Confronting the Enclosure of the Cultural Commons

Abstract

The cartoonist and filmmaker Nina Paley became a vociferous opponent of proprietary control of creative work under U.S. copyright law following her experiences in making her award-winning Sita Sings the Blues (2009), an animated feature film based largely on the ancient Indian epic story of the Ramayana set to music from the 1920s, whose rights are owned by media corporations. Paley released her film, and all subsequent work, under a Creative Commons license, which not only made it freely available to anyone who wished to view, share, and add to her creative work but also legally protected her work as part of the cultural commons in perpetuity. In this interview with Amy Chazkel, Paley explains her travails as she tried to “free” her work, the artistic and creative benefit of doing so, and the rationale behind her political conviction. She also probes the connections between the enclosure of the cultural and the material commons.

Media Review: Sita Sings the Blues

“…Religions exert political, institutional, and especially social authority over markets (Mittelstaedt 2002). In the case of Sita Sings the Blues, Hindu religious fundamentalists have tried to shut down distribution because they believe the film defiles a sacred text (Chazkel 2011). A religious conglomerate known as Hindu Janajagruti Samiti has fumed that ''The film attempts to misrepresent the events and characters of Ramayana in most derogatory manner through its explicit graphics, audio and dialogues'' (Ekadashi 2009).…”

“…The owners wanted $220,000 for licensing rights, a sum eventually negotiated down to $50,000, but even that amount plus $20,000 in attorney's fees was a lot of money for Paley to scrape together. The entire production budget for the film was under $200,000 (Chazkel 2011). Paley did finally settle, releasing the songs from ''copyright jail'' as she put it, but because of the initial problems with copyright infringement, the film never had a theatrical run through conventional distribution.…”

Nina Paley: La fusión entre la animación 2D y la animación tradicional

“…Aquí, en España, también tenemos ejemplos de modelos libres que funcionan: José María Castillejo, el presidente de Zinkia, la productora de Pocoyo, en una entrevista afirmaba: 217 Chazkel. A (2011) Bailey.…”