Copyright shoppyright..

On our recent India trip, we were in Chennai going from Mylapore to West Mambalam when the little one kept saying "I think I just saw Jr.'s photo on a big banner ad for fireworks store". 

Given the noise level in the auto rickshaw and traffic and also given the improbable odds of something like that, we promptly ignored the little one.

Today BB sent us a photo saying "we were driving through Doraisawamy subway when we saw a picture of a girl who looks just like Jr. in a fireworks ad! Wanted to share it with you". 

Guess what?! It is Junior bursting fire crackers and it is a photo from this blog that someone copied without asking for permission! At least sending us some free fireworks would have been a decent gesture. 

Now here is the irony. The original photo is of Jr. celebrating with sparklers in Cupertino and the sparklers were purchased in the local Chinese store. They defiinitely did not come from Sivakasi. 

This is turnign out like the Nikon camera ad that was shot with Canon cameras. 

Needless to say this capture has created some issues at home about blogging, photos of the kids on the internet etc. etc. 

Jr. is happy that she has become a posthumus child model given her childhood has become a thing of the past. 

The little one is claiming she is a genius for pointing this out right. She is also upset that Jr's photo was copied while she is "much cuter" as a child with fireworks. 

San and MIL are just getting on the lecture train..

You know what they say.. 

When life gives you fireworks... just enjoy them!

Training day

The girls did not stop at being "just like thatha". They wanted to copy Madras paati (grandma) as well. They figured out that the grandparents went ecstatic when they were being followed around and used that to good advantage to win the good graces of grandma.

Here is Jr. insisting on learning how to peel and cut onions from Grandma.

Initially she was happy and within a few minutes she regret the decision. Cutting tomatoes would have been a better choice.

In spite of being all teary eyed, she finished the job and made Grandma and me proud!

The copying did not stop with the onion cutting. It went on and on, from buying little wire baskets, filling them with random things and carrying them everywhere to keeping a giant size bindi with kumgumam(vermillion).

Both Jr. and the little one adapted really well this time. They ate at roadside dabas, used eastern style restrooms behind these highway dabas where even the grandparents who are resident desis were having second thoughts. They made it relatively easier for daddy this time compared to the last trip (especially since my right hand is still not a 100% and it is very difficult to carry the little one everywhere).

In another year, things will be even better if both of them eat by themselves and their mom trains them to eat pani pooris without making a mess. Then daddy can relax in the house and encourage all three of them to go eat out!

The plan is there.. just have to keep working on it.

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Copy wopy, plagiarize vagiarize...blog shwog..

Have been watching how the mommy blogger circle is catching up on plagiarizing of posts. Kiran, who I read regularly (especially her self deprecating posts crack me up) was copied. So were other Mommy bloggers.

One possible theory based on a funny conversation I had at a party recently with a friends friend.

Me : So what are all those guys in that circle doing these days?
FF : Most of them have gone back to India over the last two years.
Me : what about that dude? and his roomate?
FF : "that dude" is still here. His roomate went back and is now settled in UP and he is doing great.
Me : what does he do?
FF : Oh, he is making a lot of money in advertising!
Me : Wow! that is nice. didn't know that he was into advertising..
FF : No NO.. not that type of advertising. He is making money by generating internet traffic!
Me : ????

FF goes on to explain

FF : He has hired a lot of women, mostly women with kids who want to work parttime from home. They all generate a network of websites using blogger and generate cross traffic. The people he hires read other blogs, pick up things of interest and create cross linked blogs. He promotes these and gets a cut on the ad. revenue!

Me : My god.. this puts Amway to shame by a wide margin! This is like the Borg that keeps assimilating things in star trek! Even people who are not part of the original clique will get sucked into this ring!

FF : exactly!

This conversation is now three months old. I guess the whole thing is so legit that it has blurred the difference between real traffic and fake traffic.

Imagine a thousand people clicking on each other's blog ad's a few hours a day..

now Imagine some dude laughing his ass off watching people who pour their heart out in blog posts realize

1. they have been plagiarized
2. they are fuming
3. the more they fume the more traffic comes to these sites
4. the copycats get to make money and blur the lines
5. they can calmly lose a few of the sites and start new ones and keep making money

It is a funny world, no?

ps. Not sure if that is what is happening here, but thought all bloggers should know that there is such an outfit out there with hundreds of "employees" working on a blog generating company!

pps. How do you find out if you have been plagiarized? Is there a utility? Or like the iphone ads say "is there an app for it?"

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Movie Sequences

It is common these days to see Indian movies blatantly copy foreign movies with a small twist in the end. For some reason, the entire scene by scene lifting of another movie has reduced drastically in the last year.

The new trend is to just recreate segments of hit western or south east asian movies. Segments as in, a series of stunt sequences, family situations, drama situations etc. Needless to say, if they never gave any credit to the original after copying an entire movie, they are not going to give any credit for copying segments.

The funny thing is the arguments between me and the Mrs. on these sequences. Somehow she manages to forget the original sequence and is amazed by the creativity of the Director or actor or cinematographer! That gets to me more than the director. It is easier for me to show relation to the original when the source of the sequences is another Indian movie.

For example, the movie we watched recently can be expressed with the equation:

Thotaa = Thotti Jaya + Fanaa - Chimpu

where Chimpu is the fudge factor, or in movie terms the sludge factor!

Here is another sequence:

Hero is cornered on a high rise building
He is standing on the parapet wall on the top floor looking down
The old and wise cop is puffing and panting but nevertheless has a gun pointed at the hero
Cop delivers a dialogue about how the entire building is surrounded and it is "surrender" or "death by falling"!
Hero lets cop count
Just as cop counts one hero spots a train in a distance. (the tracks are not even close to the building, but what the hell!)
When the cop counts three, there is a .5 second pause and the hero falls, arms out
Then we see the rope he is holding
He swings a distance of around half a mile and precisely lands on the top of the train.
The hero looks back and smiles
The old cop who looks like he needs eye glasses rated +5.5 in the right eye and +6.5 in the left, gives a wry smile and identifies the hero's face from the train top a mile away..

Familiar??? Lets see what you think the original is!

Here is another one.

Boy comes to girls parents house to be introduced.
Boy has just lost his job before joining girl on the trip
He needs money
The prospective father in law figures out that he has money troubles
So they have a race (running, go-cart, whatever) and if the boy wins the girls dad will loan him the money, if not the boy should leave the girl alone and walk away!
In the same movie girl stops talking to boy because he hid his "losing the job" part from her. Eventually boy helps girls dad join girls mom (they are fighting as well) and the parents help girl join boy! The director of the Tamizh copy is even supposed to have attributed the sequence to a wrong original! If you are a movie trivia buff name the original, copy and the wrong original mentioned in the media..

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