Sundog has been using short clips featuring billionaire Richard Branson, actress Kate Winslet, actor Gael Garcia Bernal and rapper Dizzie Rascal to draw attention to it ahead of its online release.

The strategy seems to be working: The official Breaking The Taboo YouTube channel has clocked more than 300,000 views since its launch on November 16. But why would Sundog release the entire film for free on YouTube ahead of its TV broadcast? I got in touch with the company to find out, and a spokesperson sent me the following response:

“We have decided to go with a YouTube release as the important thing for us as a company is not monetary gain but raising awareness and spreading the word on global issues — we aim to educate and inspire people and we can do that best through a free, social medium like YouTube where so many more people will be able to access it.”

The movie will be available for free for one month starting December 7. It is part of a larger campaign to change drug policy that has attracted support from a variety of people including Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox, Napster co-founder Sean Parker and Sting.

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Variety reports today that ClickStar told its content providers in April that it was exploring a sale. An excerpt from the letter:

“Over the last twelve months, our vision for broadband distribution has been confirmed by the marketplace,” chief technical officer Sam Edge wrote, citing download sites launched by Amazon, Blockbuster, and Wal-Mart. “With the entry of these well-funded players into our space…it has become increasingly clear that ClickStar needs to align itself with a key partner to operate within the larger ecosystem and serve our core audience…We have decided to partner or sell ClickStar…”

Nothing public has come of that letter, but the closed-down ClickStar site sports a cheery away message: “The ClickStar site is currently unavailable. Please check back with us in the next few days for some exciting news!” We don’t know how long that message has been up. (The Internet Archive hasn’t indexed the site since last year.)

The news also came out today that Starz’ Vongo, which coincidentally launched at the same CES show as ClickStar in 2006, will also shut down. The forgiving interpretation would be to say it was too early for these services — and that’s probably true. They also didn’t have the clout to offer more extensive libraries.

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