UCLA Bruins

[hedge]

Can't do it, Sally....

[eCat]

Damn, he was old on Barney Miller

[AlabamAlum]

Bklyn,

You watched the new Showtime series "billions"?

[Bklyn]

Yep. It's funny because most of the backstories (while seemingly far-fetched) are very familiar to me. I can almost call out the inspiration for them. The whole cocaine, lesbian sex blackmail angle is new to me, but otherwise...

As far as the show, overall, I'm still cautiously waiting. If this was HBO I would feel more secure. The characters are interesting enough to keep me seeing where this is going...I'm just not sure if Sorkin (and the cats from Rounders) knows where this is going. I didn't watch last night, but I have it queued up for when I get home.

How about you?

[AlabamAlum]

Yeah. I like it. Figured it would be in your wheelhouse.

[eCat]

I'm not sure if any of you care about this kind of thing but its interesting to me.

So these two guys who I assume are brothers started making videos on youtube called "kids react to..." "elders react to..." etc - and basically they got a group described in the video...kids for example, showed them a viral video and recorded their reaction. Think 2 girls, 1 cup reaction videos which were highly popular. Matter of fact, that is what inspired these guys to do it. They capitalized on a genre called reaction videos. Think Beavis and Butthead and Mystery Science 3000

At any rate, they became more popular than they ever thought raking in serious money for cranking out these stupid youtube videos , and then they got into the world of sponsored content - their "reaction" videos were really not so cleverly disguised ads like kids reacting to a roller coaster but it was really an ad for the amusement park disguised as a reaction video. Then they really started making the money - like having a staff of 40 people kinda money. Eventually they had over 14 million subscribers

So then they got greedy and decided to trademark the terms "kids react" which also encompassed "kids reacting" with the idea behind it being there is no way they want to pay the staff the kind of money necessary to keep cranking out these videos in order to keep advertisers happy so why not create a trademark and franchise (crowdsource) the reaction videos - but instead of enticing people, they decided that they owned the word "react" on youtube. So they started going after you tube people making just stupid little videos for their own entertainment. They were sending out cease and desist letters to 12 year old kids making "Tony reacts to Billy pissing on his leg" kinda thing, and going DMCA copyright on people that actually made a little money on Youtube on any kind of reaction video. They were a 400 pound gorilla with their total number of subscribers and advertisers so Youtube would do whatever they wanted to shut people down even though they had no legal right to do so.

Instead they wanted people to create their reaction videos within their channel called "Reactworld" and sign an agreement where they would get 30-50% of the profit for doing nothing other than organizing it. Now most of these people doing these videos that have any popularity only get a few dollars in revenue from them, but the brothers, realized that it was quantity - have thousands of people doing really easy to create videos under one video channel, label it with their name (without any concern for content, quality or localization) and then sit back and pull in a couple of million extra for essentially filling out some paperwork and have lawyers go attack dog on anyone with a camera. They didn't stop with Youtube. They went after Ellen Degenerus, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon as well as many lesser know media stars.

So one guy had enough and published a video saying how he hadn't been paid by Youtube for 3 weeks and looked into and some group he never heard of had filed a DMCA complaint against him - and this was a guy who was saying he was going to miss his rent because his livelihood was centered around his income coming from youtube (who knew this existed?). That went more or less viral and people came out of the woodwork to shit on these guys who call themselves The Fine Brothers.

So to add insult to injury The Fine Bros make this video that has since been taken down where they try to explain how they aren't bad guys and are just trying to protect their intellectual property (which everyone knows they stole from 2 girls 1 cup and recording people reacting to something has been around as long as there has been recorded media). They tried to justify it using an analogy of a burger king franchise which they really should have run by a lawyer first because they ended up essentially claiming they copyrighted the hamburger, not the chain in their analogy.

So people that actually cared about this sort of thing were fed up and one guy created a countdown clock of how many subscribers they were losing. In about 3 days they lost over 1 million subscribers which is a nightmare situation for them because they weren't making the real money on the videos, it was the popularity of the videos that drew advertisers to link to the videos - and if they are losing people left and right, Advertisers are going to jump ship

So all told, once the video went out of the guy pleading for youtube to pay him, it took about 7 days total for these guys to essentially abandon all their copyright claims and do all they can to erase this from social media.

Its interesting to me because it highlight the power of the internet - essentially anonymous people who can make you a millionaire in a few weeks and threaten to take it all away just as fast.

[BigRedMan]

Yup. Never bite the hands that feed you. If you can make money off this stupid shit, shut your mouth and keep making money unless you truly have a IP or patent type of situation.

[Saint]

Here's a pic of one of the Fine brothers:

[eCat]

yes I expect that pretty much was their reaction.

I have probably watched one of their videos in the past but I don't subscribe to any youtube channels - I don't want any kind of bullshit like that in my life so I wasn't aware that making enough money to hire a real staff was even possible in the youtube world

amazing to me that this entire thing is virtual - I don't even know if their actual name is Fine or not, but at some point they did get real money for what they did and anonymous people like Cr!tikal and DonkeyTeef just totally shit all over their livelihood - justifiably so but still...

[Saint]

don't fuck with DonkeyTeef

[AlabamAlum]

One of the main lessons in life is to choose wisely when you decide to be a cockbag. Because people will be a cockbag back.

[hedge]

Life imitates poker...

[BigRedMan]

I wish life would impale you with a poker.....

[hedge]

Not bad, but "I wish life would imitate a poker and impale you with it" would've been better. But your heart was in the right place...

[Saint]

It's too close to lunch time for BRM to think clearly.

[eCat]

It's too close to lunch time for BRM to think clearly.

I think a country singer wrote a song called "its always lunch somewhere"

[BigRedMan]

I'd argue with you fuckers........but I can't.

[crashcourse]

watched the OJ thing last night

definitely entertaining but needs to be DVR'd and watched in batch to avoid the endless parade of commercials

definitely some interesting portrayls--Marcia clark, dodd, Cochran, Oj all well acted--have to see about kardashian and Shapiro.

lots of interesting little details

[eCat]

I set it to record but I haven't watched it yet

I didn't realize it was a series until I was setting up the recording..

[aTm]

What OJ thing?