"The New Napster"--Will Conflict over "AI Scripts" Shut Down Hollywood?, Heated Debate Sparked Over "Who Invented Country Music," Harry Potter Reboot Already Facing Issues (The Five for 05/30/25)
Plus, what happens a "hit album" takes 52 songwriters? The Terminal List prequel is ready to go. A true crime arson podcast gets the TV treatment via Apple.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
The upcoming Harry Potter TV series had caused a lot of online comments over race swapping two characters from the books/movies. And it's a good example of when this practice works… and when it alters the story.
In the “works” catagory is Arabella Stanton, and 11-year-old who will be taking up the mantle of Hermoine Granger. Stanton appears to be non-white, but her ethnicity is not published. I could guess anything from mixed black and white parentage, Indian, Southern Italian or Greek. (See pic above).
Regardless, it doesn’t matter for her character.
However, the reboot also race swapped Severus Snape, who is an ugly, awkward, standoffish white guy in the books.
Snape is a creep. A weirdo. A guy you don’t want to be around. To play into a stereotype, think about an unshowered gas station worker who, as Gen Z famously says “gives you the ick.”
And who’s playing Snape this time? A good looking black guy. This would have worked better if the casting director would have had the backbone to pick an ugly actor, of whatever race….to fit the character.
But the problem will eventually hit in the story…that Harry Potter’s dad has quite a bit of conflict with Snape in flashbacks. Race swapping Snape takes this interaction from schoolyard rivalry and juvenile personalities clashing…to potential racism on the part of Harry’s dad (who probably has a name—like I said, I’m not much of a fan).
While race swapping Hermione is inconsequential, doing the same to Snape changes the potential motivations of key characters in the story.
For all the chatter on social media about race swapping characters in modern reboots (i.e. the Little Mermaid remake) it doesn't usually matter one way or the other.
But in this case, race swapping a villain may be a very bad look for one of the most popular IP’s in the world, and could backfire on HBO when the show debuts.
[two]
Well, this is interesting. The Writer’s Guild of America is comparing AI-generated movie and TV scripts…to the illegal downloading of music on the 90’s platform Napster.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
Today, writers, journalists and creatives across every medium are facing a new kind of existential threat to their professions from the interests of Silicon Valley. Tech companies have been openly lobbying the White House to rewrite copyright law to freely train their models on films, television shows, articles, books and beyond without paying so much as a dime to studios, publishers or writers. OpenAI has been referring to this as “the freedom to learn.” In New Jersey, it’s just called theft.
In the meantime, dozens of ongoing lawsuits against OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini) and Meta (Llama) making their way through the courts. Without a sympathetic judge willing to distort fair use, these companies could find themselves liable in billions of theft, potentially even more in damages, and in some cases, face total bankruptcy.But we’ve been down this road before with Napster. The company launched as a free file-sharing app in 1999. Almost overnight people around the world could download entire music libraries in seconds. It was a groundbreaking use of technology that, at the time, felt too good to be true. And that’s because it was. Napster was quickly sued out of existence for copyright infringement and racketeering.
Since then, every major media tech platforms — YouTube, Spotify and even OpenAI until recently — have been making deals with studios, publishers and labels to compensate them for using their copyrighted work. While many of these agreements have been deeply flawed and exploitive, the firing of Shira Perlmutter represents a pivot to something much worse.
Silicon Valley is now asking the government for permission to steal our copyright in order to escape their pending lawsuits. They are knowingly trying to de-value our professions and countless others in order to freely enrich themselves without caring about the consequences.
In the case of screenwriters, copyright of an original script is sold to the studios in exchange for core benefits like health care, pension and residuals. This is one of the bedrock principles that has helped sustain writers during the highs and lows of this business. But if copyright protections were to be stripped away, then so begins the unraveling of the entire value proposition that union members past and present have fought so hard to maintain in the film and television industry.
In April, Sam Altman appeared on stage with Chris Anderson, the head of TED, who pointed out, “At first glance, this (ChatGPT) looks like I.P. theft.” The audience erupted in applause until Sam fired back, “Clap about that all you want. Enjoy.” And then Sam said something far more revealing, “We do need to figure out some new model around the economics for compensating creative output. Exactly what that looks like I’m not sure.”
But the copyright system isn’t broken. Companies like OpenAI simply don’t want to negotiate consent and pay. So, Sam can shrug about “the economics for compensating creative output” all he wants. Enjoy.
As one of the heaviest users of Open AI (my entire company revolves around it), I can promise you…AI can do incredible work, but can’t do much without a knowledgeable person guiding the idea.
If Hollywood strikes over this…studios will find out the hard way that AI can’t produce decent scripts without a great writer to guide the process.
[three]
A single look from country superstar Shaboozey has kicked off a heated debate over the history of country music after his co-presenter at some awards show (who cares which one), artist Megan Moroney, said that the “Carter Family basically invented country music.” (Moroney was just reading what weas on the teleprompter—but obviously has some knowledge gaps on the genre, or she wouldn’t have said it).
From Rolling Stone:
When you uncover the true history of country music, you find a story so powerful that it cannot be erased,” he said [Shaboozey], adding: “The real history of country music is about people coming together despite their differences, and embracing and celebrating the things that make us alike.”
Reps for Shaboozey and Moroney did not immediately return requests for comment. A rep for the American Music Awards declined to comment.
While the Carter Family are indeed country pioneers, they are also a perfect case study in the way country history has been whitewashed. Much of the Carter Family’s catalog was made up of songs that patriarch A.P. Carter collected while traveling around Appalachia. Often joining Carter on these song scouting trips was a Black guitarist named Lesley Riddle, who not only helped Carter write down and memorize the songs, but introduced him to Black musical traditions (like church music and the blues) that further influenced what became known as country music. Riddle also taught A.P.’s bandmate and sister-in-law, Maybelle Carter, his style of guitar finger-picking, which further influenced her famous “scratch” style of playing.
While the Carter Family have long been considered country music royalty, it was only in the Sixties that Riddle began to get his due, and in recent years that his story has become more widely known. Riddle is just one of many Black artists to play a pivotal role in country’s history, with Shaboozey also encouraging fans to seek out other key figures like Steve Tarter, Harry Gay, and DeFord Bailey.
Others also expressed frustration with the AMAs presenter copy, including the musician Rissi Palmer, who wrote on Instagram, “Tell me you know nothing about the actual roots of Country music without telling me you don’t know the roots… like, who wrote this script? What in the Project 2025 hell is this? … Behind every founding father and mother of Country music stands a Black musician playing Black roots music, strategically hidden in the mix.”
Dom Flemmons (former member of black roots string band Carolina Chocolate Drops) has a pretty good breakdown of Lesley Riddle’s life, which is well worth watching.
Let’s pause here for a moment to point out that Lesley Riddle’s life story has been told and told again in documentaries like Ken Burns’ mega popular Country Music (2019), and music docs The Winding Stream (2014) and Esley: The Life and Music of Lesley Riddle (2009). Prior to that, Riddle has been recognized in country music since at least the 1970’s, and is featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit on the Carter Family.
Risi Palmer’s idea that there was some kind of conspiracy going on here…is quite silly. Not only is Riddle well documented, but anyone with any idea of the history of country music understands the sound comes from mixing a distinctly West African instrument (banjo) and American black blues musicians with Irish/Scottish instrumentation (fiddle) and songwriting style from Celtic folk.
The Carter family were not primarily songwriters, but collectors and refiners of what already existed, to get the sound of Appalachia recorded onto the new vinyl music format of the early 1900’s. They did essentially invent *RECORDED* country music. And anyone with even a mild understanding of the Carters realizes “Wildwood Flower” and the early country hits were folk songs written by others, and handed down until they finally made it to wax.
Palmer’s comments connecting half a sentence from an awards show with Project 2025, a 900-page document from think tank The Heritage Foundation, is quite silly. I get that it was used as a figure of speech—but still quite silly.
The dust up is the mildest of controversies, but hopefully does serve to expose casual fans to the early pioneers in the country music space, who have since been overlooked. But on the other hand, the average country music radio listener may not even know who The Carter Family are, and are mainly showing up for whatever single Morgan Wallen’s team just pushed to the FM dial.
Anyway, as far as pop-country goes…the latest from Shaboozey, featuring Jelly Roll, is quite good…a collaboration between a black artist and a white artist…just like the genre itself.
But if we’re gonna tell that story…scolding the audience and claiming conspiracy may not be the best way to communicate the message.
[four]
Will the future of live entertainment be…group chats? NBA star Jimmy Butler thinks so. Butler will be leading group chats during European soccer this weekend, seeing a lucrative business model.
“There’s no question that the second screen experience is a huge part of how people watch sports and we think there is a real opportunity around the group chat experience as people seek out more intimate and direct engagements with their favorite follows – it’s how friends, family, and communities want to watch sports,” says Jennie Morel, the head of marketing for WhatsApp.
“We saw how this can give talent at the highest level a new way to engage with their fans and build community,” Morel adds. “Athletes are authentic and want to be open with their fans and this is very much how we think about WhatsApp’s value to our users more broadly.”
Now OffBall and WhatsApp are planning another edition of The Chat with Golden State Warriors star Jimmy Butler set to weigh in on the UEFA Champions League final between Paris St. Germain F.C. (PSG) and Inter Milan May 31. Butler will be joined in the chat by football designer Clint Cortiez, and creator Harry Pinero.
OffBall says that it has 48,000 members on WhatsApp, and that each edition of The Chat is limited to about 1,000 people, making it more intimate and memorable than other media products where consumers follow along with something happening live.
I’ve got mixed feelings here…this looks fun if you’re watching an event on TV, like a game, awards show, etc. And heck, this is a decent portion of the traffic on Twitter…people who only check the app during live entertainment moments. So in some ways, the idea is nothing new.
On the other hand…it’s a sad thing for the consumer if they pay for tickets, parking, nachos, drink…only to miss the real-life moments in front of them in favor of tracking what some celebrity said in a group chat.
Attending live events is about memories…and there are very few of those made staring at the six inch screen of the thing that lives in your pocket.
[five]
As always, lets head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup.
[movies] Netflix just dropped a teaser for a third Knives Out movie entitled Wake Up Dead Man. || SINNERS, one of the most buzzed about movies this year, is hitting digital on Tuesday. || Captain America: Brave New World is now on Disney+, if you’re looking for a superhero movie that…has pretty average reviews at best.
[shows] A spinoff of Chris Pratt's military thriller show The Terminal List hits Prime Video 08/27. Dark Wolf stars Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights, American Primeval) in a prequel to the main show. No trailer yet, but a few photos have dropped. || Both Scrubs (cool!) and 7th Heaven (ugh, seriously?) are getting rebooted. Scrubs will welcome back Zach Braff, who left the show at the end of the original series run, and it was horrible.
[music] Virginia hip hop duo Clipse have reformed, and dropped their first single (YouTube). The first two tracks off of the Travis Barker (Blink 182, Transplants) produced album from Yellowcard are out (“Better Days,” “honestly, i”).
[gaming] Struggling retailer Gamestop just purchased a half a billion dollars of Bitcoin. Eledenring, written by George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame, gets a new DLC, which is well reviewed. Playstations’ big summer sale is happening.
Dang, this one is based on a true story, and pulls heavily from the podcast Firebug. Taron Edgerton (Carry-On, Kingsman: The Secret Service) and Jurnee Smollett (True Blood, Friday Night Lights) play an arson investigator and detective, respectively, who are chasing serial arsonists through the Northwest.
It’s a nine episode limited series…that looks like it could be one of the best things this year. Oh yeah, and Radiohead front man Thom York’s side project The Smile did the theme song.
For Millennials and Xers who grew up watching Matlock and Murder She Wrote on days we were sick from school comes The Thursday Murder Club.
It’s…the exact same premise, except there are four retired-ish sleuths.
Countdown is obviously an attempt to capture the same viewership that devours Reacher and The Night Agent. “We have to stop the bomb” premise certainly has early 2000’s 24/Jack Bauer vibes. Looks interesting, maybe not essential viewing. Streaming 09/03.
[new music]
Long running Chicago punk crew Rise Against are back after a four year break with three new singles from their upcoming album. Ricochet, the band’s 10th LP, releases 08/15.
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music
Morgan Wade is somewhat of an anomaly in the modern country scene, as she writes all of her own songs…by herself.
By comparison, Morgan Wallen’s “Love Somebody” features 11 writers on the track, and his latest album features 52 songwriters over 37 songs. On the one hand, that method connects with a lot of fans. On the other…any truly unique perspective an artist holds gets lost in “songwriting by committee.”
Wade is also churning out an album every 12 months or so…which makes her solo writing output even more compelling. “The Party is Over (Recovered)” leans into a 90’s alt-rock edge. Highly recommended.
Until the next one,
-sth