Griffalo’s Comments

• Nov 30th, 2011 @ 9:14am

  Makes Sense

  on Questionable 'Consumer' Group Releases Most Misleading Report Imaginable, Falsely Claiming People Support SOPA
  This makes sense, remember Consumer Focus, the UK watchdog that was the sole voice of reason during debates on the Digital Economy Act? (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111110/03335116706/want-to-see-peak-copyright-heres-what-to-do.s html)
  
  Well they're now being shut down by the UK government - better not to rock the boat by actually representing the needs of consumers.
• Nov 30th, 2011 @ 7:40am

  Re: As an ex-Viacom Employee

  on The Annotated Version Of Viacom's Employees Begging The Gov't To Censor The Internet To Save SpongeBob
  ...as an addendum I really like the Daily Show and Colbert Report both of which are available to view online in the USA but blocked in the UK. Initially the reason for this was that they were on UK TV channels (More4 and FX) but both shows were axed from their respective channels well over a year ago.
  
  There is now no legitimate way for me to view those shows from the UK as they aren't available for purchase anywhere. If I were to go and download them I'd be part of Viacom's statistics about how much money they're losing despite the fact that I'd happily have given them some money to watch the shows if only they'd give me the option!
• Nov 30th, 2011 @ 7:35am

  As an ex-Viacom Employee

  on The Annotated Version Of Viacom's Employees Begging The Gov't To Censor The Internet To Save SpongeBob
  I used to work at MTV and can vouch for how terrified and confused they are by the internet. After decades of defining what was cool they've been faced with the first wave of 16-24 year olds who spend less time watching TV than the last lot, instead they're online.
  
  I worked on a channel called MTV: Flux designed to emulate the twin threats of Myspace and Youtube (this was before Facebook was big) - what jars from this video is hearing people talk about how they work to make something and then someone else takes advantage of it and that makes them sad. The terms and conditions on MTV Flux were such that if you uploaded any video content, blog articles or anything else it was immediately the property of Viacom and not yours - they could broadcast it, re-edit it and what-have-you and you had no claim whatsoever to it.
  
  ...inevitably the channel lasted all of two years before being dropped entirely because MTV didn't understand the internet (they even resorted to paying people to post in the forums to keep conversations going) I'd post a link to one of the shows but of course they were all taken down from Youtube!
• Aug 16th, 2011 @ 5:11am

  To be fair...

  on Jay-Z And Kanye West Go To Ridiculous Efforts To Stop Album From Leaking
  They leaked several songs from these sessions ahead of time but then didn't put them on the album (though they are on the 'deluxe edition').
  
  Both artists make extensive use of free mixtapes, both to leak parts of this album and their own work more widely - this was really just a fun little exercise from two of the richest people in hip-hop (numbers 1 and 3 according to Forbes) to make something feel 'special'.
  
  Whether it's a success or not is another discussion but I don't think this provides any evidence that artists hate piracy or anything - they just tried to keep this as secret as they could, mainly to see if they could.