Prince Philip is the tall chap who married the queen of England, enjoys making beautifully inappropriate comments, and feels intimate contact with his television might be necessary in order to make it work.
In a revealing interview, only some of which seems to have appeared on the Buckingham Palace YouTube channel, the prince laid bare his electrical dysfunction, one that many might, secretly or not, actually share.
His interviewer, a rather well spoken chap called Kevin McCloud, brightened up the pages of London's Times newspaper with some of the prince's heartfelt words.
Perhaps the most elegant of the phrases turned by the 88-year-old prince was: "To work out how to operate a television set, you practically have to make love to the thing."
It has never been my habit to wonder about the conjugal behavior of the regal.
However, once one's mind goes quickly beyond boggling in order to consider how one might make one's plasma pulse race, one begins to appreciate that many people do find it rather difficult to grasp even 10 percent of their gizmos' workings.
Of course, the prince's imagery is so disconcerting that I wonder just what actions came immediately before the creation of, for example, Prince Charles.
However, Phil the Greek, as he is sometimes known in pejorative circles, will no doubt receive some sympathy for his giddy criticism of technology's grave new world. Why can't things be just blindingly simple, especially for those whose eyes are not quite what they used to be?
Not satiated with his criticism of televisual operations, the prince turned his mind and, one feared, his devilishly seductive eyes, toward the Web.
"The Web sites I've seen are so awful it's untrue," he told McCloud. "They're so unfit for purpose I'm surprised anyone tolerates them."
Surely he has a point. There are so many ill-designed sites on the Web that one's eyes sometimes water with pain. However, given the prince's somewhat outre position on the subject of televisions, many will find themselves caught in the uncomfortable posture of now considering which Web sites the prince has, um, actually visited.
Please might readers suggest something appropriate, as I fear my own thinking has been addled and muddled by the prince's highly colorful imagery.
Bryan Adams, best known for his 1980s rock anthems "Straight from the Heart," "Summer of '69" and "Run to You," is apparently pressuring fan sites to play by his rules.
The Canadian rocker wants to stop several overseas fan sites from using his name and image without his permission, according to a story on TheRegister.com. Some of the sites have apparently shut down while they negotiate with Adams, according to The Register.
The Canadian rocker has hired Web Sheriff, a company that protects digital music and video from online piracy to oversee the situation. Web Sheriff is perhaps best known for helping Prince launch an extensive and controversial campaign last year against those they claimed were violating Prince's copyright. As part of this effort, Prince served some of his fan sites with cease-and-desist notices, ordering them to remove photos, lyrics, and anything linked to Prince's likeness.
John Giacobbi, who operates Web Sheriff, told TheRegister that some of the Bryan Adams fan sites have linked to pirated music. Nonetheless, unlike the situation with Prince, there won't be any need for litigation for most of the sites, he said.
A federal judge on Wednesday gave more weight to the concept of "fair use" when he threw a lifeline to a Pennsylvania mother's lawsuit against Universal Music.
The judge refused to dismiss Stephanie Lenz's suit claiming that Universal abused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it issued a takedown notice to YouTube over a 30-second video of Lenz's baby dancing to a Prince song.
In the first ruling (PDF) of its kind, Judge Jeremy Fogel held that copyright owners must consider fair use before sending DMCA takedown notices.
"Fair use is a lawful use of a copyright," the judge wrote. "Accordingly, in order for a copyright owner to proceed under the DMCA with 'a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,' the owner must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright."
Lenz first filed suit in October 2007, after Universal requested that her video be taken down, and YouTube kept it off its site for more than a month. Lenz argues that the Prince song is barely audible in the short clip and clearly represents fair use, which allows for limited use of copyrighted materials without permission. In order to protect First Amendment rights, the DMCA allows for targets of illegitimate takedown notices to seek damages against the copyright holder.
The suit was initially thrown out of the federal court in April of this year, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing Lenz, filed a second complaint just 10 days later.
Corynne McSherry, an attorney for EFF, called the ruling "a major victory for free speech and fair use on the Internet" that will "help protect everyone who creates content for the Web."
Although Fogel refused to throw out the case a second time, he expressed doubt that Lenz would win. "The Court has considerable doubt that Lenz will be able to prove that Universal acted with the subjective bad faith," he wrote.
SAN JOSE, Calif.--Stephanie Lenz is an angry Pennsylvania mother who refuses to back down from the music industry.
Lenz's attorneys were in federal district court on Friday morning, trying to thwart a motion to dismiss her lawsuit against Universal Music Group. A year ago, the music label ordered YouTube to pull down a 30-second video she shot of her infant son dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy."
Lenz, who resides in a rural Pennsylvania area, claims that her video is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Fair Use provision in copyright law. She fought the order, and eventually, Universal Music abandoned any claim that she violated Prince's copyright. YouTube has since reposted her clip.
Now Lenz is out to teach the music industry a lesson.
What Lenz and her attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation want are for media companies to stop sending take-down notices in a "willy nilly" fashion and to make sure that they have a legitimate claim of copyright violation before acting. They failed do this with Lenz's video, according to Corynne McSherry, an EFF attorney.
"This video is so clearly noninfringing," McSherry said. "What we've seen is that Universal Music had the view that they could take down Prince content as a matter of principle. But what they were obligated to do was form a good-faith belief that the video was infringing...They may not have formed a good-faith belief at all."
The good news for her is that U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he would take the matter under consideration after hearing arguments from both sides.
In April, Fogel tossed out the lawsuit Lenz filed against Universal in October. Fogel said her argument that Universal was misusing its copyright was weak.
The judge did allow Lenz's EFF attorneys, however, to try their arguments a second time.
EFF promptly filed a second complaint, arguing that Universal Music should compensate Lenz for falsely accusing her of violating the law and getting her video removed from Google's video-sharing service. The music label has asked the judge to dismiss the case.
A lawyer for Universal Music argued that the label isn't liable for ordering Lenz's video to be removed because it doesn't have to think about Fair Use prior to sending take-down notices. There is no legal obligation to think about it in advance.
EFF, which advocates for the rights of Internet users, disagrees. The group has always said there is real harm caused when a media company issues take-down notices. For example, Lenz had to spend time learning why her video was taken down and convincing YouTube that she had not violated copyright law.
Even though Universal Music now says it no longer considers Lenz's baby video to be infringing on its copyright, Lenz says just receiving the take-down letter caused her harm.
Fogel gave no timetable on when he might make a decision. Should he decline to dismiss the case, Lenz's lawsuit would be allowed to move forward.
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