Fair use is an interesting topic within copyright law. During media law classes in college, it was always a conversation starter.

Copyright law protects our property and creations. Movies, books, poems, blog posts, music, blueprints, videos and everything else you can think of are covered.

But there’s a great loophole that lets others use part of your work (and not technically as a derivative work). Fair use. It lets news programs and people poking fun of your work use your work. Keep in mind that satire and parody are two very different things, and I can’t remember which one is protected speech when I’m this many beers deep already.

Anywho, here’s a very helpful (and fun) explanation of fair use using fair use.

Genius. Simply genius.

I know that it may sound confusing: just because it’s the Internet and you want to be lazy, that doesn’t mean you should submit comments like this to the station blogs: (I will make fun of you)

i have heard that marissa is pregnant is she if so i think she can really move her body i such asexy way..

Wow. Really?

The only punctuation is a failed attempt at an ellipses, and apparently the “Shift” key was broken and the spacebar occasionally didn’t work.

I think I went to school with someone who wrote like that (granted I was in 2nd grade for the 4th time). I’m joking. Or am I? No, I am. Or not. This joke works much better when you see my face.

This could be my biggest fear as someone who works in broadcast television.

Now, they claim this was supposed to be a recorded segment, and the wrong tease was cued up. Last time I checked, a station like WNBC (which is facing major cutbacks) would be on some sort of automation system. Which means a Media Manager-type would have to ingest the spot, and I’m hoping would catch “what the fuck are you doing?”

It definitely makes for a more exciting newscast, though.

Anyone in television have an opinion on that?

It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, everything I watch this clip I laugh my ass off.

I spent 4 days last week building a website. Not just any website, though. It’s a website that explains the future.

What am I talking about? Digital television.

It’s not just the “next thing on the horizon,” but the next thing coming to your living room by law.

As part of the conversion the broadcast stations in Indianapolis (WFYI, WRTV, WISH [WNDY], WTHR, WXIN [WTTV]) have joined forces with the Indiana Broadcasters Association to help inform the public of this change. WTHR has been doing a lot on their own to promote the change. I’ve been very impressed with their promos so far, they’re very well done and very informative (except for one that looks like it was shot 16×9 but has been squeezed to 4×3).

As part of the process to educate viewers WRTV produced a Public Service Announcement that’s being run on all broadcast stations in town, promoting indianaDTVanswers.com (link)

Now for most of us, the conversion to DTV won’t change anything. If you get your television from cable, satellite or another provider they’re going to take care of the downconversion from digital to analog. But if you watch stations over-the-air (using rabbit ears) you’ll need a converter box to turn those ones and zeros into a signal your television can decode.

You don’t really care about any of that, though, do you? Because last time I checked, most people in the industry don’t even understand what’s going on.

Well, the whole point of this post was to be self-serving, so to that end I present the self-serving part of this post.

IndianaDTVanswers.com was created by me and one of WRTV’s graphic designers.

Huzah! There. That’s the end.

RTV6 has made a surprising commitment to blogging. Well, maybe not surprising, but unexpected. It all started when the General Manager started blogging at rtv6gm.com (link). Pretty soon, requests for blogs started pouring in. But the question was, how do we manage many blogs in a cheap, yet effective, way?

The solution was in-house. Use free software, a reliable, but competitively priced host, and tada! Now we’re up to 8 blogs and developing at least 2 more. Now, don’t think they’re all outrageously successful. StormTeam 6 Blog (link) has a tried and true following, and many office workers have started reading Grace Trahan’s thoughts on the Good Morning Indiana Blog (link). But the most successful blog (apart from TODDandTRISHA.com [link]) has to be the Capitol Watchblog (link). People interested in politics can never get enough of other people’s opinions, and the Capitol Watchblog pretty much proves that.

In case you weren’t aware, we moderate all of the comments to our blogs. Well, not “we” but “me.” Twice a day, everyday, I sift through spam to read all of our comments. What gets through depends on the blog. The Capitol Watchblog gets a lot of angry voters, but as long as their comments aren’t racist or hate speech they get through (though I do censor foul language [even though I choose to use it all the time]). TODDandTRISHA.com had a lot stricter moderation when we started, since it was a promotional tool, we felt it necessary to control the spin, but if someone did submit negative feedback, I shared it with management.

I’ve definitely seen some hilarious comments, but currently there’s a person commenting on EVERY Capitol Watchblog post. She’s posting basically the same thing, with some variations, but this one cracked me up:

Female first Hillary Clinton is for jobs for wind energy!Hillary Clinton has got the background and she knows what this country needs is reform!!!U.S. Sen. Barack Obama he wants more illegal alliens here come take our jobs in the U.S.!!! Our country is hurting enough unemployment is high we need our jobs ourselves us U.S. citizens!!!!I SAY FEMALE FIRST Hillary Clinton MAY BE THE FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT SHE’S GOT WHAT IT TAKES FOR THIS COUNTRY KEEP OUR JOBS FOR US THE U.S. CITIZENS THE ILLEGAL ALLIENS IS STEELING OUR JOBS RIGHT UNDER OUR FEET!!! Hillary Clinton bring our troops home from IRAQ!!!

Let’s focus on one key thing:

SHE’S GOT WHAT IT TAKES FOR THIS COUNTRY KEEP OUR JOBS FOR US THE U.S. CITIZENS THE ILLEGAL ALLIENS IS STEELING OUR JOBS

Wait, WTF?! Maybe the “illegal alliens” wouldn’t be “steeling” our jobs if you could learn how the “Caps Lock” button works. Oh, and spelling, too. Learn to spell.

It’s no wonder “illegal alliens” took your job.

I’ll let a few misspellings slide (since there isn’t a spell checker built into our commenting system), but this is just moronic. Did you not graduate from middle school? Are you from southern Indiana? What is it? Just tell us so we can help you!