ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

For those who are unaware, there has been a controversy brewing in the Las Vegas “netsphere” for roughly the past month.

I’m not going to re-tell the story from beginning to end because it’s already been told.  But if you need to be brought up to speed, I urge you to read the following article:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/05/8-more-websites-sued-over-r-j-copyrights-34-total/

To sum up the situation very succinctly, as of today, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has sued 34 bloggers, and by all accounts, they will almost certainly sue more.  In their suits, the R-J is alleging copyright infringement against a variety of blogs who have either cut-and-pasted R-J articles, or who have excerpted from those articles too much … “too much” being at the sole discretion of the R-J’s hired suing company.

Some of the targets of the suits have appeared to be legitimate defendants, while others have left people scratching their heads, such as a non-commercial blog about cats authored by a Massachusetts resident.

Since this story has broken, I’ve been asked for an on-the-record comment by one mainstream outlet, and in that time I’ve been approached by a couple of bloggers seeking my opinion.  To all of them, I replied that when I have a comment, I will post it on my own blog.  It’s a complex issue and it’s almost impossible to give a soundbite answer.

Now, before I go any further, I should probably clarify my own position on “borrowing” content and “blogs” in general.

I have always had a very specific ethic for my blog, and that ethic has always dictated that I cannot depend on anyone other than myself for my blog’s content.  For the most part, I think I author blogs that definitely accomplish this goal.  If the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas Weekly, Associated Press, and every other mainstream media outlet were to go belly-up tomorrow, I could continue writing without any interruption, whatsoever.  My blog would not be all that different than it is right now.

As opposed to most “blogs” which are in actuality news-clipping services, I actually write a highly-personal “web log” of my day-to-day life, thoughts and opinions … a “blog” if you will.  I mention the news in the context that it interests me, or when I have something to say about it, but I hardly depend on it.  Were the R-J to fold tomorrow, it would kind of suck because there would be few people left to call me “30% accurate”, but it would have no direct effect on my blog content.

Instead of yammering about the latest headline, I would go Downtown to the Summer of the 70’s, take pictures, and write about it.  I would go to the Adult Entertainment Expo, take pictures, and write about it.  I would get a thought about some completely inane topic (such as cellphones), take pictures, and write about it.  I would spend a week just stumbling around Las Vegas, observe what was going on around me, take pictures, and write about it.

I almost always use my own photographs or derivatives that I have taken my own time to create (such as on this page), and I NEVER cut-and-paste something penned by someone else and pass it off as my own writing.  I don’t need to.  I have more than enough to say on my own.  Hell, there are over 1,000 blog posts on my hard drive that I never published because I simply lost interest or didn’t have the time to finish them.  If you don’t have something to say damn near every day, then starting a blog is probably ill-advised.

Of course, not everyone subscribes to this particular blogging philosophy.

If you find a Las Vegas-related press release online, and paste the first sentence of that release into Google … you will find 20-50 so-called “Las Vegas blogs” re-printing that press release verbatim as if it were their own story.  Some of these “bloggers” will mix a couple of their own stories in with the press releases, but the amount of overt plagiarism is astounding.

This is a large part of why I have always been hesitant to self-identify myself as a “blogger”.  Due to the widespread overuse/abuse of the term, it’s almost become a pejorative.  In a world where everybody, including infants and dogs, have a blog, what does that term really mean?  Think about it.

What does it take to become a “blogger”?

In case you really don’t know, I’ll tell you what it takes.  It takes a $10 domain name from GoDaddy, a few cut-and-pasted lines of text in a Wordpress database, and BLAM … welcome to the fraternity.  Now, you too can walk around with an undeserved sense of self-importance.  You have an identity which impresses hipsters and confounds the technologically illiterate.

Before writing your first article, you might even find that you can completely bamboozle the PR departments of large casino conglomerates:

“Hello, Mirage, yes, I read in the paper that you will be installing a new fish tank tomorrow and I would like to drop by and see it.  9am?  Yes, that sounds good … but here’s the thing … I’m a blogger, and I’m afraid that people will not be aware of this fact when I show up.  Can you print up some badges so that I am not mistaken for a filthy, stinking non-blogger when I get there?  I dunno, something that says ‘Media’, ‘VIP’, or ‘Press’ would be lovely.  You can do that?  Great.  See you at 9.”

Bloggers have always been bad enough, but now with the Twitterati staking their claim as well:

“Hello, Mirage, I have 10,000 Twitter followers, what can you do for me?  Sure, they are reciprocal follows and perhaps 1% of those people actually read my fifteen word masterpieces on any consistent basis, but I’m a social media expert and if you want an amazing tweet you’ll make good with the media pass and the room upgrade.”

What can I tell you, the alternative press has become an enormous parody of itself.

As someone who has always put a huge amount of time and effort into creating my own content (be it text, photos, or videos), I feel that being lumped in with “bloggers” is sometimes a bit insulting.  If bloggers were required to created X% of their own content, I would feel differently, but in 2010, copying and plagiarizing have become standard practice in the blogosphere.

Because of everything I have said above, there is a small part of me that cheers on the Review-Journal in their Don Quixote-esque pursuit of copyright infringement.  There is a little voice in the back of my head that says “Right on R-J.  Fuck those uncreative, recycling plagiarists.  It’s time to wipe the Internet’s ass and finally knock off these parasitic dingleberrys.  Make them sit down, and put pen to paper.  If they want to call themselves writers, make them fucking write.”

No sooner do I finish this thought, however, does it occur to me … “Oh, no.  Over the years, I have liberally excerpt from the Review-Journal myself”.

I mean, how could I not?

Sure, I mostly blog about my own life and my own opinions, but I read the news just like everyone else does, and when I find something interesting in the newspaper … I blog about it.  Most people don’t give a damn about my opinions, but some people do.  If I don’t provide relevant excerpts from the story that has grabbed my attention, then my article will not make sense.  Sometimes a mere link is not sufficient because it would require the reader to hit “forward” and “back” numerous times, and they would almost certainly lose context.  It would be like listening to one side of a telephone conversation in full, and then listening to a recording of the other side in full.  You would hear the entirety of both sides, but it would not have the same meaning.

For official information, I depend on the R-J, Sun, etc every bit as much as a non-blogger.  I don’t do “news” anymore.  I no longer try to be a cub reporter-cum-internet guy.  I no longer stand in line with fifty other eager “bloggers” sporting media passes trying to earn their chops.  I’ve been there and done that.  In my early 20’s with one of the largest circulation newspapers in the nation.  It was terrible.

Not to mention, within the last 12 months or so, when I have tried to cover a particular mass event … I’ve ended up becoming the event to some extent (I’m starting to write like Dr. Seuss).  Whispers, pointing, weird looks, staring, “Hey, are you VegasRex? Can I ask you a couple of things?”.  I don’t know if people are fascinated, amused, confused, or repulsed, but I tend to draw a fair amount of attention when I show up to public events.  You can’t cover the story when you are the story (at least to some small degree), and you have to begin adjusting the way you do things.  Showing up to openings was less stress and more fun when nobody had any idea who I was.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Robin Leach (I don’t understand why he still shows up to openings) or Oscar Goodman, but I am Vegas Fucking Rex, bitch … and that no longer means the absolutely nothing that it did three years ago.  These days, it means being the most popular of the unpopular.  The most famous of the un-famous.

The irony of it all is that nobody in my “real” life has any idea that I even have a blog.  This is why I am able to (honestly) refer to my friends and family as idiots without hurting their feelings.  Assuming they even knew what a “blog” was, they would recognize neither my name or my look (and you thought I just really liked goofy hats and silly sunglasses).

Hell, I don’t even have a strictly Las Vegas following anymore.  I’ve been approached to write technology articles, articles about politics and religion, and all kinds of shit that has absolutely zilch to do with Las Vegas.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not a Las Vegas blogger, I’m a blogger who happens to live in Las Vegas.

What is my point?

My point is that, now that I have witnessed a few years of alt.media access to Las Vegas, my respect for the R-J, Sun, etc has actually risen drastically.  I really thought that the alternative press would set a new standard in online Vegas journalism, but with a few exceptions, it’s become the world’s largest dipped-in-Crisco handjob I’ve ever seen.  I’m beginning to pine for the days of thinly-disguised media bias written by journalists who didn’t piss all over themselves like newborn puppies every time they crossed paths with a D-list celebrity.

Even though I have spent the majority of my life railing against the mainstream media, I find myself coming back to it more often lately.  I used to read more blogs, but now, ironically, I find myself reading the newspaper more and more.  Sure, the mainstream media is pure regurgitated pandering corporate shit, but you know what?  So is 99% of the so-called “social” and “alternative” media.

I used to eagerly await the day for corporate media to completely disintegrate, but now I’m not so sure anymore.  Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.

Maybe I don’t want the R-J to go bankrupt.  Maybe I don’t want the Sun to implode.  Maybe they really do serve a purpose.  Maybe, warts and all, they are way better than we are.  Even though they are corrupt tools, maybe they still deserve the right to make a buck since they still do offer a large amount of information.

Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to live in a world where news is disseminated 140 characters at a time.

I digress.

Read: Dear Sherman (Part 2/2)

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