Archive for August, 2006

Why beat about the bush eh ?

Animal House and anonymous publisher who’ve been running so many of my pictures are the ailing (circulation-wise) Zoo Magazine and media monolith EMAP, owners of Heat, FHM, Loaded, Mojo, Q Magazine and numerous radio stations.

Well, this week’s edition of Zoo Magazine (Publisher EMAP) has come out and the changes promised by Associate Editor (Entertainment) Ben Wilson have not been made.

I accepted a goodwill gesture of the same prize they were sending to someone who sent in an image a couple of weeks ago (because I was being sooooo nice about things) on condition that it’s acceptance did not nullify the problem or affect my legal rights in any way.

Interestingly, the prize was a (I think discontinued) DVD player you can buy on Amazon for about £19 and a few DVDs.
For a magazine with a young age profile, (ABC1C2 16-30) I wonder if they check the ages of the prize recipients as among the DVDs were a couple of 18 certificate movies.
I’m sure the sponsors of the page who sometimes provide the prizes have a duty of care just as EMAP does to ensure that adult material doesn’t fall into the hands of under 18s. This week, the prize provider is Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Importantly, I was asking for changes to be made that acknowledged the viral creators as well as those who sent them in, not just a resolution for my current problem.

I called today to find out why the promises weren’t kept and was assured that I would be called back when Ben made it back from lunch.

Well, at the time of writing it’s obvious he’s having a pretty good lunch as he has failed to call back.

I suppose the ‘flash’ at the top of this week’s magazine’s cover gives it all away.
“50 BEST NEW JOKES – STOLEN FROM THE UK’S FUNNIEST STAND-UPS” and inside states that they are all from The Edinburgh Festival.
Whether or not it is true that they stole them, the magazine seems to revel in declaring they misappropriate material (I assume to save on it’s editorial budget.)

Funnily enough, The Edinburgh festival ran a course for comedians this year on how to ’stop their jokes being stolen by rivals’

Click here for full story from The Scotsman

I’ll add to this post a little later with a summary of what happened which I was asked to prepare for a National Newspaper and for a well known blog.

A couple of talented viral creators have been having the same problem – pictures appearing with tags removed and no attempt to discover who created them.
I think they’re also going to contact Ben soon.

An old one, done before I started my blog.

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