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Weird Al Premiere Cancelled Due to Net Leak
SilentChris writes "In what's probably a first, AOL cancelled the 'World Premiere' of Weird Al's newest video 'White and Nerdy' due to it being leaked on the internet. Al writes on his MySpace page: 'Apparently, the video has already leaked online, and AOL doesn't feel comfortable doing a World Premiere promotion for a video that a number of people have seen already ... Anyway, it's really a bummer... it would have been great promotion for the album... but hey, life goes on.' As for the video? Arguably Al's best work (but I'm a little biased)."
In what sense do he "own" the piece? He has created it, yes, but he owns one copy of it, not every copy. The artwork in itself can't be owned as long as it can be copied without anyone losing his/her copy.
And in what way is it terrible for mankind that this video has leaked on the Internet? It isn't even bad for the company, 'cause they can still have it's release party. It's just silly of them to cancel the premiere just because it's out already. There's no logic behind that, and it's still only bad for the company. We will still get the video regardless of whether they sell it to us or if we choose to download it, regardless of whether they choose to have a big premiere or if we choose to download it before them releasing it.
Yes, because the only tool I have against stupid record companies, DRM pushers, and stupid advertising is my wallet. It sucks that Weird Al won't get my cash, but then again, he probably wouldn't anyways after the record company gets done with him. If he had any fortitude, he would've bypassed real record companies and went for real internet DRM free sales.
Same goes for any other band. I like DMB. Bought many of their albums. The minute Stand Up came out with DRM on the disc, I stopped buying. Sucks that they don't get my money, but that's life. Sames goes for honest game developers who are stuck with asshat game distributors putting DRM/Trojans on their install discs.