Ah, the internet. The “marketplace of ideas” writ on a global scale and broadcast into cyberspace. The ideas may be silly or scary, amateur or professional, hateful or inspiring, but if you’re interested in them, chances are you can find them expressed on the internet. After all, I hear that the internet is not something you just dump something on, it’s a series of tubes! It’s also a “macaca” moment and a “Different” kind of campaign ad. So why am I most fascinated by the impact of one buttoned-down, ‘bookish’ satirist?
The latest Colbert kerfuffle pits liberal heavyweight MoveOn.org against Viacom. We’ve all heard the basics: clips from Viacom’s shows turn up on YouTube, Viacom demands their removal and wackiness ensues. The twist came when “Stop the Falsiness,” a MoveOn/Brave New films parody of The Colbert Report, was removed from YouTube along with all of the pirated Viacom clips. Now the Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing Viacom on behalf of MoveOn.org, framing the issue as one of free speech. Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle had some interesting quotes:
MoveOn.org files suit against Viacom over online video
Activist group says parody media giant asked YouTube to remove is protectedJoe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 23, 2007. . .
The MoveOn.org Civic Action campaign’s spokesman Adam Green said he worries about how YouTube users, who don’t have the resources and media-savvy of his 3.2 million-member organization, are going to fight a media behemoth that orders the removal of legally produced video.
The issue promises to grow more prominent and complex, especially in a presidential campaign where user-generated online video is influential. Earlier this week, an anonymously posted video that transformed an old Apple ad into a plug for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, created a lot of buzz.
Green said critical political speech could be getting lost in this legal fight between corporate content creators and individual users.
“There has to be some 21st century solution found which balances copyright with the ability of everyday people to hold politicians accountable via video,” Green said.
Thursday’s parody-go-round shows that traditional media companies and advocacy organizations are still trying to find that balance.
“Sure, ['Stop the Falsiness' is] a funny video, but there’s a serious side to this,” said Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney with Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We hope that content owners should think twice before they order material taken down. And we want people to know that they have options when something they post to YouTube gets taken down.”
The free speech issue, especially as regards political speech, is what interests me. Obviously, I’m a Stephen Colbert fan in general, but one of the things that I find particularly fascinating about him is the way he has become a sort of lightning rod for so many political “scandals” (none of which have seemed very scandalous for anyone outside of the Beltway, by the way). Congressman Robert Wexler made headlines with his good-natured participation in Stephen’s BKAD segment on cocaine and hookers. Congressman Lynn Westmoreland also made an impression on his installment of BKAD, albeit one that was much less impress-IVE. Nancy Pelosi has implied that she won’t go on his show, and Rahm Emanuel doesn’t want other Democrats to go on, either. Stephen’s now-infamous performance at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner generated massive amounts of internet chatter: for its content, its subsequent condemnation/commendation in the blogosphere, its relative nonexistence in the MSM, and its disappearance from and reappearance on YouTube and Google, respectively. Result: thankyoustephencolbert.org got tens of thousands of posted responses within a week of the speech, the speech itself has had a remarkable run on the iTunes audiobooks “bestseller” list, and the mainstream media who ignored it last year now has plenty to say (some examples here). Not only that, but the pirated C-SPAN video of Stephen’s performance went viral, and when C-SPAN retooled its copyright policy earlier this year, it cited the WHCD video as a partial catalyst.
This latest legal tussle, however, has the potential to interest people who don’t care much about the comings and goings of politicians. Ultimately, I don’t think many of us care whether we can see the disputed video on YouTube (for the record, Viacom is not interested in stopping the “Falsiness”). But in provoking a discussion about the boundary between protecting intellectual property (as Viacom is asserting its right to do) and broadcasting political parody (as MoveOn.org is entitled to do), “Stop the Falsiness” has, once again, put Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report firmly in the spotlight of one of today’s hot political battlefields.
I, for one, am riveted.
The emergence of both legally and illegally made presidential video clips is really making an impact on the presidential campaigns. The candidates have responded well to the online community by producing websites that are devoted to their campaign.
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