Oh, it's scary.... there's no doubt about it.
Swedish and Canadian pirates are going to raid your villages, rape your mothers and force feed you soft cheeses melted over undercooked french fried potatoes.... but politely, of course.
As I write this, the New CEO for Pirate Bay(... the Swedish-based, uber-notorious, file-sharing website) has written a manifesto.... threatening language about taking file-sharing mainstream..
"Fighting back against big brother's harassment and spying of today's youth and internet users, we're going to show them... 'how to pay' for content."
Wait.... what?!
But, you're pirates. Pirates don't pay for things. If they did, they'd cease to be pirates and(... though I'm fuzzy on my old-world nautical terminology), I think, just be referred to as plain old seamen.
But, it is a sticky slope to navigate.... pirates.... seamen.
In the giant fondue pot that is the internet.... they all just melt into an indistinct mass of pale, bursting, bubbling goo.
Industry folk and tv types have been suing the bejesus out of their estranged on-line customer base with a frightening and disorientingly random irregularity.... those Special Forces fuckers may be bursting through your window, any minute.(.. but then, do try to think it through.... if you're downloading a Black Eyed Peas re-mix for your nightclub pre-game routine.... you maydeserve to be shot with a military strength tazer and put behind bars.
Every young person who's turned their back on traditional broadcasters and content delivery mechanisms and jumped aboard the good ship "Bit Torrent".... is getting forty-thousand lashings with an angry lawsuit.
It's roughly the same logic you'd find in an abusive relationship....; "I'm gonna beat on you, 'til you love me again." (... worked for Ike and Tina. They're still together, right?)
So now.... the tv industry has threateningly taken off its belt and is explaining, with the sinister calm and certitude of an inveterate wife-beater, that we've got a good thing going here; "Don't you break up this good thing, we got. Don't make me hurt you, to help us."
The tv industry desperately need your business, and your help.... to own you once again.
That's the distinction to be made.... the pirates may want your booty... but, the industry(... much like the fancy boy british sailors, steering their resplendent schooners for queen and country)... the industry want to own the high seas and everything in, and on it.
On a personal note.... I've found, if these industry folk and assorted money makers believe you know how to speak to... how to 'score them'... that youth demographic(.. and, I actually do).... they will huddle around you, like bums around a garbage can fire.
I was at an actual tv 'think tank'.
I don't know if you've ever been to a 'think tank', but picture a room full of execs and academics... name tags and ID badges, to point out; 'Hey man, we're all just people, here dude.'... just talking... sharing ideas and strategies for turning the media world on its ear.... 'cause, nothin' says the future of tv, like artfully drawn boxes with rabbit ears on a dry-erase board and a ten-foot turkey sub you can help yourself to.
In a 'think tank', they need not remind you that they bought that giant sandwich you're eating a wedge of.... they rented the room, and the audio-visual equipment found therein.... and they, by rights, own your idea.
In this instance; "How do we save and strengthen Canadian television?"... was the over-arching theme of this 'tank'.
Well, I made up a power-point presentation... ironed my shit... wore my tie... got up in front of this room of tv execu-types, and said...;
"How about, you just stop saying 'tv show'...... just, stop using the word. Just, say show."
This is like getting called in to help find somebody's missing child and, telling the grief stricken friends and family to...; "Forget about your little girl. In fact, maybe think about converting her old room into a home gym."
"I can plainly see little Ashley meant a lot to everyone. But I'm saying, if you moved out that princess bed and toy chest, you could get a 'Bowflex' and an eliptical machine in there.... and probably still have room for a stretching area."
Truthfully.... I kinda relish these instances.
I take an unnatural amount of joy, for some perverse reason, in telling shitty truths.
And, that is the truth....
I watch tv shows.... I love tv shows.(.. as much now, if not more then I did as a tv-raised tyke of yester-year.)
Only now, I don't turn on my tv.
I almost never turn on my tv.
I do.... watch shows.
'Own' that notion, Lord Fontelroy of the S.S. Indignation.
TV people desperately want that time machine that puts them back in a time and place where they owned and monopolized your attention.
A beautiful 'golden age' for tv execs..... when they held that power, clutched it to their chests... squeezed it tight in their arms and ultimately, smothered and suffocated it.... with love.
(I'm gonna do a future post about the actual 'golden age' of tv we're living in... seen through the lens of ground-breaking cartoons and animation. Turns out, it's easier to break new ground... if you're traveling under the radar. And, that big generational chasm that puts lovers of South Park, Futurama or, the brilliant, but underexposed Venture Bros. on one side of the smart, adult, cartoon comedy fence. For now, take my word for it. We are indeed living through the golden age of television.)
The question for tv folk becomes; if all of this brilliant content is out there.... how do we own and control it?
Well.....
CBC radio did a typically incisive and fantastic piece on Who Owns Ideas?... pointing out the stupifyingly pointless game of whack-a-mole these companies and lawyers are trying to play in this border-less no-man's land. (Pirates will always live outside your laws... 'cause they function outside your borders. They sail the open ocean and surf the world wide web.)
Many of these same fundamental questions are raised in the brave copyright documentary; RiP: A Remix Manifesto(... also, brilliantly and distinctively Canuck in it's perspective).
Larry Lessig(... not a Canadian but, what're you gonna do) may have illustrated it best in his talk... "we're trying to extend ownership of our plot of land... all the way below and, to an indefinite extent skywards."
Ask the old, wizened indian, Chief 'Acomplishment Is Sadness'...; "No one can own the sky or sea."
(Oh right, you can't... since you introduced him to fire water and ran his rambling, naked ass off his land... Too bad, you didn't listen to what he was shouting over his shoulder on his way out.)
'Pirate Bay' started outside the reach of lawmakers and litigators in Sweden.... and, U.S. media corporations and conglomerates are now giving Canada the stink eye... for much the same reason.
Canada's like the wild west frontier country... and, it now finds itself in the midst of an old-fashioned, cut throat, land grab.... but, with "intellectual property" and ideas taking the place of plots of land.
If you recall your western movies.... it was always the twat with the twistiest moustache who ended up the local 'land baron' but, he was never long for this world anyway.... by the end of the film, the man with no name and his heavy-hearted indian tracker had killed his ass deader than a dingo.
And, never did they stick around to claim that town... that land.. for themselves. They just moseyed on into the setting sun. They wanted to 'set things right'... then, move back out into their border-less 'riding buddies' existence... just two guys hangin' out and sharing their feelings by firelight.. like real, hearty men tend to do.
All this gobbling up of content and creation of newer, stricter laws to regulate 'their land' is happening quietly under our collective noses.
It's dangerous to turn a blind eye, 'cause you may not realize that somebody has quietly created a new set of rules that make you a criminal... that make you a pirate.
I mean, after all... we "arrr" all in this together.(... sorry... but, if you'd been looking through your old timey, salty sea dog telescope, you'd have seen that one coming.)
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