“In an unprecedented move that angered readers and generated industry criticism, The Washington Post recently killed an entire week of “The Boondocks” comic strip with a story line suggesting the world might be a safer place if national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had a more active love life.” Comics have been being pulled from newspapers since the days of Pogo, of course, but the fact that a paper of national import such as the Post would find the strip, which was not explicit, too hot to handle, is raising old questions about censorship, humor, and the purpose of a newspaper’s comics page.
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Copy-Protecting Your TV
“U.S. regulators in coming weeks will adopt strict limits on sending digital television programs over the Internet to avoid the problems now plaguing the music industry, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt rules that will allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that will in most cases bar consumers from sending copies of popular shows around the world.” Few law-abiding sorts would have reason to object, it would seem, but consumer advocates are warning that the new digital ‘flags’ would require most consumers to replace their DVD players at their own cost, at a time when everyone will be forced to replace their TVs just to receive the digital signal.
Amazon Turns A Profit
“Online retailer Amazon has reported a quarterly profit for the first time outside of the key Christmas sales period. The company said free delivery offers and a new sporting goods store had helped boost revenue by 33%… The results – only the third time in its history Amazon has made a quarterly net profit – were slightly better than most Wall Street estimates.” Still, many industry observers believe that the bookselling supercompany is performing far below its potential, and analysts continue to warn that the company’s stock is dangerously overvalued.
Oscar Voters, Academy Near Compromise In Movie Dispute
A compromise is being worked out between critics and the Motion Picture Academy to send Oscar voters tapes of films nominated for Oscars. “The plan would call for the studios to send out only videotapes of the films, not DVDs, and each tape would be coded with the recipient’s name for tracking purposes. If a tape is illegally copied, or “pirated,” for resale on black markets or digitized for Internet downloading, the tape’s recipient would be sanctioned, and punishment could include dismissal from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, the U.S. film industry’s top honors.”
Afghan Film Wins Festival
“Afghan director Siddiq Barmak’s “Osama” has won the top prize at the International Festival of New Film and Media in Montreal. “Osama,” a joint production of Afghanistan, Japan and Ireland, was one of the first features produced in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban almost two years ago.”
Music For New Lord of the Rings Musical
AR Rahman, who wrote music for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams, has been hired to write the score for a musical version of Lord of the Rings. “Rahman is a star in his native India and has sold more than 100 million albums, composing the soundtracks to more than 50 Bollywood films. The £8m musical is due to open in the spring of 2005 in London.”
How Technology Trumps Law-making
Technology always finds a way around obstacles, writes Clay Shirkey. Peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies will continue to adapt to the ways recording companies try to stop them. Social softwarefinds ways to connect people. “In hostile environments, organisms often adapt to become less energetic but harder to kill, and so it is now.”
Tivo Nation
Tivo pioneered digital video recorders. But cable companies are getting into the act. “So far, 2.5 million to 2.8 million of the nation’s roughly 110 million homes have digital video recorders. But DVR’s inspire fierce loyalty from those who have them, terrify advertisers (because they can be used to skip commercials) and are seen by many media experts as the future of television. The Yankee Group estimates that in four years, almost 25 million homes will have digital video recorders and that about two-thirds of those will be DVR’s that have been integrated into satellite or cable set-top decoders.”
Publishing – A Bit Of A Lull?
“This is not an age of miracles. There are no contemporary giants at work in our midst. From the international premier league, the Man Booker shortlist, as reliable a guide as any, could only muster Margaret Atwood. Even in America, to which British readers often look for signs of a new dawn, it is hard to think of a single new novel which, in the past year or so, has registered more than a temporary frisson. Nothing wrong about this, of course. Cultural innovation tends to happen cyclically. The boom of the 1980s and 1990s was bound to be followed by a lull. Perhaps we are in a kind of literary Sargasso sea. It certainly feels that way this week. And yet, looking at the bigger picture, these are momentous years for book publishing.”
Disney Hall – Hopes Of A City
What does Disney Hall mean to LA? “We never had a downtown,” Richard J. Riordan, the former mayor who played an important role in reviving the once near-dead Disney Hall, said before the ceremony. “We finally have one now. And Disney Hall is a symbol of that.”