Category: media

“Under the copyright code, YouTube is in much better legal shape than anyone seems to want to accept. The site enjoys a strong legal ‘safe harbor,’ a law largely respected by the television and film industries for the choices it gives them. But the most interesting thing is where all this legal armor protecting YouTube—and most of the Web 2.0 (user-generated content) industry—comes from. It’s the product of the Bell lobby.”

That’s the speculation about the US’s radio giant. The company, which has more than 1,200 stations, said on Wednesday a deal was not certain. Based on Thursday’s closing price, it has a market valuation of more than $17 billion.”

Everyone in Hollywood hates the cold, corporate, impersonal studio system, and many imagine that if only one could get past the egos, the greed, and the dreaded process, there must be a better way to get a film distributed. But those who try an alternative route are often in for a hard lesson in just why things are the way they are.

Advertisers are pulling their money out of traditional media and buying online. “The money going online is not new money. What is going on in display and search advertising on the internet is money is coming out of traditional media, there is no question, and therefore a big chunk of that is coming out of TV, national press and cinema.”

Joanna Weiss says that the furor over the mockumentary, Death of a President, has little to do with partisan rancor or President Bush, who appears to be gunned down in the film. “Given the rise of ad hominem politics — the bald hatred of President Bush and other politicians that breezes across the Internet each day — Death of a President actually comes across as almost kind.” But that doesn’t change the innate unease that comes with imagining a sitting president assassinated.

With many American cinemas refusing to screen the controversial mockumentary, Death of a President, the film’s Canadian distributor is mounting a campaign to convince Americans living near the border (mainly in upstate New York) to cross over and see the movie up north.

A prominent hacker is claiming that he has cracked the software that Apple uses to insure that the music it sells through its online iTunes store can only be played on an iPod portable device. “[The hacker’s] company, DoubleTwist, said that it planned to license the code to other digital music player manufacturers.” The company’s attorneys believe that such a direct assault on Apple’s market dominance would, in fact, be legal.

“The movie, ‘Death of a President,’ caused a stir at the Toronto Film Festival in September where it debuted, and two major U.S. theater chains have declined to screen the movie when it debuts in the United States on Friday.”

“Telefilm Canada announced major changes yesterday to how it finances the making and marketing of English-language and French-language movies in Canada, changes it believes will put more Canadian films, including documentaries, on the country’s screens and increase audiences for them.”

Film critic Peter Bradshaw has fallen prey to the addictive allure of YouTube. “In parallel with its own exponential growth, my fascination with YouTube has galloped into a raging obsession. Whole evenings, theoretically dedicated to writing, have been hijacked by a terrible need to click away from the Microsoft Word document, onto the internet browser, and from there the lure of YouTube is irresistible. What’s not to be fascinated by? However slick or however rickety, the best of these mini-movies have an unmediated quality, a found-object realness that is completely lacking in anything available in the cinema or on TV.”