TWIT hypocrisy part 2? ----- The TWIT Live Special of the Microsoft Surface Event

I'll keep this short....

We all know that TWIT appears to regularly violate other people's copyrights with its "Live Specials."  In the same breath they'll bully users of it's own content even when compliant with their purported "Creative Content" licensing.

So today we had yet another "questionable" example of wanton abuse of someone else's copyright in the form of a "TWIT Live Event" covering the Microsoft Surface announcement.

Now to be completely honest,  Microsoft isn't as explicit about rebroadcasting of it's live events as Apple but I did find a general statement of use of the company's Intellectual Property (or IP) that extends to online content.

As such, I managed to dig up a few sections where TWIT could be in violation of their Terms of Use for Copyrighted Content.

Specifically:  (from the Microsoft website)

"Offensive Use"

"Your use may not be obscene or pornographic, and you may not be disparaging, defamatory, or libelous to Microsoft, any of its products, or any other person or entity."

Laporte and Paul Thurrott repeatedly offered commentary during the "Live Event" that could be considered disparaging of the presenters especially Panos Panay.

AND...

"Link Methods"

"You may link to Microsoft content by using either a plain text link with words such as "This way to Microsoft.com" or by participating in an applicable Link Logo program. No other images may be used as a link to a Microsoft site."

Everybody else provided a hyperlink to the event.  TWIT decided to embed it in their own content and context.  If it were an Apple event there'd be no question how big a NO NO that is.

As for the actual event..

Surface tablets and a big all-in-one called "Surface Studio" that folds down into a desk with a big knob you can put on the screen...

Rah...

Who cares...this article is about hypocrisy not another boring product launch from a company desperate to be relevant.  

BTW, I'm referring to Microsoft but the observation could apply equally to TWIT...

At the end Leo wrapped up the "coverage" in his trademark style with a live read of a "Blue Apron" ad.

Nice of Microsoft to provide content for Leo's "reaction video" and Blue Apron to pay for it with an ad read.  

Maybe the term "reaction video" is incorrect.  Reaction videos usually don't violate commercial copyrights of whatever's being "reacted" to.

Here's the proof straight from the horse's ass...err mouth...

https://twit.tv/shows/twit-live-specials/episodes/309

Hypocrisy.

TWIT: Kicking puppies again ( on YouTube )

See that screen capture above?  That's the rule I went by for TWIT videos.  Guess what?  It doesn't matter.  

Newton's 3rd Law

\

For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction

Let me tell you a story....

Your personal information is your responsibility...Right?

It's not a question of "if" but "when" the next data security breach happens.  Will it be your bank, your favorite store or an online purchase?

Here's the problem.  We tend to take the security of our personal information way too lightly.  At least that's what we're told when Target or Home Depot get hacked.  We're supposed to be diligent and wary of strangers.  Hide those pin numbers, don't use "monkey123" for your password and don't trust anybody.

That last one has some weight to it. 

But not for the reason you think.  The people you shouldn't be trusting are exactly the people responsible for breaking your trust.

It's the bank with the vulnerable database easily accessible from the Internet, the gas station that doesn't notice the card skimmers on their pumps, the home improvement store that doesn't bother to check the security of their Point of Sales systems.

It always seems there's some degree of "blame the victim."  Always that undertone that the "stupid consumer" is at least partially at fault.  So when bad things happen it's on you to fix their mess. 

Oh sure, they'll offer up "free credit monitoring" but that's about the extent of their "customer care."

Free credit monitoring is like being invited to a funeral.   

Something's dead, you can't do anything but watch and there's lots of crying.

The world we live in demands submission.  Want a job?  Be prepared to offer up more information than your mother knows about you.  Going to school? same story.

It's all in the name of "security."  We don't want to be working next to the next Osama Bin Laden now do we?

Fine, I feel very cozy in my little cubicle knowing that the guy next to me is unlikely to start living out his Soldier of Fortune fantasies in the break room anytime soon.

Except that it's all BS.  I repeat, it's all a huge, steaming pile of BS...

Personal information is a sacred trust. One that needs to be respected and not thrown around like a Facebook profile.  Yet your Facebook page is probably more secure than your credit report.  

Case in point and a personal pet peeve, Credit Reports used for anything but credit.

A credit report is reflective of your past ability to pay bills, that's it.  It is not reflective of your character, ethics or suitability for employment. 

But it seems you can't do anything without giving up the most personal of information to those who aren't the best custodians of it.

I'll cut to the chase, if I'm required to lay myself bare to get a job or buy a power drill then those entrusted with the information need to be responsible for it.  Offering up a year of credit monitoring is useless.  If my life is ruined because somebody didn't take that responsibility seriously then they need to do more than offer me a subscription to watch my own destruction. 

If my identity is stolen, my accounts spread all over the dark net and my job prospects ruined for a decade because somebody got lazy at your company then guess what...

I'm your ward.  You're now responsible for my well being.  You're going to make sure all my needs are taken care of.  I'll never have to worry about qualifying for a mortgage or paying the light bill because you're going to take care of it all.

All of it, no exceptions.  If I get married, you're going to pay for it.  If I want to take a Hawaiian vacation you'd better FedEx me the plane tickets.

That's the price of being careless.  If it's so critical to know everything about me just to sell me something, enroll in a college class or apply for a job then you should have as much risk as I do.

That's not ridiculous that's parity.  What's so ridiculous about demanding the same level of responsibility as is imposed on those providing the information?

"That's just the way the world is" is NOT a valid answer.  You can't be held to a standard that the standard bearers themselves don't adhere to.

One of two things needs to happen.  Either those that demand our personal information need to have as much at risk caring for it as we do or we just need to stop being required to provide it so freely. 

I'll say it again...I've NEVER seen ANYTHING on a credit report that had any bearing on somebody's ABILITY to do a job or reflected on their CHARACTER in any way. 

Yet it's a favorite rationalization for submitting to a financial colonscopy for everything and anything.  So long as it is, we need to demand equivalence or just refuse to participate. 

"Sorry" is not enough.

Jodi Arias: No Blood for Blood

11 to 1... 

That was the vote that determined whether Jodi Arias' life would run the remainder of its course behind bars or come to a less natural end.  She was guilty as far as the law was concerned and of that there was no further deliberation necessary.  It was the last word on what seemed like a never ending trial that  took years for jurors to come the conclusion...that they could not come to a conclusion.

Luckily for Arias, Arizona only gives prosecutors 2 runs at the death sentence.  If 2 juries can't come to a verdict during the sentencing phase of a murder trial it's automatically a life sentence.

So justice is done and we can all go on with our lives.

Except...

What happened after the verdict..

Arizona's good at a lot of things: Superbowls, sunshine and cheap labor.  It's often celebrated as a land of rugged individualists who believe in freedom and self determination.  That is, so long as it's ok with your bible and you don't offend the wrong people. 

It's a place that would outlaw smoking but allow firearms in public buildings.  It's both nanny state and anarchist which often leads to a cognitive dissonance seen nowhere else in the country.

So with the end of a 7 year spectacle we finally know the outcome of Jodi Arias.  But that wasn't enough for the victim's family or for the other 11 jurors.  They wanted blood for blood and it was denied.  For them there is no justice.

Frontier justice, that is...

Arizonans seem to think they're living in a Louis L'Amour novel where convicts wear leg irons and sleep in tents no matter what the weather or the offense.  So I suppose it should be no surprise that jurors in a murder trial act like a lynch mob.

A stunning example of Arizona sensibilities was on display when the jurors delivered a prepared statement.  They offered condolences and apologies to the victim's family for not delivering what they wanted.  When asked how it felt to not deliver the death penalty the response was, "...we felt like we failed. " and " I had a knot in my stomach."

Failed? 

Where does this bloodlust come from?  To hear the statements of the 11 jurors who wanted the death penalty you'd think that jury deliberations were nothing more than a formality on the way to the hangman's noose.  

By the way, since when do jurors get press conferences? 

Hang 'em High! I suppose and sell the book rights later...

Afterward news outlets chased after the 1 dissenting juror demanding a statement and when they didn't get it they trotted out the non sequitur.

Everything from "suspicious" Facebook likes to questioning of her character.  Local news stations have stopped just short of accusing her of being an Arias shill.  I guess they've never heard of voir dire.  If this juror was a problem she would have been removed long ago as a number of others had been throughout the trial.  True to form instead of balancing their coverage, local news outlets chose to instead deliver more statements from the Gang of 11. 

"We tried to tell the judge she was biased" and "She kept to herself and wouldn't budge"

Is this really in the public interest or are the ratings better when they get another pound of flesh.  The talking heads are sensationalist whores, that we know.  What's disturbing is that they have to preach to the choir and in Arizona the choir wants blood.

Arizona, you need to admit that you really don't care much for the rule of law when it doesn't suit you.  From governors waving fingers at presidents who happen to be the wrong complexion to starving education funding it seems the Grand Canyon State is always inching closer to falling off the edge.

If there's any saving grace in this whole mess it's that the default judgment wasn't the death penalty.  At least there's some civility in that.

This isn't an indictment of captial punishment, however.  It's an indictment of the bloodlust it nurtures.

A new Year, an old injustice

Happy New Year!

At midnight the minimum wage went up a few cents in 20 or so states.  While the Federal minimum wage is still at $7.25 most states are within $1 of that figure.  In most cases, federal jobs excluded, the state wage supersedes the Federal. 

In Arizona, for example, the wage rose to $8.05 per hour on New Year's day 2015. 

It almost seems generous until you run the numbers....

The average minimum wage job will not offer full time hours (less than 35) to their workers due to employers unwilling to shoulder the additional burden of offering healthcare, overtime and other benefits afforded fulltime employment.

As such and assuming $7.25/hr Federal minimum wage the "technically" Part Time worker (which could be up to 34 hours) would be grossing $12,818 if they got 34 hours a week and worked 52 weeks of the year. 

After deductions that employee would be well under the current (for 2014) poverty line for a one person household of $11,670.  Even 40 hours would offer no reprieve after deductions for health care premiums and a higher tax rate would effectively lessen take home pay.

In 1985 I could live very well on just under 12 grand.  In 2014 I'm likely on public assistance, rely on emergency rooms for my healthcare and frequent the local food pantry to eat.  

Worse, I have a bevy of new regulations to sift through concerning mandated health insurance that I can't afford anyway.

So when I hear resistance from employers paying less than $9 an hour to their full time employees stating that an increased wage would force an increase in prices I'm literally gobsmacked.

The argument is basically this....

"We need to keep wages low and our workers in abject poverty in order to keep our prices down."

I've long been a proponent of a fair wage for a fair day's work and along with that paying what things really cost. 

But what I'm hearing is little more than institutionalized slavery rationalized by an economy based on consuming instead of value.  It's a society where WalMart is the standard and the advances of the last 100 years of labor law are looked on as an inconvenience perpetuated by evil unions.

We hear that minimum wage jobs are "entry level" and not meant to be permanent but gone are the days where they were the exclusive domain of teenagers looking for gas money.  Parents, senior citizens  and displaced professionals often find themselves competing for them simply because there isn't anything else.

What these employers don't realize is that paying a slave wage breeds slave economies that can no longer afford  their wares. 

The snake is eating itself...

These jobs are the last bastion of self-sufficiency for workers without any other opportunity.    

There's no further argument to be made when the opposition's rebuttal is grounded in inequity.  It's the same argument that led to the Southern states walking out of congress in 1861.  That being that the Southern economy could not survive without slave labor.

How is this argument any different other than its scope?  In this case an entire nation instead of a portion of it.

I can't accept the ridiculous or the unjust...enough said...

The Egg and I or when a prank isn't

I'm going to tell you a story...

So you're a teenager, you're bored and looking for something to occupy your ADD infected brain.  Your misdirected creativity leads  you to the local grocery store where you plunk down a couple of bucks for a dozen eggs and off you go.  You think how cool it would be to empty that cardboard carton on a few neighborhood cars and steal off into the night giggling as you go.

Here's the thing, You've just committed a crime and the law doesn't take it lightly. 

It's called criminal damage and the minute that egg impacts your neighbor's car you're guilty of it. Why? because it's more than just an adolescent prank.  Your actions are going to cost me money to correct and in some cases that's going to be "a lot" of money.

Egging a car can potentially destroy the paint finish, cause body damage similar to hail and cost thousands to repair.  If your victim doesn't notice the dried yolk soon enought it could take the services of an auto detailer at the minimum to repair the paint finish. 

If the egg was solid enough to chip the clearcoat finish when it impacted you're looking at $250 to $1000 in repairs.  You can't repair clearcoat, you have to repaint the entire panel.  Once the clearcoat finish is broken it will eventually start to peel.  You've probably seen cars that look like they've got a peeling sunburn.  That's the clearcoat coming off and the start of it was something making a break in it like a rock, scratch or in this example, an egg.

Your night of fun caused that and if it costs me money to fix it and I catch you, you can bet I'm going to get compensated one way or another.  That's called consequences.

Ah yes, kids will be kids and do stupid things but part of being a kid is learning what the rules are and that there are consequences for your actions.  Newton's third law says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction even if it's not immediately felt.

In Arizona criminal damage is defined as the following:

A.     Damaging or defacing the property of another (This is what you did)
B.     Tampering with someone else’s property to impair its function or reduce its value, (You did this too)
C.     Tampering with utility property (gas, water, telephone, etc),
D.     Parking your vehicle to block livestock from getting access to water, or
E.      Graffiti on a public or private building.

At least in Arizona depending on what it costs your "Victim" you're facing the following:

Cost of repair	Seriousness of Crime	Penalty
$10,000 or more	Class 4 Felony	1 ½ to 3 years in prison
$2,000- $10,000	Class 5 Felony	8 months to 2 years in prison
$250- $2,000	Class 6 Felony	6 to 18 months in prison
Less than $250	Class 2 Misdemeanor	Up to 4 months in jail and $750 fine

That could be a really expensive carton of eggs if you're caught.  Think about that the next time you think an egg is just an egg as it hurtles through the air.

Is it cowardice or conformity?

I got hungry...

So being the kind of single guy who doesn't cook anything that doesn't have "tuna" or "ready in minutes" on the label and not really having anything in the house that met that criteria I ventured out.  My destination was of course an experience that always involves the phrase "want fries with that?"

No I don't exclusively dine at restaurants with a drive-thru window; it was just too late and I was too tired. 

I'm also a car guy and I know how bad regular short trips can be on a car.  Considering it cost me $130 for a battery last week because of a car that rarely ventured more than 5 miles from the garage, I  tend to make my errands take the scenic route these days.

My motivation was hunger and a desire to not repeat last week's unscheduled surprise that left me stranded in an intersection for 2 hours. 

So after taking a long leisurely trek around my chosen bedroom community I came to a stop at an intersection. 

This was a special intersection with those nifty Red Light cameras.  I've been aware of them for years and done my utmost to avoid being captured for posterity.  Like most people I'd rather not suffer the cost of that "special moment"

So as I came to a stop awash in the crimson glow of the stop signal I felt a sense of trepidation.  This particular intersection was famous for extracting the contents of many a Mesa citizen's wallet.  Be it fair or foul these camera's offered no quarter to the guilty even if they were innocent.

Knowing this, I proceed through a carefully measured right turn when it happens...

A Flash!

I'm blinded, disoriented....guilty....

Or am I?

I've made this turn a thousand times without incident,  I tend to be overly cautious about such things but still I felt that sense of dread.   I knew I didn't intentionally do anything wrong but instead of the courage of my convictions I instantly felt the cowardice of false guilt.

We all know the stories of how such traffic sentinels are nothing more than revenue generators that prey on a guilty conscience.  Far from the purported catalysts for driver safety they're more like a cash cow for starved local governments looking for an easy buck . 

And they're not alone...

It got me to thinking.  Was this the only time I felt guilty for the sin of nothing? 

It wasn't. 

Think about that time you saw your boss stomping around the office like a charging bull.  You knew to stay out of his way till the storm blew over.  I'd even wager that for a split second your mind leapt to recall what you possibly could have done to cause his tirade.

Never mind that your boss was angry because someone backed into his brand new Lexus in the parking lot.  In that split second you felt false guilt and began devising rationalizations for your defense.

Are these the wages of a civilized society?  What's so civilized about living in fear that can spring forth at any moment over nothing of consequence.  It makes me wonder how the species ever achieved the ability to walk upright considering how much time we spend with our heads down.

Maybe it's because most of us occupy lives that aren't reflections of our true selves but instead walk a delicate balance between survival and peril.   That's just life, right?

I consider myself more rebellious than most people and generally eschew false pretense.  I'm not getting any younger and don't have the time to waste on cloudy nuances.   It's never served me to be enigmatic; in fact it scared people away. 

"For well, you know that it's a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder."  Hey Jude, The Beatles

Still, I'm living in the same condition as everyone else even if I don't agree with it.  Not able to embrace my true self and be confident in my own convictions.  Just like you I don't want to make too many waves and make a difficult life even more so. 

I just can't take any more conflict when everywhere I look I already have more of it than I care for.  I don't profess to be any more encumbered than the rest of you I just know how my encumbrance feels.

That's the problem with flying under the radar like most of us do.  We drown our true selves and embrace the cowardice of complacency.  It's just safer that way, right?

Then we either admire or hate those that seem to have it all.  Funny though, both are actually opposite sides of the same coin.  We just can't accept that the only difference between them and us is that they rolled the dice.  If they lost they just tried again instead of condemning themselves for even making the attempt.

Which brings me back to my burger run.

I'm fairly confident that the 3 cars I vaguely remember blasting through the intersection while it was still bathed in that crimson glow were the likely culprits for the brilliant flash of the electronic accuser.  Still, I felt that doubt and it disturbs me.

I don't advocate suddenly throwing your life into chaos tomorrow by upending your belief system.   I just ask that you start to be a little more honest with yourself.

Are you everything you want to be or is it just good enough to get by.  Not everybody is meant to realize their fantasies but we are meant to be the best "us" we can be.  That can't happen if "getting by" means your better self is compromised for the sake of nothing more than preserving a faulty status quo.

It takes small changes but small changes can reap astonishing rewards.  We're never as productive as when we're in harmony with what we know to be right.  Not what we're "told" to be right but what we know from refusing to be subordinate to the whims of those who don't have our best interests in mind.

A police officer is never as valuable writing a speeding ticket as he is comforting a lost child.  Teachers  never as valuable as when their lessons come from a desire to inform instead of an inadequate curriculum.  

Small changes that come from who you really are can change the world.  That's not fluff, I've seen the proof  but you've got to be stalwart and that's hard. 

Oppressors come in many cloaks some more subtle than others. 

Voter suppression, traffic cameras, mandatory health insurance, H1B visa abuse, student loans, credit scoring practices.  All of them egregious in varying degree but all of them tolerated.  Some for the sake of the "greater good" some only mentioned in passing for a juicy sound bite.   

Look more deeply at any of them, however, and even the seemingly virtuous becomes something less when we find out who their advocates are. 

Yet we accept it assuming that this is just the way of the world.  It's not and it's a questionable society that tolerates the assertion. 

Which makes me question everything.  To do any less is cowardice.

So I wait...

Will I receive an undeserved ticket for an offense I know I didn't commit?  Who knows?  I honestly hope not but that's the coward in me.  The one we're all expected to embrace. 

It doesn't serve anyone to blindly accept the corruption of ideals for the sake of the cowardice of conformity.   What we accept as reality frequently crushes any hint of our ideals.  I can only be aware of it and try to resist the" quick and easy path."

I mean look how Darth Vader ended up!

By the way,  Mesa may be ripping down the Red Light cameras next year due to public outcry and cost concerns. 

Way to go but still such a ways to go.

Your Hard drive is a snitch

Article first published as Your Hard Drive is a Snitch on Technorati.

About a year ago a case involving a Colorado woman , Ramona Fricosu, made tech news when the judge overseeing a mortgage fraud case forced her to decrypt her hard drive.  Apparently the prosecution was tipped off that the drive contained incriminating evidence that only she could provide access to.

The Internet went wild when it seemed the 5th amendment had apparently gone out the window.      Now before you go running off to Wikipedia, it's the one that says you don't have to incriminate yourself in a court case against you.

This week we had another example of the 5th amendment running headlong into an encrypted hard drive but this time things went a little differently.  It seems Judge William E. Callahan wasn't going to force a defendant in a child pornography case to decrypt several of his hard drives. 

The judge wrote, "ordering Feldman to decrypt the storage devices would be in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination."

The difference between the two cases seems like nothing more than semantics but there was one critical difference.  In the Fricosu case, investigators had prior information that the contents of her hard drive contained evidence.  In this week's case, investigators were only guessing when it came to the contents of the defendant's multiple hard drives. 

If you've ever watched Law and Order or CSI with any regularity you've probably seen at least one episode where the bad guy's lawyer tells the cops, "You're on a fishing expedition."  It usually comes up  when the defendants lawyer discovers that the police have no proof and are trying to trick the bad guy into incriminating himself.

That's exactly what was going on in Judge Callahan's court this week and the lesson learned was simple.  If you've got something to hide don't tell anyone what it is or where it's located.  Otherwise, don't bother encrypting your hard drives.

For some, this week's ruling may seem like nothing more than a question of semantics and to some extent it is.  Then again, that's what the entire legal profession is built upon.  Most criminal law deals with the concept of "intent" and intent is all about semantics.  

While the possibility that an accused child pornographer may evade justice due to a technicality we can't forget the importance OF that technicality.

The 5th amendment ensures that anyone who accuses you of breaking the law has the burden of proof.  It's the foundation of "Innocent until proven guilty" and law enforcement shouldn't be allowed to take shortcuts because it's convenient.  

Just Talkin Tech - Episode 4 No Refunds!

It's all about the product or rather what really qualifies as one.  In this episode we're discussing how software companies can sell you a defective product and you have no recourse but to accept it.  It's a casual but spirited conversation where I try to explain the difference between owning something and just having a license to it. 

In the end anything you don't own affords you very few rights when it goes wrong.   The sad fact is when it comes to a "product" you can't hold in your hand like software code or music (CD's are just a medium BTW) you  don't own anything.

It's about the content

In this age of digital media  the experts will tell you it's all about the content.  After almost two decades the novelty of the Internet has worn off and what was revolutionary is now the mundane.  Truth be told,  nobody promotes themselves as being online anymore, it's just expected that you are.   

And it seems everybody is.  From your grandmother to multinational corporations the Internet is awash in content.  It happened fast, so fast that traditional media can't keep up with the pace.  Content is no longer limited to a newspaper on your doorstep, a movie in a theater or a program on television.  A fact that the NBC Universals and Disney's of the world can't stand. 

In the 80's the advent of the VCR sent the Motion picture industry into a panic with then MPAA president Jack Valenti proclaiming, "Their (VCR manufacturers) only single mission, their primary mission is to copy coyrighted material that belongs to other people."

 The late 90's saw the music industry decrying the evils of digital music players.  Most notably the case of the RIAA versus DIamond Multimedia.  The RIAA asserted that the simple act of copying music to an MP3 player like the Diamond Rio even when restricted to personal use was a violation of copyright.  Fortunately the courts found it wasn't but the decision wasn't based on a rapidly outmoded copyright law but rather what comprised a recording device.

Succeeding years found both organizations  repeatedly claiming that new consumer friendly technologies threatened the fortunes of the entire entertainment industry. 

Of course history shows that it hasn't but not before decades of legislation had weakened consumer rights and made the whole concept of copyright law deliberately ambiguous. 

The result is an entertainment industry who views the public first as thieves and second as customers.  The concept of "Fair Use" frequently finds itself at odds with the entertainment industry who views any use not explicitly controlled by them as an infringement of copyright. 

For the uninitiated the doctrine of Fair Use is not so much a right (at least in the U.S.) as it is a defense when accused of copyright violation.  It's basically a four step criteria to measure whether use of copyrighted work is eligible for exemption from copyright law.  Generally the rule is that Fair Use applies to non-commercial or educational uses or commercial uses that can be shown to not diminish the original work.  There's more than enough room for interpretation, however, and that's frequently decided in favor of the copyright holder.

Which translates to a virtual flip of the coin any time your use of alleged copyrighted material strays into new territory. 

For example, upload a family holiday video to YouTube and you could find yourself on the receiving end of a copyright complaint if ol' Blue Eyes(Frank Sinatra) happens to be belting out  Silent Night in the background.  Even if you make the video private and accessible only to your family and not the general public you can still be considered in violation of copyright.

What's the definition of original content anyway?

 You may do a weekly video podcast but if anything in your video displays an element someone claims as copyrighted material you've suddenly lost your right to monetization under YouTube's rules at the least.   At the worst you can find your video removed and receive a "copyright strike." Too many of those and YouTube will close your account.

More than just an annoyance the entertainment industry has engaged in legal intimidation in an effort to protect an outdated content model.  Is there really a threat to a copyright holder's interest if someone uses a clip from their content in an entirely unrelated work?

What if you just want to make fun of copyrighted but publicly available content?  If so is it considered a parody or a satire?  Hint: One is covered by "Fair Use" the other isn't.   Most people don't even know there's  a difference but under copyright law there is. 

Even the alleged "New Media" succumbs to the pressure of the old guard.  When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)was signed into law in 1998 savvy ISP's lobbied for some degree of immunity by way of the "safe harbor."

They saw a future rife with litigation for simply operating a medium and wanted no part of it.  Safe Harbor holds ISP's and later content hosting services like YouTube  harmless in any copyright infringement claim.  So long as they don't actively participate in the infringement they get a pass.  Unfortunately content creators who run afoul of the DMCA have no such protections and have to rely on Fair Use defenses.

Now a bewildered public is forced to learn about words like "transformative"," derivative" and "Fair Use." 

And to think that all you wanted to do was to share a holiday memory with grandma on YouTube.

These are questions we shouldn't have to answer in a creative society.  The history of mankind is built upon the creative output of those that came before.  Without the wheel, for instance, there would be no automobiles  and transportation on the whole would be a very different if not inefficient proposition.

So should someone have patented the concept of a cylindrical object for the purpose of rotating around an axis ?   Perhaps but it should never have been expected to exist in perpetuity.  If such a patent existed it's entirely possible, for example, that we'd be controlling the direction of our cars with levers instead of that familiar direction control device we know as a steering wheel. 

The holder of the patent (or copyright) could prevent any use not explicitly under their control which would include anything that resembled or made reference to the wheel product.

That sounds ridiculous but is exactly what is happening with copyright law now.  No reasonable person would deny anyone the right to profit from their efforts .  The problem arises when protection of those rights subverts the very innovation that copyright sought to protect. 

Even if you never run afoul of someone else's copyright you still suffer the consequences. 

Why, for example, in an age of almost instantaneous access to information do we still have artificial limits placed on how we consume media?  The entertainment industry would argue that there's a minimum period of time necessary to protect their revenue potential.

That argument ignores the revenue potential afforded by alternate modes of content delivery.  A friend of mine recently posed a question to me.  He said, " Why do I have to wait months for a new movie to be available somewhere other than a movie theater?"

You know, I have to agree.  He brought up the fact that many people have home theater systems that could offer an excellent viewing experience.  To me, I'd rather see a new movie in the theater and I'm sure I'm not alone.  Nonetheless, I shouldn't be denied the option.

Seeing a movie in a theater is a "premium" experience and I'm willing to pay more for it.  However,  I'm not willing to support a business model rooted in the middle of the last century to get it.  There was a time when the only way to see a  first run movie was at a theater.  That's hasn't been the case for a decade now.  It's not about the technology it's about revenue.

There are very few cases where a 50 year old business model is relevant to contemporary markets but the industry doesn't it see it that way.

In some cases new entertainment content will go straight to online sources like YouTube, direct to DVD or even services like NetFlix.  So with alternate delivery mechanisms available do we really need so many theaters?

Should we be limiting our entertainment options based on nothing more than propping up an industry that refuses to respond to a new market dynamic?

I'd rather have a few really great theaters offering a superior experience than a lesser one from a business model that's groaning under its own weight. 

Remember we're still  talking about restricting content here.  In some cases, your content if someone deems it a threat to their copyright.  We're also talking about restricting your choices.  The least of which is your opportunity to use content  any way you wish

I've never been a fan of change for its own sake but when it comes to copyrights I don't have to betray that rule because change desperately needs to happen.