Writer Joss Whedon posted on UnitedHollywood an impassioned and powerful comment about the WGA’s back-door dealings with studio heads. He insists that this is not an “endgame” and that suggesting that a resolution is imminent is unacceptable, as the damage that’s been done to the writers and the medium itself is permanent.

“We need, now as much as ever, to act as if the strike is NEVER going to end. We need the rage that sends us out onto the picket lines, the passion that makes us look for alternate methods of financing and developing content, and the unity that reminds us how much the studios have taken from the community already by forcing this strike.”

[The word “endgame” has since been removed from the post Whedon comments on, due to very connotation that Whedon contests]

It’s a great post, and a perfect example of the emotion writers and fans should be exhibiting if ever a respectable resolution is to be found. One where writers don’t get screwed, which is an uphill battle: the writers-get-screwed precedent has been set and upheld for decades.

According to BusinessWeek, the last DRM holdout of the major music publishers might be getting ready to dump it, too. Not entirely surprising, as they’ve created more than their fair share of bad press with it, and they’re already telling their customers how to get around it.

“In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned.”

Link.

via The Register

Yeah, I’m comparing Google to the AAs of the world. I’m not jumping on the “Google’s evil” bandwagon just yet, but there’s an analogy here, if you’re allow me:

Google is an advertising company. This is not news. They’re not a search engine company, they’re an advertising company. That’s what they do, and it’s where they make their money.

When you go to a website, you’re, essentially, paying Google for the privilege of viewing the content because, guess what, if it’s on the internet, chances are it’s got Google ads on it.

But, as we all know, when you do a generic search, odds are good that the first result will be for a Wikipedia page. And those don’t have Google ads on them.

Read the rest of this entry »

“How did copyright become cool?” is perhaps one of the most well-informed and thought-out articles in the mainstream press on the subject. Sadly, it appears to be web-only, so I guess it didn’t make it into the real paper. But this is a start!

The Globe and Mail is, essentially, Canada’s New York Times. It’s based in Toronto, but available throughout the country. The fact that such a major source has, not only covered the issue, but considered it, is something of a big deal, web-only or not.

“Maybe he just didn’t think that copyright legislation could capture the public imagination. It would be hard to blame him if that were the case; at politician school, they don’t teach you to watch out for that third rail of Canadian politics, “anti-circumvention legislation.”

Suddenly, though, circumvention is a word that people are getting hot and bothered about. As anyone who has bought music from Apple has learned the hard way, companies are in the business of putting technological locks on their content. The classic example is songs bought on iTunes, which have built-in limits on where they can be played (iPods only!) and how they can be copied (hardly at all). The happy euphemism for this technique is Digital Rights Management, or DRM.”

Read the rest of this entry »

via Michael Geist

Now, even mainstream media outlets in Canada are covering the uproar over the proposed new copyright legislation, and the delay it’s caused in tabling the bill.

The roundup:

CBC

Canadian Press

National Post 

Ottawa Citizen (which appears to just be the CP article)

This is kind of a big deal. When does the mainstream press ever cover something like copyright law? And when they do, when is it a discussion over the criticisms of it?

Sister site of Ourmedia.org, the “community of individuals dedicated to spreading grassroots creativity,” Bid4Vid.com is launching a new way for media creators to make money from their productions.

Instead of taking the same path as, say, Revver, the way creator’s will be able to cash in is through bidding on projects posted on the site and vying for the opportunity to work on the production.

And, for reassurance’s sake, the preregistration website says:

• Transact business in a trusted environment where you’ll be paid through escrow payment services.
• Guaranteed settlements (arbitration is in place if needed). No need to submit an invoice ever again.

So this hopes to alleviate the worry of whether, once you’ve completed the work, you’ll even get paid for it.

The idea is interesting, no doubt, and I certainly hope that there’s a market there for it.

It would remain to be seen, however, if there are enough people able to make professional level productions, under the pressure of time and somebody else’s money. It’s one thing to make a film on your own schedule, with your own money, and at your own standards of quality. It’s entirely another when there’s somebody out there with certain other expectations.

That’s not to say of course, that this is merely appealing to casual hobbyists. No doubt current professionals, or those aspiring to be, would be perfect for this as well.

But their media releases statement that, “currently, demand for short online video clips is exploding so Bid4Vid wants to hook video producers up to this flurry of activity. It puts you directly in the path of this financial and creative opportunity,” makes me concerned that this is a little too focused on short online clips, ones which are produced in great numbers every day, with no need for anyone to provide monetary compensation to the producers. They seem content with producing them for the fun of it.

In any case, it will be interesting to see this develop, and to see what sorts of productions come out of it.

via Kottke

Alec Baldwin, In his article at the Huffington Post, offers a brilliant way to end the Writers’ Strike:

“I want the WGA to set up a website and on that website we can all post stories about every no-talent, idiotic, amoral producer and executive we have ever dealt with. Just like they do to us on shows like Extra and sites like TMZ (owned by Warner Brothers.) Set up a website and tell the entire world, via the internet, your own anecdote about some of the witless boobs you have endured in Hollywood and beyond. The strike will end in a week.”

His article skewers what he calls the “lawyers and marketing executives who lord over the worst creative decline [he has] witnessed in a long time.”

It’s well worth a read, to see a popular actor’s uninhibited take on the strike.

Last night I linked to Charlie Stross’s outrage over the Science Fiction Writers of America putting the guy responsible for their last “piracy” PR debacle in charge of their new anti-piracy committee.

Cory Doctorow’s written his opinion of the matter at BoingBoing. And, yeah, he doesn’t sound too impressed by SFWA’s decision, either.

“Burt’s copyright projects for SFWA have been controversial and divisive. He created a push-poll that attempted to convince the membership to stop Amazon from indexing their books; he created a non-working system for poisoning ebooks and ruining the download experience and then patented it, in his name, at the organization’s expense (he has promised to return the money); he helped create a loyalty oath in which members were told to swear to “respect patents and trademarks” and so on.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Canada’s planned changes to copyright law will include lots of rules that will make it the worst, most restrictive in the developed world, according to Cory on BoingBoing:

If this law passes, it will render all of the made-in-Canada exceptions to copyright for education, archiving, free speech and personal use will be irrelevant: if a technology has a lock that prohibits a use, your right to make that use falls by the wayside. Nevermind that you’ve got the right to record a show to watch later — or to record a politician’s speech so you can hold him to account later — the policeman in the device can take that right away with no appeal.