Hi Steem. I'm Kendama Gendale, Artist and Copyright Activist. Lets make some art.

in #introduceyourself • 8 years ago (edited)

Hi Steemit, 

I'm Kendama Gendale. My life goal is to build a production company that produces copyright free and Creative Commons entertainment. I wanted to do this introduction thing right.

I'm an amateur comedian, musician, and writer, and I live in the middle of Montana. 

I started getting into cryptocurrency in 2013. Before that, I remember reading a blog post by Rick Falkvinge back in 2010, where he said that he was taking out loans in order to buy bitcoins. Huh, I thought. That's kind of interesting. 

Then, I mostly ignored Bitcoin for a while. Really until the big price hike. I had been learning a good bit about cryptography and encryption after the Snowden hacks, and it was really only a matter of time until I started seriously looking into Bitcoin. I was hooked. 

At first, I was bummed that I missed out on the big wave, so to speak. So many people had just made so much money in the market. And I could only imagine how Rick Falkvinge was doing. 


So what was I supposed to do? I had missed the boat. I was making tacos for a living. I didn't have any money to buy Bitcoins or start messing around with cryptocurrency. But what fascinated me wasn't the money. It was the tech. I was blown away by the technical breakthrough that Bitcoin accomplished. I started digging in and trying to learn more about the protocol, the platform, and the economics of Bitcoin. 

So then I got a job as a charity, fundraising cryptocurrency for sick and injured kids. We did AMAZING work! I was so proud. We fundraised thousands of dollars (for a real 501(c)3 not any of that dicey cryptocharity crap) of Dogecoin to help families in need. 

Meanwhile I was still working with Restore the Fourth and super interested in privacy activism. As the leadership of Restore the Fourth deteriorated, I became more frustrated, and more convinced that if I was going to make a difference, I wanted to do it myself. 

I realized then that SO MUCH of surveillance is predicated on the assumption that it's illegal to copy streaming video services. I realized that if content creators could be convinced to remove DRM from their products, then there was no reason to use copyright anymore, and subsequently we wouldn't need nearly as much surveillance. 

So I set to work. I started reaching out to artists to try and convince them to release their content under Creative Commons, and to accept Bitcoin and Dogecoin. I wanted to build the infrastructure to create surveillance free entertainment. I had some amazing successes. I  convinced a bunch of musicians to accept cryptocurrency. I met tons of cool Creative Commons artists. I released three movies, and even ended up releasing the first ever Oscar-nominated film to be entered into the Creative Commons.

But I kept running into problems. Artists wouldn't understand why they should give up money. It was hard to communicate my vision of a post-copyright world when that vision basically amounted to me telling artists they they should be more poor. I knew I had toredo it myself. 

After working with dogecoin and charity I had the opportunity to spend time creating the art that I truly believed in and wanted to make, so I took that opportunity. I've spent years working on my personal projects, and all the art is Creative Commons. I want to entertain you and change your view of what art is. And I don't need to surveil you while I do it. 

Here's a video I made and posted to Steemit a couple days ago. There's gonna be a lot more where that came from. :)

#introductions #intro #steem #steemit
8 years ago in #introduceyourself by
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