There’s some chatter on the blogs today about a controversial television news report from my ex-hometown of Dallas. Well, truthfully there’s been low-grade chatter on the blogs about it for nearly a week now; my friend Cam reported on it last Thursday. But the chatter today is specifically about distributing copies of the televised report after the station that broadcast it pulled it from their Web site.
I’m not gonna link to any of the sites who are hosting copies of the video. That’s not my style.
Instead, I bring this up in order to remind anybody who might be listening that two wrongs don’t make a right. Claiming that “they’re trying to send it down the memory hole” or saying that “this is the video they don’t want you to see” utterly fails to justify your act of theft.
When you make a copy of that video, you’re stealing the television station’s property. Just as surely as you would be if you broke into their studio and stole the videotape.
Please stop trying to cloak yourself in righteousness. You’re not a postmodern hero trying to correct a grave injustice. You’re not practicing civil disobedience. You’re not Rosa Parks or Gandhi or Robin Hood.
You’re just an annoying little nerd who’s, in the words of my friend Derek, treating the Internet like it’s a buffet.
The truly stunning part of all this is that the aforementioned televised report was controversial in the first place because some people accused the on-camera reporter of harassing someone who was defending his inalienable property rights. And now some of those same folks are harassing the television station that aired the report by trampling all over their inalienable property rights.
It’s all so like-rain-on-your-wedding-day.
Comments
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I’ll totally agree with you about posting the entire video but wouldn’t posting the really offending 15-20 seconds qualify as fair use? And wouldn’t just using that portion take the reporter’s behavior out of context and make her look like more of an ass than she really was? I can agree that the station owns the rights to video but it’s another example of how the cover-up just makes things worse.
So, no. There’s no Robin Hood here.
It’s more like a creepy Drudge thing.
If Clinton had just fessed to getting a BJ, he could have saved us all 16 months of shit.
daddyquatro
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007, 8:43 pm
The question of whether an unauthorized use is fair or not isn’t a cut-and-dried one, and it’s not decided solely on how much of the work you reproduce. Running 15 seconds of a two-minute (for example) segment might be fair use, if your intent is to comment on it or something legitimate like that. As depressing as it is, “LOL, u sux!” is by itself probably enough to be considered a legitimate comment.
But even if what we were talking about were a fair use, the line is crossed when you go from reproducing part of the work within your own work to distributing copies of the original work and urging others to do the same. That’s no longer fair use no matter what the context; it’s piracy.
Jeff Harrell
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007, 9:39 pm
I’d like to disagree… no your point is valid but I’d like to pointlessly disagree with things that are beside (the point?).
Rain on your wedding day is not ironic no mater how often the song in question is aired (no examples from said song are irony) but I’m
“LOL, u sux!” is by itself a legitimate comment. Just a truely crap and worthless comment. But (and this is a little ironic) the law sees no difference between a really good “fair comment” and a poor one such as “LOL, u sux!”
The real issue here is paranoia. In a world of the blogger and transparency the act of “suppressing” even the most mundane and pointless drivel seems like a slap in the face. The reaction is always defiance of the authority that aims to “suppress”. It’s all a bit silly.
Lord Matt
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007, 10:15 am
What? Your comment was completely incoherent, “Lord” Matt.
Leo
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007, 10:23 am
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Striderweb » Blog Archive » Copywrong
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007, 2:53 pm