Pez Candy Company Threatens a Super-Fan in Classic Copyright FAIL

The deeper one digs into copyright laws and how they are wielded the more confused I become.

First, I hear a story on NPR about a guy who runs a tiny Pez “museum” where lovers of the iconic candy dispenser often travel from miles away just to share in their obsession.  Sounds harmless, right?  In fact, I’d go further and say, we’re I the head of Pez, “Wow! That’s fantastic.  This guys is providing us with a wealth of free publicity and keeping our product firmly in the minds of our customers and we don’t have  to do anything but reap the rewards!”

Instead, the Pez people have done nothing but harass this guy…

Doss says this is not the first time he and Pez have crossed dispensers. When he first opened the place, Pez made him change the name from the “Pez Museum” to the mouthful it now is — “the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia.” Doss calls it harassment.

“It’s as if we’re making something here and putting their name on it. That’s not what we’re doing,” he says.

But Pez Candy Inc. says that’s exactly what the museum is doing. If it was just selling all things Pez, that’d be fine, they say. But, they add, you can’t sell things that aren’t official merchandise, like Pez T-shirts the museum printed up. And you can’t use that 7-foot-tall Pez dispenser the museum made, that stands just inside the front door.

Alan Behr is the lawyer for Pez in Connecticut. He says it’s not really a giant Pez dispenser because Pez doesn’t make a giant dispenser.

“It’s only Pez if we say it’s Pez. The same way you will not see a Mickey Mouse in the United States made by anybody but Disney,” he explains. “It’s only Mickey Mouse if Disney says it’s Mickey Mouse. Otherwise, it’s an infringement. You have to control what is core to your brand.”      LINK

Yes, the boldface is my own addition.  I didn’t want you to miss that last point.  According to the Pez Candy Company it is more important to control your brand (whatever the hell that means) than it is to support super-fans who have the potential to create sales both directly and indirectly.  Rather than give this guy a big pat on the back, they are turning him against them! Where is the profit in this? Where is the logic?!

It’s enough to drive a guy insane, I tell ya…

Also, will Pez Candy come after me for using an image of their dispenser with express written consent?  Stay tuned.

Five Bucks a Month for New York Times Online? Yeah, Right.

Lot’s of people are talking about a New York Time’s survey asking if folks would pay $5/month for full online access to the “paper.”

Gawker thinks its a great and necessary idea while Business Insider says they should charge more.

They’re both wrong.  Here’s why:

1) If the NYT erects a pay wall bloggers will be far less likely to link to them and their own readers will be less likely to share links. This is the life-blood on the online world and without it no site can survive.

2) There is FAR too little original content to convince readers to pay the New York Times for news that is widely reported by, well, everyone else.  Unless every single news reporting site agreed to similar pay walls (not gonna happen) the New York Times simple places itself in a barren desert with nary a reader in sight.

There are more minor reasons this would fail, but those are the big two.

Oh, and in response to Business Insiders comment that:

Kindle pricing also forces the question: If Times stories without video, without interactivity, without color — and without all the other stuff at nytimes.com — are worth $14 a month on the Kindle, why in the world is the web site only worth $5?

Except, how many Kindle owners are actually subscribing to the NYT via their Kindle?  Even if a good number are doing so, Kindle owners are by definition affluent and so what’s another few bucks.

The Kindle is Ripe for Replacement by Superior Products

I’ve never been a fan of the Kindle.  While I have never owned one, due to the fact that Amazon never sent me a trial version, I have played with the Kindle on a number of occasions.

While the eInk screen is nice to look at, the entire experience reminds me more of my Atari 800 than a gadget for the 21st Century.  Even disregarding the obnoxious DRM that means you never truly own your purchases, the whole thing is just limiting.  Aside from being able to carry a few hundred books at once, something we all do now by hand, the device has very little use in today’s society.

PSFK’s Piers Fawkes, who actually does own a Kindle, seems to agree:

Amazon’s Kindle doesn’t work for me because it doesn’t fit my reading, sharing and working habits. Over the last five to six years the way I consume text, imagery and other content has changed. Like the most of you I spend time everyday reading content across newspapers, magazines, blogs and other news feeds. I use that news (from 850 sources). I cut extracts, I send links, I copy images, I share it to Twitter and Facebook, I just let stories hang around deep in my open tabs possibly to be looked at before. And I want to do all this in as little time as possible.   LINK

This tells me that whoever can combine the readability of the Kindle with the facility of an iPhone and price the whole thing at $199 will make a bundle.

WeTV’s First Original Web Series is Shameful

Perhaps it isn’t fair to judge the new WeTV web series “In Men We Trust” after only one episode but since they stick to the idiotic tradtion of leaking out only one episode at a time, that’s what I’ll have to do.

If there is one lesson we should all have learned by now it’s that if the content is so badly written and offensively cliched that you would never, even for one second, consider putting it on TV, don’t put it up on your website and hope that audiences will simply expect less.

In this case, “In Men We Trust” introduces us to three women in WeTV’s 18-34 demo who are each completing a “date from hell.”  Is there any reason to explain the comic-book broad choices made for these characters? Nope.  We’re somehow asked to just accept that men, as a gender, are simply idiots and the women who date them are simply stuck having dates from hell.

Until, of course, the dating guru steps in… I don’t want to ruin the rest of it for you.  You can watch for yourself below.  The important question is just what was WeTV hoping this sort of programming would do for them?  It is not smart, witty or engaging.  It doesn’t engender participation or show potential for expansion.  If it was done by a group of housewives living in NJ on a shoestring budget for the fun of their friends that would be one thing but this is professional production on a relatively major cable network’s website and they are claiming responsibility for its existence.

Dear Honeyshed – Hate to Say I Told You So, But…

Well, it’s official – Honeyshed, the QVC for Generation Why, is officially no more.  According to AdWeek the site is shuttering due to a lack of new funding from Publicis.

I was skepticle but willing to wait and see back in March but by November I was feeling even less positive about what was a pretty bad idea given poor execution.

From AdWeek:

At its relaunch in November, Honeyshed projected the site to reach 550,000 visitors a month after launch, 1 million by February and 2 million at the end of 2009.  All told, Honeyshed promised advertisers it would generate 9 million content views in that time.

According to comScore, Honeyshed drew 117,000 visitors in December before trailing off the next month. Griefer said the site drew about 15,000 unique visitors per day after the relaunch, supported by a heavy marketing campaign, but saw those numbers dwindle when it cut back on advertising.

I honestly don’t know who thought this was ever going to be a good idea but it became painfully clear it was doomed to fail when they decided to try and sell a bunch of over-priced and relatively unwanted products to a fickle and savvy audience.

So, farewell Honeyshed.  Few knew you were evert here and maybe that’s for the best.

Apple Takes Another Step Toward Evil

I have been an Apple/Mac user since I upgraded from my Atari 800 back in the ’80’s,  I love the interface, the design and even the vague sense of superiority over my Windows brethren.

However, every now and then (and it feels like it is more and more often) Apple does something that is really a screw you to their faithful customers.

The lastest example is their incorporation of bullshit copyright “protection” built into the latest MacBooks:

“Buying an Apple computer? Get ready to throw away your monitor, over and over again. New Apple hardware is shipping with “HDCP” anti-copying technology that prevents showing some video on “non-compliant” monitors. Best part: the list of “compliant” monitors will change over time: the monitor you buy today can be “revoked” tomorrow and stop working.” (via BoingBoing)

Sweet, eh?  The worst part of this is that it is a completely bogus protection since there is nothing in copyright law that makes it illegal for me to watch a movie I bought on a screen other than my built-in monitor.  It’s just insane.

And it’s evil.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better… Vote Sprachel?!

In some weird attempt to cash in on the political fervor sweeping the nation, the people shilling for I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT BUTTER have created an elaborate website and animated webseries in an attempt to get consumers to come vote for Sprachel to be the President of the Refrigerator.

The site is full of all sorts of exciting, fake-spray-butter-related activities like a contest, games and, of course, the HIGH-STERICAL webseries “The Sprays of Our Lives,” set inside the political turmoil of a refridgerator where Sprachel is being hated on by items like Howard Bean.

Seriously, what idiot thought anything about this site would help increase sales for fake butter spray?  This is such a great example of a brand being wooed by the bells and whistles of “new media” marketing but forgot to keep their key customers in mind.

Maybe the site is cute, but I just can’t see anyone other than a child or a media blogger spending more than 8 seconds on this site.

Check it out for yourself here.

(via AdRants)

TBS Doing What It Can to Spead TV’s Demise

Sure, DVR’s have made it tough on advertisers.  When everyone can just fast-forward through that 6-figure spot what’s a brand to do?

Well, TBS thinks it has an answer by one-upping those already annoying “pop-up” ads that litter the lower corners of the screen telling us about other network programming.

According to TVSquad:

“During an episode of Family Guy (video after the jump), Bill Engvall walks out on the screen, much like the Brenda spots for The Closer. The difference is that Bill holds up a remote and actually pauses the episode before heading into his pitch for his show. When he finishes, he unpauses the show, which runs for two more seconds before going to the regular commercial break.”

You can check it out for yourself:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vUtfG9Bkec]

At some point people will either turn completely to ad-free pirated content or TV shows will devolve into a hyperkinetic series of brief moments of original content surrounded by a constant stream of brand messages, animations and loud noises.

Yay!

Related articles

• TBS pauses a show for a commercial – VIDEO [via Zemanta]
• We Interrupt Family Guy To Bring You This Annoying Message [Advertising] [via Zemanta]
• ● TBS and their annoying interstitial commericials [via Zemanta]
• The Bill Engvall Show coming to CBS (for one night anyway) [via Zemanta]
• We Interrupt This DVR Recording … [via Zemanta]

The Simple Reason Discovery’s New Green Channel Will FAIL

The NYT has a long look at Discover Channel’s soon-to-be-launched cable network Planet Green.  According to Discovery:

“Discovery’s research, conducted last year, identified 40 percent to 50 percent of the United States population as “armchair environmentalists.” Mr. Carr calls the channel’s target audience “bright greens,” people who are motivated by the idea that they can help the planet.”

Well, that’s nice.  The thing is, nobody wants to watch “green” TV.

You know what the viewing public wants to watch?  They want to watch someone screaming at beautiful women holding briefcases while a formerly washed up, glossy-headed comedian stands by grinning like a loon.

Also, as I happen to work at a company that produces TV shows I can  tell you that every single network has told us, in no uncertain terms, that they do NOT want anymore environmental show pitches.  Why?  Because the ones they’ve put on the last two seasons have been ratings disappointments.

Sorry, America, the ratings don’t lie. You like screaming at briefcases.  So be it.

Legos Learn a Lesson About Stealth Vids…FAIL

Over on BoingBoing, Xeni Jardin was all excited about a video on YouTube featuring what she thought was a great homemade remake of the famous Indiana Jones boulder scene but…

“Jacob Appelbaum was one of many folks who went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, and hated it. About this internet video, in which a giant Lego-covered styrofoam boulder hurls towards hapless victims, he says, “I was happy to see that someone else was as nostalgic as me.” UPDATE: oh nooooooes, we have been duped by a sneaky viral marketing campaign. I HATE YOU INTERNET MARKETERS. Take this conversation and shove it.”

Yes, Lego was trying their hand at the viral marketing game and it looks like they’ve been burned.  How did they get burned, you ask?  Well, it turns out that a lot of internet users have lots of free time to poke holes in any alibi:

“The YouTube account holder google’s to an “office food blog” which shows him in the background of BSSP. They have the LucasArts games account. They’re located on Liberty Way which I’ve worked in the same building and recognized it from the photos.”

Let that be a warning to all those marketers out there hoping to go stealth.  The real question is whether or not this revelation actually hurts the potential of this campaign.

Oh, here’s the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFGVzt7c5bY&hl=en]