
Hollywood fights Internet protests with... TV ad, billboard, radio spot - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/hollywood-fights-internet-protest-with-tv-ad-billboard.ars
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droithomme
It really bothers me that their lobbying organization is called "Creative
America". Creative America is me and other people who make things. It's not
corporate parasites who form insidious symbiotic relationships with corrupt
congressmen to pass laws that strangle free expression.

"Creative America" does not represent artists and intellectual property
producers. It represents the interests of the predators who feed off out what
we produce while adding nothing of value, and the interests of those who want
more power and control over the populace, including the ability to stiffle
dissent.

I think Ars Technica should either put "Creative America" in quotes,
abbreviate it CA, or place it in italics. Appearing many times in the article
in plain typography is confusing and misleading.

~~~
capisce
Has kind of the same ring to it as "Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea",
doesn't it? If you have to put it in your name, you're not really it...

~~~
thebigshane

       United States of America
    

That's interesting. We are still united, but I think most people would look on
the US as a single entity, not co-operating states anymore. States have lost
most of their sovereignty. But then again, at the time we came up with the
name, it was more fitting.

I wondered if North Korea had a similar history, but it appears they were
always a communist dictatorship (since 1949, just after Korea split).
[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_North_Korea>]

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dmor
What's stopping us from raising money on Kickstarter to buy up tons of
billboard inventory on AdStruc.com? (the Airbnb of billboards - kind of
awesome btw)

~~~
firefoxman1
Really awesome idea. Use democratic ideas to save information freedom. You
really should propose this on Reddit as well.

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firefoxman1
I love how the TV ad plays on people's patriotism. Or, at least it tries to.
It really just reflects their oldschool ways beautifully.

This isn't the baby-boom generation anymore. You can't just control young
minds by saying "if you don't do (whatever), you aren't patriotic."

~~~
alan_cx
When one appeals to patriotism, one is basically saying "I have no logical or
credible argument, suspend your brain and do as we damn well tell you"
"Patriotism" is nothing more than a device to control the brainless.

~~~
thebigshane
Well, not always. There are legitimate reasons to ring the "patriotism" bell:
Pearl Harbor, 9/11 (spare the theories please). Drumming up patriotism to join
the forces to defend the country is the original reason for patriotism and it
can still be applicable. Just not in most of the cases you may hear on TV.

~~~
alan_cx
Logic and compassion should be more than enough. Think about it, the whole
world was shocked by such events. Were the shocked, say, Danish, US patriots?
Were the Aussies who helped with rendition US patriots? We the MI6
interrogators US patriots? No, they all reasoned that they were doing the
right thing. (OK, some could have been just sadists!!!)

Patriotism to me means follow the country or its leader regardless of logic or
sense, or any other reasonable form of reasoning. Patriotism can only be used
to persuade people against the better logical judgement. Other wise, what is
it there for? If the argument stands then no need. Patriotism only gets
trotted out when a leader wants to go against the people or majority. Its a
big club to bash opposition with.

If the Chinese invade the US, or my home the UK, I don't need to be instantly
patriotic to fight them off. I just need to decide who I'd rather run my
country. Just logic. Or reason.

There seems to me to be something very engrained in to Americans about being a
patriot. I don't know why, but it does seem a very American disease. Bush used
it a hell of a lot. Any one disagreeing was called unpatriotic or un-american.
I'm sorry, but if that alone does not damage the concept of patriotism, then
logic has left the building.

I actually fear seeing or hearing the word patriot. The second I hear or read
it I know there is no logic or reasoning to the attached point, argument or
issue.

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ypcx
Fun fact: the 7 consolidated media companies (all media there is in the US
basically), are intimately interconnected with Pharmaceutical and Insurance
companies. Link: <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3845>

(My original source: [http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-
blog/1023-financia...](http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-
blog/1023-financial-tyranny))

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bitops
I find it somewhat ironic that the only way I knew that "Creative America"
even existed and that it was running TV and billboard ads was through the Web.

Also, it's not just "foreign criminals" who are pirating content. People right
here in the US are making money doing it. See
<http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk> for an example. (I did a whois on
funnyjunk.com and they appear to be US based).

~~~
hessenwolf
35 minutes of reading the oatmeal later...

One thing the guy definitely has going for him is that even if they strip the
label off, the sense of humour and the style is still recognisable as Oatmeal.

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kyt
They also fought it today with minimal, biased coverage. I compared the Google
trends search volume of the headline stories that were shown today on the
major news sites. SOPA was easily 2-3x more searched than any other headline,
yet it barely showed up as a blip on sites like FOX News.

~~~
hessenwolf
Fox, my daily dose of US Corporatist Christian bias, had the blackout as the
main article on their site. The coverage was not particularly unreasonable.

~~~
CWuestefeld
If you think Fox is the most biased news network, you clearly aren't watching
any of the others. I say this not in defense of Fox, but because news coverage
with slant in _some_ direction is positively ubiquitous.

If you think you're looking at something that's unbiased, it's only because
that news outlet matches your own world view more closely.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's impossible to produce news that's
entirely without bias. So I wish they'd stop pretending to be even-handed, and
just come clean with what their editorial views are. It would make our job of
filtering a lot easier.

~~~
hessenwolf
Your last point is actually why Fox News is in the too-long list of news sites
I read. I have a rough idea of their biases, like Al Jazeera.

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artursapek
What an unsubstantial TV ad. The resistance from the anti-SOPA side comes with
factual arguments. However they've chosen to go with their usual favorites:
meaningless symbolic imagery and biased, baseless statements. They're trying
to push their way through this with brute force. Idiots.

~~~
Natsu
They're not idiots. They're very good at making emotional appeals that will
reach people who are not like us.

~~~
thebigshane
Right, we are not the target audience. Actually we probably aren't part of the
target audience for most TV/radio ads and billboards.

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daniel-cussen
I for one am going to 1) stop buying newspaper 2) not listen to radio, and 3)
not watch TV (ok, I was doing this already)

because I'm a little tired of old media and wouldn't mind if it went out of
business a little faster.

~~~
megablast
Each of those has the most tiny effect. You would do much better to 1) Stop
hiring/buying DVDs 2) Stop going to the cinema 3) Stop buying music

~~~
daniel-cussen
OK, that too.

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ithought
We should have lobbyists pushing Congress to investigate Hollywood studios for
massive fraud-

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting>

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prawn
People off the net and unaware that this was an issue are now aware that
there's something that large swathes of the internet are kicking up a fuss
over. How many will get curious and investigate? More than none, I imagine.

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showkhill
You can joke around with this stuff but if your passion is the arts and real
creativity (without profit motive) it's sickening.

In Ireland when senior fat cat state servants are threatened with any kind of
reprimand the media and unions are mobilized for operation 'blue collar'
shield. Police, nurses and teachers are wheeled out to protect the cabal at
the top. It always works.

So Newscorp, Hollywood and the Label's are protecting the creative people now,
the little guy? As brazen as you would expect from the axis of (creative)
evil.

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alan_cx
Let me get this straight. The advert in Times Square has News Corp and Sony
_surrounding_ America's creative community.

Does that not perfectly show exactly what the whole damn problem is?

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ethank
So sad. All this effort because they spent years ignoring technology and
trying to do innovation via outsourcing and customer dis-servicing business
development.

I know first hand :)

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mydnite
If ever a billboard needed some C 'n' B work done to it it is these
billboards.

Arise the gorilla C 'n' B army of the new millennium.

But seriously it just makes me want to get into politics just to kick these
fuckers out and I'm not even a yank, I'm Australian, so I couldn't directly
help the people in the US.

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jdavid
Sometimes I wonder if the biggest reason media companies are pissed off about
piracy, is because they can't add their own free political messages to any
content they want. they are loosing the power of distribution, which is
fundamentally more important that loosing a revenue stream.

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j45
Hi Hollywood: I like movies and stuff, but how about I stop watching them
altogether?

I'm happy to pay for cable, netflix and more but you really need to stop
punishing the majority of honest people, it's just not cool.

The internet gives me a lot more than the predictable formula plots that you
do lately.

