Big Media Once Again Confuses Intellectual Property Protection And Promotions
from the slow-to-catch-on... dept
Honestly, I really hadn't followed much concerning this Ken Jennings winning on Jeopardy stuff, other than hearing a few months back that someone seemed to be constantly winning. I had no idea he was still winning, actually. However, he finally lost last week (or, rather, a few months ago, but it aired last week) and blogger Jason Kottke apparently had the scoop on many details of what was going on over these months concerning Jennings and Jeopardy. Right before the loss came, Kottke apparently posted an audio file of the losing moment along with a transcript. As any sane person would realize, this must have been great publicity in getting a bunch of people to tune into Jeopardy that night. In fact, I haven't watched Jeopardy in at least a decade, and I thought about tuning in until I realized I read about the situation after it happened. Instead of being happy with the added publicity (during sweeps week, no less), Sony has sent the lawyers after Jason and have basically been hassling him and making life difficult for him. It's yet another case of lawyers making legal decisions that don't make business sense.
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Understanding the law
The law does not say, contrary to the implication of your story, thou shalt not copy, unless in so doing you give us good press. Rather, the law protects the content owner's right to be the ONLY arbiter of reproductions and performances of their work, regardless of the purpose (satire and excerpting for review not withstanding).
What's more, the law requires the copyright (or patent, if you like) holder to vigorously defend their claim in every instance of which they are aware. Failure to do so may result in a loss of their ability to enforce their copyright in other circumstances ("well, you let them copy it without trying to stop them!!")
While the hoard of lawyers that seem to come out of the woodwork every time one so much as mentions a copyrighted work are annoying and possibly despicable, they HAVE to act in order to preserve the owner's rights under the law.
I don't like it any more than you. My reaction, however, is not to lampoon the lawyers or the copyright holders. My reaction is to scald the American public for not being more aggressive in insisting that copyright laws passed by congress protect the public and ensure fair use.
Lets fix copyrights and patents, rather than blaming people who are only doing their jobs (as distasteful as their jobs may be to us).
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Copyright Reform
I don't think "you let them do it" is a valid defense. Tu quoque arguments are logical fallacies. Prosecutors often cut deals with criminals to go after bigger criminals, but other criminals charged with the same offense who have nothing to trade don't get to use the "you let him off" defense. (Yes, I realize civil law is different than criminal law.)
More worrisome to me is Mike's statement:
Why blame the lawyers here? Mike clearly said Sony sent the lawyers after Jason. Shouldn't Sony be the ones with the business acumen to realize whether or not it's a good business decision? I seriously doubt the lawyers discovered Jason's use on their own and went after him without consulting Sony at all.Another point Mike might be missing is that, while knowing when Ken Jennings would lose might get bigger ratings for that night, it might hurt ratings for every night leading up to that night if people who wanted him to lose decided not to tune in because they knew he'd just win again.
It could be similar to the effect seen when companies preannounce a product. While it can build buzz for the new product, it can also cause sales of their existing products dry up.
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Re: Copyright Reform
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Lawyers?
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Entropy!
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