The debate over the New York Mayor’s Office proposal to more strictly regulate public photography has hit a kind of a fever pitch over the last week. A week ago today, a group called Picture NY (which includes filmmaker Jem Cohen) organized a rally in downtown Manhattan that got quite a bit of local news attention. Around the same time, web comedy troupe Olde English released a protest video, done in the style of early-90s soft-rap. The clip seems to be on its way to viral classic status; since I wrote about it here at the beginning of the week, it’s been viewed about 13,000 times on SuperDeluxe, seemingly without any kind of formal promotion from the site. It’s super-broad and hyperbolic, but sadly, I think a case could be made that political media needs to be both in order to disseminate messages to web video audiences.
I think the protest itself is valid, and if you feel the same, you may want to sign this petition before it is submitted to meet the deadline for public comment, which is EOD today. However, like Stu VanAirsdale at The Reeler, I’m a little wary of how all the hoopla surrounding the protest has led to a distortion of what the debate is all about.
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Originally posted on:
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