clipped from www.nytimes.com

Now Mr. Sloss and his New York company, Cinetic Media, are rolling out a new business called Cinetic Rights Management. The executive and his team — he just hired Matt Dentler, the highly regarded director of the South by Southwest film festival — will act as sales agents for filmmakers who have been left on the sidelines. And here is the twist: The goal is not exhibition in theaters but rather distribution via the Internet and other growing delivery routes like cable on-demand services.

While no single title is likely to deliver a windfall — unless it breaks through as an unexpected hit — the company is betting that the “long tail” of niche content on the Internet will, in aggregate, produce meaningful income.

The two big puzzles nobody seems able to solve are how to have more of these films seen and how to make money doing it. As it is, several thousand films produced each year — ranging in cost from a few thousand dollars to a few million — are just eating capital.