Category: media

“Angela Washelesky, a partner at Reed Smith who heads that law firm’s trademark practice in its Chicago office, called ripping library CDs ‘total and complete copyright infringement. The fine for that kind of thing is $250,000 per copyrighted work. It is amazing to me that people do not know this.'”

“The Business Secretary, speaking at the digital creative industries conference c&binet, said that if the amount of illegal file-sharing taking place in the UK hadn’t dropped by 70 per cent a year on from April 2010 measures to cut off file-sharers’ connections would come into place from July 2011.”

“The new service will be featured within a standard Google search. Just enter the name of the band or musician, then things like bios, videos and images pop up. Google itself is not selling the music.”

Chadwick Matlin: “If Hulu’s overlords force it to charge users, it will be the ultimate vote of confidence for the site. … Hulu has gotten to this point only because of how successful its free-content model was in the first place.”

“Leafing through the literature is like letting the Cookie Monster loose in a Mrs. Fields franchise: You delve in excitedly before realizing there’s more here than any single creature can digest.”

“As the Indian film industry has mushroomed — surpassing Hollywood as the most prolific producer of movies — distributors of Bollywood and regional Indian films have been eager to broaden their global appeal, especially in the U.S., which accounts for as much as 70% of their movies’ foreign box office.”

Tax incentives offered by some countries and various states in the U.S. “have become critical for many independent producers, who have found it increasingly difficult to raise film financing through the usual channels.” Some are eager enough for the savings to change the script to fit the new locale.

“During the good years, right into 2008, Hollywood did what any fat and happy industry would do: It piled up managers, larding the ranks with two and even three people in jobs that had previously been done by one.” Now come the management cuts. “The cuts have been part of Hollywood’s general effort to reduce production as revenue, particularly from DVD sales, falls.”

“Paranormal Activity,” an independently produced thriller picked up by Paramount’s DreamWorks unit, cost only about $10,000 to produce and has been marketed with a combination of conventional advertising and cheap Web-based tactics.

“While DVD and Blu-ray will remain a huge profit center for years to come, studio executives are finally confronting an uncomfortable reality: little silver discs — for reasons of convenience, price and consumer burnout — may never recover their sales power. To grow, studios need to figure out digital distribution.”