That scream you heard over the weekend was from UK motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson as he straddled the conflict of interest barbed wire fence in the debate over making people pay for using internet news websites. In a typical Clarkson rant in The Times, he nodded to one employer, News Corp’s News International and its Times and Sun newspapers, and then to the other, the BBC, and Top Gear, all which made Clarkson what he is, a media star with an ego bigger than a Roller.
Clarkson was to accommodate the conflicting objectives of one owner, Rupert Murdoch (make them pay) and the other, the BBC (it will be free). And how did he solve this Gordian knot of conflicting interests? Not by chopping it in half, but by blaming the internet:
”I’ve decided that the biggest issue in all of this is the internet. It’s a monster. An invisible machine over which mankind has absolutely no control. We can’t even turn it off.”
“Companies can build in as many electronic safeguards as they like but the fact is this: somewhere out there in cyberland there is a geek who can pick his way through the electronic locks and steal the booty.
“The debate, then, is not whether the BBC should be allowed to peddle its warnings of global doom on the internet. It’s how you control a monster that seemingly cannot be controlled at all.”
So rather than blame either of his employers, he’s in effect blaming the messenger (or the medium, if you think about it). How juvenile. The man is horribly conflicted. On the comments section under the story, a Times reader summed up Clarkson’s effort in a way that can’t be topped. “Gezza – nothing wrong is playing both sides. Bankers do this all the time & they get bonuses.” — Glenn Dyer
Seven wins ratings… again. The Seven Network has won the 2009 ratings year, its third consecutive win. It won the year on the back of sustained success for drama Packed To The Rafters, which maintained the same audience average as last year (1.9 million viewers) and its news and current affairs slate as well as dominance of the observational documentary genre. – The Australian.
Obama gate crashers shop their story. The couple who infamously crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner are peddling their story to broadcast networks for hundreds of thousands of dollars, a television executive says. Michaele Salahis is a reality TV hopeful trying to get on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of DC. — Newser
Annabel Crabb beats her own drum. There is something madly splendid about the grown-up Turnbull, this past weekend. Having absorbed the sort of assault that would utterly devastate most political leaders (the wholesale resignation of numerous colleagues, and public attacks from some of the most powerful members of his parliamentary team), he remained astonishingly blithe throughout. — The Drum
Tiger goes public on “a private matter”. In a statement posted on his Web site Sunday, Tiger Woods accepted responsibility for what he deemed an “embarrassing” car accident just outside of his driveway at 2:25am. Friday. He said his wife acted “courageously” to help him, but declined to provide further details, calling the incident a “private matter.” — The Washington Post
SBS to launch digital arts channel in 2010. SBS will launch a new Arts and Entertainment channel on Foxtel and Austar in the first half of 2010. SBS says programming will include “exclusive broadcasts of selected major Australian arts and entertainment events; the best international arts content across a range of genres and forms; showcases of major arts events from Australia and around the world; original commissioned programming to engage audiences with the contemporary arts and entertainment scene; and information and reviews about performances and events throughout Australia.” — Media Spy
Is Glenn Beck leading the Obama opposition? Glenn Beck is a TV host, bestselling author and the most influential voice on the rightwing Fox channel. Now, even some Republicans worry that the extreme and maverick views of Beck and his supporters will make their party unelectable. Is the TV tail wagging the political dog? — The Guardian
“somewhere out there in cyberland there is a geek who can pick his way through the electronic locks and steal the booty.”
Yes we can. But really, the percentage of people who can do this is so small that you really shouldn’t regard it as significant, nor the potential loss it causes.
The Obama gatecrashers should have been locked up for deliberately breaching national security. A few weeks in jail might have taken the gloss off their stupid antic. The crassness and and stupidity of the action can only be exceeded by the even greater stupidity of paying these fuckwits royalties for media appearances.
Meski the issue is that it only takes one geek to pick their way through the electronic lock for everyone else to get the benefit of it. Generally once someone works out how to defeat an electronic copyright measure that methodology is quickly incorporated into easy to use automatic programs. For instance it only took one guy to defeat the DVD standard copyright protection and there was soon a plethora of commercially available software that did the task automatically for you.
The real issue for content providers is that they have limited worries about older generations (pretty much anyone over the age of 35-40 who hasn’t spent their younger years working with computers and IT) in terms of utilising this sort of software or sharing already ripped (ie copyright technology removed) content with their friends.
But younger people and especially those going through school and just finishing school have grown up with this stuff and have used it extensively especially since when you’re a kid you generally don’t have the income to go out and buy all the movies, tv shows, music etc you want, so the ability to pirate it is a great incentive to learn how.
Personally I don’t see any solution from the point of view of the copyright holders. Pretty much anything can be digitized now and the storage capacity available to the average consumer continues to grow exponentially whilst the cost of that storage drops. It also appears to be from a practical standpoint impossible to produce an unbreakable way of storing copyright material that is still useable by the end consumer. I also to be honest no longer feel much sympathy for a lot of copyright holders since they convinced governments to give them a massive increase in the length of their copyright protection by 20 years (in the US this is often referred to as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) with no added benefit to citizens or consumers for this extra length.