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.

Judd Apatow and the “Sensitive Male Agenda”

A new Double X column examines whether Judd Apatow’s films are just “chick-flicks for dudes.” This is a point I’ve been trying to drive home for a while. I do like Apatow’s films. I enjoy their sense of humor, their nostalgia and pop culture sensibility (very few modern films are sharp enough to acknowledge great pop culture of the past), their appreciation for Westside Los Angeles lifestyle (Rogen and Heigl doing their morning after breakfast at the Swingers on Lincoln), and their embrace of Generation X’s adulthood (basically, every Paul Rudd charcter is an early-90’s Ethan Hawke character who has flashed forward to his late-30’s).

But every one of the films breeds an aura of suspicion around the “sensitive male agenda” it promotes. Follow me if you will. Basically, in every Apatow film, a male character (Seth Rogen in Knocked Up or  Jason Segal in Sarah Marshall) finds vindication in his sensitive side and realizes that a life of productivity, responsibility, and vulnerability with women is the remedy for his angst. The guy stops worrying about getting laid, drops his goofy friends to focus on his vocation, and ends up having the girl crawl back to him now that he has asserted his Manly independence.

There’s nothing wrong with promoting the benefits of being productive, independent, and genuine, but some of Apatow’s characters (I’m looking at you Peter Bretter) just get too soapy and wussy about it. The reason Apatow is able to get away with it is that he punctuates his films with moments of unbridled crassness that let us know that while he may be trying to get us to mature, he appreciates the benefits of douchebaggery. In Sarah Marshall he makes sure to make Russell Brand’s character appealing and appreciable. Had he just made him a douchebag, he might as well have cast Meg Ryan in the lead.

So yes,  Judd Apatow’s films are the apotheosis of Generation X’s transition from video game playing slackers to reluctantly mature adults. It’s about time. Those guys are freakin old.

Why Obama Is Screwing the Pooch On the Health Care Pitch

The national health care system is a myriad of give-and-takes and unintended consequences, and since I am not quite knowledgeable enough about it to comment on specific policy proposals, I figured I’m better off addressing why the Obama Administration seems to be failing in an area where they previously had experienced such success: sales. Despite the fervor and interest surrounding the issue, Obama has not convinced the American people that whatever phone-book thick proposal is being put through Congress is going to be a major step-forward. Polling magician Nate Silver takes on the sales pitch problem by grading the administration on a 5-point promotional plan put forth by Democratic pollsters/consultants James Carville and Stan Greenberg. Here are the points with my thoughts:

1. Voters need to hear clearly what changes health care reform will bring.

The public explanation has been seriously  lacking in details. How many people who hear the President explain the health care program can answer 1) How will this improve my care? or 2) If this won’t necessarily improve my care, how will it contribute to the nation’s fiscal health and/or significantly improve the care of a majority of the nation’s individuals? Instead, they just hear about how the plan will raise the deficit.

2. Build a narrative around taking power away from the insurance companies and giving it to people.

Say what you want about a populist narrative, but it’s got traction right now. His opponents mis-fire when instead of proposing better reforms, they rant about how the system shouldn’t be screwed with and any attempt to do so will take us on a straight path to Stalinist Russia. Well the American public certainly doesn’t think the current health care system is the bees’ knees and their grievances are for the most part aimed at insurance companies. And deservedly so. You don’t have to turn into Huey Long, nor stretch the truth. Simply highlight the fact that reform will break the strangehold of the insurance companies. Not too hard.

3. The president and reform advocates have to explain concretely the changes that will mean lower costs.

Here’s where they are really blowing it. Marginal cost is not the same as total cost. Of course the total costs of providing the nation with healthcare will rise if you start covering 50 million new people. But the goal is to reduce the marginal cost, meaning the cost of the next single person getting health coverage. The idea being that while total costs will rise in the short term (due to a wider coverage base), the marginal costs will decrease (as a result of efficiencies, competition, taking on the insurers, etc.), and will eventually lead to a reduction in total costs. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I just explained this fairly clearly. I don’t see why the President cannot.

Numbers 4) and 5) are pretty self-evident: 4) Show all voters that there are benefits for them, including prescription drugs, and 5) All of these points should be made with the dominant framework that continuing the status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable. As Silver points out, #5 (in addition to being scarily true) is probably the only one the Democrats are doing effectively. However, it just might not be enough.

The Daily Show Starring Jon Leibowitz?

A young Jon Leibowitz

Should Jon Stewart change his name back to Jon Leibowitz? Being a non-practicing Jew with an open disdain for the more invasive aspects of formal religion, I would be an unlikely candidate to tackle this issue and that of modern Jewish self-identity. But I dig on media and social commentary so away we go. The Jew-WASPifies-his-name-for-assimilation-purposes-in-order-to-make-it-in-Hollywood phenomenon has been operating since the advent of modern media. In the 20’s and 30’s, Jewish studio moguls were worried that the abstract Jewish names of its stars would seem too ethnic and scare off the dime-cinema masses. Flash forward a few decades and Mel Kaminsky becomes Mel Brooks, Issur Demsky becomes Kirk Douglas, and Robert Zimmerman becomes Bob Dylan.

The practice became so ingrained that no one really noticed or questioned it. Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz) launched his career in the mid-80’s, started gaining some traction in the mid-90’s, and hit the mainstream just after the turn of the millenium. I’ll spare you my oft-repeated hypothesis that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, by embracing their nebbishness, did for Jewish pop culture penetration what Jackie Robinson did for black athletes, but one has to wonder if it’s necessary any longer.

Ron Rosenbaum doesn’t seem to think so and writes an open letter to Stewart requesting that he embrace his roots. Rosenbaum makes reasonable comment that this re-naming is outdated and antiquated, but let’s face it, Jon Stewart is known as Jon Stewart and his personal brand value and maketability lies in the name, Jon Stewart. And anyways, why single out this guy? Last time I checked, Gene Simmons was still kicking and I can assure he ain’t changing his name back to Chaim Witz any time soon. Well, Rosenbaum has a good foundation for why Stewart is the most appropriate candidate to lead the charge back:

I think it has something to do with what I like most about your show, which is that you, like the best satirists, focus on making fun of those who put up a false front. Not that Stewart is false in any malign sense of the word. (It was your middle name—well, Stuart was!) But that it’s a kind of mask, and you spend most of your time making fun of the pretentious masks that politicians, celebrities, and big shots adopt.

Hmm, he’s got a point, Jon.

God I Love Hollywood

Straight from Nikki Finke, a TV agent chimes in on recently departed NBC Entertainment Chairman Ben Silverman’s future career prospects.

“I have a better chance of converting to Catholicism than Ben Silverman does ever selling a TV project to Nina Tassler or Steve McPherson or Kevin Reilly.” (Remark to me today by one prominent Jewish TV agent.)

Prideful Hypocrisy Is Her Favorite Kind

Everyone knows where I stand on Sarah Palin, so I’ll just take the opportunity of her Quitter Speech to point out the most ludicrous hypocrisy of what she claims to represent. She bloviates on rugged individualism, free markets, capitalism, and the dangers of “socialism”, meanwhile, she presides (or presided, should I say) over the state with the largest share of redistributive outlays to its residents. Moreover, she gladly promotes this fact!

As New Majority conservative David Frum puts it:

Sarah Palin’s most notable achievement as governor of Alaska was to increase the payout from the state’s energy tax take by $1200 per resident. Isn’t it odd then that she would use her farewell address to warn against the danger of government handouts?

So Chicken Little running around screaming “socialism” is one of the biggest culprits herself. Maybe if she looked up the actual definition of socialism she’d stop making her socialist policies the cornerstone of her marketing platform, but that would take actual intellectual effort and we all know how she frowns upon that.

Captain Obvious

New study shows that actually counting your money increases happiness. Well, I mean, duh. Just ask Scrooge McDuck.