A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Friday, June 04, 2010

Stephen Cobert on intellectual property theft

Call it plagiarism. Call it copyright infringement. Call it theft of intellectual property. Call it whatever you want, but TV comic Stephen Cobert has a word for it. Well, not exactly a word. Let's call it a hand gesture.

Here's the setup:
1. During the televised Grammy awards ceremony, Cobert wore a jacket with a large inside pocket called the "iPad Suit Pocket."

2. Not long thereafter The Wall Street Journal ran a story about jacket with a large inside pocket called the "iPad Suit Pocket."

3. The Journal didn't acknowledge Cobert had it first.

4. So Cobert had a perfect opportunity to make The Journal look like a bunch of amateurs.

5. He took the opportunity.
Watch here. Content advisory: The gesture is impolite. Some would call it an obscene gesture.

About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.