As an independent filmmaker currently wrestling with how to distribute my third film, I have been following the Red State distribution saga closely, and your quote from Mr. Bailey about this being all about ego couldn't be more wrong. Like the music industry, Hollywood has a long history of screwing over the artists. There's even a well-known phrase for this - "Hollywood Accounting" - where film distributors cook the books to make it look like films don't make any profit; thus no royalties are ever due to the artists.  But now new options exist for self-distribution, and that's exactly what Smith tackled. 

We filmmakers have a choice now: Sell 100,000 copies through a distributor and get 50 cents per unit ($50,000) - if they're honest! - or do it ourselves and maybe sell only 5,000 copies, but make $12 per unit ($60,000). Now, imagine a guy like Kevin Smith, who already has a huge following. He can get thousands of dollars in free publicity just by standing on a street corner and talking. Smith - a filmmaker with clout and powerful agents who can negotiate better deals than us little people can get - still looked at the situation and decided doing it himself was the better option. 

It will be interesting to see if Smith - not the film, but the artist - ends up making more or less from this experiment than if he'd gone through the Weinsteins.

Those themes overlap with our own desire to bypass the publishing industry in putting out The View From Your Window and The Cannabis Closet using print-on-demand. The other reader:

As someone in the Independent film business, I have to take issue with Jason Bailey's indictment of Kevin Smith. Smith can be a pompous blowhard, no doubt, but what he did with Red State was actually a fairly savvy marketing ploy for someone in his position. And, as Bailey admits, the film is in the black: His financiers made their money back plus profit, Smith has made money, and the DVD/streaming money will be pure profit. Let me explain.