it.
 
hscully said:
I think applying the Creative Commons licensing to a movie is nonsense.
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You are entitled to your opinion, I think that anyone who dedicates their footage to the public domain is giving a gift to the public.

I don't think it is nonsense at all, it means movies, documentaries, clips etc can be freely distributed and copied (and edited or reused depending on the type of license).
Also films produced by the government are public domain, including NASA productions.

Here is a project using audio I supported, donators provide the expenditures for the production cost and the resulting work can be freely used by the public, including you!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/opengoldberg/libre-art-of-the-fugue
 
Barry_Green said:
If you're talking about donations that people made voluntarily, that's entirely different. Why would you expect to have ownership over something that someone else made with something you gave them? Giving a gift is just that -- giving. Nobody has a right to say what you do with their gift. As long as you're upfront with the people about what you're going to do, they're free to give to you, and you're free to do it.
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This is what I wrote:

"Also if anyone takes public funds to realize a project I strongly feel the work should be put under a creative commons license. "


I gave my opinion, I did not write that one must do it, and if your argument is that there is no law against it I agree with you as well.
There is no law that requires someone to say "thank you" when someone holds the door for you either but I hope you agree that that will not prevent people from having the opinion one ought to do it anyway!
 
Huhn... OK. Good example on the music. I guess it could work for a doc but I’m still at a loss as to how it work for a narrative film but thanks for citing a couple of decent examples.
 
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Cary Knoop said:
That's nonsense, we are talking about projects realized by donations from the public.
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OK, sorry for misunderstanding.

But that's a weaker position, I think, than the one I (and Barry) thought you were taking, that it was about public dollars.

It would be one thing to argue that the work should belong to everyone who donated (though that should be up to the producers and the donors to work out among themselves).

But it's quite another to say that a privately-funded work should become public domain because there were a lot of donors. I just don't think that follows at all.
 
Oh yeah, Cary. The music project you cite, I think that music is already in the public domain. The copyright, especially as regards, screenwriters, union actors, music composers, etc. on a narrative film could very well make licensing under the Creative Commons impossible. It all just seem so unlikely.
 
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