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Truly Free Film

ALL Entertainment Should Increase The Current Value Proposition

Chris Dorr’s recent post on MoviePass helped me recognize the world as it truly is today.  It wasn’t MoviePass that I needed to recognize.  It was that the same thing that allowed Independent Film to flourish is the same thing that is now spurring on innovation everywhere.  Once filmmakers stopped asking for permission to tell their stories, the floodgates opened to a far more diverse approach to culture generation.  To the powers that be the end of permission looks like anarchy, but to the leaders to come, this is the stepping stone to necessary change.  And we are seeing that now.

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Issues and Actions The Next Good Idea

Internet Privacy & Web Reputations

The NY Times Sunday Magazine has a thought provoking article by Jeffrey Rosen entitled “The Web Means The End Of Forgetting”. It’s filled with lots of good points quite relevant to the film biz in this time of audience aggregation and automized taste curation.

Rosen points out:

The truth is we can’t possibly control what others say or know or think about us in a world of Facebook and Google, nor can we realistically demand that others give us the deference and respect to which we think we’re entitled. On the Internet, it turns out, we’re not entitled to demand any particular respect at all, and if others don’t have the empathy necessary to forgive our missteps, or the attention spans necessary to judge us in context, there’s nothing we can do about it.

Categories
Issues and Actions

Wanted: Film Fest Panels On Privacy Issues

As traditional media merges with new & social media, the issues we need to be concerned about also start to change.  Filmmakers are only now starting to wake up to the fact that they should be the owners of the data that their work generates, particularly if they are being asked to license their work for such low fees as currently are in vogue.

Let’s say that you do gather 500,000 email addresses during the build and release of your movie.  What are you going to do with those addresses?  What moral and ethical issues are related to this?

Is it just my imagination or have I really not seen a privacy panel at a film convention?  Who is going to take the lead on this?

And whom would you suggest be on this panel?

Have you checked out the Electronic Privacy Information Center?

Categories
Issues and Actions

Privacy 101: Facebook More Scary Than Fun?

The NYTimes reports on the latest glitch that allowed your “friends” to see your private conversations.

Categories
Issues and Actions

Facebook Further Reduces Your Control Over Personal Information

As The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported last week:

Facebook removed its users’ ability to control who can see their own interests and personal information. Certain parts of users’ profiles, “including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests” will now be transformed into “connections,” meaning that they will be shared publicly. If you don’t want these parts of your profile to be made public, your only option is to delete them.

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The Next Good Idea

We Need A Privacy Czar

The EU has a whole team of privacy guys.  Where’s someone like that in the US?  We do have someone there to monitor privacy breaches that occur as a result of the Homeland Protection Act, but that is just the tip of the iceberg, and well, if he’s appointed by this administration, how are we supposed to trust him?

With congress finally asking all the Internet companies what they do with the all the info they gather secretly from the consumer, now’s the time to take this further. Ars has a good write-up about it here.
As consumers, we should have to “opt-in” and not “opt-out” regarding what data of ourselves gets automatically collected.  We could this trend of info-grab earlier here.
Categories
The Next Good Idea

Paranoia Can Be Your Friend

Of course, nothing will ever be as loyal and cuddly as PRIVACY.  Do you remember what that was like, you know, back B.B. (Before Bush).  Privacy was once FREEDOM’s sibling.  Older brother, I think.  Anyway if you want to check out what that Big Brother has become, check this out.  Pretty scary.  But definitely a good idea about how to take something we take all too much for granted, and get people righteously stirred up about it.  

It’s a good idea to fight for your right to keep you personal information private — before it’s too late.