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Ever have someone tell you to do something you knew in your head you should do, but couldn’t avoid a gut-level reaction to do the opposite? When you see a “Keep off the grass” sign, does it make you want to play a game of football? Does all the anti-smoking rhetoric make you want to flare one up?

If the answer is yes, then you may have a high level of Reactance. We love our freedom, and will act in irrational and self-destructive ways whenever it is threatened. It’s a factor behind things like the Boston Tea Party, poor performance at work, and the growing rejection of Global Warming.

The full article on Reactance at Harvard Business Review.

This was originally posted on meshack.com on 5/20/2008.

So I took a nice little drive of about 1100 miles to Reno, Nevada recently. I’ve never minded long drives, but people keep asking me how I keep from going stir crazy on trips like that. I tell them, “you load up your iPod, hit cruise control, put your feet up on the dash and your head back in your hands, and come up with brilliant ideas like: the Oh Shit Light©.”

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To anyone who has ever posted a clip of their favorite NBC show on YouTube or another social networking site, only to have it taken down and be slapped with a threatening DMCA infringement notice… Your day of reckoning has finally come, sort of.

http://cityfile.com/dailyfile/7508

First you need to understand that when YouTube pulled down your favorite Jay Leno skit because of a DMCA infringement, it wasn’t YouTube, so don’t be mad at them. It was NBC flagging your video as a DMCA infringement with YouTube, who then takes down your video without question. Though you do have an appeal process, most people are frightened off by the legalese of the notice.

Working for NBC’s Anti-Piracy division, I learned that where fair use ends and where copyright infringement begins is a big grey area, and media companies like NBC have erred unapologetically on the side of what makes them the most money. They can do this because they have more money, more clout and more lawyers than you do.

Read about The Inexact Science Behind D.M.C.A. Takedown Notices.

Now NBC is getting a taste of it’s own medicine, being sued for copyright infringement by Font Bureau for allegedly using a single font license on multiple computers. The fruits of which can be seen in the typographic logos of NBC’s fall lineup.

A number of idioms come to mind, now the shoe is on the other foot, turnabout is fair play… or maybe the immortal words of The New Guy, “who’s the bitch now?”