Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Disrupting the Television

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  • Russell Brown, in reply to Kumara Republic,

    And not before time too. If this was America, the anti-trust regulators would be whipping out their chainsaws.

    If this was America, this sort of carry-on would have been halted long ago, on pain of criminal charges.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Sacha,

    cropping?

    Only if you cropped out anything of significance, one would assume. Maybe, as an example, if you were an architecture lecturer and you wanted to show students a design feature that you saw in the background of a photo you could try and argue fair dealing, but to retain the original message the photographer was trying to convey you wouldn't be able to crop anywhere near enough to protect you.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report

  • merc,

    Proving that having shares in govt. backed monopolies requires forethought, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/television/news/article.cfm?c_id=339&objectid=10806247

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report

  • Steve Barnes, in reply to Rob Stowell,

    300 Mbs, 30 minutes talk, and 300 texts for $19.

    I have a deal with Telecom, 500mb double they called it. Gave me a Gig of data and 5000 txt for $38 per month. They have decided to cull that deal and now want me to put up with 300mb an 200 txt for the same price. Sux, totally useless as I use the phone to tether the laptops up north where there is nothing but patchy 3g unless you want to pay squillions for running a phone line the 100 or so metres to the house.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report

  • JacksonP, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    Those mediums are multi-part and snippets can be used without having to use the whole thing. The same is really not possible with a photograph.

    What about photos or videos of an artwork? When I took the photos of The Cut Collective show Public Access 5 at Silo Park, I got permission from one of the group to do so, and to post the photos on our blog.

    But then they contacted me later for permission to use the photos of 'their' artworks in an internal publication. Apart from showing what decent people they are, this seemed kind of, um, complicated?

    Auckland • Since Mar 2011 • 2450 posts Report

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to JacksonP,

    That's not fair dealing, it's republication. Fair dealing covers the narrow situations of review/criticism (of the work), reporting on current affairs, and education. In all those cases it's only permitted to use a portion of the work, generally accepted as being about 10% (but that's not hard-and-fast because you could take three sentences out of a thriller and reveal the entire plot, and that would leave you very open to a lawsuit), and only for those purposes. Republishing even still frames is still using a copyrighted work in a manner that requires permission.

    Although the video was of someone else's copyright work, the video was your copyrighted work. Use other than fair dealing required your permission, even though you clearly didn't understand why you were being asked.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to JacksonP,

    What about photos or videos of an artwork?

    You may recall sculptor John Radford's case against Hallensteins using photos of his works on teeshirts.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Sacha,

    You may recall sculptor John Radford’s case against Hallensteins using photos of his works on teeshirts.

    That was related to a fillip of copyright law which protects against photographic reproduction of sculptures that are installed in a public space. I can’t recall the exact section of the law, but it was quite a specific legal argument (which I believe he lost) and is not broadly applicable.

    ETA: Section 73. The legal argument was around whether the work was permanently installed (and thus ineligible for protection against graphic reproduction) or merely temporarily installed.

    EATA: And if I'd read the article, I would've found the section :P

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report

  • Danielle, in reply to Russell Brown,

    I don’t get it either.

    I have an extremely low hey-nonny-nonny threshold, so I was wary, but basically what it reminds me of is I, Claudius, which can only be a good thing. I am a real sucker for evil political machinations and family plots. And boobs. ;)

    (It'll have to go a long way to beat Roger Sterling on acid, though.)

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report

  • SteveH, in reply to Russell Brown,

    There’s no bloody excuse for having data allocations expire after a month – and it doesn’t happen in many other countries.

    It's dodgy. What I find interesting is that Telecom used to roll any unused data over - it was the primary reason I went with them when I got my iPad (the better 3G coverage is nice too). Even then it seemed like they went out of their way to hide the fact that it worked that way. Since they changed all their new plans a year ago I can only assume that they feel they can't make enough profit selling people only the data they use.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • merc,

    Theresa Gattung, on receiving her golden parachute payment, approximately 5m, stated with bare honesty she had advocated the use of deception in their advertising campaigns in order to achieve market gains.
    The people I knew who shouted most loudly as to Telecom's success were those who had shares in the monopoly.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to merc,

    It's worse than that. She got snapped saying it while Telecom was still being the rapacious incumbent and she was in charge. There're suspicions that the recording of her saying that was the last straw for Labour.

    Gattung got rewarded for running a successful company into the ground. If ever there was proof that executives don't get punished for their mistakes, her payout was that proof. Bruce Shepherd was ropeable.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Danielle,

    I am a real sucker for evil political machinations and family plots.
    And boobs. ;)

    well that's OK then :)

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    is not broadly applicable

    True, though I believe that was another pre-Photoshop thing about photography being somehow more truthful.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to Danielle,

    I have an extremely low hey-nonny-nonny threshold, so I was wary, but basically what it reminds me of is I, Claudius, which can only be a good thing. I am a real sucker for evil political machinations and family plots. And boobs. ;)

    At the end of the day, it's both epic fantasy, which is not everyone's hot beverage of choice, and specifically a deconstruction of epic fantasy, which requires some familiarity with the conventions of the genre to appreciate fully. I actually remain surprised it's become as popular as it has. But fingers crossed the success it has had proves there is an audience for this sort of show - TV doesn't have to be universally appealing to be successful.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Paul Rowe, in reply to Lucy Stewart,

    I agree with you there (and I was raised on that stuff, to my wife's horror, I have the geek creds).

    I have a feeling at least part of its success is because it's the first big-budget TV fantasy project since Lord of the Rings. There is a market for that stuff done right - it looks authentic etc and it has some decent actors in it. The source material is sorely lacking though, which may be where it falls don for me.

    I too am broadly in favour of boobs, but here they are just gratuitous.

    (I should just point out that I am not a TV snob: I am currently enjoying Once Upon A Time, mostly because I can watch it with my primary-age kids and not have to worry about violence and sex - I'm looking at you Glee)

    Lake Roxburgh, Central Ot… • Since Nov 2006 • 574 posts Report

  • Paul Brislen,

    Actually the Gattung quote is usually taken out of context.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10380894

    has the story but you don't get the real flavour for how she's saying it. Sadly it's disappeared from YouTube.

    She was referring to a history that she was glad to see the back of.

    "Think about pricing. What has every telco in the world done in the past? It's used confusion as its chief marketing tool. And that's fine," she said with a huge pause after the word 'tool'. She went on to say:

    "But at some level, whether they consciously articulate or not, customers know that's what the game has been. They know we're not being straight up."

    and that was her point, that customers knew they weren't being dealt with honorably.

    I'm no Telecom apologist - far from it, she and I had the most outrageous shouting match sitting on the couch at TVNZ one day - but on this one I couldn't bring myself to write nasty stuff about her use of confusion. I agree with her actual sentiment and it seemed wrong to hold her words against her on that score.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 200 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Paul Brislen,

    Sadly it’s disappeared from YouTube.

    Or not. Maybe the original was just in a cat & mouse game with the parody police.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to Paul Rowe,

    I too am broadly in favour of boobs, but here they are just gratuitous.

    I do wish that it wasn't notable when a whole episode goes by with nary a bared bosom or monologue-laden sex scene, but it's not a deal-breaker for me - though I'd flatly refuse to watch it in the same building as my parents, if it ever came to it.

    The source material is sorely lacking though, which may be where it falls don for me.

    I think the source material's not bad. Not up to the hype levelled at it - the "American Tolkien" thing is wrong in so many ways - but enjoyable enough. My main problem with it is the way shock value is sometimes mistaken for intelligent storytelling - a problem I suppose the TV series has inherited in its own special way.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Emma Hart, in reply to Lucy Stewart,

    I'd flatly refuse to watch it in the same building as my parents, if it ever came to it.

    Our 16 yo son watches GoT, but not with us, by himself. I'm not really happy with the concept of "gratuitous sex": that buys into the idea that you can only have sexual content if it's somehow 'justified', if it's made acceptable by necessity.

    Very, VERY NSFW-ly, Violet Blue has a couple of articles about sex in GoT: here and here.

    Storytelling – whether crime, horror, fantasy, sci-fi ar anything that’s worth a damn contains sex. Period. Not just predictable sex tropes: sex that is far more redeeming, ethically errant, character-flawing and essential as all other storytelling elements.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Paul Brislen,

    I happen to have the audio (here, as part of a longer video clip that'll bring back memories for many), and the "huge pause" is no longer than a lot of the other pauses in the piece. About as long as the pause between "It's used confusion" and "as its chief marketing tool", in fact.

    Whether or not Gattung was just speaking an industry truth, though, a lot of entry-level customers, for want of a better term, didn't grasp that they were being fed a load of manure. Those of us in and around the industry, or with an interest in telecommunications, knew that Telecom was leading us down the garden path, but there is no shortage of technically-unsophisticated people in NZ who will blithely swallow anything that's said by a large company and packaged by a large marketing budget.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic,

    Aaaaaand by popular demand, they're here - the official SKYNET T-shirts!

    If anyone can point to a more local equivalent of CafePress, please do let me know.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to Emma Hart,

    Our 16 yo son watches GoT, but not with us, by himself. I'm not really happy with the concept of "gratuitous sex": that buys into the idea that you can only have sexual content if it's somehow 'justified', if it's made acceptable by necessity.

    .

    No, but I think sexual content should be subject to the same limitation of all content in a fast-paced TV drama, i.e., it needs to advance story or character development in some way, and GoT fails in that regard more than once. They were also guilty of using essentially the same sex scene with different characters to deliver infodumps enough times that it was noticeable, and that just got tedious.

    The thing with GoT is that there's an awful lot of sex that makes sense from a storytelling perspective, on a scale from "necessary" to "intelligent scene framing". Which is why it's obvious when a sex scene is in there in case they fall below their episode's topless female quotient, and I get irritated they're wasting screen time on nameless extras fucking in a brothel instead of telling the story. (The gender nudity ratio is also a thing, obviously.)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Steve Barnes, in reply to Russell Brown,

    TV doesn't have to be universally appealing to be successful.

    Try telling that to TVNZ7 staff

    If this was America, this sort of carry-on would have been halted long ago, on pain of criminal charges.

    In the Dotcom case it didn't matter that this is not America. Why cant the FBI pop over again and raid Sky TV for doing something that would be illegal in the US?

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Steve Barnes,

    Why cant the FBI pop over again and raid Sky TV for doing something that would be illegal in the US?

    Careful what you wish for...
    The TPPA may well make that a reality!

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

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