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Bootlegging Buffy
from the We-Have-The-Internet.-Any-Questions? dept.
Nope.
Censorship is no longer a plausible solution to real or perceived dangers, political issues or social problems. Prominent among its many legacies, the Internet has gravely wounded, if not killed, the very idea of censorship, probably for good.
If you have any doubts, consider "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," who, along with her many fans, has not only taken down a passel of demons but humiliated a craven corporation as well in a much more dramatic finale than the show's writers could have imagined.
The drama over the season finale of "Buffy" demonstrate that there are just too many people out there with too much access to too many computers for censorship to work anymore.
This is horrendous news to religions, governments, corporations, educational institutions, journalists, and moral gatekeepers who for centuries have been telling people what they should see, read and hear.
The "Buffy" debacle also shows us that the people who run these potent institutions still can't quite accept the reality of the new and porous world - and the free flow of information, ideas and imagery -- that is one of the hallmark accomplishments of networked computing.
The bone-headed corporation of the year award (won last year collectively by the music industry for its ostrich-like response to Mp3's) goes to the WB network, in recent weeks paralyzed with uncertainty over what to do about the second half of "Buffy's" final episode, "Graduation 2."
The network was afraid the fantasy violence sequence at Sunnyvale High's commencement ceremonies (in which the town's evil mayor was supposed to ascend to demonhood) was - in the network's words - "inappropriate" after the killings at Columbine High School in Colorado. So they cancelled it.
Shockingly dumb. Unless there are demons from Hell lurking in American high schools, it's hard to imagine how "Buffy" could have any bearing on the horrific but very rare outbursts violence that have broken out in several American high schools in recent years. Are kids who watch the show supposed to ascend from hell and grow scales?
By this logic, every rerun of "Gunsmoke" would provoke saloon shootouts all over the country. The lesson isn't that the WB is worrying about our kids, but that among media corporations, there is no such thing as principle, only greed and cowardice.
The WB might have a keen eye for teen angst and drama, but its corporate masters are sadly ignorant of the Net or the Web. As long as one employee of any company has access to a computer and a phone line -- in TV this means almost all employees -- the cancellation of popular programs like "Buffy" is inane.
George Lucas understands this principle, which is why he adroitly parceled out bits of "Phantom Menace" on the Web for months before the movie came out.
Although the season finale was banned in the United States, at least until mid-summer, "Buffy" aired as scheduled and without controversy in nearby but saner Canada (the country's schoolchildren seemed to survive the broadcast without incident).
Canadian Netizens - perhaps proving that Net citizenship may be growing as powerful as national boundaries - immediately posted digital copies of the episode on the Net. In the last episode, Buffy and her gang go after the town's mayor, who's been plotting all year to use the school's graduation for his "Ascension," whereby he morphs into an evil, giant, heavily armed serpent just as diplomas are being given out.
There is nothing in this episode which in any way evokes or is derivative or reflective of the tragedy at Columbine High School, or encourages or provokes viewers to go kill their classmates or commit other kinds of violence. Most of the movies being shown in theaters this week (and many contemporary TV shows, including the very excellent "Sopranos" "Walker, Texas Ranger," and "Jag") have more graphic yet equally unmenacing violence.
The finale - which I and many thousands of other people have seen -- is typically funny, even droll (skip the next two grafs if you want to learn absolutely nothing about the episode).
"If someone would just wake me up when it's time to go to college," pleads Buffy after one battle scene, "that would be great."
Oz: "Guys'take a moment to deal with this'we survived."
Buffy: "It was a hell of a battle."
Oz: "Not the battle'high school."
The finale is a perfect culmination of the show's wickedly funny premise - high school is a Hellmouth through which much evil enters the world. There's no demon more menacing than life among one's peers, and the real challenge isn't surviving monsters but adolescence and education itself.
Even with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) around, a fair percentage of Sunnyvale's students get eaten, tortured or nibbled on by vampires and other demons. That this notion is a funny and perhaps even badly-needed reflection of education for millions of American schoolkids seemed lost even on the network that broadcasts "Buffy."
To suddenly declare the premise dangerous in the wake of the noxious post-Littleton hysteria is more of the opportunistic pandering media companies are notorious for. It's the exercise of hypocrisy under the guise of morality. Your viewers are not that gullible, folks. The WB has been airing a great series it doesn't have the guts or the sense to stand behind.
In canceling the finale, the WB did considerable harm. It ratified the notion that TV -- not easy access to lethal weapons, poor parenting, uninspired and oppressive education, or mental illness -- is responsible for the spate of high school murders in recent years.
On the bright side, the WB's bumbling, and the quick and devastating response of Net-savvy fans, is one more example of how power is draining away from fat corporations and towards individuals. Like it or not, fans have to be taken into account. They now have a say.
Many people on the Net are intensely connected to pop culture, and if canceling the finale in the United States was foolish, airing it in Canada and thinking it wouldn't get onto the Web was mind-numbing. On the Net, even regularly scheduled dramas and shows like "The Simpsons," "The X-Files" and "Buffy" never really go off the air - they are intensely discussed and followed and fans write new episodes all year long.
"We are the people. We have the Internet. We have the power. Any questions?" one Buffy fan asked the WB on alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer site, one of the sites where people congregating to offer online taped versions of "Graduation 2."
(If you want what is reputably believed to be the transcript of the final episode, go to: Http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/1858/script.html).
The WB is going ballistic over the Net's liberation of its show. "We paid nearly a million dollars for that episode. We bought the rights to it," said a network spokesman, vowing to "aggressively" fight the Net bootlegging of the season finale.
Good luck. Kiss that tape goodbye.
The network has as much chance of keeping the "Buffy" finale off the Web as Kenneth Starr does of getting back his pornographic report on Monica Lewinsky.
The WB ought to lose every penny of its million bucks, and many millions more - a richly deserved and just fine for its stupidity and cowardice.
American politicians and most of the journalists who cover them have no appetite for dealing with complex social and political issues like violence, culture and the young. But these are difficult and expensive to consider or solve. Blaming TV shows and the Internet is easy. That's why 80 per cent of Americans do it.
Clearly, this isn't going to work any more. The collapse of censorship raises lots of complex questions from traditional notions of intellectual property to how to raise children sanely and rationally. It's time to get on with thinking about them.
From hackers to pamphleteers, the long fight for the free movement of ideas and information has some odd and unlikely heroes. "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", now in the pantheon, may be the weirdest yet.
Quotation Time (Score:3)
Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Pretty darn good for an oversized board game; my girlfriend initially thought it was de Toqueville. Anyhow, this discussion reminded me of that very sane little bit from the game -- it seems like the folks writing for video games these days have the people who write TV fluff pretty badly beaten...
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Alex in Clockwork Orange meets Fox (Score:3)
The rough sex, the violence -- I knew it all looked framiliar from someplace... Kuberick must have found a Fox tape that had fallen through a timewarp from 2002 or something.
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I don't get it (Score:3)
Slammin WB (Score:3)
The article is about the 'Net, and the power it gives us. I've seen this for years.. but it's hard to put into words.
You can see it with most software. You can see it with mp3, you can see it with vcd, and anything else that can be broken down to information.
Regardless of any percieved 'morality' issues, regardless of any attempt at cencorship, regardless of what laws governing 'money' or 'intellectual property', there is nothing that will stop people from sharing information easily and quickly.
I don't have to speak out against IP, or against morality, or against *anything* to state that people will copy, pirate, whatever you want to call it anyway, and that they should have the right to.
Our society is run by money.. but shouldn't it be run by people? Money is a means to an end, but it's gotten out of hand. We spend our lives inside, watching TV, even playing on the Internet, and don't pay attention to what's going on around us in the real world. THAT is why our cities suck, are ugly, and dirty.
THAT is why we take a new suburb where there is TONS of space and cram the houses closer and closer together instead of putting up nice yards for people.. because of money.
There is something besides money here... there is the inalienable right for ME to share any information I want with YOU, and I will!
Yeah! Fight the power! (Score:3)
Oh sure, some would say there are more important things you could get upset about. Some would say that the U.S Constitution is being slowly eroded while we watch television. None of that matters, though. What matters is being able to watch the season finale of "Buffy". Heck, they can take our rights, they can increase our taxes, JUST DON'T MESS WITH OUR T.V. SHOWS!
Clearly, this is a huge victory for "netizens". It proves that we have the power to make change WHERE IT MATTERS. It proves that we can pat ourselves on the back when we make those changes. It proves that we have writers who can write long articles about T.V. shows. It proves that we can write long posts on slashdot about those articles.
Yes, thanks to "The Buffy Effect", I will sleep better knowing that the rights-takers are now almost certainly cowering in fear.
Censorship and Freedom (Score:4)
The "Buffy" issue is not about censorship. It is about freedom. WB used their freedom, and made a decision. They decided not to air the show, in the name of good taste. They did not do this for market share; the TV biz thrives on controversy. They probably lost ratings in this decision, but they did the Right Thing.
How dare we call this censorship and decry it as such? Who holds the right to censor WB, to take away their freedom and force them to air an episode they don't want to air?
Yes, force. That is exactly what the bootleggers did; they forced the release of this material. They were the ones who restricted WB's freedom not to release an episode they wanted not to release.
We don't own Buffy. WB does. They have the right to air, to pull, to make their own Buffy channel with 48 episodes per day. If you don't like that, pick up a web cam and write your own TV show.
Katz, you're just wrong.
This isn't about saying that this episode causes real world violence. This is about keeping people from having the very real pain of Littleton thrown in their faces again.
I've seen this done once before. When the Challenger exploded, MTV pulled all their "spaceman" ads. This wasn't censorship. NASA didn't force them to do it. NASA probably didn't even ask. MTV did this by itself. This wasn't some sort of political statement on the US space program. This was simple human decency. Even media companies are capable of this.
If they were forced to pull the ep, that would be a problem. When a company chooses to do the decent thing, they should be applauded. To harass them or complain about them doing the decent thing is to throw decency away entirely. That is the wrong path. To say that the government should not legislate decency is not to say that one should not display it one's self.
The bootleggers performed nothing short of grand theft. This was WB's episode, to show or not as they decided. I doubt even RMS would advocate this sort of activity, and his worldview appears to revolve around the freedom of IP. There is a big difference between activist and guerilla, you know.
A few points.... (Score:3)
2. The WB felt that graduation violence was inappropriate around the time of graduations. They did what they felt was the responsible thing.
3. THey have the rights to Buffy. THey can do whatever the heck they want with it.
4. You have no inalienable right to watch TV. THe WB is not compelled to ever show this episode.
5. It's a TV show. Chill. I didn't freak out last night when the audio feed of the finale of DS9 cut out. It's still just TV.
6. This is not a breaking sort of spy story to sneak copies of the Buffy finale out of the WB vault. Eveyr copy or transcript I have seen so far is from Canadian viewer who saw it/ taped it when it broadcast there. We are the Internet and have the power? Bull. You are Canadian and have a VCR.
WIth all the stuff in the world to worry about today, let's not get our undies in a bunch over the finale of one fantasy TV show.
PS: I caught a later episode of the DS9 finale. Wow. Now there's some good TV!
Careful! Censorship never dies . . . (Score:4)
We in the United States, who are largely protected by the Courts and agressive litigation strategies of groups such as the ACLU, have grown complacent over time about censorship. We have grown to believe that the "bad guys," regardless of who they are and what they stand for will never be able to shield us from the light because of the almighty Bill of Rights.
Not so, Joe. And the liberating power of the Internet is not necessarily all good. It is, indeed, a vast wasteland and small voices can be truly and completely lost in that vastness. Moreover, the attractiveness of private censorship in the form of momma-ware and other filtering technologies invites willful or accidental blindness to content that can be controlled without the benefit of a government. In this sense, censorship is simply moving from use of government to another form, which should probably be the topic of another thread.
Yet another way in which censorship is effected today is by abusing the marketplace of ideas another way -- filling it with counter-content. Spamming is a tremendously effective way to bury opposing content, and when well-executed, is not always easy to counter. Sometimes the marketplace of ideas requires antitrust legislation.
Others have written about this particular circumstance of the Buffy affair not being a censorship issue. I will not pass on the point (though I share this view) but instead will assume that Jon is correct that somehow Warner is "censoring" content from the public. This kind of censorship, keeping secrets, is indeed much more difficult than once it was.
But this isn't the kind of censorship that is most dangerous and troublesome -- the keeping of content from the masses, which content is highly popular and popularized. When the majority wants to hear something, censorship has always been totally ineffective, even before we had the internet. Popular voices don't require first amendment protection, its the unpopular ones that are hard to save.
It is mostly when the majority wants content to be buried that civil liberty is really at risk.
This is why the casebooks are filled with overturning of laws dealing with Nazis marching in Skokie, "F*ck the Draft" jackets and Flag Burning -- It is the unpopular views that require protection.
It is the tiny voices, highly disapproved of by the marjority, who need protection. And without the clamour of a large and powerful activist community, those voices remain tiny, buried in the vast wasteland of the internet. As effectively censored as if government had squashed each publisher with a tank.
In many respects, I think, censorship has far more options on the internet than elsewhere. Even if you disagree with this point, consider at least whether it is dangerously arrogant to complacently presume that censorship has become impractical. Maintaining vigilant awareness to censorship in all forms is, perhaps, is the only way to assure our liberty.