Well theres a heck of a lot of money & more than I guess 70 years of
formal study of PR etc. Concepts such as controlling the message and
selecting the 'public face of entity', and not letting people peer
behind the curtain, are deeply embedded in much of the commercial, and
indeed non-commercial world. So Im saddened it has happened to you,
but rather surprised we havent heard more about this sort of thing
happening.

Even an internet forum that randomly sprung into existence with no
commercial entity behind it, and that was run in the genuine spirit of
being 'for its members', fell victim to the tempation for those making
stuff happen to hide away from public discussions much. Us and them
reared its ugly head even with no $ being involved at any stage. 

So even if we forget about the commercial instincts that are out
there, the classic PR that will make many organisations remain in the
past and avoid genuine vlogging etc, I think there are other human
instincts which will cause similar stuff to happen. It seems related
to me to phenomenon such as 'shying away from criticism'. I mentioned
the other day how saddening lots of the text comments on youtube are,
I wonder how many people have been putoff exposing a bit of themselves
on the net forever as a result of these and other things.

So we've got fear of criticism, and desire to feel 'in control' as
major reasons why this sort of thing may happen. Thats before getting
into any of the naffer reasons such as actually having something to
hide or being excessively egotistical or obsessive about controlling
own image.

Of course its also very feasible that many commercial reasons may
exist for keeping control and denying rights to do stuff with video to
others. Personally I think that these and the previous reasons I said
are fair enough in most instances, just the same as people have a
right to privacy. Its certainly fair that this right should be lost
under certain cases, eg a murderer is going to lose right to privacy
during their trial etc, and a company that was harvesting organs to
sell to rich old people deserves to be exposed. Its very tricky, a
balancing act where I dont think generalisations will necessarily
create any sane rules. Lets say for example Im putting on a
conference, but I want to control who is allowed to video it. Well Im
totally torn between the rights of people to video it, and the right
to have some control over what happens at your own event. It probably
sucks for all concerned,but the fear that leads to reactionary
decisions is understandable.

What really sickens me is when a shocking and important event is
exposed via video (such as the alternative saddam hanging), and I see
mainstream politicians and media talking heads talking about how
disgusting the VIDEO is, and the fact that someone took the video
without permission. Surely its the EVENTS that are shocking, and these
sorts of responses to the video tell us a lot about our 'open and
democratic' way of living. Rumsfeld was a classic example of this -
always berating the media for covering the stories or releasing the
photos or video, never mind the reality of what these things are
depicting, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Steve Elbows

--- In [email protected], Gary Short <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Well the link was at http://www.carnoustiegolflinks.co.uk/vlog/ but as 
> you can see it's gone. I was asked to take it down by The Carnoustie 
> Golf Links after the Royal & Ancient applied pressure. There was no 
> Licensing issue, the R&A just wanted there to be one singer, one voice; 
> like I said it's total PR 1.0 BS, they want to control the message and 
> not engage in a conversation.
> 
> The thing is it wasn't even their vlog, it was the host venue's. They 
> applied pressure to the hosts (my customer) and made them take it down, 
> so it's not even their "water" they "poisoned".
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> Gary
> http://www.garyshort.org/
>


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