Monday, September 10, 2012

Tag'N'Grab On The Young And The Restless


Is Y&R glorifying copyright infringement?
That would provide a poor example to its viewers


The CBS daytime soap opera The Young and The Restless has some its characters launching a website that they call Tag'N'Grab. The users of that fictional website are taggers. From what I gather, without watching the show, is that it's some sort of crowdsourced scraper, and that at one time, baby-related items were "tagged and grabbed" within some storyline.

This fictional website sounds like a version of Pinterest.

To feature it on a television program glorifies copyright infringement, and desensitizes the public to its harmful effects on the creative community. I would prefer if the writers of The Young and The Restless, who, being themselves writers vulnerable to infringement, would instead educate their viewership that you can't TAG or GRAB everything on the internet without putting yourself at risk for a very expensive lawsuit.

4 comments:

Kelly Schumacher said...

What you've heard about the show and its fictional website isn't exactly on spot. As it turns out, the Tag n Grab site actually revolves around selling products in a social networking environment.

As the scenario has been laid out, vendors sign on to display (and sell) their products via the website. Tag n Grab users/members then "tag" the products they like, and the "grab" part comes into play when the user purchases an item they've tagged. Vendor gets a sale with a bit of viral marketing on the side (e.g., "Look at that awesome hat Phyllis just bought!"), and the website takes a percentage. Social networking meets e-commerce.

The story line has even involved heated negotiations between the website owners and a potential merchant, thereby reinforcing the notion that you can't just go about using other people's (and businesses) "stuff" on the Internet without their permission. Even if doing so could help sell said stuff. These scenes may well have even educated some viewers in a few other slippery e-commerce concepts, such as the monetary value of reciprocal links, redirects, etc.

I don't know how viable a business model it would be in real life, but I find it a fascinating notion. And I think if you looked into it a little deeper, you might even commend the show for their responsible treatment of the topic.

A Glass Artist said...

WOW

If that's true, and I have no reason to doubt your description, I'm actually very impressed!

Kelly Schumacher said...

And I'm not even on their payroll. :-) :-)

Stormy Day said...
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