On this week's show we talked at some length about the firestorm of coverage and conjecture surrounding the conviction of the Pirate Bay founders on charges of aiding copyright infringement in a Swedish court. Warners, Fox, Sony, and EMI led the fight and hailed it as a great victory.
They couldn't be more wrong.
... for social media, that is.
I met Tim Gibbons, executive producer of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, during a conference at the Producers Guild here in Los Angeles, California. It was just before the writer's strike happened and all of Hollywood was setting their sights on the newly chartered land of the web. With good reason too. Since most productions were about to go on hiatus, it gave everyone the opportunity to explore the creative possibilities and freedom that the internet allowed.
Our amazing friend Bre Pettis has been a staple of innovative online video for years, and has a television pilot on tonight called History Hacker! From Bre's blog:
My TV show pilot called "History Hacker" airs this upcoming Friday at 8PM and Midnight on the History Channel. I'm the host of the show and I check out inventors in history and take a hands-on look at their inventions. I need your help to make the show go from a pilot to a real TV show.
The pilot is all about Nikola Tesla and the war of the currents between Tesla and Edison. In the show I learn how to blow a neon tube, explore wireless electricity and build an AC generator from a bike. I also go to Boston to visit an MIT space lab to see how the principles that Tesla pioneered are being applied to space propulsion.
The look of the show is awesome. The folks at History gave the producer, director, and director of photography permission to take my DIY style of making videos with lots of jump cuts and direct talking to the camera and push it forward into a longer format. It doesn't look like anything else on TV.
It really does look amazing -- just check out the sizzle reel embedded at the top of this post! If anyone should be the mainstream media emissary for DIY video makers, it's Bre Pettis. You rule, Bre!
A screenshot of NBC's media player on nbcolympics.com.
On this past Tuesday's show we discussed NBC's exclusive license for media from the Olympics, but how does that directly affect your enjoying the Olympics?
Are you going to watch the Olympics? Do you want to know the results ahead of time? Are people counting on your tweets for Olympic updates?
I lived in New Hampshire in 2002 during the Winter Olympics. The house where I was staying had the Canadian TV network, the CBC. Watching the Olympics on the CBC was so different than watching it on NBC. The focus of the events were different, the way the story was told was different, and the CBC showed events while NBC was showing biographies.
Will you seek out through the web coverage of the games from other countries? And if you do, would you consider taking that footage and posting it to online video sites so others can see it?
There's a campfire discussion thread on MIX on this topic, as well.
Hey, we love The Guild, we love Felicia Day, we love independent artists doing their thang. So why not pick up a copy of The Guild on DVD and help support production of Season 2! We did!
If you scrub to about :53 you'll see that we're now forever stamped in Rick Rolling history. Later in the video you'll see Tim Shey from NNN who was Live Rick Rolled by Rocketboom. LOL.
Is it finally the death of the Rick Roll -- or does this now mean I'll start getting Rick Rolled by my mom? Ooh boy...
Forget Hulu and their private beta shenanigans. CBS is now streaming all 3 seasons of the original Star Trek series (and a few other classics, including Twilight Zone) on their TV Classics destination. No sign-ups. No international restrictions. Just pure unadulterated Trek madness.
Zadi will get a kick out of this, because I know she's a big fan of TOS. I'm more of a TNG guy. Sadly, no full-screen or embedding options, but the 15-second ads are very bearable.
EDIT: Seems like some of our international commenters aren't able to view the videos after all. Sorry, guys!
I just read on NewTeeVee that episodes of Fraggle Rock are now available on iTunes! To celebrate, enjoy the opening theme song!
[ Via: Via NewTeeVee ]
"The pre-recorded performance will include all of the tracks from "In Rainbows" plus some "other bits" as Thom says."
I'm sure this thing will be archived all over the web -- so no worries if you're going out to celebrate. Have fun!
