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Discovery Threatens Fan Site It Also Promotes
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the lawyers and the marketing people at The Discovery Channel don't talk to each other much. The marketing people behind the show 'The Deadliest Catch' have been supporting a fan community called DeadliestCatchTV.com for a while now. They've regularly sent the site info, free clips, previews and information about the show. On top of that, they link to it from the official site, including it in a list of 'fan sites' as a part of the 'Discovery Network,' and even will frame the site with the show's own dashboard for those who click through. Discovery's lawyers, on the other hand, have threatened to sue the site out of existence and have demanded that the owner hand over the domain name — which he is going to do, because he doesn't have the money to fight this. While there may be a trademark issue (which could be easily resolved with a free license), the lawyers are also making the ridiculous argument that posting the videos Discovery sent him to post are copyright infringement. They're also claiming that embedding the official Discovery Channel YouTube videos (which have embedding turned on) is copyright infringement. This is exactly how you turn lots of fans into people who hate your entire channel."
The whole last season was a tour de force of human tragedy, which Discovery happily played to/exploited (even adding in a melodramatic classical score this time around). Aside from the hundred or so tribute episodes to Phil Harris, it seemed like everyone in the fleet was intentionally playing to the cameras this time out even more than usual (with Edgar threatening to leave and fighting with Sig, Jake Harris's sudden "addiction" problems, etc.). Granted, the show will never be as good as the first season (before Alaska changed the rules and made the crab fishing a lot less exciting/dangerous), but this one seemed like a swan song more than any other season in the past.
Everyone involved in the show has always been about the money. The Hanson brothers in particular will do about anything for a buck, and have been known for trading on their fame by lending their names to some pretty sleazy ventures. But this season the cynicism (in particular the playing to the cameras) really showed in some nasty ways. This time the captains even whored themselves for Geico commercials that ran during the show. And the producers' constant cutaways to a tired-looking Phil Harris was particularly shameless (they all but put up "He's about to die" subtitles).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Isn't this the type of thing that the EFF is for?
Seems like setting a precedent for "if you send somebody your copyrighted material, you can't be sued" would be useful, especially with respect to RIAA honeypots.
It's quite, simple really. There is the legal department, in charge of chasing people away. And then there's the marketing department, in charge of pulling people in. And then there's no communication between them. With opposite missions, what do you expect.
Add to the fact that the legal seems to be adept at the chasing away part, while somewhat forgetful of the law they apparently learned many moons ago in, uhhhunh whatwuzitcalled college methinks? To the lawyers: don't party so hard when in college, or you'll have trouble understanding the law later.
Does anyone do performance review on corporate legal teams? As in real reviews where any monetary awards to the company are balanced with lost goodwill and whatnot? There's a lawyer or two waiting to be fired here, methinks.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
And contrary to popular belief, you don't need a lawyer to be successful at it (remember, I've sued the government - and won).
This is just another case of "lawyers don't know their job" - the majority of lawyers are incompetent. Law school doesn't even teach them how to handle a court case (read any big-name lawyer's bio and they'll tell you as much).
Find a similar motion on the net, admit you own the aforenamed website and deny every other claim. Then the ball is in their court. They can do NOTHING without your cooperation. They will lose the domain name resolution process because you can show that the past history - otherwise they'd have used it
And they'll lose in court. And have to pay.
Let them sue. You'll enjoy making (greater) fools of them.
The difference is they seem to still risk their lives on the Bering, where actual soap opera stars don't actually die when their character is killed. Mike Rowe plays to the camera, but he still gets dirty and gets the job done- those can still be two different things and discovery doesn't have to be documentary the way History should (but sadly no longer is).
Degree is everything, and I don't know that they've crossed the line. How much they make from Discovery is part of this- if they don't need to crab, they've certainly crossed it. If they are, as you suggest, crabbing for a living, they're still badass, hardworking dudes. If instead they're simply acting to a written script and don't care about full pots, then that would certainly be more drama than reality.
The MS lawyers, who clearly hadn't been in the loop until then, demanded the rights to the show. After a baffled silence, the PBS people shot back, 'What the fuck do you mean?' The response to that was, 'Oh, our mistake. We want the rights to the SERIES.' You know. So they could protect MS's image or something.
But no, this doesn't surprise me at all. This guy's basically been set up to be harvested like a ripe tomato-- he puts all of that effort into site design and upkeep, ropes in fans that might otherwise not care for the Discovery website, and delivers them up.
Worse, there's the possibility that this poor bastard is collateral damage from some internal power struggle-- someone in legal trying to be a keener, or a strike at a rival in marketing.