Yep.  I’ll throw myself on this grenade.  No problem.  Let me say at the outset that anyone who wants to bring up the RIAA lawsuits of the aughts in context to this post can just stifle the instinct because you’re being silly.  You might as well say your scorecard on American civil liberties stops with the Trail of Tears.  Let’s ...

In my follow-up about Chiat/Day and the “Pirate Square” campaign, I suggested that the agency’s decision to produce the work was motivated by an opportunity to promote the Chiat/Day brand itself in a big way and for free.  And the more I look at the whole business, the more I’m convinced this is what happened.  According to this article in ...

There’s been a lot of speculation, including by me, on the question as to why TBWAChait/Day is the agency behind what is being called “Pirate Square” by folks in the artists’ rights community.  And I feel foolish for overlooking the most obvious explanation, which is selling the agency itself.  Ad agencies spend a significant amount of money and internal resources ...

I am a son of the advertising business.  The year I was born, my father was a senior writer  working for Guy Day in Los Angeles prior to the 1968 merger with Jay Chiat that would produce the industry powerhouse known as Chiat/Day and is now known as TBWAChiat/Day. In the late 1960s, my father’s contemporaries in general, and Chiat/Day ...

The Wall Street Journal this week offers two interesting articles about online piracy of entertainment media.  In this piece by Christopher S. Stewart, we get a somewhat rare glimpse inside the counter-piracy unit at NBCUniversal, which provides some context for understanding the scope of piracy and the investment required to address it directly through takedown notices.  And a new article ...

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