Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts

Saturday, November 18, 2023

The death of physical media might take cancel culture to a whole new level!

Are there favorite movies you just love to watch over and over again? A TV show that’s kind of like comfort food you can always go back to and binge watch? Fans of “Friends” and “The Golden Girls” always talk about how they can always unwind from life’s stresses by going back and watching a good marathon session of back-to-back episodes. For me they’re Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood movies. I think I could put on a one man show theatrical production of every “Rocky” and “Rambo” movie where I would play every role and recite all the dialogue perfectly. From television it has the be “Columbo,” the greatest mystery series ever, in my opinion. But if you rely on streaming services to watch your old favorites rather than purchasing them on physical media like DVDs, Blu Rays, or 4K discs, you better think again about whether or not those films and TV shows will always be available at the push of a button.

 

Now sure, you say, you are familiar with how streaming services rotate shows and movies in and out. But that’s not a problem for you because you purchased digital downloads of your favorite entertainment. You own them. They’re in your account in Netflix or Hulu or Paramount+ or whatever streaming service you’re using. 

 

Well, no so fast! One day you might want to re-watch and old favorite, only to find that it’s gone forever.

 

I was recently interviewed for this Fox Business News story about the rapid movement to replace physical media with streaming and some of the legal details of streaming that many people might not be aware of. These legal details could seriously limit access to media content in the future. 

 

As the article details, retailers have started moving away from selling physical media. Sometime early next year Best Buy will no longer be selling discs. Other retailers might follow suit. So, if the only place you can access films and TV shows—or music for that matter—is a streaming service, you will be left at the whims of when those streamers decide to make the content available. And, more importantly, the article explains, “buying” those movies, TV shows, and music might not offer you unlimited access to your content either. Because when you pay for that content, you are actually paying for a license to play that content on your own devices. Those movies don’t belong to you the same way that your DVD or Blu Ray does. The copyright holder of that content has the right to withdraw that content any time they like. You could one day log into your Netflix or Amazon Prime account, looking to watch one of the favorites you purchased, and find it gone from your digital collection. It is perfectly legal.

 

Or if that favorite old film does not completely disappear, it could suddenly alter. It could become much more politically correct! Remember the recent controversies over the publishers censoring Roald Dahl’s books and several of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels? Imagine that happening to old movies and TV shows because they don’t have enough minority characters in them, or because white actors are playing characters of color. Imagine dialogue suddenly changing. Or, given the fast-advancing state of artificial intelligence technology, you might see all of this old content altering into whatever fits current attitudes and fashions. It’s America’s version of China’s cultural revolution under Mao looming over us, where our entire cultural history stands to be wiped away to please the unsilent politically correct fringes who seem to be offended for a living and can’t make it through a day without throwing tantrums about being oppressed by TV shows, commercials, books, or Internet memes.

 

But read the article…and fear for the future.

 

And buy your favorite movies, TV shows, music—and books, for that matter—in physical media if you can.

Sunday, September 18, 2022

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same...Unfortunately

Bruce on the loose! Check out the episode of the Cineverse podcast where we discuss Bob Fosse’s 1974 biopic of controversial comic Lenny Bruce, starring Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine. Its themes of free speech and comedy are all too timely in an age of endless trigger warnings, hypersensitive special snowflakes and the ever more repugnant growth of a cancel culture that either seeks to silence unpopular opinions or intimidate people into self-censorship. https://www.cineversegroup.com/2022/06/bruce-on-loose.html

Monday, August 6, 2018

Actually, this is not a good idea.


So tech giants Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify, as discussed in this article, have just banned Alex Jones' InfoWars website from their services. These services, of course, have every right to do so as private companies and this in no way constitutes any form of censorship. Only the government can censor. Private organizations and individuals have absolutely no legal obligation to give anyone a platform for their speech.

However, this is still not a good idea.

The only thing such a move can accomplish is to make a martyr out Jones. Removing his moronic conspiracy rants from these sites will now make him even more appealing as a "rebel" who dares to "speak out" and "expose the truth" that the big, evil, New World Order mainstream media tries to keep hidden. He, in fact, is already telling his readers and listeners that InfoWars is the most "censored" site on the Internet. It makes it sound really sexy and courageous, doesn't it? I bet his dimwit fans certainly think so. This move just might have been one of the biggest favors Facebook and these companies could have done for Jones.

Banning speech by organizations in the business of mass communication, even when legally allowed, is seldom a desirable - or even ethical - thing to do. Even if this speech is the sort of absurd and repugnant conspiracy theorizing that's Jones' stock in trade, offensive speech is best countered by more speech. The very philosophical foundation of democracy, after all, is the idea that individuals must be trusted. As vast a marketplace or ideas should be provided for individuals as possible because is such a marketplace, sensible, logical and decent expression by decent people will outweigh the garbage.

The best antidote to Alex Jones' garbage is not to martyr him but to expose it for what it is.

Friday, November 6, 2009

PTC loons urging censorship...again

As we discussed on the last episode of Culture Wars, available for podcast download here, the regressive nutcases of the Parents Television Council are gearing up for yet another fun activity: "let's try and censor television again." They, most likely, couldn't find any small colleges to threaten with pressure tactics and letter writing campaigns to force donors to withhold money. Those good folks of the PTC tend to do that when college radio stations air opinions the organization disagrees with.

This time the target is the CW network's Gossip Girl TV show because America's impressionable young children are in dire peril yet again. The group is trying to pressure CW affiliates to pre-empt the show, scheduled to air on November 9. America's children need to be protected at all costs, they scream their shrill paranoia on their web page (and the web pages of other fringe extremist anti-media organizations).

The scientifically-illiterate buffoonery of this group has been discussed on this blog a number of times before. For example, the fact that they are incapable of understanding or explaining why a content analytical study does not prove a causal chain and neither does a statistical correlation. Or the fact that they post links to studies on their web page that prove the exact opposite of what the PTC is trying to argue.

These people are not just incompetent clowns but, unfortunately, a collection of bullies and thugs, a gang of home invaders that tries and muscle its way into your living room and control what you watch, what you listen to, how you raise your children, and manage your family. But if these people like to push broadcasters around and lobby the FCC to trample on the First Amendment, it's about time for level-headed, clear-thinking Americans to push back a little and let them know how they feel. The PTC can be contacted through their web page and on those of their various "grass roots" members and supporters. I would urge those who support the freedom of speech and free expression to do so.

Monday, June 15, 2009

An interesting summer read?



Here's an interesting-looking book I just ran across on amazon.com I'm considering putting on my summer reading list. It might just be a good beach read...hopefully. It's called "Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio."

According to its description, the book is a criticism of the Fairness Doctrine which, in my opinion, should never be reinstated. Its effect will certainly NOT be more ideas and points of view in broadcasting but less. This is a historical fact. During the years the Fairness Doctrine was in effect, there was a lot less politically oriented, opinion-oriented broadcasting than there is today. If broadcasters had to balance every single point of view with a counter argument, they just played it safe and easy and tried to avoid as much controversial talk as possible.

Today, of course, most of the folks afraid of the Fairness Doctrine are the conservative radio talk show hosts and their fans. Programs by Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or other conservative pundits would not exist under the Fairness Doctrine.

Now the book Censorship appears to be a strictly conservative-point-of-view critique of the Fairness Doctrine. Hannity even writes an introduction to the book. To be fair, though, the back of the book jacket even carries an endorsing blurb by arch-liberal Alan Colms.

While I am opposed to the Fairness Doctrine on principle, I am only a little bit skeptical about the commitment to free speech of what has recently emerged as the "conservative base" of the Republican party. These, by the way are the Moral Majority types, the ultra-right-wing fundamentalists who also rail against the "smut," "indecency," and "filth" of so much of TV broadcasting and shock jocks on other radio programs. You know, the Parents Television Council types. So I'm curious if this conservative defense of freedom in broadcasting is honest, or if it's merely a few disingenuous ultraconservatives talking the talk to save right wing radio while they would back the censorship of anything else they deem "offensive."

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

God Bless the USA!


Well here are just a few more reasons why I definitely don't want to move to either China or any country run by a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. These two stories about web surfing in the not so free world just sealed the deal. Check them out here and here.

Aside from being identified by Reporters Without Borders as the country that exerts the most censorious control over the Internet in Asia, China is also deeply concerned about the moral rot Internet pornography may bring about in young and impressionable minds. Therefore, they want to censor the Internet even further. All computers sold in China, apparently, must be fitted by porn-blocking software. As an educator of college students who understands the importance that rest, relaxation, and entertainment to overstressed and overworked students, this sort of censorship just appalls me! It APPALLS me!!!

The second piece about the new Microsoft search engine, Bing, seems to hint that some software developers might have been Boy Scouts in a previous life. They plan ahead. Apparently versions of their software marketed in Islamic countries already have blocking functions built in, not allowing access to pornographic videos.

While this is an entirely easy shot to take, I will definitely take it...because it's just so much fun and so satisfying: The censorship of so-called "smut" and "indecency" usually goes hand in hand with general censorship, intolerance of dissent, and totalitarianism. Those are words - meaning "totalitarianism," "dissent," and "intolerance," - such American guardians of morality like the Traditional Values Coalition, the Family Research Council, and (my all-time favorites) the Parents Television Council should look up in a dictionary.

And I think I will now check out some of the search functions on Bing...

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Swine Flu Casualty (sort of): Free Speech



Well, there seems to be a casualty of the swine flu today...attention to the Supreme Court's outrageous ruling that the FCC will be allowed to fine broadcasters for airing any "fleeting expletives." These are single-word curses like "fuck" and "shit" - or perhaps references that should be thrown around a lot in any documentary about the kinds of people (Parents Television Council) who are celebrating this ruling: "assholes." But while the news headlines have been dominated by the "all swine flu all the time headlines" (and yeah, not an unimportant story), the Supreme Court allowing the FCC to trample all over the First Amendment has fallen off the media's radar today.

For some excellent thoughts on this, do check on the right of this blog for Paul Levinson's piece too. As he argues - and has been arguing for years - it's outrageous how the words as clear as "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech" can be allowed to be flouted by an irrelevant and reactionary bureaucracy like the FCC.

And Dr. Levinson is absolutely right in the argument that conservative justices are ignoring their own beliefs that a judge should not legislate from the bench. This is an exact point I have believed in for a very long time, every time I heard the conservative far right wing moralists supporting censorious legislation. What the hell happened to the party of "small government" and Ronald Reagan's goal to "get government off your back?" What happened to the American people knowing how to live their lives and raise their families better than Washington bureaucrats and censorious, puritanical, whacko special interests?

Perhaps this might be one of the reasons so many are deserting that party for a real limited-government-alternative like the Libertarian Party.