Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:46:00 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111122/18081916877/annotated-version-viacoms-employees-begging-govt-to-censor-internet-to-save-spongebob.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111122/18081916877/annotated-version-viacoms-employees-begging-govt-to-censor-internet-to-save-spongebob.shtml SpongeBob might not exist any more. The whole thing was full of bogus moral panics, misunderstandings of technology and business models, and really cringe-worthy begging to have the government protect their jobs because their own execs are unwilling to adapt to a changing market. And, oh yeah, their CEO made $84.5 million last year. Either way, Lauren Weinstein took the video and decided to annotate the whole thing pointing out that their own inability to adapt -- and their own management failures -- are no excuse for then trying to undermine the legal and technology framework of the entire internet. Thank goodness YouTube is still legal, so we can do this (no thanks to Viacom, who is still suing YouTube, claiming its responsible for copyright infringement on the site):

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]]> nicely-done http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111122/18081916877 Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:42:43 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111115/01372816773/viacom-pass-sopa-spongebob-dies.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111115/01372816773/viacom-pass-sopa-spongebob-dies.shtml "anti-piracy" propaganda videos yet, complete with debunked stats, ridiculous claims, ominous music... and lots and lots of Viacom employees admitting that they're too clueless to adapt to a changing marketplace, and begging you to give them money so they can keep their jobs. Seriously. As the video goes on, the claims get more and more ridiculous, to the point where someone even threatens that if you don't keep buying Viacom products, Spongebob might no longer exist. And, really, that's the hilarious part. So much of the video is just people begging others to save them. They beg people to give them money. They beg the government to save their jobs. Nowhere, however, do they talk about actually adapting. Nowhere do they talk about making use of what the internet provides to build bigger audiences, to promote better, and to better monetize. Because that's the kind of stuff that Viacom just doesn't do. It just begs others to cover up for its own business failures.

Remember, this is the same company where the CEO made $84.5 million last year (a $50 million raise). I'd embed the video here, but remember that Viacom is trying to sue YouTube out of existence, so they didn't put it up on YouTube... in fact, they didn't put it up in a manner that lets you embed it anywhere. So you'll just have to go to Viacom's website and watch the video directly there yourself... costing Viacom's bandwidth. They could have gotten that bandwidth for free if they'd just posted the video to YouTube... but, as we're told in the video, "free" is "stealing." And it destroys jobs. Except for Viacom's CEO. He's doing okay.

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