This year has been a strange one for many reasons. But one thing I didn’t see coming was the richest person on the planet ripping off people who are making him money (albeit a drop in the ocean comparatively). Maybe I was naive.
So, a little context: ‘ANHEDONIA’ arrived on Amazon Prime October 2019. For the first few months it was smooth sailing. We were receiving lovely feedback from those who watched and loved it, were on track to make back the budget over the course of one year, and things were basically going great.
Then we got pirated. Something you can only protect against by paying an outside company to protect you from. If we hadn’t published the film to be included in the Prime Subscription (meaning it was instead only available pay per view/rent/buy), this wouldn’t have been as likely a problem. But at first it seemed like a great idea. It legitimised us, anyone could access the film whenever they wanted, and we would earn back royalties over time.
I’ve since come to think the piracy wasn’t such a bad thing. The numbers of people watching the film doubled (based on interest in the trailer, position on illegal streaming sites for a few weeks – we had 30,000 viewers over a one month period). So that isn’t where the issue was as such.
At the start of this year I received an email stating that Amazon would be changing their royalty rates. Where we earned around 95% of a unique sale (rental/purchase) and roughly £1 per viewing anytime someone watched ‘included with Prime’. The rate dropped by 84% to £0.16… a fine kick in the teeth after the film getting pirated and our paid numbers dropping by two thirds.
So I grew to accept this over the year and was just happy the film was out there.
But then a new email arrived this week. Our royalty rates will be more than halved again. So now, if you were to watch ‘ANHEDONIA’ using the ‘included with Prime’ option, we would make a whopping £0.07! MAXIMUM!
Included in the email (see below) is a note that suggests, at their discretion, the company can make it as low as 1p per hour, meaning if you were to watch the whole film ‘included with prime’ we would make 2p. Just think about that for a second. A film that I poured blood, sweat and tears into, clawed to get made over three years… and we can make 2p if you watch it this way.
So as of this weekend the film will be available to rent or buy, but no longer included with Prime.
If you have a net worth of almost $205 billion, you don’t need to screw over artists who tirelessly work over several years to make something they’re truly passionate about. To give this further perspective, imagine you wrote a book and wanted to sell it, but you were only going to make 0.03%, despite doing all the work. This year we saw a boost around April and July – roughly 800-1200 new viewers each time. Guess how much we made in those months… £2.17 and £3.81 respectively.
The above may read more as a rant than anything, but I want this to be a warning for any other filmmakers considering putting their films on the site. You can self-distribute and make back your budget. You can put your own film on sites so people can pirate it if you want to get a larger audience. You don’t have to give 93% of what you earn to a man who already has everything. That’s insane.
For anyone looking to support us directly, you can now watch the film On Demand through our site for just £3 (we make 94% this way).