"I engaged in behaviour which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment," Phelps said in a statement. "For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."
God, Phelps, you make me sick. Here's what you should have said:
"HEY! DUMBASSES!
I JUST WON 8 DAMN OLYMPIC MEDALS!
SMOKING POT HASN'T HURT ME ONE BIT!
WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE SO BENT OUT OF SHAPE ABOUT IT?
I'M NOT THE LEAST BIT SORRY!
LATER TONIGHT I PLAN ON GETTING GOOD AND WASTED TO GET OVER THIS CRAP!
Shepard Fairey, the street artist who created the highly recognized "Hope" image of Barack Obama, filed a preemptive lawsuit claiming he did not violate The Associated Press's intellectual property rights. Fairey acknowledges his drawing was based on an AP photo of Obama before he was elected president.
The AP last week claimed the drawing violated its copyright and demanded an undisclosed amount of compensation. The Los Angeles street artist is claiming a fair use right. His New York federal court lawsuit said he transformed the picture into a "stunning, abstracted and idealized visual image that creates powerful new meaning and conveys a radically different message." The red, white and blue image was adorned on websites, posters, stickers, shirts and buttons.
On Monday, meanwhile, Fairey appeared in a Boston courtroom and pleaded not guilty to accusations he tagged a Massachusetts Turnpike Authority building last month as part of an art project.
I've been having my own issues with copyright laws lately, so I can relate a little bit.
That's me. Or at least that's my left hand. I know this looks peculiar, but if you played electric guitar you'd find it interesting. YouTube told me they took this off their site because I assume Warner Brothers complained that I violated their copyright. YouTube has some links that tell you more about copyright rules and an appeals process of sorts where you tell YouTube you think Warner Brothers is wrong, give YouTube your name, address, e-mail and phone number. Then Warner Brothers has 10 days to say if they feel like taking you to court. As if.
Reading the links I have an argument using two aspects of copyright laws, transformation and educational use. I'm playing over the song for one thing, plus I've slowed it down considerably the first time. Clearly the point of the video is to "educate" someone on where the notes are on the neck and how to play them.
I was in contact with a web site called EFF where I learned about the spat between Warner Brothers and YouTube where some type of black box computer program basically combed all existing YouTube videos for copies of Warners' songs. Unimaginable that they can do that, but it's only computing power; given enough of it you can do anything. The EFF has a bone to pick with corporations who are trampling over "fair use" provisions in the copyright statues. Here Warner Brother is clearly intimidating people out of displaying their own creative work and YouTube, knowing they have millions of possible violations on it's site seems forced to go along. Since it seemed relevant, I e-mailed a guy there about my video and he actually replied:
As someone who used to play guitar in high school, your videos would have been a god-send to me (altho my musical taste left something to be desired back then). I appreciate that you don't want to counter-notice on this one, but let me know if you change your mind.
The hardest thing about your situation is that the labels are licensing songs for use in guitar instructional materials (check out the latest Apple announcements about Garageband's "music lessons", as well as all the "learn guitar" DVDs out there), so they will argue that your use is undermining that existing market for them. It would be very hard to predict how a case would come out, if it ever went to court.
But, as far as I'm concerned, if copyright makes what you're doing an infringement, we've really screwed up our copyright laws.
I think Obama's picture above is clearly transformative, it's damn near iconic by now. Shepard should be able to claim ownership of his work regardless of the fact that he derived it from a photograph. I hope he wins.
I was thinking of breaking my self-imposed Festus-derision embargo with this question which seemed far too interesting to resist. But I hesitated, worried that this might not rise to the level appropriate to break my long silence.
WTF, I make the rules around here. . .
Paired with this quote from some guy it seems satisfyingly complete.
It's the burning question failing to divide America.
Unlike other two-term presidents, Bush hasn't grown in office, become an old familiar whose irritating traits and lapses could be accepted almost affectionately, like Reagan's dottiness. He's demonstrably diminished, dwarfed by the reality that he continues to deny and repeating himself in press conferences like a robot whose wiring is on the fritz, for whom words and phrases are nothing more than pre-programmed units of sound.
He's more irritating and dangerous than ever before, because he doesn't know anything, doesn't know or care that he doesn't know anything, and yet persists in a path of destruction as if it were the road to salvation. It's finally dawned on responsible minds that Bush could take all of us down with him before he and the neocons are through.
It really doesn't do me any good to be getting my bile up about the clown show in D.C and it's depressing to think that Festus hasn't been laughted out of public office by now.
I give up.
I may be back should Festus get impeached by some miracle or should Fizgerald finally get off his ass and bring down some heavy weight on the Festus debacle.
If not I'll be hunkering down trying to figure out where outside of Atlanta I'm gonna hide come 9/11/2006. . .
A guy named Harry Taylor has the biggest stones in the entire United States of America. How he managed to find the balls to ask Festus point-blank a question that hundreds of professional journalists have failed to is simply jaw-dropping to me.
A striking exchange from President Bush's Q+A session with an audience in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday:
Q: You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are --
THE PRESIDENT: I'm not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what's your question?
Q: Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I -- in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and --
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec -- let him speak.
Q: And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself.
What is even more amazing is that you can watch it. It's almost sickening in it's grotesqueness. Festus seems so cocky, so smug, you can almost see the thought balloon over his head thinking "Who does this dickhead think he's talking to?"
