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Filmmaking resources for indie filmmakers, including, screenwriting, financing, producing and film distribution

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Battle Online Movie Piracy With Piracy Pollution

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Whenever I give talks related to movie distribution invariably somebody in the audience will ask me my thoughts online piracy. And my response is always the same.  If somebody wants to pirate your moive, they will figure out how to do it.

At one of my last talks, an enterprising filmmaker raised his hand and asked this question:

What would happen if I just took three-quarters of my movie  and put it on some of the popular piracy sites? Do you think if people sit through half of my movie, they would want to buy the rest?

I have been thinking about this gentleman’s question ever since. And I now realize that Piracy Pollution could potentially be a great, cost effective marketing tool.

Online Movie Piracy Pollution

What is Piracy Pollution? It’s when you take a portion of your movie and pollute the piracy sites with it. Theoretically, if someone is willing to sit through three-quarters of your movie and watch it come to an abrupt ending – they may very well seek out other sites to finish the experience.

But if you did a good job polluting the piracy sites, while at the same time peppering the internet with legitimate online press releases (that get ranked by search engines and show up on websites) your viewer may be more apt to find your website and pay the necessary money to watch your movie.

DISCLAIMER: What I am about to propose can spread your movie all over the internet and can possibly diminish your marketing efforts. I provide this disclaimer, because if you attempt Piracy Pollution – it could backfire. Your movie could end up on weird, bad, adult and unrelated sites – And you won’t be able to control this. So if you do something like this, do so at your own risk!!! (But then again, if your movie gets legitimately pirated, you’ll have the same issues anyway.)

How To Create A Piracy Pollution Campaign

Here are five tips to set up your Piracy Pollution campaign.

  1. Make sure you have a movie website.
  2. Get your movie into (at least) the Amazon marketplace or others…
  3. Embed the Watchbox player or add a link to your marketplace on your website.
  4. Uploade a small portion of your movie on Torrent type websites. (Note: Make sure you record black for the last portion. This will assure that the run time matches the actual movie.)
  5. Distribute a press release announcing the release of your movie in legitimate marketplaces.

With this strategy, an effective Piracy Pollution Campaign could help your movie get discovered in all the wrong places. But again, if someone likes your movie enough to sit through half of it, they might be inclined to pay money to watch the rest. This is where your legitimate press may also help drive valuable targeted search engine traffic back to your movie website.

What do you think of  Piracy Pollution? Leave a comment below.

Market Your Movie With Press Releases

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simplified version of the RSS feed icon
RSS feed Image via Wikipedia

If you find yourself with a movie and no idea how to sell it, get back to the basics. Unless you get an awesome distribution deal, then you are responsible for the success of your movie. The good news is, most of your sales will come from the internet. And you can get started today.

Set up your movie website at movie site host then create a way to capture targeted traffic and grow your audience list . Once you have the foundation, your next step is to drive targeted traffic to your website.

One simple way to drive traffic to your movie website is through the use of frequent press release submission.

Unlike the old days, releasing your press through the internet means you are no longer limited to traditional journalists. Instead, you can rest assured that your press will be syndicated through RSS feeds. RSS is short for real simple syndication – and many websites aggregate information from RSS feeds and re-post the “news,” complete with backlinks to your movie site.

There are quite a few paid press release submission services out there… But for $5 dollars, you can check out www.Fiverr.com and usually find someone willing to release your press for you.

Anyway, if you like this tip, you’ll love the official Movie Maker Action Pack. Grab a copy today.

Press Releases for Filmmakers

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An overview of online marketing. A simple grap...
Image via Wikipedia

Many filmmakers must take charge of their own publicity and distribution. One trick that I utilize is frequent press releases. In the past, the idea of using press releases frequently may have been a borderline no-no. The common thought was, traditional journalists would see your “news” as noise. But these days, with a gazillion websites hungry for material, a well targeted press release is a great tool to quickly spread global internet awareness of your movie.

For press releases, I suggest PRWeb. The press release distribution service is a good choice for SEO and keywords as well as quickly expanding your internet footprint. The goal of using PRWeb is not necessary to focus on traditional press, but rather, focus on presenting a keyword rich release that will then be grabbed and re-grabbed by various blogs and rss feeds for years and years to come – the result of which drives traffic back to your site.

If a few traditional press articles come from this (and that is quite possible too), then good for you!