I’ve been a fan of Sita Sings the Blues, the animated serial that gradually became a feature work by Nina Paley for quite a while now. I missed out last fall when it came to the Austin Film Festival, and have yet to see the finished, completed work, only the five segments that were released early during its production, not counting the trailer.

Given that it was made without any advance concern about legal propriety, full distribution is apparently a problem. “Sita” makes use of songs by Annette Hanshaw, a 1930s blues singer whose work is largely obscured now, but no one wants to rely on “fair use” if you start burning DVDs.

So, in true artist to-hell-with-the-system fashion, Paley’s decided to copyleft the whole business and raise the $50,000 necessary to get “Sita” out of “copyright jail.” After which, presumably, the DVDs can be “given away” to anyone who wants one.

Good enough for me. $50 from me to bail out Sita. And you should give, too. Roger Ebert likes Sita. James Kochalka likes Sita. BoingBoing likes Sita. Heidi McDonald likes Sita.

You really should, too.