Here is my secret 11 herbs and spices recipe for how I approached creating the documentary and then Creative Commons licensing the final work.

Create a really good movie.
I mean, just go overboard. Totally do as much research as you can, spend months working stuff out, talk to thousands of people on the subject, compose tools for tracking that information you gather. Get a mailing list with advisors. Film everywhere, do all the background filming, don’t blink when opportunities arise. Get footage like you wouldn’t believe, and then edit that thing for months on end until it absolutely sings. Then kick it in the crotch and make it sing louder and on key.

Result: You have a product that people respect.

Create some kick-ass packaging.
Find out what your printing company offers, then ask for a custom version. Take enormous insane risks in the creation of the packaging so that it has a unique feel. Use full color. Use photos. Get a professional cover artist to make you some custom artwork that catches the eye like a fishhook. Embed little messages into the artwork. Get artists from around the world to contribute little pieces. Find out what’s required to make the package look unique, and then exceed it.

Result: You have a package that can’t be easily reproduced digitally, and which represents a unique experience in owning it.

Make it easy to order and ask questions.
Use Paypal, Kagi, Amazon, whoever wants to sell it. Allow yourself to be contacted for questions and inquiries. Be responsive. Treat people who want to buy your work with respect and honor, do not cheat them or claim your work is something it is not. Allow them to see previews, to see what they’re getting. Be upfront and honest if there are delays and explain carefully what is going on so people who give you money are not in the dark and feeling like they were had. Share your pain and your happiness as the person working on your project.

Result: Customers will respect your work and effort and purchase instead of copying it, since it’s just as easy.

Be available for autographs and discussions.
Answer e-mail as quickly as you can. If people want you to autograph the package, be willing to do so, no questions asked. Go to places where people who buy your works are around, and answer questions/show them you’re a real person. Do not use agents, handlers, bodyguards, bouncers or an entourage to make people feel you consider them a “problem” in your life.

Result: People will know you’re a person who has sunk themselves and their spirit into the product.

Realize that some people simply do not buy media anymore.
Even if you are honest, open, friendly, making a kick-ass product and totally changing the world with your little whooziz, some people, on principle, do not pay for media. This is what they do and they have tools to get media for free, tools that are better than your tools are and which are much more ubiquitous and better updated. In realizing this, perhaps you will stop treating every single person who purchases your product like a scumbag, guilty until proven innocent, beneath and below you. A number of people do not pay. This happens at the circus, the rock concert, your local supermarket and at your job. To turn your customer base into a constantly-on-alert totalitarian wasteland is not the effective solution. Instead, assume that if you’ve actually made a unique, interesting product and put your heart into it and made something that can’t truly be duplicated, people will pay. And if you treat them like they’re human beings, they’ll ask other people to pay too.

Result: You save a lot of lawyers fees, and people feel like customers and not shotgun targets. Also, your breath will smell better.

You can see where I’m going with this, I hope.