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Another Sylvia flop

westphalia said:
Regrettably, none of this will make a dent in this woman. Her new book will sell zillions of copies, she'll continue to be featured on Montel, and she'll continue to prosper until her disease-ridden corpse comes to a stop.

We probably shouldn't pounce too quickly on her failures, anyway. Interesting Ian, on another thread, already informed us that psychic powers tend to be very weak, so Sylvia's just doing her best.

God, people are stupid.
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Freaky, I was going to mention that particular bit of silliness from Ian myself.
 
Before anyone seriously embarks on the enterprise of collecting, storing, and distributing clips from television shows, I strongly suggest consulting a copyright lawyer. At the very least, you need to ask permission from CBS Paramount Television.

For example, this section of the Terms of Use at http://www.montelshow.com/ rather limits what people can do with the show's content:

All material on this site, including but not limited to images, text, photographs, illustrations, audio clips, video clips, graphics and logos (collectively the "Material"), is intellectual property owned, controlled or licensed by Company and protected by trademarks and copyrights. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, republishing, uploading, downloading, posting, transmitting, distributing, displaying or duplicating of any Material from this site is prohibited. In addition, you are strictly prohibited from creating any materials that derive from or are based upon the Materials, including without limitation, fonts, icons, link buttons, wallpaper, desktop themes, on-line postcards and greeting cards. This prohibition applies regardless of whether the derivative materials are sold, bartered, given away or otherwise.
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Intellectual property from the Montel Williams show is not yours to distribute without permission. Next time you watch the show, read the credits carefully. You will very likely find specific restrictions that prohibit what is being proposed in this topic.
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but is not possible to make use of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law? Especially for something of public interest?

However, explicit permission to distribute is always better.
 
Pidge said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but is not possible to make use of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law? Especially for something of public interest?

However, explicit permission to distribute is always better.
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In this case, the Montel Williams show, as do almost all television shows, carries specific prohibitions. It would be best to consult a lawyer, especially in these DMCA days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
 
Dang--ya beat me to it, Pyrrho!

Interested parties should check out the world of hurt the "Loose Change" people are in for using copied video. I would not like to see us doing anything that could remotely be compared with them.
 
I think the best you can do is create your own transcripts "from memory" and add some sort of disclaimer.
You're not going to be able to use the footage for anything substantial, especially if it goes against the wishes of SB and the show.
 
Published transcripts are subject to "fair use" provisions of copyright law -- a person could reasonably and legally quote from the transcripts for purposes of commentary and/or analysis.

Making and distributing copies of video clips is a different story. Conceivably a person could use a clip as part of an analysis, however, there are a plethora of contractual and legal hurdles. Fairly or unfairly, video is treated differently than the printed word.
 
Pyrrho said:
Published transcripts are subject to "fair use" provisions of copyright law -- a person could reasonably and legally quote from the transcripts for purposes of commentary and/or analysis.

Making and distributing copies of video clips is a different story. Conceivably a person could use a clip as part of an analysis, however, there are a plethora of contractual and legal hurdles. Fairly or unfairly, video is treated differently than the printed word.
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Evidence?
 
Mercutio said:
Dang--ya beat me to it, Pyrrho!

Interested parties should check out the world of hurt the "Loose Change" people are in for using copied video. I would not like to see us doing anything that could remotely be compared with them.
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Where can I find out about that?
 
More here:

http://library.stanford.edu/cpyright.html

The nature of the copyrighted work.
For example, an article from a newspaper would be considered differently than a workbook made for instruction. With multimedia material there are different standards and permissions for different media: a digitized photo from a National Geographic, a video clip from Jaws, and an audio selection from Peter Gabriel's CD would be treated differently--the selections are not treated as a equivalent chunks of digital data.
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The idea of...
Pyrrho said:
collecting, storing, and distributing clips
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... of Sylvia flops is strongly reminiscent of the garden composting I've been doing. Except I've been collecting, storing, and distributing flops from cows instead of psychics.

Y'know what? Sylvia's flops smell worse. =>_<=
 
You can always show the clips and then when the lawyers come after you, you can claim it's a conspiracy to suppress the truth about scam psychics. Document everything during "the case." I figure if this is what scam artists do to strengthen their cases then it will probably work to strengthen ours.
 
No need to record the shows. Just give a brief summary of them. Add in your comments. If you find out anything from any source about the cases then put that on there too.
 
rjh01 said:
No need to record the shows. Just give a brief summary of them. Add in your comments. If you find out anything from any source about the cases then put that on there too.
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Let's say you're an average guy. Let's say that you had just watched Uri Geller on TV for the first time. You have no idea how he is bending spoons, but it seems very impressive.

Now, you read a brief summary of how Randi duplicates the spoon bending.

Like most people, you are not used to apply critical thinking to what you experience. Like I said, you're an average guy.

What would you believe the strongest? What you see, up close, personal and live - or read some summary of something that happened while you weren't watching?

You bet you'd believe Uri Geller the most. Who wouldn't?

Never underestimate the power of moving pictures.
 
You just have to make sure that in your written comments it is obvious that Uni Geller was a fake. No need for the readers to have critical thinking.

The alternative is that nothing gets done.
 
Even that copyright website had some short movie clips that accompanied their commentary. I think short clips can be used under fair use. Just don't make a 90 minute compilation of Sylvia clips and try to sell it on eBay.

The video clips can be very useful. Certainly her misses will be entertaining, but there are lessons to be learned from her apparent 'hits'. I haven't seen Sylvia Browne in many, many years, but I saw part of last week's show and she was using a variety of techniques to pass herself off as a psychic. Her appearance was a textbook display of cold reading, guessing, etc., and her misses were accompanied by 'go home and think about it'. I also saw the audience and many were visibly disappointed with the advice they got from Sylvia. Even Montel looked like he really didn't want to be sitting next to such a nasty beast. It really surprised me and had more of an effect on me than all of the writings Randi has done about her. I think a webpage with some short clips and commentary that expose her use of common mentalist tricks would be very persuasive.
 
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