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n a letter to Justice Department leaders, an outside lawyer for Google said the “reality, and the appearance, of partiality are fairly called into question” by Jonathan Kanter’s past work for the company’s critics. Google pointed to his work with Yelp and the News Media Alliance, which represents publishers including The New York Times Company.
Source: Google questions if the new Justice Department antitrust boss can be impartial.
HBO Max will get its hands on Fox’s film slate for one final year — under an unusual deal to share streaming windows with Disney Plus and Hulu for half the studio’s titles, starting with animated family comedy “Ron’s Gone Wrong” next month. Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution and WarnerMedia amended their current output agreement for films from Fox (renamed 20th Century Studios) on HBO/HBO Max, which runs through the 2022 release year.
Source: Disney, WarnerMedia Carve Up Fox Film Slate Streaming Rights Through End of 2022 (EXCLUSIVE)
The extended COVID-19 pandemic has upended traditional windows. On Nov. 5, Netflix was hence able to book Red Notice — an action-comedy starring Dwayne Johnson opposite Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot and billed as the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made at a price tag of $200 million-plus — in 750 theaters nationwide a week before its launch on the streamer. That’s not a token release.
Source: Cinemark Puts Theater Chain Rivals on Notice: Why Not Carry Netflix Films?
Royal is a blockchain startup trying to bring about such a change. Launched this summer by Justin Blau—better known by his stage name DJ 3lau—Royal helps artists create and sell NFTs, but also offers a new business model where fans can invest in an artist’s work and receive royalties in return.
Gamers may soon be able to buy their favorite video games with bitcoin, the world’s most popular and valuable cryptocurrency, thanks to a partnership between the digital distribution platform Steam and the payment processor BitPay.
Although neither Steam nor its developer Valve has commented on this development, gamers Tuesday began seeing the option to pay with bitcoin appear when adding credit to their accounts. However, BitPay has published a blog post on the agreement between the parties with Rory Desmond, the company’s head of business development in North America and the Asia-Pacific region, saying it was Valve that contacted his firm about the possibility of facilitating the new payment method.
Source: IBT
It’s important to understand that even unreleased songs are protected by copyright as soon as an artist writes them down.
“Once [Prince] created it,” says Mike Carrier, a law professor at Rutgers, “it was fixed. It wasn’t just in his head. He didn’t just sing it once; he recorded it.” Still, no one knows who owns those copyrights now. Given his history with, and distrust of, the music industry, Prince’s heir or heirs may well fully own the recordings. Copyright lasts the life of the artist, plus 70 years.
(Mark your calendars for 2086, when Purple Rain enters the public domain.)
But “copyright is so much more about contracts, than it is about federal policy,” Vaidhyanathan says. “A copyright holder has tremendous power over what happens, how it’s released to the world.” We can’t say anything for sure so soon after his death, when so much remains unknown, but we can speculate. So let’s speculate.
Source: WIRED
Just a few months after the platform’s production launch, the first Ethereum startups are already receiving interest, and in some cases, undisclosed investments, from digital currency-focused VC firms.
Interviews with four of the leading blockchain and digital currency industry investors revealed that many are already performing due diligence on startups utilizing the decentralized application platform. Announced in 2014, Ethereum has gained significant traction of late following a successful hard fork and testing from major financial institutions.
Source: CoinDesk
The U.K.’s dedicated IP minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe has used the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day (April 26) to call for an IP framework “fit for purpose in the digital age.”
“The process of digitization has transformed the world around us at a furious pace. It has revolutionized the way we work; the way we interact; and the way we shop,” said Neville-Rolfe in a blog post referencing the “symbiotic relationship between digital and IP.” “The creative sector must be able to protect and benefit from intellectual property,” she went on to say, adding that if the U.K. wants to secure its future as a “nation of innovators, we need to make sure our IP framework is fit for purpose.”
Source: Billboard
When you stream a video, from Netflix or Hulu or YouTube or HBO Go or whatever else you have on hand, there’s a basic assumption: That video is for you to watch, and just that once.
Maybe you share it with whoever else is in the room at the time, but it’s given with the condition that you’re just taking it in as a one-off right there, not saving it forever, not rebroadcasting it somewhere else. It’s how the system works and how the deals are made.
Source: Popular Mechanics
Academic streaming video vendors, such as market leaders Films on Demand, Alexander Street, and Kanopy, tend to argue that regardless of any trade-offs made when licensing content rather than purchasing physical copies, the value of licensed streaming content is self-evident in increased usage and resulting lower cost per circ.
“VHS is dead…and DVD is almost dead—anyone who has an Apple [recent model iMac or MacBook] now doesn’t have a DVD player. And DVDs are becoming defunct. They’re getting damaged, they’re getting weeded, and they’re getting lost. And only one person can watch at a time,” says Tom Humphrey, COO of Kanopy, discussing the broader consumer transition to streaming and the corresponding demand for streaming video resources in higher ed.
“Is it better to have a DVD on the shelf that’s going to sit there for ten years and only get watched once, or am I better off putting $100 toward something that is going to generate 1,000 plays over the course of the year” before requiring renewal? Humphrey asks.
Source: Library Journal