Obey Plagiarism: Shepard Fairey

February 18th, 2009 Business, Media

Up until about fifteen minutes ago, I had a real solid respect for Shepard Fairey and his creations from Obey. Despite the recent run-ins with the associated press over his somewhat plagiarized Obama image, I still remained a fan of his work. Stealing or borrowing from the AP didn’t bother me much — afterall, who was he really harming when the photographer of the doctored image even wanted a signed copy!

A’las, that all ended when I completed reading ‘Obey Plagiarism Shepard Fairey‘. I suspect you’ll find the same.
Depressing really, thieves.

Big Media: Big stink?

January 25th, 2008 Business, MediaTags: adbusters, big media, canadian government, canwest global, the epoch times

The Epoch Times: Group Says ‘Big Media’ Suppressing Free Speech

The group that brought the world Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week and World Carfree Day has taken on Big Media.

Adbusters Media Foundation, a global network of media rights and anti-consumerist activists, is suing CanWest Global, the CBC, the CRTC and the Canadian government over the right to air what it calls public service advertisements. At issue, says Adbusters, is the right of Canadian citizens to have a “reasonable opportunity . . . to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern,” as stipulated in the Canadian Broadcasting Act.

“We want to air messages about some of the biggest issues of our time, including things like obesity, war, and media concentration, and some of our ads want to talk back against some very large corporations that we think are distorting our society,” says Vancouver-based Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters.

Personally, I think that it’s up to groups like Adbusters to setup their own ‘competitive’ media distributions. And they do, but if they want people to hear their messages they’re going to need to propagate them on their own. I think they do a wonderful job with their ‘Adbusters’ release that frequents magazine shelves — but instead of concentrating on buying big media ads they should really resort to the internet — Facebook would be their primetime locale.

Propaganda: The East in the West

January 25th, 2008 Business, MediaTags: epoch times, mediachannel, propaganda

The Media Channel (a site I just recently came upon) has a write-up submitted by The Epoch Times on Chinese ’spy’ & propaganda infiltration of the media here in Canada on a couple of different issues. It’s a very interesting article & a highly recommended read.

Montreal Newspaper: A Voice for the Chinese Regime

Quite frankly, I knew that propaganda was ripe for the picking but I did not realize the extent to which governments would go to get their information moving. If they’re that deadset on spreading misinformation about a religion – just how far would they go for something actually important. Scary, to say the least.