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Nina Paley, director of the award-wining animated feature Sita Sings the Blues, is selling a night with her to the highest bidder in an effort to get her film out of what she calls "copyright jail."
"Don't get your hopes up," Paley warns. "I'm actually selling the seat next to me at the Spirit Awards."
The eBay fund-raising effort stems from a copyfight struggle that has made Paley's movie a cause célèbre for advocates of copyright reform.
The problem? Sita Sings the Blues is built around blues recordings from the 1920s, songs that Paley says "should have been in the public domain in the 1980s."
But frequent changes to copyright law in the 1980s and '90s mean that copyright protection lasts longer, and fewer works fall into the public domain. To get her movie distributed, Paley would have to pay about $50,000 in licensing fees to various music rights groups.
"Thanks to copyright extensions," she explained, "this is what artists have to resort to."
Auctioning off a dream date to see the indie film awards show is just one tactic Paley's using in an effort to see Sita released.
"Getting Sita made, compared with everything that followed, was the easy part," Paley said.
The lucky bidder who wins Paley's auction will attend Film Independent's Spirit Awards on Feb. 21 in Santa Monica, California, as the animator's guest.
"You'll get to prance down the red carpet with me as the paparazzi try to figure out who the hell we are, eat and drink whatever they serve at the event, and clap politely at the various awards," Paley said.
As an added bonus, the winner can expect to listen to Paley talk endlessly about copyright issues and freedom of speech. "I'll probably be the only one at the event talking about that," she said.
Bidding starts at $1,000 and closes Jan. 29 at 7:42 p.m. PST. Non-bidders can donate to the Sita Distribution Project at QuestionCopyright.org.
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