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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. |
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> | John-I have included some detailed explanation of some of the changes I made at the end. Overall though, it seemed like you had two different themes in this paper: 1) The issue of TV IP being owned by entertainment giants and 2) The effect of advertising on television production as an art. I know they are connected, but your thesis made it seem like you were only going to talk about point #1, whereas the majority of your paper was about point #2. I tried to restructure it a bit to make those themes a little more blended together. |
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< | "It's pure theft, stolen from artists and quite frankly from the American people as a consequence of loss of jobs and as a consequence of loss of income." Joseph Biden, Vice President of the United States |
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> | "It's pure theft, stolen from artists" Joseph Biden, on internet piracy.
Increased intellectual property protections can stifle competition, harass average citizens, restrict creativity and have a chilling effect on free speech. Against these arguments, the entertainment industry presents a simple message, faithfully regurgitated by the Vice President above. |
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< | Increased intellectual property protections can stifle competition, harass average citizens, restrict creativity and have a chilling effect on free speech. Against these arguments, the entertainment industry presents a simple message, faithfully regurgitated by the Vice President above. While the numbers used to measure economic losses are questionable, this essay attempts to examine the other half of Hollywood's message: that piracy is stealing "from artists." In particular, the essay will focus on the fallacy that government support for the major copyright owners is a benefit to the creative artists, both present and future, who produce "television." |
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> | This essay will focus on the fallacy that government support for the major copyright owners is a benefit to the creative artists, both present and future, who produce "television." Instead it will argue that allowing huge entertainment corporations to have ownership of television programming has bastardized television production as an art form, and suggest that the internet can help to give the artist back her craft. |
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TODAY'S CREATIVE ARTIST |
| | Not only is Conan's self-stimulating bear property, it is NBC's property, despite the fact Conan created the character and developed it over a period of many years. Moreover, Jerry Seinfeld doesn't own "Seinfeld". Roseanne doesn't own "Roseanne." They are all "work for hire products." |
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< | As Eben has explained, the concept of work for hire began as an effort to incentivize printers to print literature. Perhaps it made sense to continue this incentivizing concept in the world of television, where production involved enormous up-front costs. However, the entertainment industry has abused the work for hire doctrine with the result that five companies now own the copyright to almost every modern American television show (see here, pp.354-55) |
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> | As Eben has explained, the concept of work for hire began as an effort to incentivize printers to print literature. And perhaps it once made sense to continue this incentivizing concept in the world of television, when production involved enormous up-front costs. Today, on the other hand, although it may be necessary to sell a show to an entertainment behemoth like General Electric (who owns NBC) for it to actually be on television, such groups are no longer necessary to simply producing "television": short, serialized video stories acted out by the same group of characters. |
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< | Today, the entertainment behemoths are still crucial to actually being on television, but they are no longer necessary to producing "television": short, serialized video stories acted out by the same group of characters. The advent of digital film has allowed high-quality videos to be made on tiny budgets with accessible equipment. The Internet provides an easy and free method of distribution. From the point of view of a creative artist, freedom from the shackles of the copyright industry creates enormous potential, both in the type of stories that artist will be able to tell and the manner in which she will be able to tell them. |
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> | The advent of digital film has allowed high-quality videos to be made on tiny budgets with accessible equipment. The Internet provides an easy and free method of distribution. From the point of view of a creative artist, freedom from the shackles of the copyright industry creates enormous potential, both in the type of stories that artist will be able to tell and the manner in which she will be able to tell them. |
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< | What Stories Get Told |
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> | The Stories Told |
| | That fact that the owners of the creative work aren't creative people but businessmen results in art being treated like any other product, which has a number of deleterious effects.
First, an artist's new, creative idea must compete directly with old ideas in the form of the dreaded "remake." Copyrights owners search out ways to make their stores of copyrighted material pay and pay again, even when those remakes fail and fail again. The desire to continue monetizing existing copyrighted material is a natural one for a business, but it quashes actual creativity that might otherwise flourish. |
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< | Second, the "productization" of television leads to the type of homogenized story telling we know all too well. The art is only useful so long as it sells advertising. This means that art must conform to particular (and sometimes ridiculous) content standards. Before HBO decided to produce "The Wire", its creator, David Simon, sent the network a letter in which he explained how a "cop drama" done outside of the network framework could be an entirely different form of television. HBO gave its approval and Simon proved that, freed from the artificial, commercially imposed restrictions of the traditional network model, even the much maligned television show could flourish as a work of art. |
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> | Second, the "productization" of television leads to the type of homogenized story telling we know all too well. The art is only useful so long as it sells advertising. This means that art must conform to particular (and sometimes ridiculous) content standards. |
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< | How Stories Are Told
Corporate ownership of creative works also diminishes the ability of the artist to tell her stories the way she would like. Television shows are broken into segments, each of which must end in a way that leaves the viewer both "wanting more" and in an emotional state that is receptive to whatever advertising he is about to see. Even though television writers labor with great care to make these artificial story developments seem organic, the viewer instinctively feels the falseness of what he's watching. |
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> | Finally, corporate ownership of creative works also diminishes the ability of the artist to tell her stories the way she would like. Television shows are broken into segments, each of which must end in a way that leaves the viewer both "wanting more" and in an emotional state that is receptive to whatever advertising he is about to see. Even though television writers labor with great care to make these artificial story developments seem organic, the viewer instinctively feels the falseness of what he's watching. |
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< | "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" didn't feel "real" because of the cursing or occasional topless woman. What made those shows seem authentic was that the stories moved at a pace and in a manner that was completely consistent with, and dictated by, the characters and the world they inhabited. They were, in other words, art and not just product. |
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> | A Step in the Right Direction |
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< | TOMORROW'S CREATIVE ARTIST |
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> | Although television shows on HBO (owned by Time Warner) are subject to the same work for hire product restrictions as those on NBC and other broadcast networks, the lack of pressure from advertisers allows us to begin to see what another world could look like.
For example, before HBO decided to produce "The Wire", its creator, David Simon, sent the network a letter in which he explained how a "cop drama" done outside of the network framework could be an entirely different form of television. HBO gave its approval and Simon proved that, freed from the artificial, commercially imposed restrictions of the traditional network model, even the much maligned television show could flourish as a work of art.
Additionally, shows like "The Wire" are often lauded for feeling “real”, but that feeling is not because of the cursing or occasional topless woman. What makes these shows seem authentic is that the stories move at a pace and in a manner that is completely consistent with, and dictated by, the characters and the world they inhabit, not the timing of the commercial breaks. They are, in other words, art and not just product. |
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< | "We're doing the show right now in 2010, and the reality is, we have to have our show on the Internet. Would the network like it if everyone who watched it for free on the Internet actually had to pay? Yes. But it always ends up helping us when people can see the show." Matt Stone, co-creator, "South Park" |
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> | TOMORROW'S CREATIVE ARTIST |
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< | In homes all over America there are men and women with a digital video camera and a story to tell. For most of these people, widespread acclaim for their work will never arrive. Perhaps their story won't strike a nerve with viewers, perhaps they lack the ability to relate their story in an interesting manner. Some of them, though, will produce art that we will want to see. But there's a good chance that we never will, and that would be a tremendous loss. |
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> | In homes all over America there are people with a digital video camera and a story to tell. For most, widespread acclaim for their work will never arrive. Perhaps their story won't strike a nerve with viewers, perhaps they lack the ability to relate their story in an interesting manner. Some of them, though, will produce art that we will want to see. But there is a good chance that we never will, and that would be a tremendous loss. |
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< | As Matt Stone alludes to, the most important ingredient in determining the success of a television show is that it be seen. The Internet would seem to provide the opportunity for a young video artist to stand up and shout "Here's what I can do!" The problem is that the artist must somehow make herself heard around the endless advertising on every bus, subway and computer screen, cajoling us to watch the latest remake of an old show starring that actress we sort of liked in that other thing, advertising that is financed by the copyrights held by a handful of companies and rigorously defended by our government. Whether we would rather see that remake instead of something small, personal and amateur is unimportant. What is clear is that we should be rooting for that video artist to succeed, not helping five corporations make ever greater profits so that one day, if that artist does make his voice heard, they can force him to cede his copyright to them, call it "work for hire" and start revving up the Emmy campaign. That video artist's fight is, after all, a true David versus Goliath story: the kind of story that we love to watch on TV. |
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> | Yet the most important ingredient in determining the success of a television show is that it be seen. The Internet provides the opportunity for a video artist to shout, "Here's what I can do!" The problem is that the artist must somehow make herself heard around the endless advertising cajoling us to watch the latest remake of an old show starring that actress we sort of like; advertising that is financed by the copyrights held by a handful of companies and rigorously defended by our government. We should be rooting for that video artist to succeed, not helping five corporations make ever greater profits so that one day, if that artist does make his voice heard, they can force him to cede his copyright to them, call it "work for hire" and start revving up the Emmy campaign. |
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-- By JohnSchwab - 11 Apr 2010 |
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> | Here are more detailed explanations, by section:
Introduction:
I shortened the quote. If you aren’t talking about half of it, I wouldn’t include the half you aren’t talking about. You also don’t have to waste time explaining how you aren’t talking about the half that you aren’t going to talk about.
Work for hire:
I took out the line and link about entertainment companies abusing the work for hire doctrine. Although I agree that it’s unsettling that five companies have so much control, I didn’t really understand how that control stemmed from an abuse of the work for hire doctrine….
What stories get told:
This is where I really started to lose your argument trail. I understand that you are comparing TV on a network like HBO that doesn’t rely on advertisers the same way a NBC, etc. does. But how does this fit into your thesis that governmental support of copyright holders stifles creativity? Does HBO also not have any copyrights to The Wire? Again, this isn’t an area I know much about, but it seems to me unlikely. If that is the case, it needs to be much clearer to your reader.
I think you intend to use HBO as a “shadow of what could happen” example. To this end, I moved that portion into the next section. I then renamed that section to reflect that it is to represent a potential middle point between the world of entertainment behemoths we are in now, and the grassroots internet entertainment world you see for tomorrow.
How stories are told:
I moved this first paragraph up into the “what stories section”. The how and what both seem to combine into your general theory that major copyright holders who are slaves to advertisers bastardize art to make the money they want.
Then, as I said I changed this section and used it to discuss HBO as a potential marker along the way.
Tomorrow’s Creative Artist:
I took out the sentence about it not mattering if we want to watch the remake. Although you might want to make that argument in another paper, which would be interesting to read, it’s too much to put into a throw-away line.
For sake of word count, I took out Stone’s quote. It was nice trimming, but not necessary. |
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> | I also took out the David and Goliath ending flourish. I think it's just as effective to end on the revving for the Emmy line, and the word count was still over. |
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> | Let me know if you have any questions! |
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |