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Homeland Security Running NBC-Owned PSAs
An anonymous reader writes "A few months ago, Homeland Security's ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) group started placing an anti-piracy video PSA on various domains that it had seized. What it didn't say was who created the PSA. A Freedom of Information Act request by Techdirt has revealed that the videos are actually created & owned by NBC Universal, but nowhere does Homeland Security publicly admit this. As Techdirt writes: 'Could you imagine how the press would react if, say, the FDA ran PSAs that were created and owned by McDonald's without making that clear to the public? How about if the Treasury Department ran a PSA created and owned by Goldman Sachs? So, shouldn't we be asking serious questions about why Homeland Security and ICE are running a one-sided, misleading corporate propaganda video, created and owned by a private company, without mentioning the rather pertinent information of who made it?'"
It's called a Congressional hearing, they hold 'em every day!
So, shouldn't we be asking serious questions about why Homeland Security and ICE are running a one-sided, misleading corporate propaganda video, created and owned by a private company, without mentioning the rather pertinent information of who made it?
Yes, we should, but I'll be happy to wait until after they've answered the more pressing question about what the hell Homeland Security are doing enforcing copyright claims in the first place.
In the UK we call this the public-private partnership (PPP - no, not that PPP), private finance initiative, introducing competitiveness into service provision, blah, blah, blah. What it actually means is a hegemony of large corporations selected by government cronies which siphon money off the tax payer to provide a service you either didn't want in the first place or which was once provided much more effectively at cost.
When finding out that a government is paying money to a corporation for a service, there is only one necessary question: what compensation will be paid to the men in government who made the decision by the executives of the firm which just won the multi-million-currency contract?
To turn the US into a Police State and umm I think there was something about terrorism in there.
Could you imagine how the press would react if, say, the FDA ran PSAs that were created and owned by McDonald's without making that clear to the public? How about if the Treasury Department ran a PSA created and owned by Goldman Sachs?
US Agricultural policy is written by lobbyists for the likes of Monsanto and ADM. And are there any high-ranking officials in Treasury who don't have strong ties to Goldman or Bear Stearns?
The question isn't how the press would react, it's how the citizens react. And the answer is, they don't.
There have been many documentaries, exposes, and so forth about the incestuous relationships between industry and US regulators and law makers. The response has been a collective yawn.
Everyone (other than W.) in the White House or Congress who had any major role in getting the prescription drug plan passed went on to work for the drug industry. You don't need to imagine the reaction; just look around.
Watched the video.
Message: Take these pirated movies, and this woman (Sound stage tech) loses her job.
Sub-message: The people that still take the movies are heartless scum.
As article points out, shameless PSA produced by NBC; proffered by HSA.
That over with--
1) This assertion (Take pirate DVD, woman loses job) makes a series of fundamentally broken assumptions:
i) Content production companies (like studios-- like the one which made the PSA) live so hand-to-mouth that the failure to monopoly dominate sales/transfers of the content they create will cause them to lay off workers.
Reality: The phase 'hollywood accounting' exists for a reason. Any such 'Hand-to-mouth' type economics exists exclusively on paper, to avoid paying actors, authors and film crew while simultaneously generating huge profits for the production company. It exists exclusively as a contrived mechanism to avoid paying royalty money on the very sales the video harps about. This makes the video a hypocritical, bold faced lie from the get-go.
ii) The act of taking the pirated DVD would cause the person to lose her job, because you are not paying-- EG-- the lost sale angle.
Reality: Multiple redundant studies have shown that consummate media pirates on average BUY MORE products than their 'legitimate purchases only' counterparts.
Additionally, the pirate is only interested in the product to begin with because he does not have to invest anything; EG, the appropriation of the pirated DVDs are NOT lost sales.
Without the piracy option, the consumer would simply not have consumed, reducing media penetration, and realistically doing far worse than what piracy allegedly would have done. At least when the product gets pirated, the pirate gets a direct assessment of the quality of the product, and if it is any good, would now have direct motivation to buy additional products. Eg- Pirate downloads first matrix movie-- likes it, orders the trilogy box set. The subsequent sale would never have taken place if the initial piracy had never occurred. The notion that the pirate would have just sunk down 50$ for the box set of movies he has never seen and is dubious about, is pure insanity.
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What I personally took away from the video PSA:
'See this poor token production worker? See her frazzled hair!? Doesnt she look pathetic?'
See me? I am in my fancy suit, and have perfect teeth-- Isn't it terrible that you would cause me to take money away from this poor frazzled worker because you would dare upset the apple cart?
Never-mind that I am obviously not hurting for money (As seen by my quarterly finance reports), or that I am a lieing shyster who personally is responsible for this poor token floor worker's plight because I care about my corporate bonuses more than her and her welfare---OR that I am being a hypocritical bastard by passing that blame on to you...
Just Pretend that simply isn't the case and embrace the fantasy we spin for you about how it is YOUR fault she suffers, and it's all because you don't impulse blanket-buy everything we shit out on store shelves blindly! (In fact, she probably isnt even a real sound boom operator to begin with, and is probably some poor soul we conned into thinking might get an acting career if she did this humiliation gig, whom we will probably never call on again.)
That you would take these DVDs for free and 'force' me to fire this woman (Again, because I value my own bonus more than her or her employment-- but never-mind that) whom I barely pay purely out of my own greed and do legal gymnastics to get out of responsibility for; Why that makes you a disgusting person! You should be ashamed of yourself!'
Message brought to you by the federal Homeland Security Administration.