Wired News has a long story about Lonelygirl15 here. Below is an excerpt:
…Beckett ordered a pitcher of margaritas and explained that they wanted the vloggers of the YouTube community to believe that Bree was real. Flinders rationalized the deception, noting that viewers wouldn’t expect Mark Hamill to point out at the beginning of Star Wars that he wasn’t Luke Skywalker. But there was an important difference: A Hollywood movie is understood to be fictional. Vlogging on YouTube is not. Plus, to fully harness the medium, they intended to carry on email correspondences with YouTubers while posing as Bree. In short, they were planning to exploit the anonymity of the Internet to pull off a new kind of storytelling, and they worried they were on shaky legal ground.
Goodfried’s advice was simple. “If anyone asks point-blank if you’re real, don’t answer the question,” he said. “Don’t lie to people. The answer is no answer. In my mind, it’s the equivalent of not lying. But if people talk to Bree like she’s Bree, that’s fair game.”
He had two other rules: Don’t sell merchandise and don’t use any copyrighted music without a license. If people buy Lonelygirl15 stuff thinking she is real, they could claim false advertising and sue. And then, with the clink of margarita glasses, counselor Goodfried gave the doctor and the commune-raised screenwriter a green light to unleash Lonelygirl15 on the world. …
The “author” of Lonelygirl15 was a man.
–Ann Bartow
“The”author”of Lonelygirl15 was a man.”
Therefore?