MPAA Pirated Clips From Google Commercials To Make Its Own MPAA Propaganda Videos
from the can't-make-this-stuff-up dept
And here's another one from the Sony archives, this time noticed by Parker Higgins. It involves an email thread between Sony TV's Chief Marketing Officer Sheraton Kalouria and the company's top intellectual property lawyer Leah Weil (with top TV exec Steve Mosko included in the cc: field). In the email, they're discussing a new "reputational initiative" by the MPAA. From other emails, it appears that the MPAA finally realized that its reputation was toxic, and figured that rather than, maybe, figuring out why that is, it would put together a marketing campaign to improve the public's view of the MPAA. Here were the four goals of the campaign:- Fill the knowledge gap about our industry
- Change consumer perceptions
- Claim our rightful position as innovators
- Reframe our consumer message in a positive tone
But the really amazing thing about the campaign? Apparently at least some of the video involved unauthroized copying of content from... Google. The same Google that the MPAA and studios had dubbed "Goliath" and who they were hell bent on destroying because of the misleading belief that Google helped people infringe on their copyrights. Here was Kalouria's email to Weil:
Also, I was somewhat horrified that their creative shop used footage from Google commercials in their “Swipe-o-matic”. I kid you not…some of those scenes of people being “moved” by movies are from a current Google campaign...!Weil only responded with a single word:
Yikes!!!Yes. If you've been following along with the home game, you know that the MPAA is really, really against copyright infringement (or at least that's what it would have you believe). And it believes that Google is the single-biggest problem in the copyright world these days. And yet, when it's time for the MPAA to put together some of its own propaganda to put some spit and polish on its down in the dumps reputation, what does it do? Make use of Google's footage and pretend that the people being "moved" are actually being moved by the MPAA's movies.
Apparently, infringing on the works of others is okay for the MPAA when it does it itself. And that's leaving out the extreme irony of using Google's ad footage as well. It's unclear if this MPAA film ever saw the light of day, but it would be fascinating to see if anyone has it...
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Filed Under: copying, copyright, leah weil, reputation, sheraton kalouria, sony emails, sony hack
Companies: google, mpaa, sony
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Ironic, but not felonious
But I get the "yikes" comment... even for a throwaway, the irony of a Google swipe isn't lost on Kalouria.
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Re: Ironic, but not felonious
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Re: Ironic, but not felonious
Maybe they thought it would be covered under fair use since they probably don't even know the definition of it anyway.
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Re: Re: Ironic, but not felonious
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Re: Re: Re: Ironic, but not felonious
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ironic, but not felonious
They had to have distributed it between Sony employees or nobody would have been "horrified" when they saw it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ironic, but not felonious
The MPAA should have hte law applied equally to them, or the law is worthless.
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But we don't live in that universe.
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Your honor: To prove Goliath, er Google, is the biggest threat to copyright ever, I'd like to submit Exhibit A, our willful infringement using Google's own video found by using google.com.
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Knowledge gap? I'm confident the public knows this is an organization which compared copying a movie to that of a murder victim and professed its love of child pornography.
Change consumer perceptions
The FBI warning message isn't enough?
Claim our rightful position as innovators
How much worse can the MPAA go from dead last?
(I get the sneaking suspicion we're about to find out)
Reframe our consumer message in a positive tone
This point pretty much sums up the MPAA. The fact that it needs to reframe its current message shows it was never positive to begin with.
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I would like a side order of unskippable ten year old commercials please.
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Business as usual
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All laws about content only apply to everyone but them.
That or their campagin to keep their reputation in the shitter is really coming along.
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Hey Google! :)
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"Claim our rightful position as innovators"
They only fight innovation. They don't innovate anything that anyone wants themselves. Hell... they can't even make a new original movie anymore!! Everything is either a sequel or a remake of something else.
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250000 dmg per view
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One way to know for sure...
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The MPAA is not interested in fair play, even under their draconian interpretation of copyright law.
And this incident illustrates that this is the case.
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MPAA definitions
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Does reputation matter?
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Re: Does reputation matter?
re/code, Verge, Gizmodo all breathlessly swoon over every Hollywood trailer spat out. It never seems to occur to them that it's just yet another comic book like all the others before it, or another Star Wars do-over, sent to the screen. GoT is not even any good.
What's wrong with these people? It's sad.
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Re: Re: Does reputation matter?
Words are nice, but it's actions that matter, and the actions of fools like that make those of us who actually care how companies treat their customers, and are actually willing to back up that care with real boycotts, instead of just empty whining, look bad.
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It's Not our Fault, Google Made Us Do It!
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Let's bring it up a little....
Sharing culture is a quintessentially human thing to do. Whether they want to make a point, or make someone smile, or just enlarge the circle of people for whom a reference is meaningful, sharing is natural. It happens all the time. It is perfectly right and good to spread ideas, culture, and experiences, with friends and with strangers. Trying to fight human nature is more futile than trying to fight the tide - which might be difficult, but there's little the ocean can do to you if you decide to get rid of the moon. Trying to excise (by punishment no less) a fundamentally human drive can only end in failure so long as one human remains alive.
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Re: Let's bring it up a little....
The problem is, they really suck at that. Geo-blocking, lawfare, DMCA, DHS/ICE, bribing attorneys general and writing their lines for them to attack search engines, outlawing VPNs? Who comes up with insane ideas like that?
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Re: Re: Let's bring it up a little....
Not sure I agree. They're not interested in us sharing culture with each other, they want us all to get our culture from them. That's not really sharing. They're fine with discussions about the cultural artifacts they're selling, but their acceptance ends short of actually sharing the artifacts.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's bring it up a little....
This is exactly right. That's why they hate the public domain so much. If we are creating and sharing culture with each other, then (the theory goes) we won't partake of what they magnanimously deign to sell us.
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holy shit what are they smokin? "rightful"... cant stop laughing.
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