Google vs PRS

Youtube have taken down thousands of music videos from their site. The move is part of a licensing spat between Google, who run the video streaming website Youtube and the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which collects royalties for musicians. Google claim that the licensing terms proposed by PRS are prohibitively expensive, and would lead to a financial loss every time a video is played.


Understandably the move has created quite a buzz across the internet. Youtube is a staple of the contemporary online experience, and a move like this is guaranteed a huge amount of public attention.

My feelings are that the dramatic and wholesale removal of music videos by major artists is not just a strongarm negotiating tactic, but a calculated public relations move. Google is well aware that widespread loyalty to its brand will motivate public opinion against PRS, and it is has every interest in dragging this tiff into the public sphere. The PRS on the other hand has received bad press recently for demanding license fees from all manner of unlikely and inappropriate venues, (including police stations and workplaces) and is unlikely to receive much sympathy, especially among internet users who have become accustomed to obtaining free music. That Google are appealling to the court of public opinion is made clear by their reference to the Arctic Monkeys, a wildly popular band which rose to prominence through social media sites.

It is an increasingly common opinion that the music industry needs to be rethought, and that the regime run by the PRS is symbolic of a business model who's time has passed. This fallout gives real life form to that debate, and for that reason it will be interesting to see how it pans out. A cultural gulf lies between both sides, and it is the role of communications professionals to bring these differences to the fore.

In particular both sides assign different cultural meaning to Youtube. For PRS, Youtube music videos are an end in themselves. For the vast majority of Youtube users however, Youtube music videos are simply marketing tools, too low quality to be comparable to the final product. The assertion is that while hearing music should be free, music which warrants ownership will be bought. Indeed a comment on the Guardian website suggested that music companies should be paying Youtube for advertising space.

Ryanair wage war on blogosphere

Just had this article brought to my attention. It concerns Ryanair's approach to a blogger's comment about their website. It's a good story because it contains a sort of double reveal.

First theres the ridiculously pumped up Ryanair IT technician, who swoops on the post, accuses the blogger of being "an idiot and a liar", proceeds to attack his web development credentials and finally produces some weird semi-threat (see picture) which centres around giving away a million free Ryanair flights.


Undiplomatic backoffice staff member starts slinging insults around on the blogosphere; this is where you'd expect the comms department to wade in, issuing some sort of humble apology to quell the impending swell of blogo-rage. Right?

Wrong. In a statement released to Travalution a spokesperson for Ryanair said:

Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

So theres our second reveal - Ryanair do actually hate bloggers. Naturally, elements within the blogosphere have taken exception, calling Ryanair's statement "woeful", and threatening never to fly with the airline again. But despite the limited ire caused by Ryanair's statement, I don't think it is the worst thing the company could have said.



At least they're crystal clear about their online strategy. A large number of neo-PR types would balk at the idea of taking on the internet in a PR war. But I don't think its so desperately crazy to conceive of a communications approach that not only attempts to isolate the inhabitants of the blogosphere (see picture above), but resolves to take a dump on them as well. Research has shown that bloggers are not trusted (except by other bloggers). They have a reputation as self absorbed timewasters and it is beyond debate that the 'blogosphere' contains some of the most pointless fluff ever committed to type.

Whereas some businesses might have a lot to gain from getting into bed with these self appointed guardians of the internet, many might just as reasonably conclude that associating with bloggers is so counterproductive that the best strategy is to ignore them or, should they get narky with you or your staff, sling faeces from a distance.

I think Ryanair have judged their target market well. As a customer looking for a cheap flight, I would indeed prefer that Ryanair staff were "driving down the cost of air travel" (whatever that physically involves) than taking part in virtual love-ins on wordpress, blogger and the like. I'd take comfort in Ryanair's focus and their everyman contempt for the loudmouth internet nobody.

But while I've got some admiration for the sentiment of the release, I do feel it could have been written a bit more better. Comms staff really needed to offset the clumsy beligerence of the original blog postings, and I'm not sure they managed to do that. Words like "idiot" are a bit harsh to be used in a press release. "Lunatic" I quite like though. Even though it masks hundreds of years of mistreatment of the mentally ill, I'd generally consider it an affectionate term and one with considerable PR purchase.

Propaganda in War

In the first lesson of this module, we discussed ways of creating public consent for acts of war, and then we watched a film - called War and Spin - about how to control representations of international conflict in the media.


Set during the second Gulf War, War and Spin follows British and American journalists as they cavort around the Iraqi landscape in pursuit of objective news reportage. While intended as comment on the coalition's strict handling of media access during the war, overall I found myself cheering on the American infantry, who spent the whole thing landing helicopters and speeding around the sparkling dunes of the Iraqi desert in IMVs. Private Jessica Lynch is hot as the love interest rescued from evil Iraqi doctors, and Brigadier General Vincent Brooks (pictured above) is convincing as the army spokesman in the media centre, lording over the holographic display screen while telling the nosey brit to lie the f**k down. In fact the last person you wanted to be (apart obviously from an Iraqi extra or Saddam) was the lead journalist (played by Clive Myrie) who was either a) miserably embedded with troops and being made to cry because he couldn't hold a gun, or b) miserably cooped up in the CENTCOM centre with hundreds of other journalists and being made to cry because Brig. Gen. Brooks told him his question was literally meaningless in front of everyone.

Of course I'm being glib, but only because this blog is about PR, not the horrors of war or the moral and political ramifications of unilateral regime change. And from the point of view of PR, it seems that the second war in the Gulf created what practitioners crave: infinite journalistic interest combined with utter journalistic dependency. Naturally, journalists were quick to criticise the restrictions put on their work, but they couldn't complain too loudly. The amount of media access made possible during the conflict was unprecedented.

But it remains debateable how far coverage of the Iraq war actually helped to sway public opinion in the UK, a significant proportion of which continued to oppose the war, even after the invasion began. Initial coverage was generally positive - perhaps due to the PR strategies employed - and for a short time, the war went from political liability to boon. However, as the conflict has dragged out and its premises have continued to be tested, the media excitement around the 2003 offensive has given way to more sober assessment, with the only respite being what some have called Iraq Fatigue, which has to some extent dulled reader and editor interest in the issue. Damaging criticism of Tony Blair, George Bush and Gordon Brown as a result of the war shows that even with favourable PR conditions in place, it remains difficult, if not impossible, to polish a political turd.