Prediction 1: Napster’s shutdown led to serverless, tracker-based P2P, and today’s Grokster decision will lead to encrypted, anonymous, unbreakable blacknets. Prediction 2: today’s Grokster decision will lead to greater contempt for copyright law. Government that is perceived as “not getting it” or as in the pocket of industry lobbyists won’t have legitimacy with the next [...]
John Battelle says Google will be using VLC to display video, and suggests Google’s video services will be integrated with its payment program. It will be interesting to what improvements to VLC may result from this, and if Google may help with VideoLAN’s patent issues.
Carrie McLaren has a great piece the difficulty of clearing rights for Mad Hot Ballroom. An excerpt: “When Agrelo and Sewell were filming boys playing foosball after school, Ronnie (right) at one point shouted, “Everybody dance now!”, a line from a C+C Music Factory hit. Incredibly, the filmmakers’ lawyer said the line had to be [...]
Ourmedia.org announced that it is planning to build a registry of media files, and that it has partnered with Odeo, Buzznet, Brightcove, and Open Media Network to do this. The lack of a union catalog or central repository means that it is a lot harder to find footage than it ought to be; it would [...]
The BFI has a nice little write-up about its television archiving practices. It’s unfortunate they have to work so hard to make the point that television is worth preserving, but perhaps things are turning the corner on that issue.
The acquisitions of FlickR, Picassa, Webshots, and Photosite — all sites for sharing still images — have inspired several companies to try the same thing, but for moving images. YouTube and iFeeder are the latest to take this route, and both are still early stage. There are a bunch of others in wings, as well [...]
Independent World Television wants to build a viewer supported global independent news network (“If half a million people in the entire world contribute just $50, IWTnews will secure the $25 million it needs to fund its first year of broadcasting, in 2007.”) They’ve assembled an impressive list of supporters (from Charles Benton to Gore Vidal), [...]
Sally Potter’s Yes played last night at the Delancey Street screening room thanks to the efforts of my friend Mark Pincus. The emotional range of the movie is unusually broad; the plot shifts between political commentary, romance, and a rather bleak look at marital relationships. More interesting to me than the movie is Mark’s attempt [...]
I’ve been meaning for close to month to write about Lulop‘s new version, Lulop2, an “Internet news gathering” platform. Lulop has been around for a while (four years), and it’s prime mover, Lorenzo Manes, has built a viable business that brokers video footage shot by professionals, and purchased by television broadcast networks. Lulop2 is now [...]
The EFF cites a Communications Daily story that the MPAA may not ask for a Broadcast Flag provision in the digital television legislation now pending in the House. The story also cites a Congressional Research Service report that “raises concerns that the broadcast flag’s technological limitations could hinder activities normally deemed ‘fair use’ under copyright [...]