In a spectaularly eccentric piece of shceduling, on Sunday, the BBC's

hi-end arts channel,BBC4, screened the hoary 'Carry on Loving'. I felt compelled

to watch, hoping it would reveal contain some insight into socal history

that would justify it's screening.

Actually, I wasn't dissapointed.

Charles Hawtry is arrested following a misunderstanding in a public lavatory at

a railway station. The police officer happens to be patrolling the area and

is in prime position to apprehend the offender so as to preserve the peace.

In itself, this harmless tosh. Police don't hang around deserted

Underground stations detering crime. They never have done; only in films and TV.

Yet many of the British public seriously think that current criminal policy

should be based on what they've seen in fiction - that police must get 'back

on the beat'. 'Carry on Loving' aside, this perception is largley based on the

memory of the police drama 'Dixon of Dock Green'.

We recently did a blind listening test on the same file - encoded as a wav and different bitrate mp3s.

We could easily discern the difference between a wav and the highest (320kbs) mp3 file - much more ooph and the stop frequencies sparkled considerably more. However, we were surprised that we couldn't tell the difference between mp3 encoded at bitrates down to 128kbs.

We're often asked to provide 'the smallest practical file size' for games and web applications - so the rule would seem to be: if you're streaming music or space is at a premium, go

for 128kbs mp3s - if there are no filesize limitations, wavs are the way to go.

Geoff

If you think you can use a commercial, copyrighted piece of music in your project, think again! internet discussion boards are full of vague assertions that there are a number of ‘get out clauses’. Claims made about use of copyrighted music include:

The copyright holder is dead:

Some people seem to think that Michael Jackson’s back catalogue is now a free for -all -since his death. Unfortunately it is definitely not OK for Tiddles to frolic along to "Beat It" or any other Jackson song. Copyright is transferred automatically, to his estate, or publishers, or someone else – but it’s unlikely to be you.

The piece is ‘widely known’, so it isn’t copyrighted:

Someone is probably getting confused with patent law here, anyway it’s not true. It doesn’t matter how well established a piece is, it doesn’t suddenly go out of copyright in this way.

The recording of the piece is poor quality or in the background:

Much claimed and completely untrue. The prominence of a piece of music used in film is not an issue. If it’s recognisable and you don’t have permission you can’t have it playing.

Time has rendered the piece out of copyright:

Ah, true. The opening to Beethoven’s 5th symphony is, of course, out of copyright. So can you use it on a youtube video? Only sort of, we fear. Although the piece itself is out of copyright, have you got the permission of the orchestra playing it? Thought not. If you can play and record it yourself, then that’s fine, but unfortunately you’ll need to learn to play a load of orchestral instruments to virtuoso standard first - or hire an orchestra and a conductor.

There is a ‘fair use’ clause with music use:

This is one of the more fascinating pieces of internet folkore. It’s true that legally, there is a ‘fair use’ defence that can be wielded against those that claim breach of copyright. Music used in the context of a critical review or sometimes as a parody is acceptable in some cases. However, it is only a legal defence. There is no ‘policy’ of fair use.

Using music legally on youtube videos boils down to a number of options:

1) Create the music yourself.

2) Get permission from someone else to use thier music.

3) Pay a ‘royalty free music’ site for a license to use their music.

4) Use one of the small number of free sites, such as ours.

In case anyone was wondering what this Christmas marlarky was all about,

the BBC helpfully scheduled 'The Story of the Nativity' for a whopping

5 minutes at 11.45pm on Christmas Day.

Handily, the BBC's flagship series, Dr Who, skillfully weaved a Nativity

theme with a polite nod to the Easter story all in one Christmas Day special.

(The protaganist gets sort of ressurected after being guided by a star).

Overall, it was a wonderfully written piece - turning up the emotional

overdrive to 11 in paces - but, God, the editing....The pace of it was

bordering on the comedic.Establishing shots - no time.

Music ebbing and flowing with the pace - not a chance.

This was full on war by timpani and swooshy hits, relentless for 60 minutes.

In the space of one minute the female lead enters the scene driving a

sort of souped-up Wicker Man, gets zapped with a tiara by a couple of

humanoid bits of garden furniture, realises that the key to saving her

[already dead] husband is to concentrate on something or other, and

still has time to injest a forest that's being attacked by acid rain

(I didn't really get this bit).

What I'd like to know is: Where's the time for a coffee and a Jaffa Cake?

The production felt similar to a adventure computer game where the 'in between'

bits can be skipped ovee with a press of the 'triangle' button.

Perhaps this is the key to modern drama. After all, games are bigger business

than TV - so perhaps TV is simply responding to a viewing generation who doesn't

need to wait for anything.

Tiggergate

24 hours of solid Purple Planet partying led to some traditonal festive ill-feeling.

The fate of three of our party is barely known - hopelessly standed in rural Cheshire

in snow, freezing temperatures, and with all taxis booked up for four hours.

Those who drove faired little better, contriving to crash...into each other.

We spent an hour on a railway platform in the company of a bizarre Beetlejuice

lookalike who took exception to my tie - on the grounds of it being 'too papal'

Things looked up with by the appearance of a Ribena bottle that had been

sensibly pre-loaded with vodka.

Natural justice was suspended. We thought we won an oversized Tigger

stuffed toy in a raffle, but, on some a specious technicality, our winning ticket was

deemed 'invalid'. Tigger would have been given a nice warm home in our studio-

but now he'll just have to bounce...bounce...bounce.....to the soup kitchen.

There was an article in Britain's Times Newspaper ascribing the enormous success of the BBC's Wildlife Documentary 'Frozen Planet' to the fact that's it's bleak artic feel was, somehow, a metaphor for our times. There may be an element of truth in this observation, but I think the real deal in this respect has to to be Fenton the runaway black labrador.

Fenton is a serious contender for greatest viral of all time - and will surely give Dog Tease a good run for it's money in the animals category. But Fenton is made of sterner symbolic stuff. Part of its joy is that the owner is so hopelesssly behind the action - his chance of regaining control is nil. That pretty much sums up 2011 whether you're a Prime Minister in Eurozone or a night shift foreman.

Once again, the greatest brains in adland see their Christmas efforts

screened. John Lewis Partnership have hit gold with the Adam and Eve

agency with something bordering on a, gulp, Christian, Christmas message.

At the other end of the evolutionary scale, flogging games consols

is a thankless task - as there can always be severe objections to something

so essentially isolating and vacous, but Nintendo don't care:

Particularly objectionable is the attempt to tie in 'happy families' to

'tonnes of games'. Perhaps you don't want to stay with your damn family at all -

as, oddly, my mother once said.

An enterprising agency should go with this if they've got the nerve.

Have the ghastly family straining to gulp down an overcooked turkey in the gloom,

and sell a package to the Maldives off the back of the back of it.

Meanwhile, Morrisons supermarket, has gone with ex-cricketer,

Freddy Flintoff, reeling off a series of Christmasy cliches with

the payoff line of "People will DEFINATLY COME"

I have yet to experience such Christmas induced ecstasy.

Geoff