Fuzzy Logic

Writers Note: This post was tentatively titled: “Big Balls Inc.” Bailout for Implants”, but was rejected for inappropriate language.  I’m fairly sure *this* title has none of that.

As was widely reported today, the Adult Entertainment Industry, headed by Larry Flynt and Joe Francis, asked today for a $5 billion federal bailout.  Now, obviously, some people laughed this off, but I really want us to consider this.  Is this really such a bad idea?  Could the industry survive without a bailout?  How many jobs would be created by this bailout?  Let’s take a slightly closer (but not too close–makeup can only do so much!) look at this proposal.

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File this one under “Studies that research things already known to be true”: CNN is reporting on a study that says teens talk about sex and drugs on MySpace.  Seriously?  How much money was given to Dr. Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin for this one?

Dr. Moreno, Chief Researcher for the College of Shit We Already Knew

The Beast talks about sex on MySpace

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My rant today is on the nice folks at the AP and, along with them, everyone that is abusing the ‘Fair Use‘ clause of the law.  If you haven’t been keeping up with the story, here is what happened.  The Drudge Report, along with just about every news-based site in the western world, takes multi-line snippets from AP stories when they comment upon the news conveyed in the story.  This is, to be sure, a good thing–it allows users to get a feel for what is being conveyed in the story without giving away the entire content of the story.  Surely everyone would consider this to be a good thing for both the AP and whatever site links to their story; the AP gets free publicity and the site gets more material to draw from and to comment upon.  Unfortunately, the AP has recently gotten trigger happy and has decided that the Drudge Report must take down its snippets of the AP stories.

TechCrunch, in a recent blog, have announced that, in retaliation, they aren’t going to cover anything that the AP reports.  This is a great move, to be completely honest.  Why bother?  If the AP feels the need to shut down pages just for giving them free (and, most likely, positive) advertising, then why give it to them?  Screw it.  I’m just glad that TechCrunch is leading the way–hopefully more of the larger sites will follow through.  It sure would be a good thing.

Hopefully the AP realizes that, by now, its normal business of publishing in local papers is dying out because those same papers are starting to die out.  More and more families are ditching their paper to read the stories online and cut down on an unnecessary expense.  The AP should be embracing the internet and the free publicity!  It’s really much the same problem that the music and video industries are facing recently–if you make your content harder to get to, you’re going to decrease interest in your content.  Eventually, people are going to stop caring about your content and then you’re going to be in a weakened position.  It surely cannot hurt the AP that much to be linked to–they need to get wise and get with the times!

EDIT: Now even the good folks at Slashdot are talking about this story.  Yay and whatnot.