When Even Comedy Shows Are Mocking Attempts At Stronger Copyright Law...

from the ...you-know-you've-got-an-uphill-battle dept

Via Michael Geist comes a link to this segment on the Canadian sketch comedy/political satire show This Hour has 22 Minutes, where it totally mocks the claims that file sharing is killing the music business by highlighting the previous "copying technologies" (home taping, VCR, photocopier) that the industry insisted was killing content providers:

While I actually think the bit could be funnier, it's pretty striking to see that sort of thing on a mainstream television program. More and more people are realizing that copyright industry claims have little support in reality, and that concept is starting to go mainstream.

19 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    On funny...

    identicon
    keven sutton, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 5:07am

    They probably could have added a few things to make it more entertaining, however....

    Canada may be very similar, culturally, to the U.S. but so is the U.K. and what is seen as hilarious there is sometimes received very luke warm in the U.S.

    If they put more bits, the impact of the message might be lost.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: On funny...

    identicon
    Liam, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 5:50am

    I'm not sure what you are trying to say?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Not so funny...

    identicon
    rick, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 5:53am

    but then the "fake interview" sketches are always the weakest part of this show. They work *way* too hard at social relevance at the expense of funny.

    If anything, I'd say this was a leading indicator of public opinion and not a trailing indicator.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 5:53am

    Sound was too low, I had to download it from YT (oh! the evil!) to be able to amplify the sound a little. Anyway, I loved the punch line "would you burn me a dvd?".

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Great

    identicon
    Yogi, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 5:57am

    I liked it.

    It's the truth, stated simply, clearly and humorously.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    icon
    Mr. LemurBoy (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 6:09am

    I came, I saw, I laughed.

    Not their strongest sketch ever, but I agree, the punchline was good.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    icon
    www.eZee.se (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 6:14am

    Not the best comedy ever but... it does showcase the point on mainstream, and like my granda used to say:
    Every drop makes up the ocean

    I'll take this something over nothing anyday, and i bet the scumbags at **AA central arn't too happy with this going mainstream, heck, i think they would be downright jittery right about now.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  

    Re: Re: On funny...

    icon
    CommonSense (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 6:25am

    American's have a different sense of humor than Canadian's, and if they'd made more jokes it couldn't be taken seriously.

    At least that's how I understood it.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  

    Oblig. IT Crowd reference

    icon
    vivaelamor (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 6:28am

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  

    Re: Oblig. IT Crowd reference

    icon
    nasch (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 8:14am

    You're right, that was funnier.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  11.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 12:10pm

    Mike, how come you don't call this "propagnda"? Is it only propaganda when you don't agree with it?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  12.  

    Re:

    identicon
    BigKeithO, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 12:35pm

    It isn't propaganda because it's true.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  13.  

    Re: Re:

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 12:40pm

    To be fair, the original definition of propaganda pretty much covers all opinions.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  14.  
    icon
    zcat (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 1:59pm

    They could have gone further.

    I want a grainy, sepia-tone silent movie interview with John Philip Sousa. These infernal talking machines are going to bring to an end musical development of the entire country!

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  15.  

    Re:

    icon
    Mike Masnick (profile), Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 4:45pm

    Mike, how come you don't call this "propagnda"? Is it only propaganda when you don't agree with it?

    Propaganda is misleading or incorrect content put out by a specific party to influence opinion. This is a comedy show that was just put out to be funny.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  16.  

    Re: Re:

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 6:35pm

    So if the RIAA did everything as comedy, you would be fine with it?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  17.  

    Wayne-and-Schuster-Funny

    identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Oct 22nd, 2009 @ 11:27pm

    Could have been worse. Could have been Seinfeld-funny...

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  18.  

    Re: Propaganda

    identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Oct 23rd, 2009 @ 3:19am

    Mike Masnick wrote:

    Propaganda is misleading or incorrect content put out by a specific party to influence opinion.

    There’s a bit more to it than that. As Goebbels pointed out, with the best propaganda, people don’t even realize it’s propaganda.

    Goebbels was a big fan of Hollywood.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  19.  
    icon
    Jorvay (profile), Oct 23rd, 2009 @ 6:49am

    In fairness, This Hour has 22 Minutes hasn't been very good since the best original cast member, Rick Mercer, left the show years ago.
    The original foursome on that show were funny and dangeriously smart.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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