Category: media

“The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Creative Archive, one of the most ambitious free digital content projects to date, is set to launch this fall with thousands of three-minute clips of nature programming. The effort could goad other organizations to share their professionally produced content with Web users. The project, announced last year, will make thousands of audio and video clips available to the public for noncommercial viewing, sharing and editing.” And it may herald a new global era of more liberal licensing and less restrictive copyright enforcement.

An upcoming Canadian TV show depicting the hard life of artists in Toronto is soliciting actual works of art by the city’s actual artists to hang on the set. But there’s a catch: “Although Bang! is a drama about the difficulties of living off one’s art, the producers see no reason to actually pay real artists for their work. The chance to reach a large audience, they argue, is payment enough.”

“Police are to guard dozens of Indian cinemas after Hindu hardliners tore up posters and burned effigies in protest at a film about a lesbian love affair. Officers will flank cinemas showing the Hindi film Girlfriend in Bombay, New Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi and Bhopal.” The film has upset both right-wing groups who are angry about the whole concept of homosexuality, and women’s rights groups who claim that the film promotes stereotypes.

An agreement has been reached between the recording industry and the union that represents TV and radio performers which would give the artists the right to audit their recording companies to insure proper royalty payments. The deal must be approved by the California legislature before becoming law.

Filmmaker Michael Moore is kicking dust yet again over the American distribution of his anti-Bush film, Fahrenheit 9/11. This time, his wrath is directed at the Motion Picture Association of America, which is apparently engaged in a vast conspiracy to prevent teenagers from viewing Moore’s work by giving it an ‘R’ rating. The MPAA points out that the film contains graphic images of burned and dismmbered corpses being dragged through the streets of Iraq, but Moore counters that, since the 15- and 16-year-olds of today are very likely to be recruited to be the military men of tomorrow, they should have the right to see the nightmare into which they could be sent.

The hot new thing in movies this summer? Political films, and they popping up in festivals and in movie houses all over America.

Increasingly, big Hollywood stars are starring in… video games. “Now that games have matured into a $11 billion business, topping movie box-office sales and siphoning television viewers, the lucrative and increasingly influential genre has attracted more star power than ever.”

In Washington, the Federal Communications Commission says it won’t allow schools to sell the radio spectrums they own. “In adopting the new rules, the FCC said it was promoting more efficient, shared use of a valuable public resource for both commercial and public-interest purposes.”

In the US there are growing number of “low-power radio stations operating in small towns and rural communities. They broadcast from an odd assortment of basements, garages, garden sheds, schools, and churches in an effort to return localism to the FM dial. About 238 of these noncommercial stations are currently on the air, while another 670 organizations have been granted construction permits by the FCC, and 897 more are awaiting approval.”

Having sued thousands of file-traders and launched a full legislative assault on the makers of online file-trading software, the recording industry is now setting its sights on digital radio, claiming that “U.S. regulators at the Federal Communications Commission should ensure that the broadcast format limits… copying so radio stations don’t turn the airwaves into a giant file-sharing network.” Yes, you read that right: the industry is worried that millions of listeners will record songs off the radio and begin sharing them amongst themselves. Sort of like listeners to terrestrial radio have been doing for decades? Yeah, like that.