Program scripts from week of August 5, 2012
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Anti-Piracy Follies
OK here’s our new nominee for dumbest media story of the year. If there is a better example of missing the point I’m not sure what it is.
If you’ve rented a DVD of a movie over the last 5 years or so you’ve probably seen the anti-piracy message that has been included on many many of them. It’s supposed to be this trendy edgy look that manages to come off looking like a leftover from the ‘90s that includes lines like “You wouldn’t steal a handbag”. Handbag? Really? Underneath it all was this fairly loud energetic music track. All to remind you that stealing someone else’s work without paying for it is piracy and a crime.
Well the folks who made that video stole that music.
Sounds too stupid to be true doesn’t it? But it is. The composer, Melchior Rietveldt, was paid by a Dutch music rights group for the music to be used one time. It has appeared on at least 71 commercial DVDs sold in the Netherlands and around the world. Rietveldt went to the folks at the agancy in charge of paying him royalties for his work and got stonewalled. So he went to court. It took 6 years but the courts have agreed that Rietveldt deserves to be paid.
What astounds me is that the companies who put together the DVDs all know better. Every one of them has a legal department and the first question that any legal department is going to ask in each case is “Do we have the rights to this?”. At some point somebody flat out lied to a lawyer. And that’s NEVER a good idea.
The original anti-piracy piece was to be used during a local film festival. By an anti-piracy group that you would assume knows where the lines are in their own particular area of alleged expertise. So I guess the real question becomes how are we supposed to take these people seriously ever again? I’ve said before on this program that I fully support the rights of the artist to be paid for the use of their work. You would think first in line with that sentiment wold be the folks of the anti-piracy community.
Just amazing.
Future of E-mail
Microsoft is confusing me. And this at a time when my feelings for the giant from Redmond Washington were on an upswing. I’ve been using Windows 7 on my home computer for about half a year now and I really like it. Unlike some previous upgrades they’ve managed to increase the number of good features on the operating system while keeping the number of new innovative annoyances to a minimum. So that’s good.
When I saw that they were trying something new with their e-mail client software (known simply as Hotmail to most of us) I was feeling good enough about our relationship to swing over to the new Outlook.com and take a look. And that’s where the confusion began.
This is being touted as the future of e-mail. Now that’s an interesting concept because e-mail looks a little long in the tooth these days. The current crop of teenagers pay it no attention whatsoever. At the same time it really hasn’t changed much since I started using it two decades ago.
So what’s new and exciting over at Outlook.com? Well I’m not quite sure to be honest. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a Hotmail account which is kind of astounding given that at one point I had no less than seven email addresses. Some friends performed an intervention, I’m better now. But I do have a Windows ID so I was signed right in. And what I found was essentially a better looking version of a bunch of Gmail/Google functions. In fact my Outlook.com email account IS my Gmail account! I get a calendar that looks like Google’s and a Contacts list like Google’s and Sky Drive which is basically the same as the newly renamed Google Drive formerly Google Docs. It’s sharp looking but I’m not sure I see the “future of e-mail”. I see Microsoft finally catching up to Google but that’s as far as I can go. As always its nice to have all your primary information available in one place. I’ve never used it but I’ve heard people praising Outlook for years now. So it seems like it ought to be a logical extension of the franchise. Maybe I just need to give it a little more time.
At the moment I’m a little miffed that Google is ending it’s iGoogle web service this fall which has been a mainstay of mine for years. Plus the boost of happiness over Windows 7 means that Microsoft will get the temporary free pass on this one for a little while longer.
Tiny Troll Controls
The ongoing war against online trolls has taken another step. It’s a tiny step and a rather unconvincing step but it’s slow progress in the right direction. A direction toward the end of anonymous commenting.
YouTube is the less than courageous corporate giant (YouTube is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Google-plex) that is taking the tiny, timorous step towards a little more civility on the Internet.
If you’ve ever scrolled down into the comments section of a YouTube video you know what I mean. If you just watch the video and then click away I’d personally recommend you keep doing exactly that. 99% of all comments fall into one of two categories. The first is the “That’s so cute/cool” category in which you will find mindless repetitious compliments. The second is the “I hope you die” category which is filled with mindless repetitious hatred. Both are a waste of time and bandwidth but the second is of greater concern.
Inevitably the second is posted either under the name Anonymous or a screen name designed to shield the mouth breathing moron from being revealed as well the mouth breathing moron that he or she is.
YouTube’s baby step is to ask users to consider using their Google+ identity when commenting or uploading content. It doesn’t seem likely that our mouth breathing friends will do so but it’s a step in the right direction.
Personally I would simply end anonymous commenting. Flat out. And all user names would have to link back to some firm identity. That way if someone goes completely over the line (like death threats which appear far too commonly) there is some way to track them down. I know that some folks will shout “Freedom of Expression” at me but I will remind you that such freedom comes with some expectation of personal responsibility. You want to call some one names you need to the intestinal fortitude to back it up.
Sure there will be people who will get around any rules you create. But the harder you make folks work at being bad the more of them just give up and walk away. Let’s try taking a real step towards lowering the population of idiots online.
Call that the View From the Phlipside.
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