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Movie attendance in the US has dropped in the past two years from a high of 1.63 billion in 2002 to 1.53 billion in 2004. Before 2003, attendance regularly increased each year. The numbers give some theater owners pause. In the ’50s and ’60s, everybody went to the movies. “We need to do more to develop the habitual moviegoer. Once movies can be delivered directly into the home, she adds, all the cheap popcorn and clean floors in the world won’t matter. How long is it before they just won’t need us at all?”

“Hollywood better wake up. Remember the Hays Office, which imposed family-values censorship on the movies in the 1920s — a ham-fisted squelching of “indecency” that cramped and crippled scriptwriters and moviemakers for decades thereafter? Well, what one of the most powerful Republicans in the U.S. Senate is now talking about sounds very much like the same thing, except now it’s about cable TV and the Net.”

Al Sharpton has urged the FCC to crack down on radio stations that have anything to do with gangsta rap violence. “He encouraged the agency to hold field hearings to investigate violence involving radio stations, bar artists from the air for 90 days if linked to violence, and consider such incidents when deciding whether to renew broadcast licenses. Some stations were double-booking rival music artists and gossiping about competing musicians on the air just before they arrived which led to fights, Sharpton said.”

The Canadian government says it will change copyright law to clarify some copyright issues. “According to the announcement, the changes would “clarify that the unauthorized posting or the peer-to-peer file-sharing of material on the Internet will constitute an infringement of copyright. It will also be made clear that private copies of sound recordings cannot be uploaded or further distributed.”