I'd like to talk about Pandora's Promise and copyright.
I got my first email from Robert in 2011, and shared a link to early edit of TR2011. He choose to focus on IFR as a technical solution in PP because it was shovel-ready, where-as MSR designs are not. Not a bad decision I'd say, because PP is a very credible film. It shows equipment and laboratory testing that I simply don't have an MSR equivalent for... the closest I have for MSR is Berkeley CIET on camera with related Mk1 PB-FHR research, and the post-mortem ORNL MSRE tour I shared in 2013.
After PP was released, I did try to get Robert to use YouTube to meme-ize PP. Break it up into small pieces... 1-5 minute pieces. Release it in its entirely on YouTube as extremely short moments, each one directing the viewer to the full release on iTunes, Amazon and NetFlix.
This is not possible.
The distributor is in control of PP. The NetFlix agreement prohibits PP from being segmented and propagated on YouTube. Any moment of a useful length posted to YouTube triggers a copyright match (the audio tracks are compared) and the segment is taken down.
For example... and brace yourself for this... the official trailer for PP on YouTube has an ad running in front of it. The commercial for the movie won't play until you watch a commercial for some other random crap. That is what happens when a "distributor" doesn't care about marketing a documentary on YouTube.
The current scenario is a worst-case scenario, where full-length pirated copies are posted to YouTube (and pulled down). The pirated copies do nothing to boost sales. They're too long to function as meme videos. And they continually disappear, so no lasting discovery of PP takes place... it isn't like anyone stumbles upon a pirated copy of PP on YouTube. Only people who already want to watch PP and are actively searching for it find it, and they avoid paying to see it.
What we want is the opposite... people discovering PP (or a portion of PP) and then being directed to the full doc should they want to learn more.
This is just one of the many reasons why I was eager to see Robert Stone at TEAC7. We killed 3 birds with 1 stone. (A Robert Stone... get it? Haaaa.... nevermind.)
#1 - Eric & Ari shot a great interview with Robert. I walked in at the last minute and threw out a few more questions. There's about 40 minutes of Q&A very applicable to TR2015.
#2 - Robert's talk at TEAC7 was to help explain the effectiveness of PP in changing people's minds about nuclear. Why he told the story the way he did. What not to do. How "Thorium" is a great introductory topic when speaking to people, since it doesn't trigger the usual knee-jerk anti-nuke dismissal. So even as an IFR guy, Robert Stone talks about thorium. An interesting talk. And there's applicable lessons for me.
#3 - Let's help promote Pandora's Promise!
Yes, PP promotes IFR. It really doesn't matter which nuclear technology a once-anti-nuke is in favor of, if it means they're now comparing different reactor designs. Whether it is PWR, IFR or MSR, if you're thinking about how a reactor works, then you're in a far healthier place than being scared shitless by Helen Caldicott's "more deaths than the bubonic plague" fear-mongering. And PP, if watched, can open people's minds to nuclear power.
I did my best to tie in PP into Robert's talk. And include links to PP in the video itself. Here's a set of links to where one can watch PP in full...
https://netflix.com/ca/title/70267585
https://itunes.apple.com/movie/pandoras-promise/id675188533
http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Promise-Stewart-Brand/dp/B00H40VNUK
...those links can also be found in the YouTube description meta-data.
Copyright vs Promotional Videos on YouTube
Promoting a movie can be a tricky thing... if you can't show clips from the movie itself. Robert has been unable to effectively promote PP using YouTube. Thanks, distributor!
The clips of PP used in the TEAC7 video have been modified to avoid triggering the automatic detection mechanism... if YouTube hears ~10 seconds of audio that matches some portion of PP, then that's a problem and it gets taken down. But tweaking PP footage between spoken words can avoid this.
Having Robert Stone's recollection of shooting PP as told at TEAC7 as the audio track while showing PP visuals is also a way around this problem.
So this talk may help play the role that meme-izing PP would have, had the distributor gotten on board with an effective viral YouTube marketing campaign, and been more selective with their copyright enforcement.
Lots of folks have been citing "favorite moments" from Robert's talk.
If you have a favorite moment you'd like to present on its own, then grab yourself a copy of Robert Stone's TEAC7 talk (3.3GB)...
http://gordonmcdowell.com/remix/
...download it to your machine. Use a video editing tool to extract that moment, and upload it to your own YouTube channel. Or to Facebook. Wherever.
Short videos often propagate faster than long videos. So even a 1 minute video can be quite useful. If you do this, please include a link to Pandora's Promise in the YouTube description field.