A Couple Of Stories Which Challenge My Beliefs
TOM GREEN CELEBRATES 112TH EPISODE OF WEB SERIES
One of my most treasured memories as an editor was the occasional gig I had putting together a segment for a local Japanese-language entertainment news show. We’d do a segment on a movie, using the “electronic press kit” provided by the studios, excerpting whatever interview footage and clips we could and sub-titling them in Japanese. One week we were doing FREDDIE GOT FINGERED, and I found it more and more hilarious to see Rip Torn struggling to say positive things about his role in what is, arguably, the worst comedy ever made.
So Tom Green, the auteur and wunderkind behind that movie and MTV’s THE TOM GREEN SHOW is now web based, and his radio-talk-show-with-a-webcam has been on for 112 episodes.
“TV is dead,” Green proclaimed after the scatterbrained episode Thursday. “You can’t do what we’re doing on television.”
…which is using your living room to do a daily show. Otherwise you can, and it’s called IMUS IN THE MORNING on MSNBC. So I’ve thought about it, and both Tom and I owe television an apology. Tom’s career is dead - TV merely has a nasty cough.
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CLASSIC-ROCK WEBSITE COUNTER-SUES MAJOR LABELS
I believe that the major labels are enforcing copyright laws in a draconian and self-destructive way, protecting their distribution in a way that does many times more harm than good. However, it is their product. They signed unfair contracts to ensure that.
Superstar show promoter Bill Graham was at the vangard, the apex of the San Francisco sound, the one that brought you Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Boz Scaggs and others that you kids probably won’t remember. His concert venues hosted everyone, and he recorded EVERYTHING. And when he died, to quote the Temptations, all he left us was alone. And an archive.
The archive was bought by Bill Sagan, who now brings us WOLFGANG’S VAULT, a website which streams concerts and sells memorabilia. Predictably, the major labels are trying to shut it down, pointing out that Sagan has no actual agreement to make money off this stuff.
Wolfgang’s Vault seeks a declaratory judgment that it legally acquired the footage, and is also suing for libel, fraudulent deceit, breach of contract, tortious interference, and civil conspiracy.
All well and good, but they still don’t own the rights to distribute the music.
If the labels were smart they’d leave Wolfgang alone, or if they’d simply buy the site, which is a great marketing tool for inventory they’ve long since amortized. In fact this is surely what will go down eventually. The honorable thing to do would be to start negotiating now and leave the courts to more important work, like determining where to put Anna Nichole Smith.