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Competing Contests To Create Pro- and Anti-Piracy PSAs
An anonymous reader writes "New York City recently announced a PSA contest, in which it asked schoolkids to create a video about how evil piracy is. Techdirt found the whole marketing campaign questionable, and via some Freedom of Information Act requests, discovered the whole thing was really a propaganda front for NBC Universal. They also looked at the fine print on this 'pro-copyright' contest, and discovered that in entering, you agreed to give up your copyright. And, you were only allowed to repeat NBC Universal's talking points. Don't try suggesting that perhaps the industry should have adapted. In response, Techdirt has launched a competing video contest, where they ask people to create videos on the impact of technology on creativity. The Techdirt contest doesn't give you specific talking points, lets you present your own opinion, lets you retain the copyright on your work ... and is paying twice as much as the NYC/NBC contest."
When I see things like this, I immediately think "Well done!" to the owners/managers of the website. The normal website would have gone and written up an article on it and left it at that. There are very few sites that would have made the leap from "Waaaaa, look at those cronies!" to "Heh, I know how to fix this, give me some prize money - we're having a contest!".
I might even have to start having a read of the site every now and again.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
"You wouldn't want to play a movie on any unauthorized devices."
"You wouldn't want to skip the movie previews we've carefully chosen for you.."
"You wouldn't want to have a backup handy if your media was damaged."
Be a good citizen, report piracy today!.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Except as expressly authorized by Floor64
And if you read their contest announcement, they expressly state that you retain all rights to your work but allow them to use it on their sites. Next.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Got Milk is advertisement, not PSA.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"I'm eight years old, and I used to watch The Little Mermaid every day. One day my disc wouldn't play. My dad says it's got a scratch on it so it won't play anymore. I cried and cried, so my dad downloaded the movie from some website and burned me another copy. I turned my dad in to the nice people at the MPAA and he's serving hard time now. My mom and I aren't very happy at the shelter, but we feel better now that the movie studios are getting their fair share."
Don't pirate movies. Because the movie studios aren't rich enough."
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The Pro-Piracy PSA should be an exact copy of the Anti-Piracy PSA but the voice over should be read with a barely perceptible hint of sarcasm.
Mathematically, we should pirate the shit out of things.
See, a good movie or song has value - it enriches a persons life. The cost of copying these things is negligible. So, essentially for free, we can create enormous value in form of good feeling, learning, culture and stuff for billions of humans.
Now, of course the poor starving movie execs will loose, but they're free to get a job at McD.
All the artists and craftspersons that are actually required should of course get by. If copying was legal, art would probably increasingly be crowd-funded before creation, but a meager living wage for everyone would really let artist just about not starve and enable passionate people to keep doing their art.
The value from copying will be far greater than the loss of value from it. I'm not gonna worry my pretty little head trying to calculate numbers, but I'm sure the math is solid.
If we can give something good to everyone for free, it would be the right thing to do.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Everyone needs to see this PSA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Just in case anyone was wondering (as I was, initially). PSA = Public Service Announcement.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You are talking about two entirely different things. We don't need scribes because we have the printing press. However, we still need (want) authors, editors, etc. The analog in music would be we don't need CD pressing factories. I don't see anyone arguing against that. However, we still need (want) musicians, engineers, etc.
Now, if your argument is that we DON'T need the music, film, whatever industries, that is fine. If you are satisfied with content that is produced outside of the industry you can enjoy that today. No-one needs to do anything. If everyone decides that that content is sufficient the industries will go away, and nothing can be done about that. However, what pirates are saying is that in fact they DO want the product created by the industry, they just don't want to pay for it or otherwise think they are entitled to it on their terms alone.
For a stellat example, look at the systematic destruction of works by the BBC from the 60s and 70s.
There were over 200 episodes of Dr Who alone (there were many other series besides that one in the burn bin) that were destroyed without backup copies, because the bbc did not have room to store them, and because the copyright licensing of those episodes required outside stations and studios to return *all* copies sent to them.
Currently, only 20 or so episodes remain totally MIA from the first doctor series, due almost exclusively to painstaking reconstruction from poor quality pirate recordings collected by the viewing public when the series ran.
The only reason approx 180 of the 200 were recovered, was BECAUSE of "piracy".
Something to consider, given the cultural impact of that series in the UK, as well as in other countries.
If nothing else, rampant piracy protects popular and influential works from willful destruction, by massively replicating the number of copies. This alone is reason to support personal use piracy.
-1, Troll
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually I am more a ST nerd, but DW is nice variety.
I was more approaching it from the "70 years from now, how will cultural historians view the "dalek mania" phenomenon of the 70s in the UK, given the destruction of the original material" angle.
Much like current classical period historians lament the loss of "trite, usless shite" like the vulgar satyr comedies alluded to by ancient historians.
Wow... i've grown used to cynicism and ignorance on the internet... but I've got to say your post is really quite depressing. Your post has a combination of cynicism, ignorance, and intelligence all at the same time and it's sad to see.
"Milk is good for you" is you repeating an advertisement. It has calcium yes, but it's also a high fat drink and it's health benefits are debatable. But I agree with your main premiss that corporations sponsoring PSAs are not intrinsically bad, except that it can lead to slanting of the truth to benefit said corporation. It most cases if you allow this, the corporation will just turn the PSA into an advertisement designed to sell their product. If some unbiased group controls what "truth" is told, then it's cool, but if the corporation controls this "truth", then we're in trouble.
Corporations are not your friend. Corporations are tools and they see you as a tool, "a resource". Each resource should be replaceable with another resource. People are only useful as long as they provide labor. The environment has little value. Profits are everything. Fairness, ethics, loyalty, responsibility are not expected or desired. Corporations are sociopaths by nature. This is the way they are designed. However... if properly harnessed with regulations to prevent abuses (such as not dumping toxic waste in their own back yard), and properly put into direct competition with other such corporations, they can produce benefit for all society.
The idea that "many decisions of the government being based upon what corporations want is not entirely a bad thing" is mind bogglingly stupid. If allowed corporations will make laws that only benefit themselves. They will push as many expenses away from themselves and toward citizens. They will capture regulators so they don't have to play fair. They will make laws so they don't have to pay for what they use, put in safety features, or properly dispose of waste. They will create monopolies. They will give themselves tax breaks, tax advantages, and make decisions that are only beneficial to the people in control of the corporation (these people are known as the top 1%). Their only goal is to make money.
As I said, corporations are sociopaths, so while they do good a lot of the time, you don't want to turn your backs to them and leave sharp objects lying around, and then tell them they can't do something. Government needs to be controlled by the people because that is our defense against and our control over the corporations that already control so much of our lives.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
An additional reason: when the ability to record and play back a previous episode because feasible, the unions responsible for the support staff (lighting, sound, etc.) for the live shows became rightfully worried about losing work. There were specific contractual requirements that recordings be destroyed after a certain length of time.
The challenge is that at the time I'm certain it wasn't obvious what was culturally significant and what wasn't. I can remember paying $50-$100 for 1 inch wide, one hour long, Ampex reel-to-reel video tape spools in the mid 70s. Given the sum-total of all BBC broadcasting from that decade, I can believe that trying to preserve ANY tapes must have been a bear.
I find the "British Invaders" podcast interesting from time-to-time as they discuss some of the challenges of finding old episodes of BBC (and ITV) shows. I remember one discussion where they apparently had staff that would go around weekly to each office and ask for any old tapes to be recycled - quite a few shows were lost because the producer wasn't around to specifically "DON'T take that tape!"