A couple years ago, we were surprised by reports that former Vice President Al Gore had alerted attendees at an RSA conference where he was set to speak that no press were allowed, and that no one should report on what happened. It appears that his former boss, Bill Clinton, is doing something similar as PR handlers for his keynote at a Salesforce.com event have warned attendees not to report, tweet, Facebook or live blog during the event:
"PLEASE NOTE: President Clinton's representatives have mandated that there be absolutely no reporting during his session. That includes live blogging, Tweeting, Facebook posting or use of any other social media. We understand the inconvenience this may present, but greatly appreciate your compliance. Thank you."
It's difficult to think of a request that is more out of touch with what is happening in the world today. It's quite normal for people to communicate via such social media methods and shutting them off entirely (which won't actually work) just seems petty.
Update: And... the inevitable backing down. Clinton's people now claim that it was all a misunderstanding, and they simply said that the speech would not be open to the press. They claim that the PR agency misinterpreted that to mean no live blogging, tweeting or Facebooking, but they're actually fine with it. Of course, again it makes you wonder why you have such a "no press" policy in the first place...
We've talked a few times about issues with various sports leagues and teams trying to control what beat reporters can report about, including some pretty serious limitations on basic reporting. The rise of things like Twitter has only made this a bigger issue, with some media entities and sports leagues trying to limit the ability of reporters to make use of Twitter to actually connect with their readership and community.
The latest appears to be the Washington Redskins -- a team that has quite a history of controlling behavior when it comes to fans and reporters. This is the team that sued over 100 fans who couldn't afford to pay for their season tickets when the economy went south (most other teams worked out deals or just took the tickets back -- the Redskins took their fans to court). The team also threatened to revoke the press credentials of a Washington Post reporter who took photos of disgruntled fans protesting team actions.
So, really, I guess it shouldn't come as any surprise that the team is now trying to massively restrict how reporters make use of Twitter and blogs, as the team is trying to ban them from saying anything about practice sessions. The team is so controlling that part of the "media guidelines" it gave reporters includes an attempt to tell them what they can do:
"Media does have the right to report what they are told by coaches or players." (emphasis in the original)
It's as if they feel like they're giving reporters permission to... um... do their jobs. Apparently, the team also met with reporters where it was suggested that the media wouldn't even be allowed to ask players about what happened at practice.
Now, of course, there's no legal issue here. The team controls access and can deny or revoke a press pass to whomever they want, but it seems like a really short-sighted move. In an attempt to overly control the press, they end up making it that much more difficult for fans to really connect. For many fans, the press is their main connection to a sports team, so the team should be encouraging greater communities built up around those beat reporters. It makes fans more loyal and more interested in the team. At some point, teams are going to need to realize that reporters are effectively giving them free advertising, and they should stop trying to control every bit of it, or some publications might decide to back off on covering the team at all...
Below is an image of the first page of the new media "rules" care of TBD.com:
On Monday, we wrote about the ridiculous manner in which The Discovery Channel was treating a fan site that it had previously supported strongly. At the very top we clearly noted that the domain name of the site -- DeadliestCatchTV.com -- was indeed a problem, and I could totally understand the trademark claim. But there are all sorts of ways this could be dealt with, and The Discovery Channel appears to have chosen the absolute worst. First, it's important to point out that for over a year (at least), The Discovery Channel has actively supported this fan site. Not only did staff members happily email the site's owner, John White, with encouragement, preview videos and content, but it also linked directly to the site on the official webpage for the show Deadliest Catch -- even "framing" White's site with its own dashboard.
However, after actively supporting the show, suddenly Discovery switched 180 degrees and sent over a legal nastygram, demanding that the site be taken down and the domain handed over. Beyond the (again, probably legitimate) trademark issue, the lawyers added on the absolutely ridiculous claim that White's embedding of clips from the Discovery Channel's own YouTube channel (that had embedding enabled) was copyright infringement. This is copyfraud. Discovery specifically chose to allow the world to embed. To then accuse someone of copyright infringement for doing so is blatant legal bullying.
What struck me as interesting, however, was how quiet The Discovery Channel was in response. After our story, this situation started getting a lot more attention, and I started to see a long series of tweets of links to the post directed at the Discovery Channel's official Twitter channel. While the anonymous official tweetmeister of The Discovery Channel happily tweeted with others about various shows and personalities, there was not a single response to the dozens of people asking The Discovery Channel to explain why it turned on John White.
I found this interesting, so I noted the silence in a Twitter message myself. Within seconds, I had in my email in-box a "statement" from Discovery's VP of Communications:
There have been some recent questions about the use of Deadliest Catch content on non-Discovery websites. Discovery Channel's policy of allowing fan sites to use embeddable videos has not changed. We value and appreciate our online fans, and are always open to sharing clips with sites that feature Deadliest Catch and our other programming. Our policy does not, however, permit the use of confusingly similar domain names that infringe on our trademarks. This also extends to the use of photographs that are subject to license limitations designed to protect our talent and our brands. We are as committed as ever to our partnerships with our fan sites, and look forward to continuing to work with you and your content needs.
Except... that barely addresses one small aspect of the problem. It seems to admit that the lawyers went way beyond what was reasonable in threatening White over the embeds, but doesn't appear to offer any sort of admission of a mistake or apology. But, more importantly, the statement doesn't address the fact that The Discovery Channel had actively supported the site for at least a year, before suddenly switching tactics and sending legal nastygrams. Also, that final statement is clearly false. If The Discovery Channel was "as committed as ever to partnerships with fan sites," it wouldn't nastygram them.
So, since we aim to be constructive around here, here are a few suggestions on how The Discovery Channel could have dealt with this situation:
At whatever point The Discovery Channel realized that it was uncomfortable with the similar domain name, even though it had supported it in the past, it should have politely reached out to John White. They should have acknowledged how happy they were with the community he had built and how much he had supported the show, and then discussed alternatives for dealing with the potential trademark issue. This should have been done by someone who was not outside legal representation in a friendly letter. Obviously, any such letter should have been reviewed by legal staff, but it should not have been a threat letter.
In reviewing the options, The Discovery Channel could have offered up a variety of positive alternatives that showed it really was "committed as ever to partnerships with fan sites." For example, it could have offered to help transition the site to a new domain, including promoting the new domain, or it could have offered some sort of very inexpensive or possibly free "license" to use the name in a legitimate manner, without having to worry about genericizing the trademark (probably the lawyers' concern).
Once the story broke and it was revealed that the lawyers bullying John White did so with dubious claims, The Discovery Channel should have been quick and forthright in issuing an apology for making threats that went beyond the legal boundaries of its own rights.
Finally, rather than staying totally silent about this on the official Discovery Channel Twitter feed just as dozens of people were asking what was going on, The Discovery Channel should have engaged with people questioning its actions, explained its position clearly, apologized for the mistakes and overreaching, and promised that it would handle such situations more appropriately in the future.
Unfortunately, it looks like The Discovery Channel did none of that.
Oh yeah. One amusing post script? This whole thing comes just a couple weeks after a judge ordered TLC (owned by Discovery) to change the name of the show Cake Boss, for infringing on a software company's trademarks. So the company should know how it feels to be on the receiving end of a trademark threat. Too bad that rather than deal with it in a nice manner, it simply sent out its legal sharks.
Technology can certainly make for some interesting clashes with regulatory regimes. Social networking, for example, starts to bring up all sorts of questions about the fine line between certain regulated areas of advertising, and basic free speech communication issues. Eric Goldman points us to the news that the FDA is warning pharma giant Novartis (pdf) over its use of a "Facebook Share" widget on its site promoting the drug Tasigna (a leukemia drug).
The specific complaint is that the "share" feature includes promotional material about Tasigna, but not all of the associated risks (and, as with so many drugs, there's quite a list of risks). Because of the limited amount of space often used in "sharing" content, the FDA feels that some of the sharing options are misleading, not correctly noting that the drug is only approved for some users.
The shared content is misleading because it
makes representations about the efficacy of Tasigna but fails to communicate any risk
information associated with the use of this drug. In addition, the shared content inadequately
communicates Tasigna’s FDA-approved indication and implies superiority over other
products. Thus, the shared content for Tasigna misbrands the drug in violation of the Federal
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and FDA implementing regulations.
The FDA even picks on the specific word choices in some of the sharing features, such as calling the drug a "next-generation" drug, which apparently implies it's better than other drugs in the space when that might not be the case. Advertising and marketing for pharmaceuticals has always been a contentious area, and I believe that many countries ban it, while the US allows it. But with the internet and social networking, the line between advertising and communication can start to blur. Yes, it may be problematic if Novartis is suggesting people "share" misleading or incomplete info about the drug, but what if people just start sharing that info on their own? Where do you draw the line?
John from the soon-to-be-gone-from-the-internet site DeadliestCatchTV.com, alerts us to the news that lawyers from The Discovery Channel are taking down the site. Now, let's get the basics out of the way: the lawyers probably do have a trademark claim here. Certainly from the domain name, you might think it's an official website for the show. The site does have "not affiliated..." text, but it's hidden all the way at the bottom. If you were trying to avoid a "likelihood of confusion" problem, I would imagine it would help to make it very, very clear at the top of the page that the site is a fan site and not the official site. That said, there are a lot of problems with the way Discovery is treating this situation.
First of all, in the past, The Discovery Channel actively supported John, and he's reposted an email he received not so long ago from someone at the Discovery Channel offering him free content and happily celebrating the site. Here's a couple excerpts from the email:
From: DiscoveryChannel
To: Admin
Hi Editors @ DeadliestCatchTV ,
My name is Soumik Pal, I work at Discovery Channel and I'm writing to offer you free preview content and assets from the new season of Deadliest Catch! We feel that the show is a great fit with your site (and especially your readers) and would love to get the word out about some exciting new Catch initiatives this season!
[...]
To get your readers ready for the new season, I've included the official press release, high-quality preview videos, exclusive photography, brief episode descriptions and much more...
[...]
I'm happy to act as your point of contact for any additional requests and we hope your readers might like some of the content we've provided! Please let me know if there's anything more we can provide you with to help get geared up for the new season of Catch.
Thank you!
Soumik Pal
Digital Media, Discovery Channel
Discovery Communications
That certainly makes it sound like Discovery and the folks involved with the TV show are quite happy with the fan site and community that John put together. In fact, that seems like a great way to encourage and nurture a fan site. Actually, the folks behind the show have gone much further. On the official site for The Deadliest Catch, the show actually lists & links to fan sites including DeadliestCatchTV.com. They even set it up so that if you click on the link, it loads the fan site, with the official Deadliest catch "dashboard" (see below). And, as of right now, you can even see a wrapped version of John's site on the official Discovery channel page. That certainly looks like a show that wants to support its fan sites:
So, again, this is clearly a show that has long supported this site with direct emails, sending them content, encouraging them to share it with other fans of the site, linking to the site from the official site and wrapping the page with its own "Deadliest Catch Network" Dashboard. You would think, at the very least, if the company decided to change its policies, that it would send over a friendly note -- rather than sending a legal nastygram. No such luck.
John asked the lawyers who contacted him about Soumik Pal's email:
When I questioned this with Discovery I was told only the employee no longer worked at Discovery and they "were looking in to this". The second lawyer I spoke to from Discovery stated that they had a change of heart and have now decided they wanted to police any sites using their material (Although previously they were providing it for promotion purposes).
Again, a change of heart is fine -- but sending the lawyers to deliver it with threats? That seems ridiculous. It's a way to turn a bunch of fans into people who will never want to have anything to do with The Discovery Channel again. It's a case study in exactly how not to deal with social media.
Oh, and it gets worse. Beyond the basic trademark threat of the domain name, Discovery's lawyers claimed that John was committing copyright infringement by embedding official videos from the show's YouTube account on his website. I'm not kidding. The Discovery Channel has an official YouTube channel, where it uploads videos and has embedding turned on. So, not surprisingly, John has embedded some of these official clips on his site. I'm about to do the same. This is the last video that John posted:
It's from the official Discovery Channel YouTube feed, and embedding is turned on. But... according to Discovery's lawyers, this is copyright infringement. John asked the lawyer about this, and the guy insisted that while this might be "confusing" -- that embedding the official videos was still copyright infringement. Someone might want to tell the marketing guys who enabled embedding.
The one issue that I really question is that part of the claim made by Discovery was that my "...display of and/or provision of access to unauthorized copies of our client's copyrighted material infringes Discovery's copyrights..." The material in question were actually videos that were posted BY DISCOVERY on YOUTUBE where the embed code was made available for all to use. I spoke to one of the lawyers briefly on the phone today and he understood how this could be confused but maintained that even though the code is there you are NOT ALLOWED TO USE THE EMBED CODE ON ANY WEBSITE.
Frankly, this whole thing screams of some seriously mistaken or confused lawyers associated with The Discovery Channel, who not only seem to be completely out of touch and clueless as to how the internet works, but aren't even talking to the marketing people involved. These lawyers are actively undermining the show's own marketing efforts, pissing off fans, and closing down a large and popular fan group of the site with highly questionable legal claims.
Unfortunately, it looks like John is giving in to the lawyers. He's said that the site will disappear as of August 11th, and the Discovery Channel will take over the domain. Again, I can understand the potential for some confusion with the domain name, but there were much better ways for Discovery to handle this. Perhaps The Discovery Channel is taking the concept of its famous Shark Week way too far, and turning its lawyers into sharks. They should watch out, as when you let the sharks loose on your biggest fans, they can come back to bite you.
Over at Music Think Tank there's a blog post provocatively titled: Why Music Should Never Be Given Away For "Free", which brings up a point I've heard multiple times from various music industry marketers (many of whom I generally agree with). They say it is okay to give away music without a monetary transaction taking place, but instead you should demand something else in return. In this post, he suggests requiring an email address, a retweet or a Facebook share in order to get free music.
I definitely understand the general rationale for this line of thinking, but I'm afraid that people are going too far with it, and it's actually harming the value of free music in some cases. Obviously, it's great if you can get something (monetarily or not) in exchange for the music, but putting up a barrier can also be harmful. First of all, if it's truly a brand new fan who hasn't heard your work, they might not be willing to commit to you in that way. Especially when it comes to Tweeting or Facebooking an artist. If I don't know the artist, there's no way I'm mentioning them to all of the people who follow me on various social networks. On the flip side, when I do see friends who make those kinds of Tweets, they feel like spam. They're not at all convincing and they don't feel authentic. They feel forced. Honestly, when I see people post social networking messages in exchange for free tracks, it actually makes me less interested in the musical act, because I feel like they need to beg for attention, rather than letting the fans organically give them attention.
Finally, part of the reason the whole "free music" world exploded the way it did was because of the massive simplicity and lack of friction in music sharing, which made music discovery and promotion much more seamless and easy. Putting required friction back into the process seems like a mistake, and will likely just drive fans (or potential fans) either to other artists or back to the same file sharing systems that remove that friction. That doesn't help anyone.
So rather than requiring an explicit exchange, it always seems a hell of a lot more effective to offer the content for free, but ask for the exchange as a voluntary setup: "If you like these songs, tell your friends or sign up for our mailing list" or something like that. This way it's not forced. It's not inauthentic. It's not friction. It's about trusting the listeners, rather than trying to force them to act in a certain way.
Just a couple of months ago, I wrote about something that I thought was really impressive by Thomson Reuters. A Reuters blogger wrote a blog post on his official Reuters blog questioning Reuters itself after rumors started spreading that the company had spiked an article after pressure from the article's subject. Now, the two stories might cancel each other out in some way. Spiking a story based on pressure from the subject is bad, but allowing an employee to publicly question the action on a company blog shows an openness that I thought was impressive.
However, with the release of Reuters' new social media policies, it looks like the blogger, Chris Clair, would have broken one of the new rules:
The advent of social media does not change your relationship with the company that employs you -- do not use social media to embarrass or disparage Thomson Reuters.
Then there's this:
We're in a competitive business and while the spirit of social media is collaborative we need to take care not to undermine the commercial basis of our company.
The thing is, since you are in a competitive business, it's worth noting that all of your competitors are trying to "undermine the basis" of your company -- and thus it tends to be better to undermine yourself before someone else undermines you. So, while I understand why Reuters would say the following about Twitter usage:
As with blogging within Reuters News, you should make sure that if you have hard news content that it is broken first via the wire. Don't scoop the wire.
It doesn't really make much sense. It also goes against what some at Reuters have successfully done. You can still "scoop the wire" and then publish a full report on the wire. In fact, if you use Twitter correctly, you can build a lot more interest in the upcoming full story.
While there are plenty of reasonable and useful suggestions in the Reuters social media policies, some of it seems to go against what Reuters own Editor in Chief, David Schlesinger, said just last year:
The old means of control don't work.
The old categories don't work.
The old ways of thinking won't work.
We all need to come to terms with that.
Fundamentally, the old media won't control news dissemination in the future. And organisations can't control access using old forms of accreditation any more.
Like many folks, I was certainly intrigued by the way President Obama ran his campaign in 2008, using various online tools to actually empower his supporters to be proactive and play a real role in the campaign. Many suggested that this was a facade, and that it would be politics as usual once he took office. While it's still early, there does appear to be some evidence that this is, in fact, the case. This isn't surprising, but that doesn't mean it's not disappointing. Last year, we saw this with the various stimulus proposals, where the plans were worked on in backrooms with the usual political insiders and then presented to the public afterwards. There was no real participation from the public. And since then, we've see the same pattern repeated over and over again. On healthcare, certainly, and (of course) on the secret negotiations on ACTA. This is not participatory democracy.
Micah Sifry has a great article at TechPresident exploring this "disconnect," and suggesting that while it was true that the campaign really did enable thousands upon thousands of volunteers to step up and contribute, it may have been more of an accident of the techies who were involved, rather than an explicit plan by the Obama team. And, as a result, after the election, the team really didn't know what to do with the mass of supporters it had built up, and they did (of course) the same old political thing: believing that it was a broadcast list, rather than a group of committed folks who wanted to actually participate. It's hard to argue with this. The campaign still sends out emails, but they're never about asking for input or participating in a larger discussion. They're almost always about supporting the President.
I know that there are still many folks involved with the administration who are trying to build up the tools that can enable the public to be more involved, but it really looks like the administration totally dropped the ball on using the giant community it had already built up.
We've noted that the NFL has instituted its own overly restrictive social media policy that limits how and when players can send Twitter messages, but I hadn't realized that the NBA had done something similar as well. Unfortunately, it looks like Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks ran afoul of those rules and was fined $7,500 for a single Twitter message. What awful thing did he say? Well, he was actually just happy about a victory:
"Back to 500. Yess!!! "500" means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys."
Seems like the sort of thing the NBA should be encouraging. It's a nice connection with fans, who feel that they're getting in on some of the excitement from a player they like. So, what was the problem? Well, the NBA "rules" say no Twittering until after the media sessions are done after the game. So, basically, he was too anxious to spread the excitement to his fans. And this is fine-worthy? It's hard to make sense of a policy that tells players not to connect with fans, and not to let them in on the excitement.
Don't get me wrong. I am also an outraged narcissist, but I had to work six-hour shifts in Bakersfield, Calif., to earn my stripes as a communicator. Nowadays, having a Twitter page qualifies a person to give commentary on CNN. I am not interested in the take of @stinky on the Fort Hood shootings or any other current events. I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion.
Ah yes, so because today it's easier for people to have a voice, it's bad. Yes, and you used to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow and television was called radio and had no pictures. But the world improves and progress comes along and gives more people a voice and that's bad how exactly?
With the advent of Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging and texting, now almost any fool can set up his or her broadcast hub. Then the likes of CNN, Fox News, Oprah and even the Tribune play right into their hands, giving them instant access to the rest of the world. I beseech the online editors at this paper to turn off the "comments" after each article. If people have opinions about something that they've just read, let them write a letter to the editor.
Yes, but "any fool" doesn't get quite the attention as, say, a fool who blasts the fact that people have a voice in a major national newspaper, right? Who cares that anyone can say what they want. Most people don't see those complaints. You call it a "broadcast hub" but most people's Twitter accounts don't have very many followers. That's not the issue at all. The actual complaint seems to be that CNN and Fox and others have elevated a few of these folks (a tiny percentage of the overall population using these tools), and you don't like it because.... what, exactly? Because they compete with you in being a public "fool"?
Most of my career has been spent in radio, where call-in comments are somewhat encouraged. The main difference is that we can hang up on people.
Ok, let me get this straight. Before you were complaining that CNN and Fox were putting these people on their shows, but then you say at least on radio you could "hang up on people." Do you not sense the contradiction? CNN and Fox can just as easily "hang up" on these people too. So what's the difference?
Basically, it sounds like the guy is pissed off that he's no longer the only person with an opinion getting heard. But, of course, he's missing the point in blaming the new technology. Yes, lots of people have a voice, but most still don't get heard very far. The folks who are getting on TV or are making their voices heard are because they're saying something that resonates, whether it's stupid or not. And, no, maybe they didn't have to practice being a public moron in some small town first, but is that really a necessity?
