Copyright Making Sure That MTV Remains An Irrelevant Relic, Rather Than A Cultural Icon
from the locking-up-culture dept
For those of us of a certain age, MTV defined culture. It was where we learned about not just music, but wider pop culture. Of course, MTV lost its cultural place atop the mountaintop with the rise of the internet, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a key source of culture in the 1980s. Historically, the way that society preserves and remembers culture is to share it and spread it around. This is actually how culture is created. Yet copyright is the opposite of that. Copyright is about locking up content and denying the ability to create shared culture around it. And the best evidence of this is the fact that someone (it is not entirely clear who...) with the power to do so, demanded that the Internet Archive take down a bunch of old MTV videos that were uploaded.
So, The Internet Archive had someone upload a few hundred hours of MTV recordings. VJs, Commercials, and of course Music Videos, from the 1980s. Today, it was asked to be taken down by someone who could ask for that and it's down. pic.twitter.com/tZ7Ka2sGMy
— Jason Scott (@textfiles) May 9, 2020
From a purely legal standpoint, it seems quite likely that whoever issued the takedown did have a legal leg to stand on. The real question, however, should be whether or not they have a moral or cultural leg to stand on. After all, if the entire point of copyright -- as per the Constitution -- is to encourage "the progress" then how does taking these old clips down do anything to support that goal?
There are a number of other points worth mentioning to demonstrate how crazy this whole thing is, starting with the fact that MTV itself knew how important it was to build on cultural touchstones in that its whole logo/image was built off a public domain image from just a few years earlier. The moon landing was in 1969, and MTV launched in 1981. Imagine if this image had been locked up under copyright?
MTV knows that creativity comes from building on the past; it created its most iconic moon landing imagery on top of public domain government videos and photographs. Another big company pulling up the ladder behind it https://t.co/9pamGhNAbb
— Parker Higgins (@xor) May 10, 2020
This also demonstrates a separate point we've been making for years, which is that the actual commercial value of a piece of work locked up behind copyright, tends not to be that long, and yet we locked it up for basically a century for no good reason at all. In the earliest copyright times in the US, copyright initially was for 14 years, which could be renewed for another 14 if the copyright holder felt it was worth it. A maximum of 28 years would mean that most of the uploaded clips would now be in the public domain if we had kept those terms. And, as we've pointed out repeatedly, back when copyright was 28 years, renewable for another 28 years, very few works were renewed, suggesting that the vast majority of copyright holders did not see any reason to retain their copyright beyond 28 years (indeed, the numbers suggest many would have been fine with significantly shorter copyright terms):
Yet, today copyright automatically lasts beyond most of our lifetimes. And, for what purpose? Right now, MTV is not particularly culturally relevant. You'd think that someone might jump at the chance to get renewed interest in MTV's past cultural relevance, but the belief that copyright means we must lock up culture seems to prevail over common sense.
Taking down these cultural touchstones may have been perfectly legal, but all it's really done is help demonstrate the many, many problems of today's copyright law and how it destroys, rather than enhances, culture.
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Filed Under: archives, copyright, culture, mtv, sharing
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Not for lack of trying though
Stories like this just highlight that creativity and culture will be preserved and spread in spite of copyright law, not because of it.
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Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
It appears that someone sees some economic opportunity in those MTV shows. I cannot imagine what it might be, as I have some doubts about anyone paying to see them, or at least not a whole lot of people. So what is their agenda? Control?
At a different level of reasoning, having those shows on the Internet Archive, maybe at some lower resolution, would create the opportunity for people to discuss those programs, and that just might create some interest which the copyright holder might then exploit. In the meantime, it is likely he's got nada.
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Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
Not necessarily. A lot of big rightsholders enforce their copyrights just because they can, not because they have any real financial need to in a specific case. Nintendo comes to mind.
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If you were MTV would you want people to remember you used to show music & make people happy instead of promoting overconsumption and teen moms?
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There's still an MTV channel?!
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Copyright law is there to allow publishers to bottle up our culture and sell it to the highest bidder.
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Dear MTV: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
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Re:
Despite Mike's statement, it's not even obvious they can legally order a takedown. Okay, they have "a legal leg to stand on", but a single leg does not grant stability; I count three solid legs for fair use (reminder: the copyright holder must consider it before ordering takedown):
Now, this isn't a numbers game, and maybe a court will say amount and substantiality ("all of MTV"?) tip the balance.
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Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
That is one reason, the 'it;s mine and I control its use use' attitude. The other is to reduce competition to the works that they currently offer, so as to maximize profits.
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MTV can legally take down whatever footage for which it exclusively holds the copyright. Fair Use wouldn’t generally apply in this case because the use itself didn’t transform the nature of, or provide a new purpose for, the work. And sharing the unaltered work without a profit motive in mind doesn’t make that sharing any more or less “fair”.
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Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
No, having an audience for newly produced content with a shorter life time. People who watch 40 year old content will also watch 60 year old content. If they have decades of content available to watch (that frankly more often than not beats current content in quality), they stop watching new content out of boredom.
If the old stuff sticks around, and worse, sticks around at no cost, people will not drown their boredom in the new shit to the degree otherwise possible.
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Not to mention by the time copyright expires, any relevance the work had has long passed as well. Usually.
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Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
Not necessarily. Or at least not realistically.
A lot harbor some fantasy of making money - somehow - off this stuff. At some undefined future time. Without know how they're going to pull this off.
Other are just mad that someone else might make money of off 'their' work. Take The Witcher. Sapkowski got mad that CDProjektRed made a boatload of money off of his back. Except they made it off of their own hard work and, in fact, they made his work more valuable, not the other way around. But he still whined that he was getting ripped off. Nevermind that there wouldn't be a Witcher Netflix show if it weren't for CDPR. That Sapkowski would be unknown outside of Poland if it weren't for CDPR. That Sapkowski wouldn't have gotten the recognition from the Polish government that he has if it weren't for CDPR.
In fact, this is a good example. He offered to take so little for the game rights that you could say CDPR got them for free - yet they managed to return so much value to the IP that the original creator still made tons of money off of them. Imagine what he could have if tons of others could do the same. Their work making his work more valuable.
All it takes is opening your fist.
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Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
It's all about competition. The customer has only so many hours in a day to consume. The more old stuff available the less need for new stuff.
If your modern MTV why would you want 20 year old MTV getting in your way for the limited time a consumer has available?
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Re:
Several.
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And the thought that counts..
WE could add to the Law..
That the Originator, That created it is the only one to redo the Copyrights.
And that Copyrights to an individual(s)..not a corps.
And What is wonderful is the time persons spend to re-transcript the DATA from 1 form to another.
Wouldnt it be great to Show the OLD MTV tot he kids today..
Wild Kingdom,
Wide world of sports
Look up movie, hardly ever broadcast, Medusa touch..
How about Listening to ALL the music from 1 group, not "THE Best OF.."
All the Crap Disney ever made, not "The best of.."
How about a history book that LEADS you thru time and talks about All of it, NOT "the best of.."
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Re:
No, copyright law is there to allow publishers to flush our culture down the toilet so that there is a market for standardised trash that is bought, consumed and forgotten as fast as it is being produced.
Appliances are built to last not too long after expiration of warranty: that engineering feat has not always been possible. Entertainment converges to the same mindframe, but the archival possibilities of media endanger the required shortlivedness.
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Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
ViacomCBS owns PlutoTV, so my thinking is that they want to take their MTV stuff down from the Archives so they could once again stream it on an "MTV Classic" or whatever channel on their television-like streaming service. It's within the realm of possibility, considering that there are actually MTV channels that show nothing but music videos on Pluto TV. I'm not kidding.
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Re: Re:
And they're on Pluto TV, which is owned by ViacomCBS, so I think that's why somebody over there C&D'd the Archive on those old veejay segments.
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Humans ruin everything.
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Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain contr
The same can be said for advertisements. Why bother having advertisements out there sucking up some of your time you could be using looking at modern content?
Oh wait.
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Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
That assumes there's a similar demographic demand for both old and new content.
I'm doubtful.
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VH1 was always better but I don't remember mtv being good.
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I do remember the mtv "generation" as the beginning of the fake news generation.
Remember satanic human sacrifice foreign terrorist organization being a disproven by cnn on sept 11 2001?
That's the last time I remember watching CNN without nearly every word coming out of their mouths being a lie or simply totally wrong.
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Re: Re:
So what does Creative Commons/ Open Source mean in all of this? Does it mean people are finally seeing past the lies that the copyright industry has sold the entire world into believing?
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Re:
Of course they can take down whatever they want, whether they own the copyright or not, but there are limitations on using the DMCA to force another entity to do that. In Lenz v. Universal "the district court held that Universal must consider fair use when filing a takedown notice, but noted that to prevail a plaintiff would need to show bad faith by a rights holder."
(Showing bad faith could be difficult here, particularly without knowing details of any claim.)
It's literally the first factor on the linked page: "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;"
Those are not requirements, just factors to be considered. Also see on the Wikipedia page: "Using most or all of a work does not bar a finding of fair use"; "courts are permitted to include additional factors in their analysis."
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It's not finally. The FSF was founded in 1985 building on a tradition going back to the 1960s. Internet, YouTube and friends make publishing and distribution so cheap that the publishers had to retreat into their strongholds; defending their position by throwing lawyers at any perceived competitor. (And solidifying their legal position via "campaign contributions" to congress members.)
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Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain contr
"The more old stuff available the less need for new stuff."
Which is obviously why movie and music production have gone down so much as back catalogue availability has increased. No, wait, there' actually more content being produced than ever.
"If your modern MTV why would you want 20 year old MTV getting in your way for the limited time a consumer has available?"
If you're a modern MTV and that's what's getting in your way, you've already failed. By definition, your target audience should be completely different which ever way you look at it.
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Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
"People who watch 40 year old content will also watch 60 year old content"
Those people will also watch brand new content.
" If they have decades of content available to watch (that frankly more often than not beats current content in quality), they stop watching new content out of boredom."
You assume that nothing of value is currently produced, which is false.
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I can demolish your arguments about the “purpose and character” prong and the “using most of all of a work” proposition with two words: ROM sites. But since two words doesn’t necessarily educate you, I’ll go further.
Assume, for a mere moment, that a given ROM site operates as a non-profit entity — not a legal one, mind you, but a non-profit all the same. The site only hosts ROMs from at least 15 years ago — long ago enough to obtain “retro” cred, but not recent enough that it’d offer a bunch of ROMs for games still (generally) on the market. The owner of this site swears their site offers ROMs for the sole purpose of historical preservation. For all intents and purposes, the site serves as a non-profit archive of videogame history.
And Nintendo, Sony, etc. could still legally destroy that site at any time.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking certain uses of a work that seem “fair” will equal a valid Fair Use defense in a court of law. Distributing full works for a supposedly benevolent reason won’t protect anyone’s ass from a copyright takedown/lawsuit. That includes your ass, too.
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Re:
Why are right-wingers always so specifically obsessed with what CNN has supposedly said? There's a great many news outlets, yet they're the ones who are always singled out.
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…fucking what
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Trump hates CNN. Right wingers follow Dear Leader without hesitation or question. Do the math.
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Re:
The anti-CNN stuff predates Trump, though. It's always struck me as rather strange, especially given that there are many other news orgs that are further left, if the idea is to create a false equivalence between them and Fox.
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It's sad they took it down. The videos show the time when MTv was the no 1source of pop music. Before youtube or the concept of streaming TV existed. MTv
Was so influential in showing new wave music.
British groups Duran Duran etc it was a pioneer in showing Michael Jackson music videos. It had TV shows about metal and rap. Before it switched over to showing reality TV shows dozens of, 80s groups got their start by having a cool video on MTv
Theres still music video channels. But now every new music video is on YouTube. There was a time when
Any pop group had to have videos on MTv. It was the music equivalent of ESPN. It was a pop culture juggernaut. And MTv was on cable TV all over the world.
Teens now will never know how important it was in regard to breaking new artists and making rap music popular
At least these videos will probably be uploaded on
torrent websites at some point
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Re: Re:
Reality has a left wing bia. By going after one of the less biased of the 'left wing' news outlets, they can smear straight reporting of the republics agenda.
' All bad news is biased, against republicans, only trust the people who echo things you think sound true because you hate minorities and the gays, climb inside the bubble and breathe what you emit! You won't die!"
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Badge Earned: Ignominious Obscurity
The possibility that MTV might have gained some new relevance and brand-awareness has just been throttled aborning by this takedown. Good show, whoever submitted the takedown request! We shall all pray that you and MTV languish in growing penury that derives from the ignominious obscurity you have earned.
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Re:
"I do remember the mtv "generation" as the beginning of the fake news generation."
Sorry to burst your bubble, but fake news has been around since humans have been communicating. You need a different boogeyman.
"Remember satanic human sacrifice foreign terrorist organization being a disproven by cnn on sept 11 2001?"
It was an inside job!!!111111
"That's the last time I remember watching CNN without nearly every word coming out of their mouths being a lie or simply totally wrong."
What did you expect from Conservative News Network?
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minor typo in the article
Just after the second moon landing shot you (the author) wrote:
I think you meant to write:
Otherwise, good piece.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain c
The same could indeed be said for ads.
But as the Disney Vault demonstrates, that's not the line the copyright cult goes for.
It's more or less generally accepted among copyright maximalists that the ideal situation would be if every movie, song or book was burned some six months after distribution stopped.
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Ever try searching?
Hmm, how to say this without the wrong people getting excited about it. ...
The Internet Archive has a whole lot of video, much of it uploaded by the Community. Even today, if you used the right keywords to search for certain Mostly legiTimite Versions of items that it hosts, you could probably find some of the files you were looking for.
Two more tips:
When you see something you really like at the Archive, download it. I was about 40% through the set we're talking about before it vanished.
If you value what the Archive does, send them a donation. Hey, it's tax-deductible!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain c
"Which is obviously why movie and music production have gone down so much as back catalogue availability has increased. No, wait, there' actually more content being produced than ever."
Well, he does have a point. The disney vault is a fact. And there's a reason so many people have playlists focused around 80's and 90's music rather than the newest albums fresh out of Sony studios. For better or worse older music wasn't all written by the same two people in assembly-line fashion.
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Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain contr
"That assumes there's a similar demographic demand for both old and new content."
Ever wondered why so many people, even in the younger generation, have playlists filled with hits from the 80's?
The same holds true, to some extent, for old cult flicks.
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Re: Re: Re:
"So what does Creative Commons/ Open Source mean in all of this?"
Basically CC and Open Source were created out of necessity - to ensure that opportunists couldn't simply apply their own copyrights to a minimally-changed derivative of something already in the "public" domain.
It's fscked up, but the existence of copyright made the public domain nonexistent unless it too was brought under copyright "protection" in the form of open licenses.
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Re: Re:
But do any of them play music videos?
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At the Time of the Writing of the US Copyright Rules....
The 28 year possibility of copyright for a work was a lifetime. Now, however; the lifetime of current copyright holders is quite literally hundreds of years. Disney CORPORATION, a legal artificial person, in its current configuration or when it is bought out, will last for centuries. Why would they want to let go of their "property" and have other use it when they can legally wrest control of it possibly for centuries. What they probably really want is for Disney itself to be the "artist". Then, it will never die. Therefore it has a forever copyright. Currently, copyright is until the death of the author plus 75 years. Just imagine if Disney itself were the author? It would probably never die. Of course, then the monkey selfie would be held by the suddenly created corporation that was created solely to hold the copyright!
Can't you hear the corporate chants already "We live forever, no more free riding on the public domain by those real people" and "long live the corporations, the sole owners of copyright".
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Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
Not necessarily. The appeal of '80s-era MTV is clearly nostalgia. People who have nostalgia for the 1980s don't necessarily have nostalgia for the '50s and '60s (though they did probably watch a lot of '50s/'60s TV shows in syndication when they were kids).
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Re:
...MTV always promoted overconsumption.
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Re: Re:
Yes, of course. I certainly can't think of any examples of entertainment companies trying to make money from old properties.
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MTV has become GAY TV with only 2 shows:
First: RuPaul Gay Drag Race show. Totally outlandish and ridiculous to anyone with a whiff of conservative values. And second: Teenage Gay Mom, worshipping 16 y./o.s Mothers with their 14 y./o.s fathers. What a loss of what was once the West's mightiest hammer against communist countries's regimes. Now it's a laughing stock to even the most deprived societies on Earth.
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Re: At the Time of the Writing of the US Copyright Rules....
...you...seem confused.
Works of corporate authorship are subject to copyright for 95 years after publication.
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What, pray tell, makes queer-centric shows worthy of derision?
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Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain control.
Ding. Ding. We have a winner.
It's the "If I can't profit off of it, then no one can." mindset of these idiots that creates these conditions. Even if it fell to the sands of time, there would be some landlord demanding payment for it's use. Never underestimate their greed. They want to live like kings for doing absolutely nothing. (Especially those who inherited their copyright ownership.)
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Re:
If you produce the teen mom content no. It probably isn't even company profitability but stupid internal politics from the guy who said "lets cut costs by putting on crap that doesn't even feature D list celebrities!". And now it is a pale shadow of itself pretending everything is fine until the incompetent retires from the job be converted to a dead end job as few places would look to him and say "That is somebody I want in charge!"
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Re: Re:
CNN is more moderate than MSNBC and thus competition. When looked at it that way there is no wonder why Fox news hates it and lets their hate flow through to their base of dupes.
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Re: Re: Re:
Not really.
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Re: Re: Re:
For sure.
Also, MTV "reality" tv channels are also still available in cable. How lucky are we all?!
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Re: Re:
I thought they were going to go with the fake satanic moral panic of the 80s and 90s, which would be the mtv era. Of course, the "mtv generation" were kids, and not involved with creating newscasts, fake or otherwise. Terrorist CNN 2001 wtaf i don't even.
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Re: Ever try searching?
Yeah, people do upload content into wrong categories with hilariously strange names.
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Re: MTV has become GAY TV with only 2 shows:
You and your supposed hammer and your enemies are worthy of derision.
But i think RuPaul is the height of annoying. So guess what, i don't watch him or his work product. He doesn't hurt anyone and neither do people who want to watch his show or whatever. Get over yourself and your fake defend-our-christian-white-america 1950s bullshit.
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Re: Re: Re:
.... and you think the satanic cyber/terrorist garbage is fake....
It's not fake. It's a bunch of bio-chemical weapon using, torturing, LSD peddling, child abusing, pseudo-religious garbage from asia.
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Re: MTV has become GAY TV with only 2 shows:
Are those really more outlandishly gay than some of the artists on there in whatever golden age you'e thinking of?
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Re:
Repression. He's still trying to tell himself that the funny feelings he had watching Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Boy George were totally straight.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Weird, you just listed a bunch of things the US has done but called them Asian...
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Re: Re: Re:
"CNN is more moderate than MSNBC and thus competition"
Heh, maybe. CNN has always seemed boringly middle of the road to me, but I'm usually only exposed to the international version, which supposedly has a different format to the US version.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Reality has a left wing bia."
Yeah, that does seem to have been exposed by the current situation. Actual medical science is now something to protest in the streets about, as if a virus cares that you're hugging your guns in an attempt to reopen the mall..
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but mainta
"Well, he does have a point. The disney vault is a fact"
That doesn't prove a point. All it shows is that Disney invented a successful marketing tactic that's less and less relevant the further we get from the VHS era. It's also actually a bad example for the current point as the people who would clamour for the vault titles are also people who will queue up to watch the new Disney movies.
"there's a reason so many people have playlists focused around 80's and 90's music"
A mix of nostalgia and the fact that they're no longer in the teen/early 20s market that commercial music has always been directed at. That doesn't mean they won't listen to new stuff, it means that a guy who was a huge grunge fan when that was the dominant music isn't necessarily going to be listening to a stream of the latest EDM aimed at current teens. That doesn't in any way mean they're not in the market for newer stuff in their wheelhouse. They're just no longer the target audience for the pop market.
"For better or worse older music wasn't all written by the same two people in assembly-line fashion."
Go back and listen to the overall scope of music back then. Not the stuff that's endured time and become considered classic, the actual stuff that was filling the top 40. You'll be surprised how much bland cookie cutter shit there has always been.
Growing up in the UK in the 80s and 90s, I listened to a lot of diverse music from rave to grunge to hip-hop. But, the charts were dominated by the production line output of Stock, Aitken and Waterman and bland girl/boy groups.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you did that stuff you're on a terrorist list and your ringleader is likely from asia
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The CIA are controlled by Asia?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ask the CIA....
And yes asians also have cia agencies from their countries.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The CIA are controlled by Asia?"
Yes, via tech obtained from aliens during the extensive analysis of the crashed flying saucer they have in area 51. It's all a big cover up by Hillary and the IRS. They plan on stealing all our guns when they invade Texas to build their FEMA death camps.
/s
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but ma
"All it shows is that Disney invented a successful marketing tactic that's less and less relevant the further we get from the VHS era."
...and regains relevance the more control the stakeholders can re-establish over the market and the consumer's habits. Hence, I believe, why so much of the copyright cult has lately been focused on rendering alternative models too cumbersome to use. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is King. So, sayeth Sony and Disney, let's just blind everyone. Cue ACTA, the Copyright directive, Sony's crusade against "goliath", etc etc.
Although some parts of that industry are starting to see sense there's still significant parts of it heavily invested in putting the internet back in the bottle. Which is why so much of their efforts is focused on destroying all the nice things, so they don't have to do something about their own mediocrity and obsolescence.
"You'll be surprised how much bland cookie cutter shit there has always been."
Not really, no. I'm aware.
But never before has the vast majority of the hyped "greatest hits" been created entirely by a whopping two people while the band on the album cover is considered the equivalent of an iPhone shell - interchangeable at a week's notice.
Sure, there is a LOT of music being made which is original, explores new or old reinvented horizons...published by small indies or the artists themselves. Using venues the current incumbent do their very damnedest best to render impractical or impossible to use.
The major labels have always played dirty but back in the 80's they didn't have the same option of turning music into an assembly-line process. Today? They do. And they'd like to keep it that way.
"But, the charts were dominated by the production line output of Stock, Aitken and Waterman and bland girl/boy groups."
The charts have always been influenced by both popular demand AND the goodwill the radio stations needed to earn from the labels. Point still being that there's a lot more great undying hits surviving from the 80's coming out of the "official" labels than you are likely to find in today's industry ecology.
Today the music aficionado can build full playlists entirely out of self-published youtube artists with a smattering of golden 70's to 80's tossed in for nostalgia - without ever having to add a single contemporary song from a major label.
Yeah, I'm as guilty of being the grumpy guy in the rocking chair, threatening the kids to get of my lawn and whining that "It was all better before" as the next middle-aged old fart...but where music concerned there's a lot of objective indication that said statement is correct. And certainly will be if the current incumbents have their way. Because barring actual reinvention as part of the "creative" process used by major studios and labels, all they've got left is to cling to their old VHS/Vinyl model with a death grip.
Disney's old marketing tactic is still VERY MUCH alive and kicking. Kept that way by increasing efforts to destroy any alternative form of distribution channel.
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Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain contr
"Those people will also watch brand new content."
Yes, but...critics have been saying it for years, a lot of the "new content" is nothing more than remakes or bundles of tired old stories repackaged with only special effects covering for shitty and uninventive scripts, hamfisted acting, and producers too old or locked into last decades successes to come up with any form of imaginative effort. There's a reason, I think, why new actors like Netflix are disproportionately represented in the success column while the massively experienced studios keep trying - and failing - to squeeze money out of the cash cows they first launched in the 80's.
Sure, there have always been plenty of truly awful movies getting churned out like there was no tomorrow. What is somehow worrying is that today I see very few new productions with the potential to become classics people might want to watch 30 years down the road.
It's like the whole of Tinseltown has become that doddering geriatric who can't read the mood and whose latest interest in the party scene was 40 years ago, still swaggering around like a latter-years Elvis in hilariously overdone bling and makeup, trying to still pick up gigs and teenagers at the disco while spilling long-disused and vaguely repulsing trope triggerwords everywhere...
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Re: Re: MTV has become GAY TV with only 2 shows:
"Are those really more outlandishly gay than some of the artists on there in whatever golden age you'e thinking of?"
I'm thinking he must have missed David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and...huh, just about half of what MTV was actually known for in it's heyday.
So it begs the question; WHICH MTV was he actually watching that he now laments the loss of?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, bu
"Although some parts of that industry are starting to see sense there's still significant parts of it heavily invested in putting the internet back in the bottle."
Yes, and as before they will fail and be forced to compete on something other than hiding supplies. This is a regular cycle - companies tied to the older way of doing things try to turn back the clock, then after being forced to compete when failing at that end up not only competing but creating lucrative income streams that would not have been possible before. I've seen this with every successful new tech over the last few decades, and I see no reason why this will be different.
"The major labels have always played dirty but back in the 80's they didn't have the same option of turning music into an assembly-line process."
Erm, music in the 80s was a production line process. Not as streamlined as today perhaps, but it sure as hell was there, to the point where entire genres of music were ignored by the majors because they weren't able to be controlled in the same way. As a teenager in the late 80s/early 90s I remember rarely hearing the grunge, hip-hop and house music that I loved on the UK charts up until the point where someone worked out the way to get it on the production line. Until then, it was mainly production line pop such as what I've already referenced.
What I'm really getting from you here is that either you have a rose-coloured false memory of what made up pop music back then, or that you were just OK with the output of that specific production line.
"Point still being that there's a lot more great undying hits surviving from the 80's coming out of the "official" labels than you are likely to find in today's industry ecology."
According to you. The generation that the music is actually aimed at will likely disagree, just as your parents and grandparents will have pined for their generation's music rather than the noise being churned out in the 80s.
"Today the music aficionado can build full playlists entirely out of self-published youtube artists with a smattering of golden 70's to 80's tossed in for nostalgia - without ever having to add a single contemporary song from a major label."
Which is good, since that means more current artists have an outlet, whereas before they'd have had to get through some corporate barrier first. Most major artists were turned down by labels at some point. But, many others will have a different listening method than you.
I can kind of see what you're saying, but if you're only looking at popular major label output, nothing's really changed. Sure you might be concentrating on indie and 70s/80s music yourself, but older people in the 90s will have been saying pretty much the same thing. The only thing that's changed is that those people will have been tuning into golden oldies stations and sticking to their existing record collection, whereas current listeners will be accessing stuff they don't already own online because they have that extra option.
It's worth being vigilant and keeping an eye on what these companies are doing, but I genuinely don't see the behaviour being that much different.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but maintain c
"Yes, but...critics have been saying it for years, a lot of the "new content" is nothing more than remakes or bundles of tired old stories repackaged with only special effects covering for shitty and uninventive scripts"
I can point you to critics saying the same things in the 70s if you want, and some of the critics who loved 70s Hollywood hated their output in the 80s, even though people of my age consider that decades as a golden age of entertainment.
"What is somehow worrying is that today I see very few new productions with the potential to become classics people might want to watch 30 years down the road."
Then, you're willfully blind to what's being made.
There is a certain problem with the current industry, which is that medium-budgeted fare is being squeezed out of cinemas. Studios depend on tentpoles more than ever, and smaller studios can make low budgeted movies that guarantee a certain return in the first weekend (think Blumhouse's model), but the middle budget feature and sleeper hits seem to be more and more distributed on streaming services rather than in cinemas. But, that's a distribution issue, the creative side is still there.
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Re: Re: Re: MTV has become GAY TV with only 2 shows:
On the one hand, there certainly were people in denial about the sexuality of a lot of artists back then because they also liked their music. But, yeah, if you're using the era of Queen, Culture Club, Wham, Village people, Bronski Beat, Erasure, Frankie, Soft Cell, Dead Or Alive, etc., etc. as an example of straightness you're either in denial or willfully ignorant. The only real difference is that those artists could not necessarily announce their sexuality, even though it was obvious to anyone looking.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot
"I can kind of see what you're saying, but if you're only looking at popular major label output, nothing's really changed."
Plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose? Yeah, i get you.
"The only thing that's changed..."
Well, there is one thing different. Sure, it's the same tired old conflict, time and time again, always with the labels (or guilds) doing their level best to turn art into industrial production...
But whether it was the publishers of sheet music whining about the self-playing piano and gramophone; record companies trying to ban radio, movie theatre, or television...hell, at no point in time was the production industry as influential or as large as it is today.
I'm not concerned with the behavior of these organizations - which hasn't changed since they tried to prevent people from printing and interpreting bibles - but more with the fact that the one thing they picked up from technology is how to churn out ever more "content" on very little you could call "art".
"...music in the 80s was a production line process. Not as streamlined as today perhaps, but it sure as hell was there..."
It was attempted, yes. The difference, still, is like that of 18th-century handcrafted china which employed hundreds and thousands of potters...as compared to modern machine manufacture which employs instead half a dozen CEO's, two marketers and an engineer to accomplish the same throughput.
In neither case could you call it "art" but at least in the former case you could argue that the forced production gave a massive number of artists subsistence.
Todays music industry closely resembles the latter case where you've got one person churning out the music and lyrics for a hundred bands of artists no more important than the currently trendy smartphone casing.
"Sure you might be concentrating on indie and 70s/80s music yourself, but older people in the 90s will have been saying pretty much the same thing."
Except that's not the case. The 80's were in many ways a specially creative period. There have been plenty of explanations but the one i favor is that it was one of those "in-between" periods where long-entrenched conservative values finally caved to a great deal of liberalism.
Interesting a topic as that is though, I think we've sort of meandered off. Back to the "disney vault is still a thing".
You mentioned that; "It's also actually a bad example for the current point as the people who would clamour for the vault titles are also people who will queue up to watch the new Disney movies."
That's actually a point in favor for the Vault model. If Disney knows their fans will queue up for the new movies or the old ones alike they just vault the old ones and earn some extra money by launching a hideously priced collectors edition remake at important anniversaries - like they currently do, in fact.
Doesn't change the fact that today studios, Disney included, cut corners they couldn't, and wouldn't ever attempt way back when. Not just because the tech to do so didn't exist, but because today you just can't keep 1500 expert artists plus production staff dedicated to a single movie. Made much easier by Walt's use of pseudo-slave labor of course.
Many things become better using fewer people and more tech. Cost, for instance. Sometimes durability and materials. Definitely utility...but art? Art is one of those things which rarely improves when you let tech handle more of it.
When your business is all about monopolizing as many bits of the consumers spare time as possible, anything which competes with your new stuff is the enemy. Even if it's your old stuff.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but mainta
"I can point you to critics saying the same things in the 70s if you want, and some of the critics who loved 70s Hollywood hated their output in the 80s, even though people of my age consider that decades as a golden age of entertainment."
You can...but have you had a look at some statistics about hollywood production? Google "has hollywood lost its way short of the week. An interesting piece of data is presented;
Of the top 10 US films in;
1981 - 7 originals, 2 sequels, 1 an adaptation from a book.
1991 - 1 original, 3 sequels, 6 adaptations.
2001 - 2 originals, 5 sequels, 3 adaptations.
2011 - 0 originals, 8 sequels, 2 adaptations.
It's pretty clear from even a cursory look that tinseltown has completely given up on the creative process. Today they're 100% focused on repackaging what someone else created.
By any objective standard the 80's did indeed have a good claim on being a golden age of creativity and entertainment.
"Then, you're willfully blind to what's being made."
Or you are. How many blockbusters lately aren't adaptations of comic books, novels, or sequels? As compared to in 1981 when the top 10 was 70% original story?
"There is a certain problem with the current industry, which is that medium-budgeted fare is being squeezed out of cinemas."
That...actually isn't a current factor. Plenty of movies in the 70's and 80's were made on shoestring budgets. The first Star Wars movie, for instance. There's an entire wiki page dedicated to "low-budget films".
The problem might be more that the current studios have a lot more bloat when it comes to how much roi they expect to gain up front. As you imply they need to churn out a few major productions hyped to hell and back - their tentpoles - on which they rely to earn big. Admittedly, a lot of that is due to small studios swelling into giants over time.
"But, that's a distribution issue, the creative side is still there."
Well, yes...for Netflix and HBO, and all those other smaller studios. But the original discussion brought up by David's OP was about a segment of the industry which certainly isn't small, nor agile, nor exactly known for being creative.
Netflix and HBO haven't been too outstanding when it comes to being maximalists on the copyright side - because they know damn well they've got products which keep winning them the audience. The problem discussed here is about the geriatric giants on feet of clay who try to solve their doddering senescence by just being extra stompy rather than agile.
Hence the lockdown approach on old MTV episodes even when it makes little to no common sense other than "because Mine!" - or because they fear losing the last of their eyeball time to their own old stuff.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in
"but more with the fact that the one thing they picked up from technology is how to churn out ever more "content" on very little you could call "art""
...in your subjective opinion, and ignoring that any change in that direction on the part of major labels has been offset by the increased ability of other musicians to reach an audience without having to go through them.
"Todays music industry"
No, today's major label content aimed at the pop market. The industry as a whole is as creative and vibrant as ever, you just choose to ignore most of it to make your point here.
"they just vault the old ones and earn some extra money by launching a hideously priced collectors edition remake at important anniversaries - like they currently do, in fact"
Yet, all of their old content that's not hampered by political controversy and wouldn't be selling anyway (e.g. Song Of The South) is available on Disney+ right now. That could change, but at the moment they're doing the opposite of what you're claiming. They're not likely to suddenly block people from streaming Frozen so that they can try selling box sets, that boat has sailed. The business is now getting as many subscribers as possible, while still selling cinema tickets and physical items on to when possible.
"Art is one of those things which rarely improves when you let tech handle more of it."
Yet, in the time period you're referring to they've made some of what can be considered their best work.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves in foot, but ma
"It's pretty clear from even a cursory look that tinseltown has completely given up on the creative process"
Once again, only if you ignore context and cherry pick data. Yes, the top 10 looks a bit ropey on the face of it, but they are also bringing in vastly more money than the older films did. In 1981, the total box office $918 million (around $2.4 billion in 2011 dollars). In 2011, the total box office was $10.1 billion. Adjusted for inflation, the top 10 in 2011 made more money that the entire domestic industry did in 1981. Those films are being made because they're wildly profitable, especially on a global scale, not because the industry simply can't conceive of other things.
But, there's more - in 1981, there were only 56 US theatrical releases. In 2011, there were 730 releases (all figures taken from here: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/). There's plenty of non-sequels and non-remakes outside of the top 10 if you bother to scroll that far, quite a few of which made more than $100 million each.
So, your claim doesn't really hold water if you stop cherry picking and look at the entire industry. What you're seeing is that the sequels you're whining about were more popular with audiences AND original work making lots of money. You just choose to ignore the latter for some reason.
"Plenty of movies in the 70's and 80's were made on shoestring budgets"
Yes, and as I said those are still alive and well. What's been stripped off is the MEDIUM budgets work that I referenced, which are more likely to be seen as a risk to studio distributors and going direct to streaming, and this is a trend that's visible since streaming became dominant. The movies are still being made, you're just not as likely to see them playing theatrically, but that's a distribution/business issue, not an imagination issue. The film industry is making as much original content as ever, perhaps much more, but if you miss them because you only choose to look at what's being sold to a cinema chain by a major studio, that's on you.
"Hence the lockdown approach on old MTV episodes even when it makes little to no common sense other than "because Mine!""
Unless you read other comments here where it's mentioned that Pluto TV actually run MTV channels and might be trying to protect their investment for future screenings there. It is perfect common sense when you don't rely on the assumption that because nobody is currently monetising the content then nobody ever will.
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relevance
I once bought an Irish bands entire back catalog when i found an obscure video on theTube... then someone copyspanked it.. no one i knowmhas anynidea whomthey were. also, most young peoplemhave no idea what mtv is..normshouldmthey
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Re: relevance
You might have more luck using punctuation and spaces between words...
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relevance
I once bought an Irish bands entire back catalog when i found an obscure video on theTube... then someone copyspanked it.. no one i knowmhas anynidea whomthey were. also, most young peoplemhave no idea what mtv is..normshouldmthey
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot selves
"...any change in that direction on the part of major labels has been offset by the increased ability of other musicians to reach an audience without having to go through them."
See my earlier comments regarding how so much of current xxAA lobbying is about making it harder for said musicians to NOT go through the major labels. If the DIY model means to waste several hours daily fending off false DMCA notices to keep your youtube channel running, the artist may find the indentured serfdom of a Sony contract less unpalatable. At first.
"The industry as a whole is as creative and vibrant as ever, you just choose to ignore most of it to make your point here."
I don't think "art" can be considered an industry. You just choose to ignore the dictionary definition in order to get a barb in for...reasons? See how that goes?
"That could change, but at the moment they're doing the opposite of what you're claiming. They're not likely to suddenly block people from streaming Frozen so that they can try selling box sets, that boat has sailed."
Yeah. Disney+ is new. They've managed to finally lock down the consumer market on one channel every family has good incentive to get. I'm retracting that statement.
"Yet, in the time period you're referring to they've made some of what can be considered their best work."
Hmm. Such as? I mean, Disney's best known shtick has always been to rip some fairy tale from the public domain, twist it into a pretzel, add a few musical scores and catchy jingles, build in the standard set of tropes, then toss it into the market. With the preferred target audience often being, well, kids, it's not hard to understand that the same old storytelling template which has been successful for millennia still works.
If we're still talking about art I'm not so sure "best work" is the phrase to use. Which is sort of the point. If all you need to do is to repackage a fairy tale which wowed the audience for thousands of years then sure, tech provides great leverage.
I can see where you're coming from, but almost no matter how you define art the common word included in the definition is "originality". And that's not a word I associate to Disney in any way, shape or form. In fact as a company their biggest flops are often found whenever they try something actually original.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maximalists shoot se
"I don't think "art" can be considered an industry."
Art is not an industry. However, if you can eat and create art at the same time that's a bonus. Once you accept payment for art, then the worlds of art and business collide. This is how it's always been. For example, a lot of great artworks exist purely because the Catholic church paid for them to be made. Michelangelo did not paint the Sistine Chapel without coming into conflict with the church that paid him, and it wouldn't have existed if he refused the strings.
"I mean, Disney's best known shtick has always been to rip some fairy tale from the public domain, twist it into a pretzel, add a few musical scores and catchy jingles, build in the standard set of tropes, then toss it into the market."
Yes, and some of their best work has been made by doing so. You might not like that formula, but it's works, and that's even without considering things like Inside Out, which some consider their best work for a long time. For every original work, there's stuff that sells. This is not unique to Disney. The reason we have Inception, Dunkirk and Tenet is that Christopher Nolan made Batman movies. The fact that Nolan managed to make successful films on a personal level does not change the fact that he needed the comic books to finance them.
"In fact as a company their biggest flops are often found whenever they try something actually original."
But, that's down to the audiences. It's not Disney's fault nobody wanted to see The Black Hole or Tron when they came out but did want to see The Little Mermaid and Aladdin... It's not Hollywood's fault everyone watched ET instead of Blade Runner and The Thing. Whatever your artistic credentials, you can't keep pushing out movies that lose money. If nobody watches intelligent original movies and people do watch production line stuff, then you get production line stuff afterwards because the guys making the original content already went out of business...
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