Mad Men & Passionate Causes

Mad Men Season 2 Premiere was absolutely everything I expected, and more. Damn! Everything, down to the lighting is just superb! Don is just gorgeous, and I just love Joan's red hair, and Betty's outfits, etc. Ah yes, we missed this show! It's been TOO long between seasons!

Now if only Heroes would come back on for Season 3 (and be as good as Season 1 - season 2 was definitely not on par with Season 1).

All righty, so Passionate Causes time. I've got 3 issues I wanted to discuss in my blog today:

1) The FDA Globalization Act of 2008 - and how it hurts small business owners from the beauty industry - See link for info - "This video summarizes the Indie Beauty Network's position against the Discussion Draft of the FDA Globalization Act of 2008, the legislation that would put thousands of Indies out of business by forcing them to pay outrageous registration fees and comply with burdensome paperwork. If passed, this law would drive consumers back to the days when they could only choose between a few huge, faceless, nameless big box stores and brands for their cosmetics and personal care products. And fewer consumer choices always leads to higher prices."
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2) The Digital Millenium Copyright Act or "DMCA" - what is it, and how it is impacting YouTube subscribers, etc. I found out about this from Paul Robinett's Renetto You Tube Channel. Paul Robinett started out as my favorite Candle Guy, and he's since grown in fame and business size, etc. Another good link is for the EFF. This is especially important for the BLOGGERS & VLOGGERS of this world. One example was a mother who took a digital movie of her small child playing. In the background she had the radio on, playing a Prince song. Universal filed a DMCA against her for this. WTF? What a bunch of crap, she was in no way saying she had WRITTEN the song, she just was taking a movie of her baby. Stupid corporations.

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3) Orphan Works issue -Definition from Wikipedia "An orphan work is a copyrighted work where it is difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder. "

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) - of which we are members - have been fighting the 2006 bill, and here is their Stance on this issue.

The big debate is how much responsibility is on the Copyright holder (aka Photographer for example) versus the person wishing to use the image (or whatever copyrighted item). The best solution (other than duking out the details of the bill), is to include copyright information in the Metadata of each image, as well as put a line of credit - meaning mentioning the photographer's name or url - next to each image used - to assist with the "I couldn't find out who's work this is" excuse. The problem is people COULD use another person's work, but say "oh I tried to find out who owns the copyright but I couldn't find it" and then use it anyway. How do we know if they "really tried?" Copyright is the visual artist (Photographer or otherwise)'s BREAD AND BUTTER. You take that away, and then what do you have?

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ok this is all I have on these topics for now.