Think Twice about SOPA and PIPA

If you plan to work in the media industries as a professional content creator, you need to pay close attention to the current debate over SOPA and PIPA. The two bills being debated in congress are designed, with substantial input from lobbyists representing “old media” interests, to shut down global websites that profit from the illegal distribution of copyrighted material: music, films and TV shows primarily. The issue is being framed by internet and new media companies (largely located in Silicon Valley) as a battle for internet freedom of expression and the rights of end users. Several major internet sites have gone black today or have modified their home page to express solidarity with the protest movement. But what about the rights of individuals and companies (largely located in NY & LA) that create media content?

Much of the early discussion that I’ve seen on Facebook and Twitter has bought into the new media companies’ arguments that this attempt to curtail copyright infringement will stifle creativity and growth on the internet. Others argue that the regulatory oversight will amount to censorship of creative expression. This is completely understandable from the perspective of those who are end users of content rather than creators. For the average consumer, more access to free content seems like a good thing. However, if you’re thinking that you’d like to work in the media industry as a content creator, you might want to consider what the future holds for you if creativity is not rewarded and protected.

Copyright laws exist to protect intellectual property and to reward the creative community for their investment of time and resources in the creative development process. Music, video and film content does not create itself, and those responsible for its creation and distribution deserve legal protection from those who would like to acquire, redistribute, or aggregate that content for their own personal or corporate benefit.

Now, while it may be clear that I am in favor of reasonable protection for copyright holders, I am not convinced that SOPA and PIPA are well-designed legislative tools to accomplish that goal. The video below points out some of the weaknesses of these bills and raises serious questions about their practical application.

So, what do you think about SOPA and PIPA? Bad idea? Good idea? Good idea poorly executed?

Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Broadcast Indecency

Broadcast radio and TV have long been the most heavily regulated media when it comes to sex, violence, coarse language, and assorted unsavory behavior. Between the hours of 6am and 10pm, when children are most likely to be in the audience, broadcasters have had to be careful to not step over the fine, and sometimes shifting, line that separates decent from indecent expression. Unlike cable TV and satellite radio, broadcast programming has had to toe the line to avoid letter-writing campaigns and FCC fines. The difference has been explained by the fact that broadcasters use public airwaves to distribute their programs to every home and receiver in a given broadcast region. Listeners and viewers don’t have to subscribe to broadcast radio and TV, it just appears when they turn on their radio or TV.

But that distinction is, according to critics, becoming irrelevant as more and more of us rely on alternative technologies to receive our audio and video programming. Cable TV and satellite and web radio and TV now reach millions of homes and viewers often don’t know, or don’t care, if the channel they have selected originated over-the-air or came by way of some other distribution technology. And increasingly broadcasters feel like they are unable to compete when customers can choose from unregulated content channels just a click away. Nearly everyone recognizes that time have changed.  Even Justice Samuel Alito Jr. was quoted this week as saying, “Broadcast TV is living on borrowed time. It is not going to be long before it goes the way of vinyl records and eight-track tapes.”

However, those in favor of maintaining stricter standards for broadcast programming argue that media consumers need a safe haven and a place where they can find some relief from nudity, profanity, and graphic violence. The past decade has seen some push-back. The Jackson-Timberlake Superbowl halftime debacle, partial nudity on NYPD Blue, and fleeting profanity in awards ceremony acceptance speeches resulted in a public outcry that was soon followed by stepped-up FCC enforcement. Millions of dollars in fines were levied and have been working through the courts as broadcasters appeal lower court decisions.

Now the US Supreme Court is trying to settle the question–does the FCC have the right to enforce laws that prohibit indecent content between 6am and 10pm on broadcast media? Before they can answer that question they may have to agree on a definition of indecent content, and that won’t be easy. George Carlin’s infamous monologue “Seven Dirty Words” is a start, but not exhaustive. And of course context is important. Dropping an F-bomb in the middle of a sitcom is one thing…hearing it from the mouth of a marine in the film Saving Private Ryan is another matter.

In a few months we’ll know what the Supreme Court has decided. In the mean time, go ahead and Google “broadcast indecency” and read a few articles and essays on both sides of the issue before you make up your mind.

Show Your Best

The 2012 Olympic Games are coming to London next summer, and the International Olympic Committee wants to attract younger viewers. How will they do that, you ask? Well, how about a website that allows youngsters to upload video clips of themselves performing some athletic feat…then create a mashup with their footage and footage of real Olympic athletes that can be posted to their Facebook page. Oh, and there’s a chance to win prizes and a trip to the London Games in the process. Sounds like a perfect scheme to take advantage of the inflated egos of the “participation generation”…those who grew up getting ribbons and trophies just for showing up. As the campaign says, “everyone’s best is worth celebrating.”

You can watch an introductory video clip here: https://showyourbest.olympic.org/en#!/intro

According to a write-up in the New York Times,

Mike Doherty, the president of Cole & Weber, said the campaign’s theme would resonate with a younger audience since many are used to interacting with others around the world through platforms like social media and video games. Most important, he added, “they certainly all think they are the best at something.”

Facebook spammed with explicit and violent images

Facebook, which has heretofore managed to maintain a family friendly reputation, suffered a setback earlier this week when explicit and violent images began to show up on the site. According to news reports, hackers were able to exploit a security weakness to spread images which included “hardcore porn; photoshopped images of celebrities, including teen pop star Justin Bieber, in sexual positions; ‘extreme violence;’ and at least one image of an abused dog.” Images of this nature can be extremely disturbing and numerous victims of the scam have expressed outrage and intent to deactivate their accounts.

Facebook users whose accounts were hacked were unable to see the images that are being posted on their friends walls…even though the images appeared to be coming from their account activity. According to Facebook, “the spam attack all started with users being tricked into pasting and executing malicious JavaScript in their browser’s URL bar.” Some are suggesting that the security flaw was limited to a particular browser…specifically Internet Explorer. In any case, one lesson to be learned is to not click on links from questionable sources, and never copy and paste code into your browser’s URL bar.

Some suspected the hackivist group Anonymous who earlier had warned [YouTube] of a cyber-attack on Facebook for their policies which compromise users’ privacy. However, as of today Anonymous has not taken credit for this event and a new post on ZDNet claims that Facebook has identified the source of the attack.

If you think your Facebook account has been compromised, here’s a link to steps to take to try to restore order.

Indecency on trial

How do you define indecency? Do you know it when you see it? Or hear it? Are fleeting expletives indecent? Or does it depend on the context? And most importantly, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines at stake, who gets to decide what is and what isn’t indecent? The National Association of Broadcasters recently filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court arguing that the FCC’s enforcement of indecency rules is too vague and subjective, making it impossible for broadcasters to know what content might be subject to fines.

Some are wondering whether this brief is part of a larger effort to relax indecency regulations for broadcasters. Broadcasters, who have historically been much more restricted than cable networks when it comes to language, sex and violence, have felt that this differential treatment puts them at a disadvantage in an increasingly competitive environment. However, according to a quote published in Broadcasting & Cable, NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said, “We do agree with the networks and the Second Circuit that the FCC’s indecency policies are unconstitutionally vague and chill broadcasters’ protected speech. However, we do not call for the overturning of Pacifica or Red Lion.” Wharton’s references to “Pacifica” and “Red Lion” refer to Supreme Court cases that are foundational to broadcast regulation.

The debate has heated up in recent years after several incidents of offensive language on live awards shows and scripted nudity on NYPD Blues attracted the attention of Parents Television Council. The recent overturning of the $550,000 fine against CBS for the now infamous wardrobe malfunction in the 2004 Superbowl halftime show suggests that the courts are less inclined to side with the FCC. What do you think? Has indecency enforcement been too aggressive, too lax, or too uneven?

What is Herman Cain’s Communications Director Smoking?

We’re quickly approaching an election year, and you know what that means…political ads 24/7. More and more we’re seeing ads launched and tested online where ROI can be extremely high if an ad goes viral. Even better is an online ad that attracts the attention of traditional media. The result is free exposure when broadcast and cable news outlets spend precious airtime talking about or even screening the online ad.

That may be the strategy behind an online ad for Herman Cain, who is running for the Republican nomination to challenge Barak Obama in the 2012 Presidential race. The ad, with more than 1.2 million views and counting, features Cain’s chief of staff Mark Block who, at the end of the spot, takes a drag on a cigarette. You can watch the ad on [Youtube]. This is an unconventional approach, to say the least. As Block says in the spot, “we’ve run a campaign like nobody’s ever seen.”And while Block says the ad is not intended to promote smoking or to send a subliminal message, that’s not stopping media critics and journalists for looking for the subtext beneath the subtext. Some are suggesting that it is defiant gesture towards the nanny-ism of Big Government that wants to tell people what they can or cannot do.

Another bazaar web ad is the long-form, He Carried Yellow Flowers. Conner Friedersdorf at the Atlantic calls it a “Dadaist Meta-Western.” I don’t know where to begin with this one, so I encourage you to watch it on [YouTube] and leave your comments below. What do you think is the message? And does it make you think of Herman Cain as a viable contender for the office of President of the United States of America?

 

Social Media and the OWS Movement

The Occupy Wall Street movement has been generating a lot of attention from the mainstream media in recent weeks. According to a report in the NYT, media coverage has been increasing as the movement gains strength and spreads to other cities. The proximity of the protestors to the nerve center of the US news industry, just blocks away in NYC, certainly helps. Organizers have also worked hard to create stories that the mainstream media are likely to cover, including orchestrated attempts to obstruct traffic and confront police.

The protestors have demonstrated some media savvy as indicated by a sign held by one protester-”Whoever controls the media, the messages, controls the culture.” They’ve got a website and they even have a print publication devoted to getting their story out. The Occupy Wall Street Journal is being supported  using funds raised by a Kickstarter campaign called Occupy Wall Street Media which has raised more than $75K to date. You can find their first issue on Google Docs here. On the Kickstarter site you can view a 3-minute video that includes sound bites from Michael Moore, a documentary filmmaker who has made a career championing the cause of the working class. Speaking of documentaries, the Academy Award winning doc from 2010, Inside Job, is an eye-opening look at the 2008 crash and subsequent attempts to deal with the financial mess that ensued. If you really want to understand the frustration being directed at Wall Street, big business, and the government this documentary would be a good place to start.

But just like the Arab spring and the Tea Party movements that came before, another factor that has helped the OWS movement gain attention and momentum is the use of social media. According to Jeff Jarvis, professor of journalism and author of the blog BuzzMachine, ”#OccupyWallStreet is a hashtag revolt.” Jarvis goes on to explain that, ”a hashtag has no owner, no hierarchy, no canon or credo. It is a blank slate onto which anyone may impose his or her frustrations, complaints, demands, wishes, or principles.” Using Facebook and twitter is neither new nor innovative in late 2011, but it is and will be an essential part of any current and future populist movement. The raw power of unfiltered, instantaneous mobile communication cannot be denied. The fact that mainstream media are taking their cues from social media certainly helps. While social media is a powerful tool for coordinating and inspiring participants in a populist movement, the mainstream media brings the movement to the attention of a much larger segment of the population.

In an interesting twist with conspiratorial overtones, some have accused twitter of censoring the OccupyWallStreet hashtag and downplaying the size of the twitter stream that is being generated. This alleged censorship may be the result of a cosy relationship that twitter has with investment banks on Wall Street, according to one report.

It is also worth noting that the OWS movement was instigated by the Adbusters organization out of Vancouver, Canada. Adbusters may be best known for their anti-consumerism and anti-capitalistic positions on advertising and consumption. The Adbusters media foundation is, according to their website, “a global network of artists,  activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century.” The Adbusters organization is also known as sponsor of annual social marketing campaigns like Buy Nothing Day and Digital Detox Week.

Whether the OWS movement has legs and can reach critical mass may become evident on November 5th when, according to the Christian Science Monitor, “consumers are being urged to transfer their bank accounts from large, national financial institutions to community banks and credit unions.” If this movement grows, and hundreds of thousands close out their bank accounts, we’ll know that this is not just a fringe movement of leftists and anarchists.

Steve Jobs, Typography and the Mac

Although the passing of Steve Jobs this past week was not unexpected, it still was an emotional event for Apple fans and anyone who followed technology and media. The death of Steve Jobs attracted extensive media attention with much of the coverage focusing on his contributions over the years to the development of a computer and media empire that consistently delivered more than it promised.

To commemorate his passing I had my Media & Society class watch the 2005 commencement address that Steve Jobs delivered to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. The speech is only 14 minutes in length and you can see it below. There’s much to reflect on when listening to Jobs talk about his upbringing, his abbreviated college years, the twists and turns of his professional career, and his bout with cancer.

The one thing that stood out to me was the role that a class in typography, from Reed College, had on Jobs’ design of the Macintosh computer and, in many ways, the direction of Apple computer. Font selection, leading, kerning, tracking and ligatures are the concerns of a fairly obscure group of individuals, namely printers and typography geeks, yet Jobs was captivated by the ancient art of arranging letters on a page. Prior to the Apple Mac, computer type was crude and utilitarian. Function certainly won out our over form for screen fonts and printer output. But Jobs equipped the Mac with Postscript font technology and that, married with the personal laser printer, made high quality screen and print typography accessible to the masses. We take for granted font selection and high quality print output…but for that we should thank Steve Jobs and his vision for the Macintosh computer that started when he dropped in on a typography class at Reed College.

Amazon’s Kindle is on “Fire”

Amazon just announced its new color media tablet called the Fire…which, at $199, is cheaper than the Nook Color by Barnes & Nobel and much cheaper than the Apple iPad. According to reports, the Android-powered tablet has a 7-inch touchscreen powered by Google’s Android OS. The Fire will be able to access Amazon’s app store where users can download books, music, movies and apps.

Analysts doubt that the Fire will dethrone the iPad which current has more than 70% of the tablet market share. However, other tablet makers will most certainly feel the squeeze from this new entry. Unlike the iPad, the Fire does not have a camera (still or video) and is intended for consumption, not creation. While later models may add features, the current product is aiming for a different audience than those who are in the market for an iPad.

The Fire also has a new browser called Amazon Silk. Web surfing will be faster because of Amazon’s decision to incorporate its “Cloud” of EC2 servers to enhance the browser’s performance. This decision may speed up browsing, but already has some industry experts expressing concerns about privacy.

The Kindle Fire is expected to be available in mid November…just in time for the Christmas shopping season. And for those of you who want your media content experience when you want it, where you want it, and on a screen larger than your smart phone, the Fire may be something to consider.

UPDATE 10.3.11: Here’s a chart comparing e-Book readers.

Sony Playing Hardball with new ToS

Do you enjoy using your PS3 to play online? Well, if you want to continue you’ll have to agree to waive your right to participate in any future class-action lawsuit against Sony if they should, say…for instance, compromise your account data by sloppy network security. The new Terms of Service (ToS) agreement that was released this week are designed to protect Sony…and only Sony. You, on the other hand, are at the mercy of a corporate power that has a pretty shoddy track record when it comes to protecting consumer data. You can read more about it here.

From Section 15 of the new terms and conditions:

If you have a Dispute with any Sony Entity or any of a Sony Entity’s officers, directors, employees and agents that cannot be resolved through negotiation within the time frame described in the “Notice of Dispute” clause below. Other than those matters listed in the Exclusions from Arbitration clause, you and the Sony Entity that you have a Dispute with agree to seek resolution of the Dispute only through arbitration of that Dispute in accordance with the terms of this Section 15, and not litigate any Dispute in court. Arbitration means that the Dispute will be resolved by a neutral arbitrator instead of in a court by a judge or jury.

There is an opt out…but it is pretty low-tech. If, within 30 days of signing the new ToS, you send a snail-mail letter to Sony’s legal department in California you can reject the dispute resolution clause. But seriously, how many PS3 users are going to read the new ToS, and how many of them are going to go to the trouble of writing and mailing a letter to Sony?