An Open Letter to You Tube and Viacom

In 2009 I created and uploaded a video called “Hey, Baby!” to You Tube. It’s just a series of short shots of me around the house smiling at the camera. That’s it. I didn’t use content created by another party, nor did I use music created by any other party. In fact, my video didn’t contain any kind of music at all. The last time I checked, my video had up around 5.8 million views. Which is just incredible. And so unexpected.

People made their own versions of the video, and some of them even used my video and added music and other things. That was done without my permission, but that’s OK. That’s the nature of viral videos on the Internet.

Because the video became so popular, TV shows started showing it in viral video themed programs. Some of them asked for permission, but most of them didn’t.

Tosh.0 was one such case. This show used my video a lot as a punchline to jokes. I didn’t mind it too much. They didn’t ask for permission to use it nor did they compensate me for it. They linked to my channel, but they spelled my channel incorrectly.

A couple of weeks ago You Tube took my video down citing copyright infringement on a complaint from Viacom. They were waving a big ass finger in front of my face, saying I shouldn’t upload content created by other people, threatening me with the closure of my channel if I had another copyright strike. And I’m like, what the fuck are they talking about?

Hey, Baby is owned 100% by ME, and no one else. I think what happened is this: Tosh.0 used my video without permission and compensation. Tosh.0 is owned by Viacom and now Viacom thinks my video belongs to them. Screwed up right?

This is not the first time it happened. ABS-CBN here in the Philippines used my video as well in one of their programs. Later, they tried to claim ownership of my video on You Tube. So for a while there was a notice that this video was owned by them.

Of course I went berserk. I filed a counter copyright infringement notice and got in touch with the Viacom contact person “Brad” cited in the copyright strike notice. I was angry, but I tried to keep it in control. Times like this logic over anger wins out. But I gotta admit, there’s nothing more infuriating than a big media corporation trying to grab something you own, threatening legal action.

A week or so later, my video is back online, without any note or even an apology from You Tube OR Viacom. Figures.

First, a word with You Tube: You Tube…. I spent years creating original content for my Komikero channel, working hard on each video. Do you understand this? YEARS. Couldn’t one employee spend one God damned minute verifying if some greedy media corporation actually have grounds to cite me for infringement? ONE GOD DAMNED FUCKING MINUTE.

Viacom… couldn’t you have “Brad” have less of a copyright infringement trigger finger and ask him to actually LOOK at the video and see if it’s actually owned by them? When you create viral video shows like Tosh.0, you are going to be using content NOT CREATED BY YOU. And as in my case, you most likely DIDN’T EVEN ASK FOR PERMISSION. How many copyright infringement strikes have you given original content creators on You Tube just because their videos appeared on shows that you own?

Arghh… I wish I could…. but I’ll just move on.

Half Kidding

For those who actually read my last post, which was my April Fool’s thing for this year… you might be interested to know that I was only half kidding. I do feel that way about social media, about Twitter and mostly Facebook. Except for approving a few tags, I actually haven’t posted anything myself in my profile for the past 14 days. Not that anyone would notice.

Besides I’ve got a lot of things going on offline lately which I just find crushing and it’s really wearing on me. April has been the most difficult month so far yet for this year, second only to May last year when my mom passed away. Things really just went downhill after Komiket. In a way things have been going downhill for quite a while. It only accelerated after Komiket. I feel so worn out. I need to swim in a beach, or maybe even just a pool. Hang out on a lounge chair watching the sun go down with an ice cold green apple soda in my hand. I would kill for that right now.

I wish April was over. Once April is over and things we’re expecting fall into place, I think it will get better from there. But right now it’s still right in the thick of the month and the end of the tunnel is still so far away.

Final Update (April Fool’s)

As you may have probably noticed, I really don’t post much on this blog anymore. Most people who have been active as bloggers have shifted to Twitter and Facebook to update their friends. In my case though, I haven’t been posting THAT much to Twitter and Facebook already. I don’t know, I guess I’m just getting tired of the Internet. You go online and you just see lies everywhere. It’s gotten so bad that you just don’t know what the truth is anymore. I’m just sick of it. I go on Facebook and all I see are rants, people complaining out loud to everyone and anyone except the people who really need to hear it, people passing off hoaxes as the truth (without even knowing it), people posting their dirty dishes (as if it’s a cool God damn thing to do), people having knee jerk reactions to news before thinking things out, people being jerks, people being homophobes, people being sexist, people being overly preachy… as I said I’m sick of it.

Many times I wish I could just unplug this damned thing. I think the time has finally come to do it. The only time I’ll be going online from now on will be to check my email for work related stuff, and that’s it.

I won’t go all drama queen and lament all this on Facebook before saying I will now be closing my account (like many people do). In fact, I won’t be closing my account at all. My FB and Twitter will still be there. This blog will still be here. But I won’t be.

Sorry to disappoint the few people who still read this blog and those who follow me on my online haunts. You know my email naman, so just drop be a line there and whenever I find myself online, I’ll try to respond. It might take a while.

Ranty Rant

Looking back on this blog, I realized how much of a ranty rant I was. At the same time, I suffered from hypertension. I was also mad a lot of the time. It wasn’t good. I started to rant less. Sure, things still bothered me, but more and more I just close my eyes, go to my happy place and just let it go. There are many things I could rant about the local komiks industry and the people in it, but I find that I’m a happier person just letting things be. After all, I do notice an incredible amount of improvement in the quality of local komiks in the last 10 years. That’s great, isn’t it?

Once in a while I do see something in Facebook that just flips my lid. More often I just move on, but on the rare occasion my lid is flipped so much that I just can’t help but launch an angry comment. The sheer amount of stupidity in people’s opinion just boggles my mind. People are entitled to their opinion of course, but sometimes it’s pretty obvious it’s just the wrong opinion. I mean, really, come on. These people are unfollowed right away. In the old days I’d rant about people tagging me, adding me to groups without my permission, posting their dirty dishes, posting preachy stuff. posting dead animals and people… right now I can’t be bothered to type anything. I just unfollow them right away. If the offense is just unbearable (like ignorant kids talking about the good old days of the dictator, or people condemning an entire religion for the actions of a few nuts), they get an automatic defriend without any more comment from me. I mean, why waste my time arguing? It’s not my fault they didn’t get the proper education.

I’ve also recently decided to make my profile less political and more just about fun stuff. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about current events and other important goings on, but FB just won’t be the place I’ll talk about it. Once in while I will post something like that, but it will be rare. If anyone makes a conclusion about my apathy towards current events based on my FB posts, then they would just be barking up the wrong tree.

“Sandali ng Katotohanan” by Nestor Redondo

“Sandali ng Katotohanan” (Moment of Truth) is a short story that’s both written and drawn by legendary Filipino komiks creator Nestor Redondo (Rima, Swamp Thing) for Espesyal Komiks #102, September 3, 1956.

“Sandali ng Katotohanan” tells the story of matador Paco Salazar, renowned for his cowardice during bullfights. It isn’t until he gets some encouraging reading of his future from a fortune teller that his fear disappears. The results are rather devastating.

Click for larger images.

Bakit Putol Ang Mga Kamay Ni Venus? Illustrated by Emilio D. Rodriguez

Here’s another short story illustrated by one of the Philippines’ best but relatively unknown komiks illustrators, Emilio “Emil” D. Rodriguez. This is a story of how Venus lost her arms as researched and written by Deo C. Gonzales.

The source material wasn’t that good as some of the edges are missing, but I just couldn’t help but post it because the artwork is just so spectacular. You can click on the images for much larger versions for better viewing.

This story was taken from Espesyal Komiks #177, July 20, 1959.

2014

2014 wasn’t such a nice year for the family. The year started out with much optimism (I always try to be such at the outset of every new year.). Determination to be positive definitely has its limits in the face of unavoidable bad events.

I lost my mom on May 28. It was very devastating for me, specially for my dad who took it quite hard although he tried to hide it. He still struggles with the loss today, as I do. They were married for more than 50 years. Unimaginable losing someone you’ve been with your entire life. I just can’t imagine it.

A month or so later, Typhoon Glenda struck and for the first time in the history of our house, water entered and flooded all the rooms of the ground floor. It destroyed a lot of things including batches of WASTED. I made light of it later on by selling “Glendamaged” Wasteds for a vastly reduced price.

Months later on October 2, my brother also lost his wife Cherry to cancer. It’s hard for me to write about this. I just feel really bad for my brother and of course his son, Robin.

Around the same time, thieves stole a St. Michael statue from our garage that had much sentimental value for my dad. Feeling insecure in our house for the first time and perhaps because of the loss of something that meant a lot to my dad, his health took a beating and was hospitalized for several days. He soon pulled out of it, thankfully enough.

At about the same time, Ilyn and I learned of the loss of a considerable amount of money we had invested in a pension plan of a company that went bankrupt. We’re left with nothing of that investment. It’s just money, of course… but we still needed it to buy food to eat, pay the bills and buy medicine. I’m still trying to find some legal help about this matter. Insurance companies must have something similar to a bank’s deposit insurance. Any lawyers out there who can help out, please do get in touch.

At the end of October I got sick with pneumonia. I thought it was something easy to recover from, very much like a normal flu, but it turns out it wasn’t the case. I was sick with it for a week, but my immune system plummeted as did my hemoglobin. It was horrible. I couldn’t get up from bed. I had to work through inking Axis during this time and it was just punishing. After the work was done, I just collapsed and spent the next month and a half recovering. I didn’t work at all. I only learned later that pneumonia wasn’t a trivial thing. It was something quite serious and if I hadn’t been treated, I could have died. To be honest, there were a couple of moments during that time that I felt I was dying, so much so I had wanted to give Ilyn all my passwords. I missed another deadline for another company and I’m still struggling to do it now.

It’s hard, but I try to focus on some positive things. I still have my job, which I’m thankful for. Nobody else died or got horribly sick, so that’s a good thing too. I was able to release two new things this year, Rodski Patotski: Ang Dalagang Baby (which bagged a place in this year’s Inquirer’s top ten books!) and Crest Hut Butt Shop #4. I also received some news that ELMER may get an Italian translation next year. Ilyn and I had a lot of pretty good and memorable times together, and to me that’s very important. Today Ilyn and I celebrate our 12th Anniversary. 12 amazingly happy years together. She’s the perfect partner anyone could ask for. Incredibly supportive through thick and thin, through sickness and health, literally!

I do look forward to 2015 with much hope. That doesn’t mean I’ll just sit around waiting for good things to happen. I will try very hard to make it happen for me and the family. I really think one must find their own happiness. It’s not always an easy thing to do, but I think it’s worth the effort.

At Sampalok Lake, December 20, 2014.