Competing Contests To Create Pro- and Anti-Piracy PSAs 220
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."
Well done Techdirt (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Mathematically... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
exclusive, and draconain (c) places works at risk. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.