The SEC's Brave New World

Since an Aldous Huxley reference would be a little cliche I'll go with a STYX album instead.

As many of you have already heard from here, here, here, and here there's a new sheriff in town and his name is Horse Sh*t.

I'll readily admit I haven't analyzed this stuff under a microscope but from what I gather unlicensed media cannot post clips, interviews, shower-scenes, etc... from SEC football. I take this to mean no more YouTube collaborations from bloggers and Sunday Morning Quarterbacks (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Being that I had some great ideas for this season, I'm a little irritated at these new restrictions but I think I might have a tip for those who are interested.

Last year I bought some software called, Dazzle, from a local electronics store called Micro Center for approximately $75. This software allows you to record football games or TV shows to your DVR and then run an A/V line out to a USB cable where you can download and edit them with your computer. Needless to say I had a blast with this stuff and my levels of self-gratification from doing stupid stuff such as this...
...were at an all-time high.

But I quickly learned thanks to handy little notices like this one:

"This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG. The audio has been disabled."

...you don't tag your background music unless you want Eddie Van Halen's piss-on to write you an ugly note about using copyrighted music.

So that's my suggestion if you still want to create your own tributes to SEC football by making highlight collages. Pick up some capture/edit software and as long as you don't tag any of the stuff hopefully no one will find it by doing a basic search. Will it make it difficult for the average fan to find? Absolutely, but if nothing else it won't completely disable your ability to have a little fun due to the SEC's new Fairness Doctrine.

Per David Hale:

...I’m guessing after your favorite team gets spanked by a rival, you’re not looking for the watered-down version of what happened. Perhaps you really don’t care where the information is coming from, but my guess is that you value quality journalism a lot more than they give you credit for. Maybe you go to one place and one place only for your news. But I’d be willing to bet the majority of you have gotten used to being able to surf a few dozen sites to get a broad view of Georgia football.

I'd agree with that, my first stop after a Georgia win is to get the quality journalism first and foremost. I want to know the stats, I want to know where we lagged, and I want to relive moment after glorious moment of a victory. Then after I've had my fill of people who obtained degrees in Journalism I want to hear from the Business majors. Yeah, I know it's not the most politically correct crowd, but if I want to see Tim Tebow highlights set to a Wham! song with the word "queer" plastered on the screen I think (as an apple-pie eatin' American) I have that right!

But in all seriousness, would you expect otherwise? It's the same type of money-grab free-for-all that replaced Mr. Toad's Wild Ride with Winnie the Pooh Takes a Dump on Your Soul at the Magic Kingdom. Mo Money, Mo Problems says I and it doesn't appear to be getting better anytime soon. The awful part is, with the free-market, this still falls well within what fans are willing to put-up with in order to get their college football fix. The crux of the biscuit isn't the apostrophe, it's where the media deal decides it can squeeze more limitations into the picture. THAT should be about as fun to watch as Mississippi State/Auburn 2008 highlights.