There is an interesting interview with the spokesperson from The Pirate Bay in regard to the recent trial. He is predicting an 'epic win':
Right now, yes. I’m very happy about it and I still predict an EPIC WIN for sure. But you never know. We expect a win but we’re prepared for the worst case scenario, so that we don’t get too beaten up if that happens.
A pretty angry sounding row has broken out over the rights to streaming music videos in the UK, and as a result a large number of videos are blocked;
Patrick Walker, YouTube's director of video partnerships, told BBC News that the move was "regrettable" but that it continued to talk to the PRS.
"The more music videos YouTube streams, and the more popular those music videos are, the more money YouTube will generate to share with the PRS and its song writers. It's a win-win arrangement.
YouTube, however, cannot be expected to engage in a business in which it loses money every time a music video is played - that is simply not a sustainable business model." he said.
Steve Porter, head of the PRS, said he was "outraged... shocked and disappointed" by YouTube's decision.
In a statement, Mr Porter said the move "punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent".
Also, in other news, the people behind the audio/video cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video - FFmpeg, have released version 0.5!
The government-owned Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has set up its very own BitTorrent tracker to distribute their TV-shows. After a successful test last year they plan to release more DRM-free TV-shows via BitTorrent, using the same tracker software currently in use at The Pirate Bay.
ITV is to cut 600 jobs, slice £65m from its programme budget and look to sell Friends Reunited and Freeview business SDN as it reported an adjusted pre-tax profit fall of 41% in 2008. Michael Grade, the ITV executive chairman, said the advertising market was "the most challenging I have experienced in over 30 years in UK broadcasting".
For decades, the big three, now big four, networks all had the same game plan: spend many millions to develop and produce scripted shows aimed at a mass audience and national advertisers, with a shelf life of years or decades as reruns in syndication. ... Ratings over all for broadcast networks continue to decline, making it harder for them to justify their high prices for advertising. Cable channels are spending more on original shows, which bring in new viewers and dampen their appetites for buying repeats of broadcast shows. For the networks, the crisis is twofold: cultural and financial. For viewers, the result is more low-cost reality shows, prime-time talk and news programs and sports from the institutions that once made 'Hill Street Blues,' 'All in the Family' and 'Cheers.'
Thus far many of us are used to seeing content as a set form - so an 'album' (around 12 songs) or a 'film' (around 2 hours long) - but now with interactive forms of media, so what is this?
The app, called 'The Presidents' Music — PUSA,' sells for $2.99 on the App Store (iTunes link) offers users access to four full albums, including the band's early 'lost' recordings. This includes the previously-unavailable FroggyStyle — 'unless you have one of the 500 cassettes the band sold in 1994, you've never heard this before,' reads the app description. The app also features a number of extras and exclusives that the band says are updated regularly, and fans can read the band's blog directly from the app on their iPhones or iPod touches.
An album? yes and more. A blog link? yes and more! Next we'll see a film-app...
The idea was to create a gutsy, lively and entertaining film using engines from a computer game that could create low bandwidth/quality images that would be fitting to be screened on the net. One of the things I really like about it is the extreme pixellation in places where it has undergone quite dramatic compression for the web...it really adds to the grungy feel.
