cbs – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Paramount Kills ‘MTV News’ Archives, Because Who Cares About History?

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

Paramount (CBS) Corporation this week simply erased decades of music journalism in the blink of an eye. Last year the company shut down MTV News and fired all its staff as part of a “strategic realignment.” This week, without warning, the company deleted the entirety of the MTV News archives, erasing decades of music journalism without much in the way of any warning.

In a scene that’s been repeated constantly in the last decade, journalists watched helplessly as stuff they’d spent years of their life working on simply disappeared:

As a freelance reporter myself I’ve lost track of the number of websites I’ve worked for that unceremoniously deleted countless hours of work without a second thought (tech news outlet Protocol being among the most recent, though my work at Vice’s Motherboard will soon meet the same fate). Sometimes somebody can be bothered to archive the content; usually it’s left up to the authors.

It’s part of a broader disdain for journalism by those with wealth and power, and sends a very clear message: your work is so unimportant that we can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum to preserve it. It’s so unimportant, we’re not going to even spend a relative pittance to archive it. We’re not even going to give you a heads’ up so that you can archive it yourself.

Like many companies in streaming, Paramount has been looking for a merger partner after its strategy of making worse and worse content at a higher and higher price point apparently stopped paying dividends. Streaming growth has slowed, so most of these companies have taken a cue from traditional cable and have started focusing intently on nickel-and-diming users and large, pointless mergers.

The AT&T–>Time Warner–>Discovery merger highlighted very clearly how modern media industry brunchlords care primarily about three things: the impossibility of unlimited growth, tax cuts, and massive compensation incommensurate with any sort of actual competence. There were no shortage of loved products (like Mad Magazine) and projects that were pointlessly dismantled by the AT&T saga.

The assumption is that stuff like the Internet Archive will just magically come in and preserve our collective history in the wake of executive apathy. But that’s simply not the case; as archivists are facing their own constant array of existential challenges in an era of increasingly unchecked corporate power, a corrupt and dysfunctional Congress, and unlimited narcissistic manbaby multi-billionaires.

Not that MTV News was dismantling structures of corrupted power all that often, but this deterioration of journalistic history more broadly tends to primarily serve corporate power, and the kinds of folks who’d very much like it if future generations didn’t learn much from the history of lived experience and past policy debates.

The disdain for journalistic history is happening at the same time we’re steadily replacing real journalism and insight with badly automated “AI” ad engagement simulacrum, which not only supplants actual expertise, but redirects limited resources away from real reporting. Collectively the trajectory (which really is part of a U.S. media continuum stretching back to the 80s) couldn’t be any uglier… or any more clear.

Filed Under: brunchlords, consolidation, history, internet archive, media, mtv, mtv news, preservation
Companies: cbs, paramount

Sony, Paramount Explore Merger As Streaming Sector Runs Completely Out Of Original Ideas

from the merge-ALL-the-things! dept

Tue, May 7th 2024 05:27am - Karl Bode

As the streaming sector has consolidated and new subscriber growth has slowed, it has increasingly started chasing the bad habits of the industry it once disrupted: cable TV. Gone is stuff like encouraged password sharing and risk-taking programming. In its place is endless price hikes, weird efforts to nickel-and-dime users, lower-quality programming, annoying new consumer restrictions, and layoffs.

One of the favorite tweaks of sectors that have run out of ideas is consolidation and megamergers. Such deals almost always result in layoffs, lower-quality product, large debt loads, price hikes, and consumer dissatisfaction. But such deals also goose stock price, generate big tax breaks, and let fail-upward brunchlord executives put “savvy big boy dealmaker” on their resumes, so they continue apace.

As predicted, with the streaming sector all out of fresh ideas and Wall Street demanding impossible quarterly revenue growth at any cost, it’s time for a bunch of pointless consolidation. The first wave was the disastrous AT&T—>Time Warner Cable—>Discovery megadeals, which resulted in wave upon wave of chaos, layoffs, price hikes, and pissed off creators.

Now Paramount (CBS) is looking to follow suit. First the company discussed potentially merging with Time Warner Discovery, but once that idea was laughed out of the room they moved on to a potential deal with Skydance Media. But that deal also appears to have fallen apart, with a $26 billion acquisition by Sony looking like the most likely outcome.

As the New York Times notes, there’s some dwindling concerns about a Japanese company owning an American broadcaster (CBS), given that what’s left of our media consolidation regulations still restricts foreign ownership of a major broadcaster (for now!). So it’s probably going to be a joint-purchase between Sony and U.S.-based Apollo Global Management:

“Any deal between the Sony group and Paramount faces hurdles. Government regulations restrict foreign ownership of broadcast networks and could prevent Sony’s parent company, based in Japan, from owning CBS outright. The bidding group would probably push for Apollo, which is based in the United States, to hold the rights to the CBS broadcast license, according to two people familiar with their strategy.

At the heart of this dysfunction sits Wall Street’s need for improved quarterly growth at any cost. It’s not just good enough to provide a profitable, high quality product, people like. The need for impossible, unlimited quarterly growth inevitably results in a sort of corporate cannibalism, most recently popularized by Cory Doctorow’s term enshittification.

What interests me as a media and consolidation critic is that absolutely none of the press coverage (Deadline, Axios, Variety, The New York Times) can muster so much as a single mention of the long, long history of harmful media consolidation, or how such deals almost always result in rampant layoffs, lower quality product, price hikes, endless distraction, cancelled programs, and tons of debt.

Even with the downright comical Time Warner Discovery megadeal right there in the rear view mirror (which, if we’re being honest, extends back to the pointless and somehow even more disastrous AOL Time Warner merger), these outlets just genuinely don’t think any of that history is useful reader context. The harm of mindless consolidation is just completely memory holed in the industry’s coverage of itself.

That said, I imagine Sony would be a better caretaker of the CBS family of brands than many suitors, given that (unlike, say, AT&T), they’re at least familiar with running a media company. But it’s still painfully obvious that this sort of consolidation never really benefits employees, consumers, or the overall health and quality of the company and brands. It’s just a game of pointless brunchlord patty cake.

I wouldn’t expect a consolidated media sector to linger too long on the harmful history of “growth for growth’s sake” consolidation when covering itself, but an occasional, fleeting nod at history and factual reality might be nice.

Filed Under: competition, consolidation, layoffs, media, megadeals, mergers, streamingg
Companies: cbs, paramount, sony

Paramount The Latest To Pull Titles From Paramount Plus Streaming Catalog For A Tax Cut And To Skimp On Paying Residuals

from the too-cheap-to-function dept

Wed, Jul 5th 2023 05:28am - Karl Bode

One of the benefits of the shift to streaming music and video was supposed to be (and often is), convenience. As in, you’d have access to any show you’d like, at any time, without having to go hunting and pecking through old VHS archives. And while streaming delivered on many of its original promises, as the sector grows and consolidates at the hands of predatory, fail-upward VC bros, things are getting… stupid.

We’ve already documented the pointless horror of the Warner Brothers Discovery merger, in which “acquisition for acquisition’s sake” nitwits spent billions of dollars on numerous properties only to turn around and fire oodles of employees, pull numerous popular programs from their streaming catalogs to avoid paying residuals, and generally creating a worse product than when they began.

But it’s not just happening at Warner Brothers Discovery (Max). Disney, which generally has more money than it knows what to do with, recently stopped hosting a slate of its content (like its recently produced and relatively popular show Willow) because, again, it was too cheap to pay artists’ residuals and it wanted to nab a big fat tax cut.

Same thing with CBS and Paramount owned streaming platform Paramount Plus, which is being criticized for also pulling a long list of shows that were still popular with consumers. Again, because it was too cheap to pay residuals and wanted a nice tax cut:

The reason behind the removals, here and elsewhere, is a tax write-down that streaming services can get by Thanos-snapping their own original series. Why such a tax loophole exists for content that has been written, produced, and platformed (even for only a short time) is something that Hollywood might want to look into, as this increasingly popular move from streamers has introduced a new level of instability to the industry. Getting canceled is bad enough; now creatives have to worry that their work will disappear forever, often without any way to access it ever again.

Often, when these decisions are explained to the public in major outlets, it’s framed as essential, cold calculus. Rarely do outlets share the context that these same companies see no problem paying incompetent executives comically bloated compensation packages. Nor do they note how these companies spend untold billions on completely pointless mergers that set vast piles of money on fire.

Incompetence, a mindless obsession with consolidation, and slash-and-burn VC brain worms have come to streaming in a big way, triggering a major wave of the kind of enshitification Cory Doctorow routinely warns about in most sectors.

These are folks who genuinely don’t care about the actual health of the company, brand, or service being provided. They’re here to make quick money up front by any means necessary, then run to the exits in total disregard for anybody else as they fail upward to the next opportunity. And it’s completely undermining a core benefit of streaming and on demand technology:

Increasingly, the streaming companies that disrupted predatory cable TV giants are behaving more and more like the companies they disrupted. Asking more and more money for ever-degrading services that keep seeing greater and greater restrictions. Guess we’ll all have to head back to libraries, for however long those are allowed to exist.

Filed Under: inside amy schumer, max, mergers, missing shows, paramount plus, star trek prodigy, streaming
Companies: cbs, paramount

Angry Joe Threatens To Sue CBS Over Continued DMCA Claims On ‘Halo’ TV Show Review Videos

from the fair-abuse dept

Angry Joe, real name Jose Antonio Vargas, has appeared on our pages several times in the past. In addition to being a famed YouTube creator with a huge following, Angry Joe also regularly rages against the DMCA machine. Whether he’s criticizing Twitch’s takedown policies, swearing off Nintendo for being bullies, or battling CBS over television show reviews that were taken down, he tends to fight the good fight.

And speaking of his fighting with CBS, he’s been at it again recently over the Halo TV show. Angry Joe was given screeners of upcoming episodes and has been reviewing them on YouTube, as per his usual gig. CBS, it seems, keeps claiming the monetization for those videos via copyright claims. Notably, these appear to be manual copyright claims, so can’t be blamed on overaggressive algorithms. Angry Joe then edits the videos down to limit the amount of footage from the show he’s using, but the claims keep coming. There’s even a Reddit megathread tracking all of this stupid drama.

CBS has issued copyright claims on certain bits of the footage from the Halo TV show on multiple occasions, which means the ad revenue is then transferred to the copyright creator rather than Joe himself. He demonstrates how difficult it’s proving for him to get around this, and states that CBS is “completely ignoring and abusing” the fair use policy, which is “a US law that allows the reuse of copyright-protected material under certain circumstances without getting permission from the copyright owner.”

And he’s right about that. Using clips of a show the content producer invited him to watch in order to review the product lands the footage use squarely in fair use territory. Especially given all the efforts he’s undergone to limit the amount of footage he’s using. He’s had to go through this editing exercise five times thus far. The latest version of the review appears to be holding, though, either because the folks at CBS have decided this version is okay… or perhaps because Angry Joe opens the video with a direct threat to take this all to court, where he would almost certainly win.

CBS, meanwhile, gets to look like a bullying jerk that either doesn’t know how fair use works, or simply doesn’t like the content in some of Angry Joe’s reviews, which are fairly negative when it comes to the quality of the show. As he’s noted in some of his videos, this didn’t seem to happen when he was being positive in his reviews, suggesting that it’s not purely about the “copyright” issue.

Either way, this is all clearly fair use. Given how intently at least one person at CBS watches these videos, the opening monologue has now ensured that CBS, too, should know it’s fair use. But, that doesn’t mean it won’t keep claiming the videos.

I’m not going to pretend, though, that part of me wouldn’t love to cover such a court case….

Filed Under: angry joe, copyright, copyright claims, dmca, fair use, halo
Companies: cbs

from the so-so-so-many-problems dept

A little over a year ago, we wrote about a copyright dispute involving Rachel Dolezal, who now also goes by the name Nkechi Amare Diallo. As you may recall, there was a fair bit of attention paid to her years ago because while calling herself a black woman, it turned out that she was actually white. Whatever you think of that controversy, our focus was on the fact that she was a client of notoriously inept copyright troll Richard Liebowitz, who had filed a lawsuit over the copyright on a photo in Paper Magazine.

That lawsuit was bizarre on multiple levels, beginning with the fact that Liebowitz was initially representing an entity called Polaris Images, who had apparently worked out an exclusive licensing deal with Dolezal regarding her images. When Paper Magazine’s attorneys called into question that “exclusive licensing agreement,” Liebowitz, in standard Liebowitz fashion, simply dropped Polaris from the complaint and replaced it with Dolezal herself — which raised a bunch of questions.

Anyway, earlier this week a new lawsuit caught my attention, as it was Dolezal suing over copyright again, this time suing CBS Interactive, claiming that CBS property ET Online infringed Dolezal’s copyright in publishing this photo in this article, published on June 12, 2015.

There are a whole bunch of problems with the lawsuit, and we’ll probably cover only a few of them. However, I did notice that it wasn’t Liebowitz who was representing her — which makes sense since last we’d heard Liebowitz was suspended from practicing law in the Southern District of NY. However, it does look like Liebowitz and/or his firm is still involved in the case. The lawyer who filed the case, Daniel Roscho (who appears to run his own copyright litigation practice called “Copyright Justice” even though his law firm’s website mostly focuses on real estate law…) filed a declaration with the complaint, noting that this was in partnership with Liebowitz.

The Firm Liebowitz Law Firm, PLLC (“LLF”), and Mr. Richard Liebowitz have been retained by Nkechi Diallo a/k/a Rachel Dolezal, the Plaintiff in the above-captioned matter, to file a claim for copyright infringement. The retainer agreement provides that LLF is authorized to contract and associate with co-counsel. Pursuant to that retainer agreement, LLF has associated with my Firm, The Roshco Law Firm, PLLC and myself, Daniel S. Roscho, and has asked me to pursue this action under its retainer

Even if it’s not Liebowitz, the fact that this is done in partnership with Liebowitz is almost certainly going to raise some eyebrows in SDNY, where Liebowitz has a reputation. Why any other lawyer would want to tie his own reputation to Liebowitz’s is beyond me.

Anyway, Roshco notes that he is filing this declaration because Judge Jesse Furman somewhat famously has some requirements regarding any case involving Liebowitz. For copyright cases, that includes proof of actual registration of the copyright (that has been an issue in some of the Liebowitz cases) as well a copy of the deposit file that was used to register the copyright (another issue in prior Liebowitz cases). Roshco notes that he doesn’t yet have the official deposit copy, but is working on getting it. He still filed the case now because of his concern about the statute of limitations.

It is my good-faith belief that waiting for an official deposit copy of the work at issue before filing the complaint in the instant action may cause Plaintiffs claim to become barred by the statute of limitations and I will promptly file the official deposit copy of the work at issue upon receipt. Therefore, in compliance with the Order, on May 7, 2021 I applied for an official deposit copy of the work at issue from the USCO, which was registered as part of copyright registration no. VA 2-094-553 I am awaiting delivery of the official deposit copy from the USCO.

And, uh, yeah, the statute of limitations thing might be an issue, but I don’t think filing now, before Roscho has obtained the deposit copy is going to help much. The statute of limitations on a copyright infringement case is three years. As the complaint itself admits, the publication by ET Online happened… in 2015. I may not be a math genius, but even I can subtract 2015 from 2021 and recognize there’s an issue there. Dolezal tries to get around this by claiming that she only discovered the article on May 24, 2018 (it’s unclear why she then waited three years to sue), which would put her within the statute of limitations if CBS can’t show that she actually knew or should have known about the publication earlier.

But… that’s still not going to help very much. Under the Sohm decision last year in the 2nd Circuit (which covers the court this case was in), she can only get monetary damages for the 3 years preceding the lawsuit. That is, even if there was infringement, she could only get the “damages” from 2018 through 2021… for an article published in 2015. It’s hard to see much in the way of provable damages there.

And… despite the fact that copyright law has (insane) statutory damages, those aren’t available here. If you register the image after the alleged infringement, you can only get actual damages. Dolezal is also asking for punitive damages which are almost never awarded in copyright cases (many courts think that you can’t even get punitive damages for infringement, and even though SDNY has suggested punitive damages might be available in some cases, there is nothing at all exceptional about this case that would lead to punitive damages. Or attorneys’ fees, which is also asked for.

We haven’t even gotten to the question of who actually holds the copyright to this image. The registration says that Dolezal is the “author” of the image. Looking at the actual image suggests that is extremely unlikely. It looks very much like it was taken by someone else, who would have the most likely copyright claim on the image. Perhaps there is some way that this is actually a selfie, but I don’t see it. Her right arm is mostly out of frame, but in the lower corner, you can see three fingertips on her side, showing that she is not holding the phone. So it does not appear to be a selfie, and thus it seems like she is misrepresenting herself as the author of the image in question. Remember, it’s the person who takes the photo who is almost always granted the copyright, not the person in the photo, or the person who owns the camera. There are a few possible exceptions, but it doesn’t seem like any would apply here.

And, finally, there’s fair use. The image was used in conjunction with a news article and was relevant to the reporting. It’s difficult to see how the use of the image was not fair use.

So even if this is not technically a Richard Liebowitz case, it has all the hallmarks of a typical Richard Liebowitz case, and I cannot imagine that it will end well for Dolezal, Roscho… or Liebowitz.

Filed Under: actual damages, copyright, copyright troll, daniel roschco, fair use, nkechi amare diallo, punitive damages, rachel dolezal, registration, richard liebowitz, statute of limitations
Companies: cbs

60 Minutes Episode Is Pure Misleading Moral Panic About Section 230; Blames Unrelated Issues On It

from the oh-come-on dept

I have a browser open with about a dozen different bad and wrong takes on Section 230 that one day I may write about, but on Sunday night, 60 Minutes jumped to the head of the line with an utterly ridiculous moral panic filled with false information on Section 230. The only saving grace of the program was that at least they spoke with Jeff Kosseff, author of the book on Section 230 (which is an excellent read). However, you can tell from the way they used Jeff that someone in the editorial meeting decided “huh, we should probably find someone to be the “other” side of this debate, so we can pretend we’re even-handed” and then sprinkled in Jeff to explain the basics of the law (which they would then ignore in the rest of the report).

It’s almost difficult to describe just how bad the 60 Minutes segment is. It is, quite simply, blatant disinformation. I guess somewhat ironically, much of the attack on 230 talks about how that law is responsible for disinformation. Which is not true. Other than, perhaps, this very report that is itself pure disinformation.

What’s most astounding about the piece is that almost everything it discusses has nothing to do with Section 230. As with so many 230 stories, 60 Minutes producers actually seem upset about the 1st Amendment and various failures by law enforcement. And somehow… that’s the fault of Section 230. It’s somewhat insane to see a news organization like 60 Minutes basically go on an all-out assault on the 1st Amendment.

The central stories in the piece involve people who (tragically!) have been harassed online. One case involves a woman that was falsely blamed by some nutjob conspiracy theorists of having brought COVID-19 to the United States. Because of that, she and her family received death threats, which is absolutely terrible, but has nothing to do with Section 230. 60 Minutes points out that law enforcement didn’t care and said that the death threats weren’t enough of a crime. But… uh… then shouldn’t 60 Minutes be focused on the failures of law enforcement to deal with threats (which actually can be a crime if they fall into the category of “true threats”)? Instead, somehow this is Section 230’s fault? How?

And it gets worse. 60 Minutes trots out the bogeyman of “anonymous internet trolls,” even though this comes right after 60 Minutes shows that the nutjob conspiracy theorist who started this has a name and is well known (as a nutjob conspiracy theorist). The whole setup here is bizarre. The death threats are awful, and if they are criminal, then the problem is with the police and the FBI who the show says did nothing. If they’re not criminal, then they’re not breaking the law. So, the reason there’s “no one to sue” is not because of Section 230, but because no laws were broken. But that’s not how 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley frames it.

Right about now you might be thinking, they should sue. But that’s the problem. They can’t file hundreds of lawsuits against internet trolls hiding behind aliases. And they can’t sue the internet platforms because of that law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Written before Facebook or Google were invented, Section 230 says, in just 26 words, that internet platforms are not liable for what their users post.

Over and over again, the report blames Section 230 for all of this. Incredibly, at the end of the report, they admit that the video from that nutjob conspiracy theorist was taken down from YouTube after people complained about it. In other words Section 230 did exactly what it was supposed to do in enabling YouTube to pull down videos like that. But, of course, unless you watch the entire 60 Minutes segment, you’ll miss that, and still think that 230 is somehow to blame.

The second half is basically more of the same. It talks about two more unfortunate stories that actually suggest Section 230 is working correctly. The first involves Lenny Pozner, who has been fighting back against insane conspiracy theorists who have gone after him since his son was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. But, again, Pozner’s story shows that Section 230… works? After going on for a few moments about how legitimately awful Pozner’s situation is, Pelley reveals that Facebook, YouTube and others have been super responsive to Pozner and are quick to pull down information that he, and a non-profit he set up, flag as problematic. The segment talks about how Pelley sent an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, and then admits that since then Facebook has been super responsive:

After the letter, a Facebook manager called Pozner.

Lenny Pozner: It began a relationship with Facebook that helped them learn about the material that is being posted on their platform and how it is abusive, defamatory

Scott Pelley: Have you seen a difference, a practical difference in Facebook?

Lenny Pozner: Yes, it’s almost all gone.

So, um, why are we blaming Section 230 again? It sounds like the system is working. The same is true in the next story. Andy Parker, the father of the tragically murdered Alison Parker — a reporter who was murdered by a fired co-worker live on air in the middle of an interview. Parker has wanted those videos off of social media. And… that’s basically what happened.

Lenny Pozner flagged Alison Parker videos for YouTube to remove.

YouTube wrote us, “There is no place on YouTube for content that exploits this horrendous act, and we’ve spent the last several years investing in tools and policies to quickly remove it.” YouTube told us it now prioritizes all requests from Pozner’s HONR Network.

But 60 Minutes says this is proof that the platforms moderation doesn’t work?

Andy Parker: I really expected them to do the right thing. their motto was, “Don’t be evil.” And for a while, they did a pretty good job of it. But now, they are the personification of evil.

Huh? What? But…?

That’s when the report finally admits that the first couple profiled, falsely blamed for bringing COVID-19 to the US, also were successful in getting the video pulled down. And… then they still blame Section 230 — the same Section 230 that enables YouTube to pull down those videos:

Scott Pelley: Based on what you’ve had to learn about all of these things, what do you think the solution could be?

Matt Benassi: This is really, really hard, right? ‘Cause Section 230. When that was written, it was probably done with the intent that social media companies would police themselves in some manner. And social media companies haven’t done that very well.

Except… the segment shows they did police themselves.

And then the segment ends in the most bizarre fashion, trying to at least nod towards the point that Section 230 being revoked would completely change the internet, but… I mean… this is just word salad:

But making social media liable would also mean Facebook, Twitter, even Wikipedia and Yelp, couldn’t exist as we know them. President-elect Biden wants to revoke Section 230. The federal government is already suing to break up Facebook and Google. No one can say what social media 2.0 will look like or whether the innocent will ever be protected from a world wide web of lies.

What do the antitrust lawsuits have to do with Section 230? Why mention that? It’s a total non sequitur. And getting rid of Section 230 does not “protect the innocent from a world wide web of lies.” Because most lies are protected by the 1st Amendment, not 230. And in the rare cases they are not, that’s an issue for law enforcement, not Section 230.

It’s really becoming difficult to not believe that major media companies are, themselves, choosing to air blatant anti-internet propaganda. You may recall that one of the revelations from the Sony hack a few years back was that the big movie studios got together to plot out a strategy for undermining the internet, which included using media properties they own to run a smear campaign of reports and articles. Whether or not that’s the intention, it certainly has the same effect here. CBS provides no disclaimer about the fact that it is owned by Viacom, one of the companies who was involved in that plot.

Nor does 60 Minutes note that its own site is protected by Section 230. Nor does the segment point out that Section 230 protects free speech online and protects users themselves. The brief clip of Jeff Kosseff just gives a basic description of part of the law, but not any of the important nuance (that Jeff knows and explains literally every day).

It’s pure propaganda. And it’s an online piece that seems to be suggesting (falsely) that without 230, we’d no longer have misinformation online. It’s bonkers.

And, finally, it’s insane that a news organization like CBS, which has faced many defamation cases over the years, is more or less promoting more defamation cases. I’ve never quite seen anything like it. But CBS/Viacom and 60 Minutes should be ashamed of putting on this garbage. It’s not informing people. It’s misinforming them.

Filed Under: 60 minutes, abuse, cbs news, crime, defamation, misinformation, moral panic, propaganda, scott pelley, section 230
Companies: cbs, viacom

Stupid Cable TV Retrans Feuds And Blackouts Make Their Way To Streaming TV

from the meet-the-new-boss dept

Thu, Dec 10th 2020 06:17am - Karl Bode

For the last decade or so, U.S. cable TV customers have been plagued by a steady parade of content blackouts as cable providers and broadcasters bicker over new programming contracts. For the end user, so-called “retransmission feuds” usually go something like this: a broadcaster demands a cable company pay significantly more money to carry the same content. The pay TV provider balks, and one side or the other blacks out the aforementioned content. Consumers spend a few months paying for content they can’t access, while the two sides bitch at each other and try to leverage consumer anger against the other guy.

After a while a new confidential deal is struck, customers face a higher bill, and never get any sort of refund for missing content. Wash, rinse, repeat. Over and over again. With regulators largely sitting on their hands as consumers get the short end of the stick.

While some might think the innovative streaming revolution is going to fix stupidity like this, evidence suggests that’s not likely. While a different variety of feud, AT&T and Roku have been in a standoff preventing AT&T’s HBO Max from appearing on Roku devices. And last week, Sinclair-owned CBS stations were pulled from Hulu completely because the two sides couldn’t put on their big boy pants and agree to a new contract without taking it out on paying subscribers:

“Hulu is next in the line of cable providers and streaming services to lose locals due to disputes with broadcasters. Some viewers started receiving scrolling on-screen notices over the weekend, letting them know that their CBS station could be removed from Hulu.”

This being Sinclair’s particular brand of highly partisan, homogenized disinfotainment, many won’t care that they lose access to these networks. Sinclair obviously cares, given that fuboTV, YouTube TV, and SlingTV (Dish Network) removed the company’s costly regional sports channels last year from their own streaming lineups, contributing to a $4.18 billion loss for Sinclair in the third quarter. But this sort of stuff is only going to get more common and probably dumber, as broadcasters relentlessly try to extract more and more money from already frustrated consumers during an historic health and economic crisis.

For years, even Wall Street stock jocks have warned that the broadcast industry’s relentless price hikes simply aren’t sustainable. It’s creating a sort of death loop where broadcasters demand more money, cable companies acquiesce and raise rates, and consumers, realizing they’re better off skipping TV and reading a book or watching TikTok after several rate hikes each year, finally cut the cord. And while competition from streaming has certainly helped the sector in terms of more flexible choices and lower rates, many of the pay TV sectors dumbest and most self-harming tactics are starting to come along for the ride.

That means a steady parade of rate hikes that erode the value proposition of your monthly streaming subscription, and the routine blackouts and disputes that result in you paying more money for content you can’t access. It would be relatively simple for a regulator to bar consumer-harming blackouts during negotiations (or at least ensure consumers are compensated for losing access to content they pay for), but this being a country where consumer protection policy is usually set by industry (which is why there often isn’t any), that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.

Filed Under: content blackouts, hbo max, retransmission, streaming
Companies: at&t, cbs, hulu, roku, sinclair broadcasting

from the making-the-tardigrade dept

As one of the most beloved science fiction series in history, it’s no surprise that the Star Trek franchise has seen its share of intellectual property flare ups. With Viacom manning the IP enforcement guns, it only makes sense that the series has been the subject of the company’s failed attempt to pretend Fair Use doesn’t exist, the company’s failed attempts at copyright enforcement taking down an authorized Star Trek panel, and the company’s failed attempt to actually be good humans to the series’ adoring fans.

But this is not a story of Viacom failing at yet another thing. Instead, Viacom/CBS, along with Netflix, won in court, defeating an appeal by a video game maker that tried to claim that one episode of Star Trek Discovery infringed on the copyrights for a video game.

CBS and Netflix re-affirmed an earlier win in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit over a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against both companies due to a plotline in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery that a video game creator alleged infringed upon the plot of his unreleased game. The video game was about a giant tardigrade who traveled through outer space and a similar creature played a key role in Star Trek Discover Season 1.

After the Second Circuit lower court had already dismissed the claims, the Court of Appeals agreed in upholding the lower court ruling that both the video game and the TV show were relying on uncopyrightable scientific facts about tardigrades and their ability to survive in outer space.

While it’s a wonder the lawsuit was ever filed in the first place, why in the world Anas Osama Ibrahim Abdin went on to appeal that initial ruling is a complete mystery. The issue at hand was a story arch in the first season of Discovery which dealt with a giant tardigrade. Tardigrades are real life, tiny creatures that typically survive within water droplets. The most interesting aspect of tardigrades is that they have been shown to have been able to survive in the vacuum of outer space. Abdin’s video game also dealt with tardigrades that survived the outer reaches of space. On essentially this basis alone, Abdin filed both his original suit and the appeal.

This is yet another instance where the idea/expression dichotomy of copyright law comes into play. This dichotomy dictates that copyright can be afforded to specific expression, but not to a general idea. And certainly not to an idea comprised essentially of real life scientific discovery. So, if Discovery told the same story about the same tardigrade creature, merely having a tardigrade in its plot is not somehow infringement just because both works are set in space.

While “[t]he distinction between an idea and its expression is an elusive one,” Crichton, 84 F.3d at 587-88, Abdin’s space-traveling tardigrade is an unprotectible idea because it is a generalized expression of a scientific fact -namely, the known ability of a tardigrade to survive in space.

While the court’s opinion is 40 pages long, that one paragraph does all of its work in affirming the lower court’s ruling.

Filed Under: anas osama ibrahim abdin, copyright, discovery, star trek, tardigrade, video game
Companies: cbs, netflix

Do Your Part, Rights Holders: Open The Vaults!

from the help-the-people-out dept

For those who can stay at home, please do. We’ve all been advised to socially distance — the safest thing anyone can do in their individual capacity.

Of course, stir craziness can set in quite easily. (I’m stuck in my apartment with my dog, and while he’s good company he’s not much for conversation.) This is a great time to catch up on all of the books, shows, movies, and video games you’ve been meaning to read, watch, play, etc.

While each of us is doing our part to stay indoors, rights holders can do their part to make these trying times a little less tedious for the home-bound. How? By making their content freely available for streamers and downloaders.

So we’re clear, I’m not talking about independent artists or those who rely on touring income. These folks are most certainly going to take a hit, and would hopefully be covered by any kind of broad-based stimulus that comes from Congress. (This would also be an excellent time to consider Dean Baker’s proposal to give every American a creative works tax credit to donate to an artist of their choosing. To qualify, the artist would have to make their works public domain).

No, I’m talking about the collectors of passive income, those who actually hold the rights to the content: Disney, Netflix, CBS, NBC, Amazon, etc. Rights holders for video games, like Bethesda Studios, Paradox, EA, and Activision could also help. Even if they don’t want to release relatively new titles, this would be a great time to make older games free for all to stream, download, and play. Audible should also give everyone a few free downloads, and a few free months of Kindle Unlimited would go a long way.

Now would also be a great time to release the directors’ cuts or other deleted scenes that never made it to the theater or online. I personally would love to see the older versions of Rogue One or the rumored J.J. Abrams’s cut of The Rise of Skywalker, and I’m sure there are lots of other clips left on the cutting room floor that fans would love to hear.

More controversially, I implore all major rights holders to forgo prosecutions for torrenting, streaming, and other forms of infringement during these times. If illegally streaming keeps someone indoors, then let them stream.

The penalties for copyright infringement are astronomical and disproportionate, and simple peer-to-peer file sharing should be decriminalized in the first place (large torrenting sites and streamers are a separate case). But now is not the time for that — a lot of people need just a little bit of joy, and the owners of infringed copyrights must appreciate this.

This is especially true when it comes to going after YouTubers and other online commentators who must make use of others’ content when producing their own. A great deal of their use is fair to begin with, but dealing with a 512 notice or copystrike is the last thing they need on their minds.

This is a time where everyone must sacrifice both for their own personal safety and the safety of others. Rights holders should pitch in and forgo the benefits of the subsidy that has been given to them to make everyone else’s sacrifice a little more bearable.

Filed Under: copyright, covid-19, culture, openness, sharing, vaults
Companies: amazon, cbs, disney, nbc, netflix

Another day, another example of copyright out of control. The latest, as highlighted by Matthew Keys, is that bogus (almost certainly automated) copyright claims by CBS ended up blocking a live stream of a Bernie Sanders speech, but similar notices also interrupted speeches by Mike Bloomberg and Joe Biden.

It’s not difficult to guess at what’s going on here: most of these streams were using “pool” cameras that anyone can tap into and use. CBS was using the same stream as everyone else, but because copyright must rule everything, CBS assumes that anything it streams, it holds the copyright on — and sends automated notices to places like Twitter and Facebook to stop people from streaming live off of CBS News. But, here, it was CBS using someone else’s feed — but thanks to the nature of copyright, we get a situation where Presidential candidates can’t even live stream their own speeches.

This was the kind of thing we’ve warned about, specifically in the context of the EU’s Copyright Directive, which will effectively require a filter like this to be functioning at all times on basically all platforms. The fact that it will inevitably catch the wrong things — like here — is something that never seems to concern the Hollywood types who push for these laws and technologies to be used. Yet here we have Presidential candidates not able to broadcast themselves.

This is especially ironic for Joe Biden, considering that he’s long been one of Hollywood’s biggest supporters when it comes to pushing ever more draconian copyright law. So, perhaps, he got what he deserved.

Filed Under: automated takedowns, bernie sanders, censorship, copyright, eu copyright directive, filters, free speech, joe biden, mike bloomberg, political speech
Companies: cbs, facebook, twitter