How To: “Keep Your Sex Tape Off the Internet”

Celebrity attorney Marty Singer gives us the vital prophylactic information that we’ve all been hoping for: how to keep your sex tape off the internet. Don’t tell me I never gave you any useful info!

Q: How do I keep my sex tape off the Internet?

Singer: Don’t make one! But if you must, here are some tips on how to keep it private. The person who records the tape is the copyright owner. So you should be the camera-person and try to own or co-own the copyright because third-party distributors are less likely to touch a sex tape if there is a potential copyright claim. Even if you don’t own the copyright, you also can assert claims for violation of your rights of privacy and publicity, both of which can lead to injunctions against distribution. Unless someone is on the tape telling you that the tape will be exploited, the release will violate your expectation of privacy. Plus, your name or image can’t be used for commercial purposes without your consent, so you can stop the promotion of the tape if not the release itself. Finally, if you didn’t know you were being taped, criminal charges might also be appropriate.

“The Scenesters”

Some buddies of mine recently completed an impressive independent film, “The Scenesters”, which I did some (legal) work on. Relevant topics include comedy/murder-mysteries, making fun of people who consistently eat on Hillhurst, and the career of former Twin Peaks star Sherilyn Fenn. Here’s the trailer, take a look.

iLike Deal Signals Myspace’s New Direction

Myspace is apparently in serious discussions to purchase digital music site iLike. As far as social networking is concerned, Facebook sped past Myspace a while ago and has lapped them numerous times depending on the length of the hypothetical track I’m alluding to.  Myspace still maintains a massive user base and has aggregated an enviable repository of both professional and user-generated content (primarily music). The company’s recent seismic management shift has left the web community wondering how the News Corp. property plans on leveraging these assets to revitalize the brand.

The iLike deal seems to confirm suspicions previously expressed by two of my favorite web players, Marc Cuban and Docstoc CEO, Jason Nazar. In their eyes, it’s time for Myspace to wave the white flag and cede victory to Facebook as “a place for friends”, and refocus on monetizing media content (whether directly or indirectly).

Nazar:

“[Myspace] should be the next generation content/ entertainment portal that leverages millions of user profiles to more accurately provide data to advertisers on what is appealing to specific demographics.”

Cuban:

“You have a strong (although appearing to weaken) position in Music.  Take a close look at the economics of music and see how you can leverage them to your advantage…At this point, MySpace’s core competency becomes arbitraging its ability to buy and sell music to its user base. The user base thinks they are getting a great deal, and the bands have a source of revenue that they are paid up front.”

At first glance, the iLike integration would appear to supplement the Myspace Music service. Myspace Music is not generating ad revenue as anticipated and the service is caving under massive royalty payments.  According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, it’s more likely that iLike will replace Myspace Music rather than supplement it:

“The last thing MySpace wants to do is put good money after bad and throw more assets into MySpace Music…iLike isn’t just about music and music recommendations. The platform they’ve built to facilitate artist-to-user publishing and user-to-user recommendations can be used for content beyond music, such as videos and games. Our guess is MySpace intends to integrate iLike’s technology into more than artist pages. So having the assets at MySpace makes sense.”

So Myspace may have waved the white flag on more than just social networking. This may be an admission that the Myspace Music model of ad-supported streaming in partnership with premium content creators/distributors is kaput and that the future lies in iLike’s model, i.e., recommedation-generating, download-to-own, with a heavy community component to it.

“Everything looks good except for our results.”

The American business community is experiencing quite a bit of failure these days. And with failure, comes spin. How do you spin a bankruptcy filing or devastating earnings report? A peculiar spin-cycle trend amongst corporate CEO’s (and I’m sure some small businesses) is the claim that “we’re a good company with a bad balance sheet.” Eddie Bauer CEO Neil Fiske claimed this on the eve of his bankruptcy filing and I’m sure a whole generation of middle school students is listening. Because of course, they’re good students with bad report cards.

Ok, ok, I understand what they are getting at. They have a strong brand with consumer appeal and legitimate sales growth, but just happen to be drowning under excess costs and interest payments stemming from decisions made during the salad days when everyone was in the midst of irrational exuberance. I get it, but that argument just doesn’t hold water. As Newsweek’s Daniel Gross puts it:

The balance sheet can’t be divorced from the underlying business. Any business plan has to take into account the ability of a company to service its debt, just as any household’s budget plan has to take into account the ability to stay current on the mortgage. If the enterprise is managed in such a way that it falls behind on payments, perhaps there was something wrong with the way it was managed.

If you can’t manage your debt, it most likely means you can’t manage your company. And if you can’t manage your company, then you don’t have a “good business”. You might have a business with potential to be good, but potential don’t pay the bills. A company borrows funds under the assumption that such funds will be allocated in a way that will drive revenue. If those borrowed funds aren’t allocated in a manner that builds revenue to a level which can sustain the debt payments and then some, then that’s a BP (business problem), not a CP (credit problem). However, convenient excuses will always be used generously. If not, they wouldn’t be convenient.