It's true: it is, but you have to strip away all the shit that's been piled on top to find the beauty. It reminds me of beautiful natural places like Yellowstone that have been ruined by over-tourism and careless people.
I think the World Wide Web is amazing. I can gripe about Google, Amazon, Big Tech all day, but at the end of it, their products and services are fantastic.
> The internet makes it practical to distribute and archive the uncorrupted versions of these cultural artifacts, even when it's illegal.
Not really. If "uncorrupted versions of these cultural artifacts" are illegal, what the internet does is make it easy to track down the people sharing them for punishment.
The internet is far more amenable to automated surveillance at scale than the offline world.
Well, that's kind of what I thought when I was first FTPing popular music from sounds.sdsu.edu in 01994: this can't last! They'll shut it down! And indeed sounds.sdsu.edu did get shut down eventually... and eventually alt.binaries.* got mostly swamped with spam... and Napster got sued... and endless etc.
But you know what? There was a lot more stuff being shared on the internet in 01998 than in 01994, despite sounds.sdsu.edu getting shut down. There was a lot more in 02002 than in 01998, despite Usenet having mostly died. There was a lot more in 02006 than in 02002, despite the Napster suit. And that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down even today, despite the automated surveillance at scale.
> Mr Beringer says that the next leap forward will be the ability to digitally add product banners to live sports or concert broadcasts "in real time, or milliseconds after".
Hasn't that been possible for quite some time now?
Weaving a product into a film or television program may be just about acceptable - whether payed for or not (the Modern Family Apple episode or advertising in Blade Runner stand out).
But adding/replacing ads in “classic” well regarded movies really destroys any notion that these are works of art or classics in any way.
Do we need any more reason to completely abandon mass media movies, music, etc.? If nothing is sacred to them, why should it be to me?
I am well aware of the history of product placements, but this just brings the reality to the forefront: you and I are viewed as nothing more than marketing targets and advertisement receptacles. It's dystopian.
Just another variant of deepfakes. All movies are “fakes” by definition. They also retrofit ads into live sporting events covering other billboards for over a decade now. None of this is new in fact.
Some people might even prefer the tracking part:
“So if you like wine then the hero of a film could be drinking a particular bottle that you might be tempted to try. Or if you are teetotal the star might be sipping on a bottle of branded water.”
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Wonder how they will redo the dystopian The Running Man with ads:
And while at it we already edit text and whitewash news and books. How about adding product placements from finance companies to The Merchant of Venice:
No issue with movie product placements in general, though they are sometimes a little bit absurd. Film makers should be a little bit more discerning. But i think to revise old movies is unacceptable. For one thing, the actors/ directors may not have agreed with the ethos of the products they are "advertising". And i think it would be plain vandalism almost revisionism. I don't particularly want to watch the great escape and be forced to see a great big "drink heineken" sign, or a billboard promoting Amazon Prime. It's a no from me.
Similar things have been done, the German edition of one of Terry Pratchett's novels contained advertisements for soup shoved in the middle of the story.
I can't wait. The Cat in The Hat will be using Flash spray. Saruman will harm the environment with CAT excavators. Harry Potter... OK they already are milking the franchise for all its worth. At least the copyrights expire eventually.
Indeed. I started rewatching Community on Netflix some months ago, and I noticed the general synopsis said "(One episode of Season 2 is not available.)". I assumed that with so many brands and cultural references that are parodied there may be some weird legal reason why they couldn't distribute a specific episode, either in Spain or in general.
When eventually I got to Season 2 I compared their episode listing with that on Wikipedia, and saw that the unavailable episode was S02E14, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. At first I thought it had to be some weird copyright challenge from D&D... but no. It was because the comedically unlikeable character of Ben Chang obliviously and with no bad intent makes what is a cultural faux-pas in the USA, for which he is criticised, as a minor side joke in the episode [0]! And of course Netflix, in their infinite cultural sensitivity, decided to make the episode unavailable worldwide, as if Netflix users in Spain should even give a damn about a minor American cultural taboo being played for laughs.
Thank God that file sharing of copyrighted files is not illegal in Spain [1], so I was able to carelessly download such an objectionable and immoral episode via The Pirate Bay! Hello Torrent my old friend...
Another example of capitalism's relentless pursuit of value extraction from anything and everything with no consideration given to the side effects, because money is the only way to measure success and importance in our society. We should be building a society for the benefit of everyone, instead of building a society optimized for value extraction for the benefit of a small few.
It's worth keeping in perspective what's already done to many films. Namely, air them on television in an edited form with lots of commercial breaks. This was certainly not the original intention of the directors--at least until modern times.
Or even more egregious the channel logos and promos that routinely appear over content. It had been a long time since I had watched linear TV and saw one of these again. I forgot how annoying they are.
I don't mind product placement where it's credibly part of the artistic vision of the director - the classic examples here from my point of view include the Atari placement in Blade Runner.
The things that stick out like a sore thumb are where there's an element that has clearly been scripted by the advertiser to inject into a script.
Like: we're in a police procedural TV show and the detective's interactions with the GPS/entertainment system on vehicle Brand X suddenly become a focal point of dialog or the scene.
A possible and troubling outcome of this may be that "controversial" scenes are removed from classic films entirely, because advertisers don't want to be associated with them. We've already seen disclaimers added to movies that are "problematic" like Gone with the Wind or Breakfast at Tiffany's.
When push comes to shove, will Media Co. turn down millions from Coke just to keep a 30-second scene in a film? I'm not optimistic.
I don’t like any product placements —but even less so when they’re injected after the fact.
I don’t care if I “recognize” a car being a Toyota, if it’s necessarily incidental to the scene.
I do care that things may be artificially plastered in a scene, whether cereal box in a movie before breakfast cereals were a thing or a billboard on a building for a brand that didn’t exist. At that point it’s not a film and it becomes an advertising cartoon.
I agree that products just being in movies doesn't bother me, but the so-common-it's-getting-tropey waist-height shot focused primarily on the car's (logo'd) grill as it approaches to a stop directly in front of the camera is starting to bug me quite a bit.
I agree that removing scenes or adding product placement into existing works of art is very troubling but I'm not sure I would equate that to adding disclaimers to the start of a film. In my mind it's like an age rating - it's additional information which gives someone the information they need to decide if a film is appropriate for them or their family.
I somewhat agree with you, but I also think when you add moralistic disclaimers to the beginning, or claim that the movie should be pulled from streaming catalogs, [1] it’s a small “compromise” to just remove the uncomfortable scenes. Especially if everyone involved will otherwise lose money.
This is why I got into piracy. I don't have to care what modern woke politics dictate as allowable or not, nor do I have to deal with corruptions of art from their original forms for the sake of advertisement or profitability.
I just don't understand why an advertiser would risk doing this. Seems like it could very wrong if the inserted material rubs people the wrong way. It reads as a tacky thing to do to me.
I remember reading a satirical article about a remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey, redoing all the product placement (of which there was a lot more than I noticed: https://everything2.com/title/Product+placement+in+2001%253A... basically replacing defunct companies with newer/modern counterparts. Can't find it, but I don't think it was The Onion.
Anyway... good lord stuff like this might actually happen.
We continue to develop our ability to turn inward from the world, to shut out or edit what we don't like about it and construct ever more convincing fantasies by tricking our brains. Advertisement wants to be there with you in your most private thoughts, manipulating your private fantasies.
80 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadWhat's Amazon going to do to the MGM back catalog?
And note the nascent free video exodus beginning with the upcoming removal of "Charlie Bit My Finger".
https://www.vice.com/en/article/mg7ek8/youre-going-to-need-a...
https://clearcode.cc/blog/ott-advertising/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/18/you-wat...
oh, wait, that's terrible. i quit!
These days it seems to be a machine for making me think "FFS" an increasing amount of times a day.
Not really. If "uncorrupted versions of these cultural artifacts" are illegal, what the internet does is make it easy to track down the people sharing them for punishment.
The internet is far more amenable to automated surveillance at scale than the offline world.
But you know what? There was a lot more stuff being shared on the internet in 01998 than in 01994, despite sounds.sdsu.edu getting shut down. There was a lot more in 02002 than in 01998, despite Usenet having mostly died. There was a lot more in 02006 than in 02002, despite the Napster suit. And that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down even today, despite the automated surveillance at scale.
Hasn't that been possible for quite some time now?
But adding/replacing ads in “classic” well regarded movies really destroys any notion that these are works of art or classics in any way.
I am well aware of the history of product placements, but this just brings the reality to the forefront: you and I are viewed as nothing more than marketing targets and advertisement receptacles. It's dystopian.
Some people might even prefer the tracking part:
“So if you like wine then the hero of a film could be drinking a particular bottle that you might be tempted to try. Or if you are teetotal the star might be sipping on a bottle of branded water.”
-
Wonder how they will redo the dystopian The Running Man with ads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(1987_film)
-
And while at it we already edit text and whitewash news and books. How about adding product placements from finance companies to The Merchant of Venice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
>“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Because all that infra you rely on builds itself magically !
When eventually I got to Season 2 I compared their episode listing with that on Wikipedia, and saw that the unavailable episode was S02E14, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. At first I thought it had to be some weird copyright challenge from D&D... but no. It was because the comedically unlikeable character of Ben Chang obliviously and with no bad intent makes what is a cultural faux-pas in the USA, for which he is criticised, as a minor side joke in the episode [0]! And of course Netflix, in their infinite cultural sensitivity, decided to make the episode unavailable worldwide, as if Netflix users in Spain should even give a damn about a minor American cultural taboo being played for laughs.
Thank God that file sharing of copyrighted files is not illegal in Spain [1], so I was able to carelessly download such an objectionable and immoral episode via The Pirate Bay! Hello Torrent my old friend...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_aspects_of_file_sharing#...
I can't believe I was used to that. Now its just unacceptable.
The things that stick out like a sore thumb are where there's an element that has clearly been scripted by the advertiser to inject into a script.
Like: we're in a police procedural TV show and the detective's interactions with the GPS/entertainment system on vehicle Brand X suddenly become a focal point of dialog or the scene.
That stuff's just obnoxious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQYwFND7rHE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0
When push comes to shove, will Media Co. turn down millions from Coke just to keep a 30-second scene in a film? I'm not optimistic.
I don’t care if I “recognize” a car being a Toyota, if it’s necessarily incidental to the scene.
I do care that things may be artificially plastered in a scene, whether cereal box in a movie before breakfast cereals were a thing or a billboard on a building for a brand that didn’t exist. At that point it’s not a film and it becomes an advertising cartoon.
It’s a bit repulsive to be honest.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/movies/gone-with-the-wind...
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/02/warner-bros-shuts-down-kic...
Anyway... good lord stuff like this might actually happen.