The Onion Puts Out An Equally Accurate Report On Recording Industry Revenue Issues

from the sounds-about-right dept

Ah, leave it to The Onion to successfully encapsulate the state of the recording industry with a report that is basically as accurate as most of the reports that come out of the RIAA these days:

The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that the combined revenue brought in by Warner, Sony, EMI, Universal, and countless independent music labels in 2009 totaled $18. "The music industry is back," RIAA representative Doug Fowley said. "Not only was Kenny Chesney's Greatest Hits CD purchased at a Knoxville, TN Borders for $12.99, but we also had two songs downloaded through iTunes, and our ringtone sales reached three." Fowley added that as long as no one returns or exchanges the CD, the music industry would continue to be a vital and creative force in American culture.

Filed Under: earnings, recording industry, satire

Judge Decides That Fake Giraffe Attack Story Is Protected Free Speech

from the good-move dept

A few weeks back, we were a bit concerned about a judge's decision to force offline a satirical "news story" about a fake giraffe attack at the Global Wildlife Center in Louisiana. Just because GWC was worried that some people might take the story seriously, it doesn't remove the First Amendment rights of the creators of the satirical site. Thankfully, the judge now agrees and has removed the injunction and ordered GWC to pay the legal costs of the site's creators. The judge noted that while the center had some concerns about how the article was viewed, it doesn't change the fact that the content is protected free speech as satire.

Filed Under: free speech, giraffe, satire
Companies: global wildlife center

Judge Orders Satirical Site To Remove Joke Story About Fictional Giraffe Attack

from the there-goes-the-onion dept

There are tons of "satirical" news websites out there (pretty much all of them are following -- not nearly as well -- in the trail blazed by The Onion) and every so often it is true that someone gets "fooled" by one of those sites. But it usually doesn't take long for the fooled party to set things straight. But apparently the Global Wildlife Center in Louisiana thinks that a satire about itself is illegal... and somehow has convinced a judge of that as well. Romenesko points us to the news that a judge has issued an injunction forcing a blog to pull down its satirical story about a supposed "giraffe attack" at the Center. The story was a play on the usual stories of tiger or bear attacks. Who knows if it was actually funny or not, but the Center's director is upset that "it's malicious and untrue." It's satire. It wasn't malicious, but the whole point is that it's untrue. It's pretty sad that the judge agreed to shut it down, and the Center's argument that it can't be satire because "the site isn't labeled as satire" is pretty ridiculous as well. Should everyone writing satire be forced to label it as such?

Filed Under: free speech, giraffes, satire
Companies: global wildlife center

Twitter Banning Satirical 'Fake' Versions Of Politicians?

from the that-would-be-unfortunate dept

It's certainly become popular on blogs and on Twitter to create "fake" satirical versions of various famous people. These are usually humorous (or they try to be) over-the-top representations of these celebrities. Usually, they are quite obvious, even to the point of saying that they are "the fake so-and-so" or clearly stating in the bio that this is fake. There should be no confusion around such things. However, a journalist in India who created a "fake" satirical Twitter profile for Indian politician Shashi Tharoor has found herself banned from Twitter without any explanation or chance to appeal. Now, obviously it is Twitter's right to decide whether or not to shut down certain accounts, but you would think with such an obviously fake profile that the company might be a bit more careful and, at the very least, communicate with the account holder about the issues with the account before just shutting it down.

Filed Under: fake, satire, shashi tharoor, twitter
Companies: twitter

When Even Comedy Shows Are Mocking Attempts At Stronger Copyright Law...

from the ...you-know-you've-got-an-uphill-battle dept

Via Michael Geist comes a link to this segment on the Canadian sketch comedy/political satire show This Hour has 22 Minutes, where it totally mocks the claims that file sharing is killing the music business by highlighting the previous "copying technologies" (home taping, VCR, photocopier) that the industry insisted was killing content providers: While I actually think the bit could be funnier, it's pretty striking to see that sort of thing on a mainstream television program. More and more people are realizing that copyright industry claims have little support in reality, and that concept is starting to go mainstream.

Filed Under: canada, comedy, copyright, mainstream, satire

Judge Decides That Calling Someone A Douchebag Is Okay... So Long As It's Funny

from the laugh,-people dept

Last year, a series of lawsuits were filed over the publishing of a book based on the hit website Hot Chicks with Douchebags. Some of the "hot chicks" and at least one of the "douchebags" claimed it was libelous. However, in a rather entertaining ruling, a judge has dismissed the case filed by three of the women, noting that after he "carefully scrutinized" the book, he determined that the use of the term "douchebag" along with the various photographs was "used for humorous social commentary" -- making it perfectly legal. So, kids, remember when calling someone names, make sure to do so in a way that is funny and used for social commentary. Otherwise you might not only look like a douchebag, but you might end up in court.

Filed Under: defamation, douchebags, parody, satire

How To Make Money From Piracy: Building Prisons

from the laugh.-it's-funny. dept

We've often discussed various ways that businesses can learn to embrace piracy for the purpose of making money, but here's a new (if farcical) idea. Hypebot points us to the Pirates Prison Project -- a tongue in cheek suggestion for a way to use piracy to build up one area of the economy: prisons. The idea is that if we just start putting all those file sharers in prison, we're going to need a lot more prisons -- and isn't that just a business opportunity?

Filed Under: piracy, prisons, satire

Humorless Guitarists Take Down Amusing YouTube Mashup Video

from the not-the-intended-use dept

About a month ago, there was an amusing viral video getting passed around that showed various famous heavy metal guitarists, where the filmmaker dubbed over the films really, really bad guitar playing. It was incredibly well done, as the bad guitar playing was perfectly timed to the actions of the guitarists. It was clearly amusing satire -- yet at least one of the guitarists in question was a bit too sensitive about it. The video has been forced offline, and the creator has had his account cut off. The video was pretty clearly a satire on the way these guitar players play -- and it's difficult to see how the video would hurt the artists in any way. Yes, some might claim that people would think they really played that bad, but the videos seemed to be pretty clearly labeled as dubbed. Of course, like so many other efforts to make some kind of content disappear, it wouldn't be surprising to find this video showing up on other sites (and potentially getting even more attention).

Filed Under: copyright, guitar, music, online, satire, videos