http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/amazon-video-direct-lowers-royalty-rates-1201925708/
Here is an interesting article from Indiewire. While many say that we are living in a golden age for documentary film – for a variety of reasons – the landscape continues to evolve. In an age when it is increasingly easy to enter into production, this fact seemingly illustrating the elimination of a financial barrier, is offset by the fact that once your movie is picked up for distribution on one of the platforms, the market prices for this are going down. Amazon Prime, it would seem, has lowered their royalty rates for films that are picked up for their streaming platform.
In the past, the obstacles to getting your film out to the public had to do with the difficulties in production: the cost of cameras, lights and film stock, et cetera. However, we are entering an age in which anyone with a little bit of technical knowhow can pick up an iphone and create a “film.” This flood of content constantly vies for our attention, and the bar has to be moved, from those involving production to those involving curation. The problem of curation, I think, is quite substantial, and I’d like to explore the topic in greater detail over the coming months. Of course, one of the major players in the curation game is Amazon, and the algorithms that they employ, the ones that will choose which titles to display at the top of your screen under “more titles you might like” or “top choices for Justin” et cetera are fast becoming the gatekeepers for the attention of the public. It’s one of those behind−the−scenes functions that carries with it an enormous amount of power. The nature in which this power is wielded will become increasingly important in the near future. Hopefully we can find a way to navigate this interplay faithfully.