 |
|
|
|||||
A lawsuit on behalf of five unnamed contestants who participated in YouTuber MrBeasts Beast Games was filed on September 16 in Los Angeles against MrBeast as well as Amazon, which plans to distribute the show. Its also seeking class-action status. Beast Games is the brainchild of Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast. This game show had participants go through challenges for a shot at $5 million in cash. There would only be one winner out of 1,000 participants, so the money would only go to the last person standing. When the five contestants participated in the game show, they each wanted to win the money, but nothing prepared them for the poor conditions, mistreatment and harassment they experienced. Among the 14 complaints are failure to pay minimum wages, sexual harassment, false advertising and failure to provide uninterrupted meal and rest breaks. The plaintiffs filed this lawsuit on behalf of all Beast Games contestants besides themselves. Much of the lawsuits content is hidden, including the contestants names and the exact details of their mistreatment. Of note were the female contestants experiences. The lawyers claimed that the work environment there fostered a culture of misogyny and sexism where Production Staff did nothing. The contestants were considered employees under California law, but MrBeast and Amazon allegedly misclassified them to obtain a tax credit of around $2 million. They also arrived on set to discover that instead of 1,000 total competitors, there were far more people playing for the prize, thus lowering everyone's chances of coming out a winner. According to the New York Times, the total number of contestants was about 2,000, something MrBeast said was the plan all along. The plaintiffs claimed this significantly reduced anyones chances of winning and was considered false advertising. Even worse, the show organizers did not grant them meal and rest breaks as required by California law. According to the lawsuit, some of the show participants developed injuries that continue to persist and will persist from the future. This isnt the first time MrBeast has been involved in a lawsuit. Last year, he sued Virtual Dining Concepts (VDC) for making subpar MrBeast Burgers, ruining his reputation. VDC countersued MrBeast, seeking $100 million in damages. According to a report from Variety, MrBeast and Amazon have yet to comment on the lawsuit, with the former refusing to. Beast Games, slated for an Amazon Prime Video release, still has no announced release date.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/mrbeast-and-amazon-are-being-sued-by-contestants-of-their-planned-competition-show-152613641.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Remember when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA went on strike for months, in great part to get protections against AI? Well, while they did get some stipulations in there, it's not stopping AI from coming to Hollywood anyways. Lionsgate, the studio behind the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises, has struck a deal with AI startup Runway, the Wall Street Journal first reported and Runway confirmed in a press release. The arrangement will allow Runway access to Lionsgate's content library in exchange for a fresh, custom AI model that the studio can use in production and editing. The deal is similar to recent (and equally icky feeling) ones with publishing houses such as TIME and Dotdash Meredith, but it is the first of its kind for the film and TV industry. Vice chairman of Lionsgate Studio, Michael Burns, said that in recent months, he feared falling behind competitors without a step like this. "Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities," Burns stated. He then claimed, "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process." There's also the small matter that he expects the company will save "millions and millions of dollars" through this agreement. Whether that money will come out of creatives' paychecks is something we can only speculate about now, but it wouldn't be surprising. As for Lionsgate's new bedfellow, like many AI companies, Runway has faced accusations of pilfering content to train its system. A former employee came forward in July with alleged internal spreadsheets demonstrating that Runway used YouTube videos from the likes of Disney, Netflix and popular media outlets to train its Gen-3 model. A group of artists are also suing Runway and other players like Stability AI for copyright infringement, reports Artnet. The plaintiffs garnered a win in August, with California District Judge William Orrick finding they had reasonably argued these companies had violated the artists' rights.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/lionsgate-signs-a-deal-with-the-devil-an-ai-startup-151046341.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Substack is adding a live video component to its newsletter service. In its announcement post, the company positioned this feature as providing real-time audience engagement for creators. At launch, the feature will only be available to people with Substack's Bestsellers badges, but the company said it plans to roll it out to all users in the coming months. Creators can begin live videos within the Substack app. As with written material on the platform, a creator can set whether the audience for a live video is everyone, all subscribers or paid subscribers. Any channel subscribers will be notified when a live video begins. There's also an option for collaboration, inviting other Substack members into the live broadcast. For now, only iOS users can issue invitations; Android users can accept an invite for now, and are slated to receive access to the full feature "soon." After a live broadcast finishes, a recording will be saved in post drafts so the video can be used in a future newsletter. There's also a clipping tool for light video editing tasks. Substack has been making a push to bring video content creators to its platform from TikTok, which doesn't seem like an obvious competitor to the company's existing offerings or an obvious match for the community it has cultivated. Emails are asynchronous communication that can be read whenever it's convenient, the polar opposite of must-watch-now live videos. The option to include recordings in newsletters is useful, but adopting the live viewing as a regular part of their Substack routine may be a big ask for current users. In short: there's no guarantee that the new feature will function well, or that most newsletter creators and readers are interested in engaging with video content.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/substack-a-newsletter-service-is-now-also-a-live-video-company-150004585.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||