The FTC, (Federal Trade Commission), announced this week that it is beefing up the rules regarding paid endorsements by bloggers and Tweeters saying they love/use a product but in reality are shills for the company. This new regulation by the FTC is the first real change they’ve had in the rules since the early 1980s. From celebrities endorsing products on shows like “Oprah” to unknown so-called “users” who rave about the products on their blog, Twitter or Facebook pages, the Truth in Advertising guidelines didn’t touch social media until now. Read the rest of this entry »

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; better known as ASCAP, is targeting videos on YouTube for royalty payment for it’s professional creative members. This is a good thing for producers who work hard at making their product, only to see that someone has “borrowed” some of that property clips for their own use. But the average consumer who just wants to make a simple video using a well-know song as their music bed might get confused.

According to this recent report from Digital Media Wire, if you make a cute little video using copyrighted music, and place it on your own personal blog or non-commercial website, you won’t be targeted, but if you post it for the masses, you will. Or something like that. As copyright laws for intellectual property goes, it’s always muddy, and only attorneys seem to be able to interpret them. Read the rest of this entry »

A Canadian filmmaker is on his way to realizing an age-long dream of becoming like The Six Million Dollar Man from his childhood TV shows.

Blinded in one eye from an accident when Rob Spencer was a boy; he had the damaged eye removed a few years ago so he could wear a prosthetic eye, which looks like a normal eye. He noticed that the tiny camera in his cellphone could probably fit into the prosthesis, and thought, “why not?” Scientists agree with Spencer, and have been looking into ways to not only implant a tiny camera that can record video, but to someday have the ability to be wired to a blind person’s brain enabling them with sight.

We first told you about Rob Spencer and the this new device back in December, and now the final tests on implanting Rob Spencer’s empty eye-socket with a tiny camera will proceed within about a month. Being a filmmaker, Rob wants to see how close to “true” reality he can come by just recording ordinary day-to-day conversations and events without his subject’s being turned off by a regular camera.

However, since he’s a real filmmaker, Spencer would expect to be on the up-and-up, and not try any weird stuff that could be considered morally, ethically, or legally out of the circle of decency.
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