Kickstarter has only been around for a few years (it was founded in 2008), but since then it's become an essential tool for people looking to raise money for...just about anything. We've certainly mentioned it a time or two here on the Mr. Skin blog.

So it was only natural that when DistribPix needed to stir up interest (and yeah, some money) for a Blu-ray release of their deluxe restoration of Radley Metger's classic The Opening of Misty Beethoven, they would turn to the popular crowd-funding site.

The campaign was a great success- over a hundred people backed the project, which raised over 80% of its $10,000 goal with more than two weeks left to go. But Kickstarter wasn't feeling the love, and citing "community standards" has pulled the campaign with no plans to re-instate it. As DistribPix's Steven Morowitz (who we interviewed recently on the Mr. Skin blog) said yesterday in an email to donors:

"Despite the film's historical importance, its artistic merit, and all of our hard work on the film, extras and campaign, Kickstarter has decided that Misty is too sexy for the site and is in the process of terminating the campaign. Your credit cards will not be charged...Obviously, we're unhappy about this turn of events. We can name 4 or 5 projects with with similar content which have been allowed to progress to completion."

"Just wanted to let everyone know that Kickstarter has upheld their ruling that the Misty project was offering a reward with 'objectionable content' in violation of their community standards," he updated this morning. "The project page will be pulled from Kickstarter sometime today."

So if you backed DistribPix's Misty campaign, Morowitz is asking that you email them at Steven at VideoXPix.com with your name and your pledge level so they can remain in contact after the Kickstarter page is gone. And this isn't the end of the line for Misty by any means. Morowitz and his team are currently investigating other crowd-sourcing sites and, if they need to, will continue to run the campaign (with additional rewards) directly from their website. As Steven writes on his blog:

"So the best way to look at it, is that the KS thing was a dry run, now we know we have the interest...My team has put too much into this project, to have anything get in our way, we are determined!"

UPDATE: Misty Beethoven is back! The campaign has re-started on a new, independent website,ProjectMisty.com, so check it out and help bring this skin classic to Blu-ray now!

For updates on the ongoing saga of Misty Beethoven on Blu-ray, you can connect with DistribPix on their blog and on Facebook and Twitter. And to find out more about DistribPix's incredible history and its owner Steven Morowitz, you can read our SKINterview with Steven right here on the Mr. Skin blog!