Thursday, February 4th, 2010
#Boston Weatherman’s Boastful Controversy
We just had to post this video of Boston-area weatherman Pete Bouchard (@pbouchardon7) to see if Channel 7 will send us a DMCA takedown notice, too.
This story by Mike Masnick @TechDirt tackles fair use and whether or not Channel 7 actually can demand people not use the clip, which until now had stayed semi-under the radar. Of course, the very best way to generate more unwanted publicity for video, audio or text posted to the web is to hire a bunch of lawyers to spook the few people who posted the video and moved on, until they got spooked by lawyers.
It’s like poking a tiger in a cage. First bloggers will echo the story, then pundits move in to dissect the situation (which is where we’re at now), then the story will get more blown out of proportion by mainstream outlets.
Of course, with events in the world being what they are this is not anything of consequence. But still, there’s something interesting in watching digital media (mostly open) wrestle with legacy media (mostly proprietary, filtered) over control of content’s soul.