I just found out about another couple examples of the freemium model at play, where indie filmmakers published their content for free online, and then profited through secondary merchandising.Indie filmmaker Timo Vuorensola crowdsourced the making of his parody film Star Wreck through a Finnish social networking site and released it in 2005 for free. 700,000 copies were downloaded in the first week, and now the total has reached 9,000,000. Online sales of the DVD and t-shirt merchandising have generated $430,000 on when the film only cost $21,000 to make. They have now secured a proper distribution deal with Revolver Entertainment in the US and UK, and gone on to make a sequel.
Nina Paley released Sita Sings the Blues online earlier this year. She first created a personal blog to develop a community of supporters before posting the film online for free. Paley monetised it through merchandising, selling prints, and a donations box on her website. To date she's made $55,000 profit, and secured theatrical distribution in France and the US.More detail about these two examples can be found in the Time article "Why Indie Directors Are Releasing Movies Online - For Free," by Monisha Rajesh.
If you haven't already, you might want to read my case studies on other freemium projects:
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