Culture jamming pranksters The Yes Men have released their latest film on BitTorrent, unable to do so via conventional distribution channels because they are being sued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Yes Men pose as corporations, governmental organizations or NGOs they believe are hypocritical or enacting harmful policies. They deliver speeches, send out press releases and set up websites to either take the organization's policies to what The Yes Men believes are their logical conclusions, or to reverse the organization's official position.
In theory, the latter is useful as a PR stunt because it forces the organization to step forward and reiterate its potentially unpopular or controversial stance on an issue, thus raising awareness in the public and turning up the heat.
That was the strategy that made The Yes Men defendants in a lawsuit. They pretended to hold a press conference using the name and logo of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, announcing a reversal of the organization's position of climate change. The Chamber sued them for unlawfully using its trademark and intellectual property for commercial gain — that is, the sale of DVDs.
The Yes Men have made a documentary film that depicts their pranks, and that Chamber of Commerce conference is among them. None of the networks are willing touch it until the lawsuit is resolved. TorrentFreak reports that The Yes Men released the film for free on BitTorrent instead, then asked viewers for donations.
The Yes Men didn't just do this to give the impression that it's not all about commercial gain. They also did it to avoid paying for E&O or "errors and omissions" insurance, which documentary filmmakers are often required to buy if they can't verify that every detail in the fore or background of every shot is free of copyright infringement. The E&O requirement is a huge hurdle for independent filmmakers.