Archive for: February, 2007

Music & Lyrics

Feb 20 2007 Published by under Comedy, Movies, Music, Pop Culture

Jumping off the topics of Net Neutrality and Presidential politics for a moment, let’s talk pop culture. With Little Quip closing on 2 years old and Baby Quip on the way, Mrs. Quip and I rarely get out to the movies. Most of our movie consumption takes place via red and white envelopes about 6 months after the big screen release (thus the reason I do occasional DVD reviews, but rarely do a timely movie review).

This weekend was a rare treat, however. We actually arranged an adult outing to a meal and a movie. The flick of choice was Music and Lyrics. I thought I’d take a moment and share some thoughts.

First, let me say Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore have both done this movie about a dozen times before, albeit with other people in the opposite gender’s lead. The movie itself was pretty boilerplate for the romantic comedy genre as well. The story follows the usual storyline, the two meet through odd circumstances, become close, eventually sleep together, Grant does something stupid to make Barrymore go away, and in a big public display of his love, Grant gets the girl back.

Despite the rather formulaic production and casting, though, the movie was really pretty good. Grant gives his usual performance as the oafish, egotistical, but still somehow personable songwriter. He was the Andrew Ridgely portion of a British pop band (appropriately named Pop!) in the 1980s. After an ugly split, he watched his former partner (think George Michael, but without the gay bathroom escapades and drugs) go on to huge success.

Barrymore is a woman who stands in for the woman who normally waters his plants and was the inspiration for a best-selling novel about a woman with limited talent who seduces a college professor. Her former lover, a college professor who never revealed his marriage, is the author of the book.

Both question their worth after having been dumped by their former partners, and are wallowing in a sea of mediocrity.

What is truly refreshing is the sub-plot of the song they’re trying to write and the movie’s depiction of the music industry. As a big fan of music, I have been fairly disappointed for a number of years now that the industry seems to support whatever “it” girl happens to be gracing the pages of Us magazine, and really no longer cares about creating music.

Cases in point, Hayden Panettierre and Paris Hilton. I understand the music industry, through the application of technology, can make a barking dog a Grammy winner, but do we really need to keep proving that? Do we need to keep giving goofy teen actresses and billionaire heiresses record deals simply because they have a high Q rating?

Sorry, I digress…

The movie does a great job of skewering these vacuous pop princesses. The cover of a magazine featuring the movie’s version of the next Shakira – Cora Corman, played by Haley Bennett – features an appropriate quote, “I don’t want to think anymore, I just want to exist.”

That could be the motto of the music industry. Its inclusion in the film sums up the apparent disdain the movie’s writers have for the music biz. The acting is good, the story is predictable, but for me, the open mocking of the music business makes Music and Lyrics worth a look.

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KeithUrban.com

Feb 16 2007 Published by under Celebrities, Country Music, Music, The Internet, The Law

When I first heard of Keith Urban’s lawsuit against Keith Urban, I thought the whole thing was pretty stupid. Why would a huge country music star sue a nobody in New Jersey for trademark infringement simply because they have the same name. It seemed to be a typical case of those with more money than sense demanding something for free (in this case a domain name) and suing when they don’t get their way.

Well, I owe the country music star an apology for thinking so little of him. It turns out he has a pretty good reason to be miffed at the painter, but I still believe he should lose his charges of “federal trademark infringement, dilution of a federally registered trademark, federal unfair competition and violation of the anti-cybersquatting consumer protection act and the Tennessee consumer protection act.”

At issue is www.KeithUrban.com. Unlike the infamous Julia Roberts decision, Keith Urban the painter has a legitimate reason for owning the domain name. It may not even qualify as cybersquatting. The burden of proving there is a bad-faith motive in holding the name is going to be difficult since it is the guy’s name.

That said, if you look at the site, you’re quickly going to see that the guy goes to great lengths to hide the fact that he is not “that” Keith Urban. There are no pictures of himself, no contact information other than an e-mail, and references to painting as “a hobby”, leading you to believe his day job is something else (country music star, perhaps).

I suspect the legal decision in this will leave the domain with the rightful owner (the painter). However, he’s probably in some danger of being charged with some deceptive trade practices.

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My Last Word On Marcotte & McEwan

Feb 16 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Candidates, Politics, The Internet

A colleague – and fellow blogger – and I were discussing the Marcotte situation. He raised two valid concerns that this would a) deter campaigns from hiring bloggers in the future and b) lead to a situation where an arms race of who can find dirt on the other guy’s blogger.

While I respect his concerns, I think the issue is a little different. Take the Internet out of the equation and substitute print media or television. If a campaign hired a Bill O’Reilly, an Ann Coulter, or an Al Franken as a spokesperson, and that person continued to keep their day job as a firebrand, it would be a short matter of time before they said something stupid on air or in print to cause the same eruption.

The fact is, this had less to do with blogs and online politics, than it did with two questionable decisions – one by Edwards, and one by Marcotte. The bad decision Edwards made was in not demanding that Marcotte stop blogging at Pandagon. The bad decision by Marcotte was to continue doing so.

When you work for a Presidential campaign, especially as a spokesperson, you become the voice of the campaign. Everything you write, or say, can be construed as a campaign position. You may say something that you’d never think twice about in day-to-day life, and it becomes a much larger issue because you say it with the weight of your position.

That’s why the Ann Coulter’s and Bill O’Reilly’s don’t take campaign jobs (ok, that and the massive salary cuts). That’s also why Marcotte’s decision to continue blogging on topics as trivial as a movie and its feminist leanings is such a mistake. It’s rarely a blatant statement that gets someone in trouble. It’s almost always an off-hand remark that costs them. Just ask Joe “Barack is Clean” Biden. One of Marcotte’s commentators points out this very fact in response to the Children of Men post.

It appears that jackelam and pduggie have very different experiences of organized Christianity from Amanda’s. Well bully for them. I’m glad on their behalf.

And as a white woman I have very different experiences of privilige from those of someone of a different skin colour. My good fortune, probably, but that doesn’t mean that I get to say that the experiences of a black woman or a Cree woman, and her consequent take on my culture, are invalid or wrongheaded, even if I believe my culture didn’t mean for the black woman or the Cree woman to feel bad.

And yet, that is exactly what Marcotte did. She ignored the fact that different people bring different perspectives to any interaction, and she offended a great many people with her words. In doing so, she spoke not only for herself, but with the megaphone of the campaign. The trouble is, she didn’t realize it was turned on.

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Maryland’s Net Neutrality Bill

Feb 15 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Congress, Government, Legislation, Net Neutrality, The Internet

Matt Stoller over at MyDD has a post about a new Net Neutrality bill that was introduced in Maryland.

Owning state legislatures has been a secret strategy for corporate elites for years, and our focus on a Federal level and the courts has crippled us in understanding what is really possible when progressives step up on a state level. But that’s where change really happens.

The trouble with this is it ignores two simple facts – 1) Democrats – of which Matt is one – have traditionally believed in a strong central government with weaker subservient state governments and 2) Republicans (and by extension businesses) have usually operated at the state level on issues that make sense to legislate locally.

This becomes important when you start to talk about issues like Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is like interstate commerce. If you legislate interstate commerce, you have to do it at the federal level. That was one of the lessons the US earned early on. Before there was a New Deal, and before there was a Great Society, there was the Interstate Commerce Commission and recognition that goods traveling between states needed something better than state level oversight.

Net Neutrality is an interstate issue. Introducing net neutrality legislation at the state level is a terrible idea that ignores the fact most issues regulated at the state level are regulated there because it doesn’t fundamentally matter whether there is a patchwork of laws governing them.

For instance, violent crime can be regulated at the state level because it doesn’t matter if there is a difference in sentencing from one state to another. If an armed robber gets a mandatory sentence of eight years in one state and ten years in another, that’s not going to change the way the world works.

Introducing Net Neutrality legislation on a state-by-state basis, on the other hand, would be catastrophic if he laws were upheld in the courts (which is unlikely), but more likely will serve only to clog the courts and force a Washington solution.

Since the basis of the Internet is a series of interconnected networks that move data around the country or around the world in a millisecond, having to build networks capable of keeping track of the various legal requirements would be the worst government idea since the tax code.

I don’t believe Matt has had a political awakening and has become such a radical Republican that he feels there is no place for the federal government in anything. I suspect his advancement of state level NN regs is intended to junk up the works. If every state had a different law for regulating Net Neutrality, the federal government would be forced into the equation and would have to regulate the Internet.

That’s what happened with Interstate Commerce to force the creation of the ICC. States had passed myriad laws that the Supreme Court struck down and Congress was forced to act.

I suspect the proponents of NN are pushing laws around the country to force federal action – that and to obfuscate the real issue. The real issue is Net Neutrality is a solution in search of a problem, since no example of the illicit deeds alleged by content providers has actually occurred.

(Disclaimer: While I work for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, this post should in no way be construed as an official position of the Association. Thoughts in this space are mine and mine alone and do not reflect the views of my employer.)

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Net Neutrality, ESPN 360, and Retransmission Consent

Feb 15 2007 Published by under Congress, Government, Legislation, Net Neutrality, The Internet

One of the interesting things that has been lost in the net neutrality debate is the case of ESPN360. It has been covered by some, but received little media attention. When paired with the ongoing conflicts over retransmission consent, it really does paint a picture of the good intentions of government going horribly awry.

In the Net Neutrality debate, the content providers allege that the cable and telephone companies will block access to their sites unless they pay the access providers. That theory is what drives the mania around the issue. People fret that, “I won’t be able to access Amazon.com if my ISP has a deal with Barnes & Noble.”

What it indicates, however, is a shortsightedness on the part of content providers to assume that there is only one business model for making money. For Google, that model is ‘give things away to customers, and charge anyone wanting to reach those customers for advertising’.

What would happen if Google, with its incredible market share, went to the ISPs and said, “If you want your customers to have access to Google, YouTube, etc, then you have to pay us. Otherwise, we’ll block incoming requests from your customers.” It’s the exact opposite of what proponents of NN are alleging will happen.

Well, guess what. It’s happening.

ESPN360 is a content service provided by ESPN networks via the Net. ESPN has told major ISPs that they have to pay to give customers access. Verizon has agreed and is paying the fee. Comcast is not.

The ESPN360 effort should raise new doubts about heaping new rules on access providers and assuming they have all the power. There is clear evidence that content providers have power as well.

If you question that, look at the other big debate taking place in telecommunications. There have been a series of recent skirmishes over retransmission consent (or retrans, for short). For those unfamiliar with the term, retrans refers to the agreements that allow cable and satellite systems to retransmit the signals of programmers and broadcasters. The systems pay a price for that right.

The trouble, at least in some recent cases, is the conflict that creates with a government mandate known as must-carry. Congress forced cable systems to carry the primary signals of the broadcasters (ABC, NBC, CBC) under the theory that the free, over-the-air programming serves a vital public interest. Under the terms of must-carry, there were no mandated cash payments between systems and the broadcasters.

Recently, some broadcasters have decided there is a value to their programming and have begun to demand payment for their programing. This puts the government in an odd position. Given the shrinking viewership of broadcast television, it is entirely possible that they would eventually have no audience. Due to the government intrusion into the process, however, cable operators face a mandate to carry these stations, and now are forced to pay for them, too.

Under a net neutrality regime, ISPs could face a similar situation. The government may create a mandate to allow access to all content, and leave open a business model for content providers to demand payment. If Google, Amazon and eBay begin to charge ISPs for access, and the cable companies have no recourse to experiment with other business models, we could, in ten years, be looking at the same situation with the Internet that we’re currently seeing with retrans.

(Disclaimer: While I work for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, this post should in no way be construed as an official position of the Association. Thoughts in this space are mine and mine alone and do not reflect the views of my employer.)

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