Yep, you heard right. The new pre-release is out, and available for download. All those who have donated thus far are included in the end credits. My main concern right now are the graphics – namely the lack of them. If you have ideas as to what I can add where in that respect, feel free to email me.
Download the Pre-Release v0.8:
Download via HTTP.
Download via Bittorrent.
See it now on Google Video.
The new version features some improved audio, a completely revamped soundtrack, and added graphics. The final version may or may not contain a new interview, and is likely to contain more a few more graphics.
I’ll need your help though, coming up with ideas of what kind of visuals I could add to the film to help bridge the technical gap between the not-so-technically inclined and the documentary itself.
Update:
Add a few extra days to that. It’s currently 12AM May 21st; and I’m on render cycle 4 of 5. When I wake up, I’ll start render cycle 5. When I come back from work, I’ll start the upload processes (Piracydoc HTTP Mirror; Google Video). Everything should be up by the morning of May 22nd.
As for the interviews I’ve been trying to conduct: no new word.
A Mysterious Call:
And while I was out at a friend’s place today, I got a call from a foreign area code. As it turned out, it was someone based in Pennsylvania that had heard about the situation I was in with the “Ain’t Misbehavin” song – pretty neat. He offered a few suggestions as to possible ways of dealing with the situation, and we chatted a bit. Only because of the delay, I kept interrupting him. :S
Pretty cool experience.
I’ve decided to try to get one last interview. There’s a pro-DRM stance that has been ignored in my film, and for the sake of balance I want it included.
I’ve sent out three phone interview requests to parties that would be involved in such a stance. They haven’t replied yet, and I’ll be calling them Friday to get updates. This is how interviews are had people: you call, call, and call again.
Apart from that, the film remains unchanged and uncensored. I’ve cleaned up alot of the audio, have a solid soundtrack setup, and am in the midst of adding animations to the film to help less tech-oriented people in understanding the concepts at hand.
Sooo my plan was to replace the soundtrack with Royalty Free music. So I bought a CD of decent royalty free music, which cost $100. With or without donations I was going to do it.
And guess what – as it turns out, the CD might not be royalty free in *Canada*. So I called up RoyaltyFreeMusic’s support line. I had sent them an email beforehand, saying I hadn’t yet purchased the music as I didn’t want to pressure them into a defensive “no refund” stance, as that wasn’t what I was after. I just wanted to know what was up with royalties.
Well, as it turns out, I’m good. They have all rights on their music, and agencies such as the CMRRA are not supposed to collect royalties or funds on their behalf. CMRRA also returned me an email; and apparently they don’t have the songs in their database. So I’m good. Thank god. I was very close to just giving up entirely.
I received a call today from the president of the association in Canada in charge of reproductive rights on music. The final track on the documentary – “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, was still under copyright. I obtained the song from a public domain database, but as I was informed, things aren’t so simple. I thank the person very much for informing me of this, esp. in the kind fashion he did.
In any case I’m pulling down all links to the documentary from my site until the issue is resolved. I’ve also deleted the video from my uploads section on Google; and I’m pulling all the links I’ve given to the communities I discussed it with. Finally, I’m sending a letter to ThePirateBay asking that they take down the torrent.
This is not the end of the documentary. All that that means is that I have to remove the final track, which is not a problem. However, since it takes about 24 hours of supervised work/rendering to apply such changes, I’ll implement these with the final rendition of the film, due out in a week. Until then, I’ll make sure to remove all references to the infringing copy.
I offer my sincerest apologies to all those that were affected.