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I am never, ever, doing a documentary again.

If I am caught dead doing one, it will never be on a polarized current mainstream issue. Fuck.

You know, I’m quite in alot of work right now. I have full time university. I have a job. I have another job on top of that. I’m trying to keep certain clubs afloat. I have minimum three reports due each week, usually of 10 pages each. Not to mention the whole documentary bit, and lazy classmates that delegate all their work onto me. This isn’t a “woe is me” piece, because I know there are many in the same shoes as I. The point is that the last thing I need on top of all this is getting phone calls and pressure from people. It’s just not what I need right now. To be honest, I just wish I could just hide in a corner and have everything done. But reality doesn’t work that way.

The problem with documentaries like these is that its on a polarized issue. People feel very strongly on piracy, and there’s lots of disagreements going on on pretty much every single aspect of the issue. Take DRM, for instance. Or how much artists are making through online music services. Or whatnot. Lots of people feel strongly in all these things, and so few of them agree with each other.

Meanwhile here I come along, basically mashing all these views up in a documentary of mine. The nature of the beast dictates that no one really gets an hour to themselves to speak, which creates more problems. I’m already throwing the whole movie out and starting from scratch again to insure a more neutral standpoint, but that doesn’t matter. Because people really don’t see that aspect of things.

People aren’t even in agreement over me. I’ve been accused of being an industry type that knows nothing. I’ve been accused of being pro-pirate. If there’s anything I’ve not been accused of I’d love to hear it.

And of course it doesn’t help when I write an editorial piece with my thoughts on things. If people weren’t in disagreement before, they sure are now.
ANYWAYS. I’m really up to here (*points to neck*) in stress, and I’m really starting to regret some of the decisions I’ve made here. Maybe its the fact that I haven’t had even a half-day off since August, and I just cannot handle it for much longer.

Soo… its presently noon on Thursday. The group still hasn’t organized a time to exchange the notes.
I assume you guys will come accross the frontpage of the site, or this blog. I wrote up the notes I took that day in MS Word.

Download Rough Notes Here: GEO3166_Lab2 (MS Word)

GEO3166 Students (and any other interested party), I’ve uploaded the photos from the Rockliffe Formation. You can obtain them from here. If you want to reach me, you can do so from here (julienbATcmaelys.bio).

Over the last few years, FOX News has become known as being a de facto mouthpiece of the Republican party. The transparent extent to which its commentators are polarized, and the continual basis on which they violate all principles of journalistic integrity, have rightfully earned it that reputation. There’s even been documentaries exploring the issue.

Bill Clinton was invited for an interview with FOX the other day. When it was clear that his interview was to be misconstrued into something else, he reacted quite adversely. The exchange was quite livid, and the resulting transcript has just been released online.

The reporter’s ensuing questions only made it that much more clear that this was always intended to be an interview to get Clinton in a bind.

Update: See the video here. FOX seemed to have edited the video to obfuscate the part where Clinton highlights that this interview was done under false pretext. They reordered Clinton’s remarks, cleverly sidelining his objections. This was not done to make the conversation more cohesive to the audience. It was done to manipulate the audience’s perceptions of FOX.

How do you deal with a youth population that’s watching your music videos illegally? Do you try to shut the sites hosting the materials illegally down? If so, how do you deal with where those youths will go next?

In a move I could never have forseen, Warner Music has decided to capitalize on the MySpace generation by going into a joint venture with YouTube. Instead of trying to bring the ever popular YouTube to financial ruin, they’ll capitalize on the userbase and allow their IP to be displayed as long as they get a share of the revenue profits. I see this as being a win-win situation for all parties involved. It is a slap in the face for Universal, however, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with these news.

Universal had engaged in discussions with YouTube, but the talks broke apart. One can only assume that the propositions put forth by Universal was not as favourable as the deal brokered with Warner Music. That said, the breakdown could of had something to do with Universal’s assertions that YouTube owed them tens of millions of dollars in royalties. Who knows.

I predict that Universal will shift its tune and try to make ammends with YouTube. Universal’s deal with the unknown SpiralFrog to distribute its videos can only spell failure; for the pure reason that it ain’t YouTube. YouTube is where the audience is, and threats of lawsuits won’t change that. Shutting down YouTube will not encourage its userbase to shift to Spiralfrog.

There’s an old Irish story about a pot of gold being underneath a pile of horse dung:

Long ago, on top of a hill nearby a small Irish village, was this pot of gold. In it were riches said to be greater than that of all villagers combined. The localmen all knew of this great pot of gold, but none dared go near it for it lay underneath a great pile of dung. Then one day, a traveller came by. He heard of the great pile of gold, said “what the feck”, and went to the hill. There he saw the great pile of dung. He dug and dug. Eventually, he found the pot. It was full of the most beautiful gold coins ever to beset any Irishman. Needless to say, he got the gold, bought the girl, and lived happily ever after.

If the labels manage to get over YouTube’s questionnable beginnings, they will have the pot of gold that lies underneath. To ignore it on the basis of that horse dung, is to ignore all the gold. They can go make another pot, they can put dung on it, but there won’t be that gold waiting for them. That’s my two cents.

PS. Yes, I did make up that story about the Irish dung.