Viacom Apologizes!

Its officially over!

I was personally contacted by an executive at Viacom, who explained how my film got mixed into their system. Juxtaposer was in a film festival that was presented by Nicktoons, which is of course a Viacom company. They offered selections of the festival as downloadable content, and Juxtaposer was one of them. They just forgot that Viacom's rights to those films were all nonexclusive. He personally assured me that Viacom is no longer making a claim to my film and YouTube should be sending me documents affirming that shortly.

Thanks again to everyone on my blogs and on the Consumerist! And also, thank you to Viacom who stepped up, admitted their mistake and apologized, within two days. This is definitely a nightmare averted.

"Viacom Steals" Update

I want to thank everyone who commented on my blogs, YouTube page, and on the Consumerist, and left me such great advice. I did dispute Viacom's claim immediately. And surprisingly enough, after one day of throwing a hissyfit, the "claimed by Viacom" tag has been taken off my video. However, I'm still a tiny bit concerned because I haven't had any further communication from YouTube alerting me to a final decision. They would send me a "hey, sorry about that! Our bad." email when it was all over, wouldn't they? Maybe so, maybe not. But just in case things become sour, I'm very happy that I now have resources to turn to. Again, thanks to everyone who gave me a hand!

Viacom Wants To Steal My Film

I just got a notification from YouTube.com that Viacom has made a copyright ownership claim to my film Juxtaposer.

It is so absurd that it frightens me. I got my film's copyright secured in October 2006, and I only entered into distribution agreements that were nonexclusive. I can't fathom under what pretense Viacom has made this claim. There's no money in it for them. The dollars I've made from Juxtaposer can be counted on my fingers. Maybe they just really liked it. Maybe they want to make my life just a little bit more miserable. Or maybe this is their way of gloating over their recent court victory against Google.

Anyhow, I've disputed their claim and I have the documents to back it up. I'm just a scared that my little film will be lost in the shadow of the hulking monolith called Viacom.

Daily Crapbook

Daily Crapbook

"Blowin' Smoke"- This Monday Night!

As a follow-up to that blurb in the AJC, I though I should mention that "Blowin' Smoke" will be screening on July 14th at 8pm at the Five Spot bar in Atlanta's hipster district Little Five Points...for FREE.

The stuff I'm screening is a project I won't be able to release online for a long while, but I am allowed to screen it among friends. Aren't ya just frothing over with curiosity??

Hopefully, I'll see you Monday night!

Blurb In The AJC

I submitted some work to ASIFA-Atlanta's professional animation show "Blowin' Smoke", and the write up in the Atlanta Journal Constitution included a screenshot of mine and a little blurb about how awesome I am.

That makes today's daily drawing a little inappropriate, considering how happy I am...

The Squirrel Is Out To Get Me

I'm still a novice at illustration, but this picture turned out so nice its hardly embarrassing at all! I'm posting it in stages so you can see how it progressed. If you or your sister has any suggestions on technique I'd be very happy to hear them!

"Cup O Jo" Doodles

Computer Doodles

One More Computer Doodle

Computer Doodles

Today my doodles were done on the computer. I need the practice. I do like the last one though...its an image inspired by the song "Monkey Rag" by the Asylum Street Spankers. (Thats such a great song- if I ever have enough faffing-about-time I'd like to make it into a music video.)