Watch: Manufacturing Consent (Wintonick, 1992)
Read: Seltzer, Trent. “RIAA, MPAA, and the Digital Piracy Issue: Comparing Public Relations Strategies and Effectiveness” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Sheraton New York, New York City, NY, . 2009-05-25 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p14465_index.html

Following with the previous weeks examination of corporate media and how their agendas affect the media we consume I wanted to look at a seminal Canadian documentary based on the propaganda model of media. The film does a good job of criticizing the media for being partisan and only interested in the agendas of an elite minority. The article by Seltzer that I paired up with this documentary looks at the extension of power that the MPAA and RIAA have over the digital piracy issue. What I felt was important was how the article makes a point to mention that “suing your own customers is bad business,” a point that RiP!: A Remix Manifesto has made regarding the digital piracy issue. The article is very interesting because they analyze press releases about piracy from both RIAA and the MPAA against articles in the New York Times about piracy and copyright. Ultimately the issue is being looked at by Seltzer as a publicity stunt which is quite harsh considering people are being prosecuted by the law in the process of creating headlines for the agendas of movie studios and record labels.

Watch: This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
Reading:
1) Higgins, John M. “MPAA Cuts Deal with BitTorrent.” Broadcasting & Cable. 135.50 (2005): 31-34. Print.
2) Imfeld, Cassandra. “PLAYING FAIR WITH FAIR USE? THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT’S IMPACT ON ENCRYPTION RESEARCHERS AND ACADEMICIANS.” Communication Law and Policy. 111.144 (2003): 122-136. Print.

My next week looks into the hegemonic rule that so called “culture creators” hold. I wanted to contrast RiP!: A Remix Manifesto’s philosophy about free media with the current role that organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA have in enforcing laws and lobbying for harsher penalties. The documentary for this week, This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006), takes a look at the voluntary rating system that the MPAA controls and how this is actually a form of censorship that is controlled by private interests. The first reading by Higgins is a short article outlining how the MPAA has worked with the creator of BitTorrent to remove links to Hollywood films from the search engine on the BitTorrent homepage. I felt that this article would show just how far the MPAA’s power extends. The next article, by Imfeld, covers the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and some of the legal problems that this is causing in the United States and I would have my students read the excerpt about research and “fair use”. It also shows how the revised copyright has negative implications for academics. The article shows some of the results of the MPAA’s push for more control over media and how this ends up limiting academic’s ability to reference copyrighted works. I feel this is a big problem with the copyright act and it exemplifies some of the types of problems that arise when too much power is given to a group that represents a corporate interest.