Court To Webcasters: Pay Up

“Radio stations must pay royalties to recording companies and performers, as they do to composers and songwriters, when musical broadcasts are streamed over the Internet, a federal appeals court has affirmed… Traditional radio broadcasts haven’t been subject to royalties to recording companies and performers because they have served to promote sales of recordings. But Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, which required such royalties from webcasters.”

Copy-Protecting Your TV

“U.S. regulators in coming weeks will adopt strict limits on sending digital television programs over the Internet to avoid the problems now plaguing the music industry, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt rules that will allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that will in most cases bar consumers from sending copies of popular shows around the world.” Few law-abiding sorts would have reason to object, it would seem, but consumer advocates are warning that the new digital ‘flags’ would require most consumers to replace their DVD players at their own cost, at a time when everyone will be forced to replace their TVs just to receive the digital signal.

Amazon Turns A Profit

“Online retailer Amazon has reported a quarterly profit for the first time outside of the key Christmas sales period. The company said free delivery offers and a new sporting goods store had helped boost revenue by 33%… The results – only the third time in its history Amazon has made a quarterly net profit – were slightly better than most Wall Street estimates.” Still, many industry observers believe that the bookselling supercompany is performing far below its potential, and analysts continue to warn that the company’s stock is dangerously overvalued.

Oscar Voters, Academy Near Compromise In Movie Dispute

A compromise is being worked out between critics and the Motion Picture Academy to send Oscar voters tapes of films nominated for Oscars. “The plan would call for the studios to send out only videotapes of the films, not DVDs, and each tape would be coded with the recipient’s name for tracking purposes. If a tape is illegally copied, or “pirated,” for resale on black markets or digitized for Internet downloading, the tape’s recipient would be sanctioned, and punishment could include dismissal from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, the U.S. film industry’s top honors.”

Afghan Film Wins Festival

“Afghan director Siddiq Barmak’s “Osama” has won the top prize at the International Festival of New Film and Media in Montreal. “Osama,” a joint production of Afghanistan, Japan and Ireland, was one of the first features produced in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban almost two years ago.”

Tivo Nation

Tivo pioneered digital video recorders. But cable companies are getting into the act. “So far, 2.5 million to 2.8 million of the nation’s roughly 110 million homes have digital video recorders. But DVR’s inspire fierce loyalty from those who have them, terrify advertisers (because they can be used to skip commercials) and are seen by many media experts as the future of television. The Yankee Group estimates that in four years, almost 25 million homes will have digital video recorders and that about two-thirds of those will be DVR’s that have been integrated into satellite or cable set-top decoders.”

Tiny Radio Stations Take On FCC

“Across the country, low-power FM radio stations are banding together to denounce a mounting crackdown by the FCC. Supporters claim that FCC Chairman Michael Powell, whose recent efforts to further deregulate the radio industry have met with resistance in the courts and in Congress and have been something of a PR disaster, is retaliating by ‘having his people go out and pick on the little guys’.”

Children’s Books – Now Big Business

“Children’s literature has become such a powerful, dense mass that its gravity is sucking in everyone in sight. Madonna, whose last published work, Sex, involved explicit photographs, stream of consciousness pornography and rape fantasies, has followed it up with English Roses, a tale of four little girls jealous of their beautiful classmate, Binah. Peter Ackroyd, author of biographies of Sir Thomas More and William Blake, has embarked on explaining the world to ten year-olds in a series of children’s educational books for the publisher Dorling Kindersley, while the latest “blow-in” to the genre is Philip Kerr, the Scots thriller writer and author of A Philosophical Investigation and The Shot.”