Disclaimer

This is a blog written by a lawyer, so of course it has to open with a disclaimer. Here goes:

As you will note by the fact that you are staring at a screen full of text and not a real person, this is a website and not an attorney. Nothing in this blog is intended as legal advice or to substitute for the personalized advice of a lawyer. Only your lawyer can tell you which laws apply to your particular situation. Laws change all the time and may be subject to numerous exceptions that are not covered by this blog. There are no guarantees as to the accuracy or applicability of the information presented herein. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Crowd-source Funding

Need money for your film? Do members of the family Ursidae defecate within an amalgamation of perennial woody plants?

Sure you can raise money from rich uncles, cousins, and local loan sharks. But why risk running afoul of the securities laws if your film flops (or sleeping with the fishes if you went the loan shark route) when you can just ask thousands of people you don’t know for a handout? More and more filmmakers are harnessing the power of the web and turning to micro lending and crowd sourcing for loans and donations.

One popular pledge-based site is http://www.kickstarter.com/. Here, filmmakers can post projects and ask for specific amounts of money to be donated to their films. Using a PBS pledge-drive model, filmmakers can offer DVDs, posters, on-screen credit, walk-on roles, etc. for patrons who pledge at different levels. And since these are pledges, not loans, there is no need to repay the money if your film flops and no obligation to fork over your hard-earned gelt to investors if your film is a smash hit.

No comments:

Post a Comment