No love for the RIAA

RIAA sues family that doesn't own a computer.

It is hard to violate file sharing or copyright infringement laws when you are not connected to the internet, let alone don't own a computer. Is this story even serious? Granted, the RIAA has not made a point of being friendly with music fans anywhere over the past few years, criminal or otherwise, but seriously, do they really understand what they are doing?

With all the DRM and file sharing suits flying around these days, the RIAA and the MPAA are turning into pretty dirty words. Personally, I haven’t really understood why the general public hasn't begun to throw up their arms and bring some attention to the ridiculous things that they are doing. I am all about managing copy written content, but seriously, when "rights management" is nothing more than a laundry list of restrictions on how and when you can use the content that you paid for, someone is beginning to overstep their bounds.

Hopefully this is just a simple mistake that slipped through the legal department without enough research, but at the very least it is a funny story.

The Philips Ad Enforcer

While the growth of on demand media is everywhere through VOD, DVR, iPods, RSS.... Philips has a patent pending for technology that would prohibit people with Tivos and DVRs to fast forward through commercials.

While some have already said that this looks like one step closer to a Clockwork Orange advertising model where we all have our eye lids peeled back and our faces locked in place in front of the television screen, I think it is more of a sign of advertisers' ignorance than anything else.

If this technology was ever actually put into place, customers would run away from your product as fast as they possibly could, with me leading the stampede. You can't give customers all the benefits of a digital video recorder, only to realize how much you have pissed off your second most important public, your advertisers, and have to take it away and lose your most important public, your own customers.

With Tivo secretly deleting certain shows after a designated amount of time and this new emerging technology developed by Philips, I'm not even sure how I feel about cable in general anymore. I've got Netflix, podcasts, IPTV, and Comedy Central's Motherload do I even need to be shoveling out another $50 a month just for a bucket load of channels I rarely watch and better reception? Hmm.... I'll have to get back to you on that one.

-Jamie

Fishing for a career, blog style

It looks like someone has decided to take my secret and spread it to everyone. How inconsiderate! Haha.

While I have been subscribing to a whole mess of blogs and PR podcasts for a while now, I am still pretty fresh on the blog writer side of things. It has definitely given me some idea of what it is like and what types of things to consider when creating different posts. While at this stage, this is more of an experiment than anything else, but I think it is going pretty well.

Disagree? Comment.

Calling all Boston Bloggers...

Susan Getgood wants the Boston PR community to get together on April 29th on Saturday evening. If you are interested Susan asks that you send her an email or post a comment on her Boston announcement post.


If I am in there area, I will definitely be in attendance. Maybe I'll see you there.

My trip to Boston

Three days in Boston, and it went amazingly.

Weather? Amazing. People? Amazing. Boston Marathon? Three days too late. I wish it was on Friday instead of Monday so I could have seen it, but I guess it was for the best, since it would have put a big wrench in my schedule and made walking around pretty hard.

Every PR agency I visited was amazing and I made me SO excited about moving to Boston next month. So if we met last week and you are reading this, thanks for everything and hopefully we will be meeting again before too long.

Peter Reid? Unfortunately that was the only one out of my dozen appointments around the city that had to get cut because I was just so exhausted by the time Friday night came around. Sure I was disapointed, but for my job-related road trip, if I'm able to get all my job stuff done, I'm happy.

ALSO! I think I fixed my RSS feed so all you beautiful people out there can get a fresh batch of jamesonbull.blogspot.com delivered to your desktop whenever it comes out. I must admit, it is the first time I have initiated an RSS feed, so if it breaks or doesnt work, let me know by email or post a comment.

Mixing Business and Triathlon

As mentioned in the previous post, this is going to be a crazy week. Thankfully, I was tipped off by a member of the Wheelworks Multisport team that the three-time Ironman champion, Peter Reid, is going to be at Belmont Wheelworks to speak on Friday. Best of all, it is my favorite price, free.

I figure too much business isn't good for the body. It should be a good time and it will be interesting to hear what a guy with this much experience has got to say.

Check back for my reactions next weekend.

Crazy Schedules

My schedule has been pretty crazy lately, and most of it has been scheduling and rescheduling my visit to Boston, Mass. next Thursday and Friday. It has been quite an experience trying to juggle a whole mess of different appointments scattered around the Boston area, but so far it looks like everything is under control.
I have been increasing my triathlon training and am on my way out the door to the pool as we speak, but I should have time for a more satisfying post later on today. Be patient kids. I heard it is a virtue.

-Jameson Bull