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31
August 2006
Microsoft
Unhappy At Ricky Gervais
Leak
Software
giant Microsoft
has said it is
investigating how and
why internal training
videos made by The
Office star
Ricky
Gervais
surfaced on two
websites.
The
two light-hearted
20-minute films, called
The Office Values and
Realising Potential,
were commissioned in
2004.
But
these "were never
intended to be viewed by
the public", a
corporation spokeswoman
told Reuters news
agency.
She
would not say why
Microsoft opposed their
appearance on YouTube,
from which they have now
been removed, and
Google.
She
also refused to comment
when asked if the
corporation would
attempt to have the
videos taken off the
latter site.
Ricky
Gervais plays David
Brent, his character
from The Office, in the
two films.
His
co-writer Stephen
Merchant acts as a
Microsoft employee, and
the pair discuss
supposed "values" in the
workplace, such as using
the available facilities
to find other jobs and
how to balance sex and
work.
They
also poke fun at
computer geeks and
Microsoft founder Bill
Gates.
They
were "a light-hearted
way of getting our staff
to think about the
values they attach to
working at Microsoft",
the spokeswoman
said.
The
original UK version of
The Office ended in
2003.
It
has since been adapted
for the US, with Steve
Carell as the offensive
and clueless boss, and
for Canada, which will
see a French-language
edition called Le Job
later this
year.
On
Sunday, the US spin-off
won an Emmy award for
best comedy
series.
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