Sacre Bleu! Google Non!

French president Jacques Chirac is unhappy that Google dominates his country’s internet searches. Google’s French version is used for 74% of internet searches in France. So Chirac has asked his culture minister to create a home-grown French search engine. What’s wrong with le Google? “The answer is the vulgar criteria it uses to rank results. ‘I do not believe’, wrote [the culture minister] in Le Monde, “that the only key to access our culture should be the automatic ranking by popularity, which has been behind Google’s success.”

Can You “Legislate” An End To File-sharing?

So the Day of Reckoning has come for file-sharing services. “The Supreme Court is expected to take about three months to rule on MGM v Grokster. But even if the entertainment business wins the case, while managing to coax more users into downloading legally, its problems are unlikely to go away. The rush into legal downloading is bound to cannibalise sales of CDs and DVDs, hitting profits. And perhaps the decline in global sales is indicative of a far greater problem for the music industry—that consumers simply think many of its products are not worth paying for.”

Ivey: American Arts Need A Rethink

Former NEA chairman Bill Ivey says it’s time to rethink about how we think abou the business of arts in America. “Look at record companies — they’re almost all for-profit. Museums are almost all nonprofit. Theatre is unusual because some institutions are in one world and some are in another, and that makes you wonder about the value of nonprofit status. Some parts of the arts system — like design, architecture, and, for the most part, book publishing and fashion — lack much of a nonprofit presence yet are vigorous parts of the cultural landscape, which they retain without getting grants. So it would be interesting to back up and look at the system without the old assumptions.”

StatsCan: Canadians Watch Less TV, More News, Less Sports

Older Canadians are watching more TV, but their younger compatriots watch less. “In 2003, men aged 18 to 24 spent an average of 11.1 hours a week watching TV, down from 14.3 hours in 1998. Young women in the same age bracket watched 15.5 hours a week on average in the most recent period, down from 17.6 hours.” As for what Canadians watch: current affairs and news-watching are up while sport is down…

Acclaimed Canadian Publisher Downsizes In Attempt To Survive

One of Canada’s acclaimed small presses The Porcupine Quill, says it is radically downsizing in order to survive. The imprint blames book giant Indigo. “The press typically takes in $350,000 a year, $150,000 in sales and the remainder in public support, ‘but sales are dropping like a rock’. He blames the policies and practices of Indigo Books & Music Inc., the nation’s largest bookseller. He says that last year Indigo cut its orders dramatically, ordering only 2,797 units of his press’s 11-book list, which included critical favourites So Beautiful by Ramona Dearing and Emma’s Hands by Mary Swan. Meanwhile, Indigo’s returns of unsold books were 1,415, more than 50 per cent of its order. By comparison, in 1998, Indigo and Chapters (absorbed by Indigo in 2001) ordered 13,293 copies of the press’s books and returned 4,052, or less than 30 per cent.”

A Golden Age Of Kid Lit?

We’re in a Golden Age of children’s literature. “What does it mean to call a specific period of literary endeavour ‘golden’, without it being mere hype? What it doesn’t necessarily mean is a golden age as accountants might understand the term. Publishers mutter gloomily that while there are a huge number of children’s books out there, there hasn’t actually been a rise in the number of authors selling books. The market share for children’s literature is stuck at 15%. What is happening is that a few (a very few) children’s authors are selling loads; the names you know already – JK Rowling, Jacqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman.”

Author Rejected By Publishers, Goes Publish-On-Demand Route, Gets Nominated For Orange Prize

Patricia Ferguson was puzzled when she couldn’t get a publisher for her new book, especially since she had a good track record. Eventually she signed on with a tiny publish-on-demand business. “After a slow start and a couple of favourable reviews, the book, It So Happens, takes off. At first the author and publisher are bemused at the sudden influx of orders. All becomes clear when the author, reading her daily newspaper, comes across a feature on the Orange Prize longlist – and discovers to her amazement, that she has made the grade.”