GoogleTube – Lawsuits Ready To Happen?

So Google now owns YouTube. What does it mean? “The acquisition will give Google a major foothold in the emerging market for video advertising, but it also stands to inherit court challenges from independent film makers, garage bands, television studios and others who may chafe at YouTube users uploading copyrighted material to the site without permission.”

Art Theft Gang Caught

UK police have busted a gang of major art thieves. “For four years the audacious burglaries at some of Britain’s best-known stately homes in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire have embarrassed police and left leading insurers in the art world smarting from multimillion-pound payouts for antiques, curios and paintings from leading collections. More than 100 police officers from five forces were involved in the raids and 14 people seized.”

Waters Is Bookmakers’ Booker Favorite

“Novelist Sarah Waters is the favourite to win the Man Booker Prize, which is being announced in London on Tuesday. Waters, who was nominated for the award in 2002, faces competition from five other authors for the honour, which carries a prize of £50,000. The author of ‘Night Watch’ was 5/4 favourite with bookmakers Ladbrokes before betting closed.”

Tate Modern’s Sci-Fi Fantasy Slides: Serious Fun?

“When you launch yourself from the top of one of Carsten Höller’s slides in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall – the largest is 56 metres long and with a stomach-churning 27-metre drop – you leave a lot behind you. Principally, your dignity. And any sense of being an adult. And all control. … But is this crowd-pleasing work any more profound than a funfair helter-skelter? ‘The funfair experience is completely underrated,’ said Höller. ‘I don’t know why we don’t take it more seriously philosophically and artistically.’ “

Low-Budget Christian Movie Does Big Box Office

A group of Southern churchgoers banded together to counter Hollywood entertainment with a movie of their own. “Now, ‘Facing the Giants,’ the low-budget feature film about faith and high school football they made with church donations and Bible-inspired moxie, is playing at more than 400 theaters around the country — a gigantic release for any independent movie, let alone one created by near-novices. The movie has made $2.7 million in 10 days, and ticket sales were good enough last weekend to place it 13th in the box office rankings, one notch below ‘Flyboys,’ a war movie with a $60 million budget and starring James Franco.”