Unfortunately changing the mindset of the decision makers of an established corporate structure will be met with resistance and will effectively produce more of the similar decisions we have witnessed with ABC in regard to this conversation.

We saw this in the Telco and US automotive industries as they evolved and the dynamics of the traditional industry was outpaced with new innovations and market forces.

The one positive difference I can see with the examples mentioned is we have a unique feedback mechanism with social media that allows for unprecedented transparency.

Unfortunately I believe the best we can hope for is an increase in the rate at which changes in thinking and corporate decision making occur.

It’s a start…Cheers!

It’s easy to dismiss this by saying, “Hey it was better for them from a legal standpoint to just steal the idea.” But that’s missing point. When you’re involved in social media, you can’t be evil. It’s unsustainable.

The DNA of traditional media and the DNA of social media do not mix. One has to largely be abandoned for the other. When you try to fuse them, it’s a disaster.

I hate to say it (get ready lawyers to hate me) but I see this type of behavior in the corporate world all the time and it is MOST OFTEN a result of a conversation of middle to senior management not wanting to risk any legal issues if contact is made to a party and they do not wish to be onboard.

Despite what we may think or want to believe, these decision makers are not dumb people. Bottom-line, I would bet a fair sum of money the conversation at ABC went like this.

“Let’s reach out to these guys and see if they want to play ball with us and work on some ideas”

“What if they don’t want anything to do with us? They then will have a trail of conversations in which they can come back to us and say we stole their idea or a host of other legal issues. That will be a disaster either financially, legally and/or public relations”

“The least amount of risk is taking the idea and forming it ourselves and riding out the current”

Sorry guys..in the corporate world litigation conversation are ALWAYS ABOVE the basic Revenue – Expenses conversation. Are you surprised when most of us can say at least 1 out of 6 of our friends are lawyers?

The bottom line is that ABC seems to have stolen the idea outright, which was a bad call. They’d have been better off just leaving it alone if they weren’t in a position (for whatever reason) to engage them directly.

As for why they chose not to hire the Fine Bros, I’m not sure, but I’m not quite ready to assume that they just decided to screw them over either. I know you’re not buying it, but there are possible issues with the writer’s guild, and there are possible issues with explicitly condoning derivative works as well.

Or maybe they just decided to rip it off rather than go about things the right way. But the question of WHY they ripped off the material is secondary. They DID rip it off, and that’s inexcusable.

As the Fines stated on their website, it isn’t about legal recourse or whether or not their idea was stolen.

The simple matter is that ABC could have contacted the Fines about doing this concept for the show. They could then promote the videos to their 20k subscriber base, build a relationship with budding filmmakers, and have a great marketing opportunity. JJ Abrams and ABC could say, “Hey, we really liked what these guys were doing, so we contacted them about helping to create additional content for the show.”

Everyone is wondering how new media and social networking will reflect with traditional Hollywood. This would be a great way to bridge the gap.

They really missed an opportunity to do something unique and include a great concept into the umbrella of their show.

And ABC does have staff writers, but to cherry-pick a unique concept like this and just run with it is pretty bad. It’d be one thing if TFB had only been doing it for two weeks and had 5 fans, but they have been doing this for over a year and they’ve had MILLIONS of views.

ABC really has no excuse in this situation. You don’t kick fans to the curb, especially in the online world where evil acts like this get brought to the surface.

Second, ABC probably has staff writers under union contract to cover this kind of thing. And as you point out, the Fine Bros are probably edgier than ABC would like associated with their content anyway.

Is there a better way to have handled this? Probably so. In fact, they might have been best served by just leaving the concept alone rather than either trying to replicate it or engage with the original.