Netflix has created a fake interactive experience where you can sign up for Streamberry, like in Joan is awfulthe episode of Black Mirror.
The first episode of the new season of black-mirror, the famous dystopian series from Netflix, depicted the dark future… of SVOD platforms. Not without irony, Joan is awful (Joan is awful en VF) paints the portrait of a woman whose entire life is transformed into a TV series. In question: she did not read the legal notices of Streamberry – the fake SVOD platform similar to Netflix – before registering there.
As if to continue the real-life satire, the show’s Twitter account just revealed a new site: You Are Awful. This platform, which copies Netflix codes, is open for registration.
“You are horrible”, as in Black Mirror
Streamberry first asks for your name:
Then you need to upload a photo:
Then it’s simple: you “just” consent to deliver your image to Streamberry and say that you have read and agree to the terms. It is “enough”: how many of us have already validated these terms without ever reading them? That’s the whole point of this episode. What if, for once, we took the time to read them?
To do this, click on the link Terms of Service and Privacy Statement. On the fifth page, the Name and Likeness section is particularly interesting:
” By interacting with this Experience, you grant to the Netflix entity providing this Experience to you, its affiliates and respective successors and assigns and anyone authorized by any of them (collectively, “Netflix”), the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive right to record, perform and/or portray your likeness and use, and grant others the right, but not the obligation, to record, perform and/or to portray and use your real or simulated likeness, name, photograph, voice, actions, etc. in connection with the development, production, distribution, exploitation, advertising and promotion of this Experience, in all media now known and hereafter devised, and in all languages, all formats, all versions and all forms related to this Experience, without compensation to you or anyone else, except where prohibited by law. »
Let’s summarize: as in the episode, it’s about delivering your entire image, forever and in all its forms, which the service can then use in a real or simulated format for content.
In the episode Joan is awful, we learn that Joan was really only a first test: Streamberry planned to produce a series based on the life of each user of the platform. Which is possible, because each and everyone has accepted the terms, thus consenting to this series being produced. And of course, without any remuneration, which is again in the user agreement.
Even if this Streamberry site is nothing but a promotional operation linked to black-mirrorand that (a priori) Netflix is not going to make you an avatar for a TV series, the experience remains disturbing: isn’t the lesson of the episode precisely that you should not go to the end blindly consenting?
If we go to the end of the experiment – with a blurred photo so that our future Streamberry series is unusable (yes, we’re playing the game at first degree) – the fake Streamberry SVOD service creates a page in your image, like in the episode of black-mirror. With your first name, followed by “is awful”. Will you try the experiment or will you refuse to accept the terms?
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