The Postal Service speaks about Intel Ad

With regard to #31. OK, so Steve Jobs signs off on the ads. What makes you think he's ever seen the Postal Service video, or even heard of the band?

The onus was on the director here, not Steve or the company.

Most likely, the directors actually own the rights to the images in the original music video, and their contract with SubPop/The Postal Service to make the video gave them usage of those images for purposes of promoting the record "Such Great Heights."??Any other additional usage can be granted by the rights holders (the directors) as they see fit.?
This is not unusual at all. This is the way the business works when you don't own the whole production company and instead hire freelance creatives to do a job as independent contractors.??If Apple had used The Postal Services MUSIC in the ad, this would have been unethical. The Postal Service owns the rights to their music because they created it, they don't own the rights to images they didn't create though. The creators of those images do. ??In the photography world, for example, if you hire a photographer as an independent contractor (meaning he doesn't work for you on a full-time basis, and you don't have to pay him any benefits, and you aren't liable for any claims if an accident or injury occurs on the shoot, the photographer is,) the photographer owns the rights to the images he shoots for you and you are granted a release for only the usage specified. If you want exclusive usage, or unlimited usage, the price you have to pay goes way up (like at least 200% of a regular usage agreement typically) obviously, The Postal Service/SubPop chose not to pay this hefty charge, so they really don't have much leg to stand on. ??You get the useage/exclusivity you PAY $$$ for. ??Some photographers, ect. will simply keep their rights and won't sell them off for any amount of money. It's their prerogative, just like it is the prerogative of the art buyer to hire them or not based on that understanding.

In addition, unless the band came up with the TREATMENT for the video themselves, which is basically like the screenplay for the video with storyboards, (which is almost never the case, usually the director of the video comes up with several treatments and the band/label picks among them,) the directors who came up with the treatment own that IP. ?
This of it this way: If Steven King writes a book or a screenplay, he can sell the rights to make that IP into a movie to a production company like Universal Pictures, but he can later sell that same IP to another company to make a video game based on that movie to a different company, or sell the IP to a comic book company like Marvel or DC to make a graphic novel or comic book based on that IP, or even sell the IP to a television network to make a series based on the story.??It happens all the time. This is no different.??If a company like Universal wanted EXCLUSIVE rights to Steven King's story, they'd have to pay a much larger amount of money for that exclusivity.??Since all but the most sensational big-budget pop acts' music videos are often made at very marginal (if any) profit for the director (most directors use music videos like these as an excuse to shoot something for their promo reels, not as a big payday,) an exclusivity agreement is never in the cards...neither SubPop nor The Postal Service should expect an exclusivity they never paid for.?

On Tueaday, Gibbard also added a celebrity playlist to the iTMS as part of the band Death Cab for Cutie.

Examine his wording. He is "disappointed" that the filmmakers and Apple did not approach him. That's reasonable. He's not saying any law has been broken. But he's also not suggesting that he has any legal recourse.

It's like if we're friends and you date my sister without asking me, I might be disappointed, but I can't expect to win a lawsuit over it.

Wow, the Postal Service hate is shocking. For one they are a side project. They were never meant to be anything other than a fun experiment. They were never marketed on any substanial basis for the first year of release. People only bought the music based on its quality, it could have sold 50 copies, but it went gold.

I can't believe someone would try to call a side project that has never even made a live TV appearance (although they're popular for commercials) lame. Seriously, go back and listen to Maroon 5 and Mariah Carey, some people actually look through the radio crap and listen to good music.

If the artists never choose to release another CD or song, I wouldn't mind one bit. Ben and Jimmy are still making great music on their respective bands, Death Cab for Cutie and Dntel.

As for the video, it was a pretty obvious copy, Ben has every right to think someone in the band should have been consulted. The responsiblity really falls on the director.

yeah, the postal service has always came to me as a stuck up lame ass band that losers at my school listen to

This is probably the worst thing I had read about Apple and it is the biggest blow on my trust on Apple since I had ever known about them with their boisterous launch of the original iMac. This is not a new product. This is not a new service. This is just a new ad, a frame-for-frame rip-off of a music video by the Postal Service.

Every frame, from the moment the woman looks up to her colleague, to the moment the chip is in the picture, is exactly the same - same motion, same compositions, same colors, almost the same music - with the exception that the chip now writes Intel (with a more crisp image), and the actor is stripped out of her emotion, which hinted a love relationship in the original music video. It is easy to conclude that

With this stripped-down movie and without a word, it sounds like Apple is declaring that its cold white designs had triumphed emotion.

Apple is doing something that violated design ethics. If it's any other companies I won't care, I will just laugh. But Apple is a company that likes to emphasize on its own brilliant designs.

It is not that I like Postal Service or I hate Apple to make me stand on the side of the Postal Service. That the video directors actually had the guts to duplicate their work is another story, and shows that their creativity and design ethics are both near zero.

On the other side, shame on Apple which specifically asked these video directors to make a duplicate for its own new products. This is a giant blow to its corporate image, when it heralds its products for creative professionals. How can a company that sells video editing software have an ad that is a rip off of someone else's video? With such logic, is it true that a 'creative' giant can rip off less famous artists without being unethical about it? What is so creative about Apple when it rips off someone else's video (not to mention its slogan disses all other computer companies) in such a public manner?

Usually, it can be forgiven by saying that the designers of the products are not responsible for the marketing of them, since two departments are usually not very related in corporations. But Apple is different: Steve Jobs is the Chief DESIGN Officer of Apple. How he can release such video without noticing that it is a rip is a mystery to me.

Some comments on this issue in those tech sites such as Engadget or TUAW are horrible to read. Despite the zombie-like group of zealots with their arrogant attitudes argued how Apple is still right, it is of no help: No matter how designed the products are, they dont make their users creative designers, they just make a bunch of arrogant socialites who uses iPod has the symbol of their social status.

If Apple does not apologize publicly for Such Great Mistake, I, as a creative professional, will be every bit disgusted when using an Apple - with the horror of using a hypocritical machine that one day may rip any designers' work - not to mention that I am already annoyed as hell by the incinerator fans of the PowerMac G5s.

Beauty is such a fragile thing.

The video:

http://youtube.com/w/The-Postal-Service---Such-Great-Heights?v=33WfhhG7gsI&search=such%20great%20heights

The ad:

http://youtube.com/w/Apple?v=tYbwpg5qiYs

Check it out for yourselves - as much as I'd like to say that the Apple ad was a complete knock-off, it wasn't. It was clearly done by the same director with the same concept - but the shots are totally different. Sorry The Postal Service, I was all for you for a sec there, but please - stop bitching.

I think everyone's missed the obvious here. That this is Stanley Kubrik's beyond-the-grave revenge. Those aren't bunny suits. That's Dave's space suit from "2001".

Poster #29, you've got it right.

It's the DIRECTOR that is to blame, here.

With all due respect to said Director, that was simply creatively lazy.

I would bet my bottom dollar that Jobs knew nothing about this fairly obscure video. Did someone at Apple know? Most assuredly.

However, let's assume you're some second-level driver code monkey down in the bowels of 1 Infinite Loop. The first time YOU see the video is on the private video feed to Apple HQ of the MacWorld Stevenote. Are YOU gonna raise your hand up and say "Excuse me! Mr., Mr. Jobs? Yeah. That's a GREAT commercial! Great. But, um... you DO know it looks, um, like this MUSIC VIDEO I saw by um, a band called The Postal Service? Why, yes, Mr. Jobs, I'd be happy to come to your office to talk about it after the show. (You can guess the rest...)

So, the Director and TBWA Chiat Day are probably much more to blame that His Steveness, IMHO.

That is all. Chow.

-Doug

Ben Gibbard uses a Mac. Sorry Yebot.