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The BBC and ITV have been looking at a new secret project, 'Canvas' which aims to (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/11/bbc-itv-bt-broadband-freeview) ; ...combine TV, radio and high-definition services with on-demand catch-up and archive programming provided by technology such as the BBC's iPlayer and ITV Player, as well as films, web content and interactive TV services. And given the success of iPlayer, it has got potential competitors, such as Sky, very nervous (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/sky-challenges-bbc-plans-for-project-canvas-catchup-tv-service-1684065.html). There is more on Canvas here too (http://www.flypaper.tv/2008/10/25/what-is-project-canvas/).

Just a few links that we think might be of interest... We've all heard of the 'Bill of Rights' - how about a 'Technology Bill of Rights (http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/technology-bill-rights-867)' and it proposes an interesting media right - the right to use content purchased on any device at any time; Article 6. Any media content legally purchased by an individual shall be available for private use on any device, at any timeYes, the DRM article -- this one comes directly from the problems facing a large number of people who purchased content such as songs from online retailers, only to completely lose access to those purchases when the retailer decided to shut down the authorization servers or similar issues faced by anyone spending money on digital goods. If a person has purchased media, they should be able to retrieve that media on any device they control at any time: from a PC to a Mac to an iPod to whatever. The entertainment industry has long had a built-in media control device simply due to the distribution method of that media -- the cassette, the CD, the DVD. With digital files they lose that control, but that shouldn't mean that the purchaser should lose their rights to use their purchase either. I'm not going to go further into this debate, since both sides are deeply entrenched already. In Other News... Also in the Pirate Bay case, despite the guilty verdict, the torrent indexing website continues as usual (http://www.slyck.com/story1855_Pirate_Bay_Continues_Business_as_Usual). Also plugincinema's Ana has published an article on Girl Gaming (http://www.casualgaming.biz/blog/211/3-Generations-How-gaming-has-crossed-the-divide) and Tomas has published a review of the book 'What Would Google Do?' (http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-would-google-do/2009/05/16) - of note as it includes an interesting section on how Google would run Hollywood...

You may remember that the film 'Wolverine' (the 4th in the X-men film series, but chronologically set first...) was leaked, unfinished (content/view/1873/1/), on to the internet. We wondered if all this free publicity and/or piracy would damage the film's profit upon release? It seems it is a hard question to answer (http://techdirt.com/articles/20090504/0405424736.shtml); while the film hid very well, it did not do was well as the comparable Iron Man, but it also did much poorer in reviews that Iron Man. Here's a couple of opinions...The answer is unknowable, of course, and the file-sharing community will no doubt point to the big total as proof that piracy doesn't really hurt the studios, at least not when it comes to theatrical boxoffice. But a close look at the numbers suggest the leak indeed might have cost Fox. How much? Tons of variables are at work here; everything from mixed reviews to swine flu.... (http://reporter.blogs.com/thresq/2009/05/how-much-did-piracy-hurt-wolverine-boxoffice.html) And..Additionally, I'm honestly of the view that internet piracy really doesn't substantially impact the bottom line on most blockbuster movies. The folks that are downloading the film are doing so knowing that they're getting a different experience - no one that cares is fooled into thinking that can replicate the movie-going experience. And if they don't care, you can't harness that money. It is lost, because if they don't care about the substantial differences between seeing a crappy, unfinished version of a movie on a 14 screen and seeing a polishing, 5.1 Dolby surround sound version on a giant movie screen (not to mention the atmosphere opening weekend brings), you're not going to convince them to spend a dime on your film.... (http://theheadliningact.blogspot.com/2009/05/wolverines-unknowable-opening-response.html)

And here is another good links (with comments from Tom from plugincinema) - on the excellent p2p foundation website (http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/pirate-bay-found-guilty-1-year-in-prison/2009/04/18):My analysis of the Pirate Bay, based on my research thus far is at best it will be a pyrrhic victory for the prosecution and at worse it will still further damage them. To elaborate, I believe that p2p follows the pattern of evolution and any prosecution/legal change acts as a new environmental hazard - some forms of p2p will be impacted by the change and others will be immune and survive, then thrive in the gap left behind. Just as ’species’ is an attempt to place a classification around an always changing pattern of life, ‘copyright’ is an attempt to place a legal boundary around an always changing pattern of ideas.There is another factor to consider that some are reporting as significant, the drop in Swedish p2p traffic when the law changed to make it easier to presecute individual illegal file traders (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7978853.stm) which in an article in the International Herald Tribune is being seen as part of a series of victories against piracy that might mean copyright can win. It can’t. However this, like the Pirate Bay victory, is no more than an single change to a single environmental factor and the mass of p2p will simply evolve round it using other techniques (IM or virtual hardrives as in S.Korea) and betters p2p software such as encrypted and dark-nets (as in Japan).And as if to answer the predictions, we found this; New law increases demand for anonymous web surfing (http://www.thelocal.se/18658/20090403/).

In the wake of the recent verdict, here's a bit of light reading... (http://newteevee.com/2009/04/25/future-of-p2p-what-comes-after-the-pirate-bay/) Matt Mason, author of the book The Pirate’s Dilemma, recently tweeted that “[The] Pirate Bay trial will change things the way the Napster shutdown changed things.” That’s an interesting thought. Of course, the Napster shutdown didn’t change too much for file sharers, who just migrated to other platforms. But the trial against and eventual demise of Napster changed P2P as a whole, because it led to the emergence of Gnutella and KaZaa, both of which eventually became more mature technologies, capable of handling far greater numbers of file sharers with a lot less infrastructure.There is also the news that questions are being asked about the judge (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-lawyer-is-biased-calls-for-a-retrial-090423/) and this (not related to the Pirate Bay) snippit of p2p technology news... (http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-1028.html) Some folks at Microsoft Research of all places have come up with a clever way for you to save electricity and increase your ratio: The researchers have built the prototype of a new network adapter called Somniloquy that can download data via Bittorrent and even offer basic Instant Messaging capabilities while the PC is in sleep mode. (http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/79419/agarwal-NSDI09-Somniloquy.pdf)

Apparently there will be appeals, but at this point the verdict is (http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-the-verdict-090417/);Just minutes ago the verdict in the case of The Pirate Bay Four was announced. All four defendants were accused of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’. Peter Sunde: Guilty. Fredrik Neij: Guilty. Gottfrid Svartholm: Guilty. Carl Lundström: Guilty. The four receive 1 year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000. And comment (http://techdirt.com/articles/20090417/0129274535.shtml);But, of course, what happened post Grokster should give you an indication of what will happen here: basically, the entertainment industry will gleefully declare victory, and make statements about how this is a major victory against piracy. But, in actuality, the exact opposite of that will occur. Unauthorized file sharing continues (or even increases) and it becomes that much more difficult for the legacy industries to win back customers and embrace these new, useful and efficient tools of distribution and promotion. It's a classic case of winning the battle and losing the war.

Here's horizontal integration - with a difference - a Fox film reviewer Roger Friedman, got fired (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/06/1246232) for writing a review about the much pirated, but as yet unfinished Wolverine film (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/1324236) - also made by Fox;On Friday, the film studio 20th Century Fox — owned by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate ruled by Mr. Murdoch — became angry after reading Friedman's latest column, a review of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine,' a big-budget movie that was leaked in unfinished form on the Web last week. Friedman posted a mini-review, adding, 'It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer.' The film studio, which enlisted the FBI to hunt the pirate, put out a statement calling Friedman's column 'reprehensible' while News Corporation weighed in with its own statement, saying it had asked Fox News to remove the column from its Web site. 'When we advised Fox News of the facts,' the statement said, 'they promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.' It will be interesting to see if all this free publicity damages the film's profit upon release. In other news, the excellent VLC Media Player releases a new version. (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

A new application on Google's mobile phone platform, Android is causing quite a bit of a stir (http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/27/1752223); Remember how you can scan any bar code with an android phone and it will tell you where to find that product for cheaper? A new Android application called BarTor (formerly ScanTorrent) can scan any DVD bar code and then signals either uTorrent or Vuze on your PC to download the movie from BitTorrent. How long do you think this will last? On the copyright news thing; in Canada, a plan aimed at a collective licence for music (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3772/135/) (thus legalising all p2p of music there) is ongoing and being refined - it will be itneresting to see where it goes.Also we are loving kutiman's remixes! (http://www.youtube.com/user/kutiman)

There is an interesting interview (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-interview-epic-win-prediction-090318/) with the spokesperson from The Pirate Bay in regard to the recent trial (content/view/1865/1/). 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.

Noted!Courtisane FestivalFilm, Video Media Art23-24-25-26 AprilKunstencentrum Vooruit, Cinema Sphinx, Bank van de Arbeid, Film-PlateauHet volledige programma online/The full programme online 1 aprilwww.courtisane.be (http://www.courtisane.be)

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 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7933565.stm);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 (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article item=ffmpeg_05_interview num=1) behind the audio/video cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video - FFmpeg, have released version 0.5 (http://www.ffmpeg.org/)!

Following our report on The Pirate Bay trial (content/view/1865/1/), an interesting bit of follow-up; The Norwegian state broadcaster has decided to set up its own tracker to distribute content via torrents (http://torrentfreak.com/norwegian-tv-launches-bittorrent-tracker-090308/) ;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.

The main commercial UK based terrestrial TV company, ITV, has just announced some gloomy news (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/04/itv-slashes-costs-profits-drop); 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 . But the hit to advertisting - a double as the downturn in the economy and the competition from other sources of entertainment (e.g. games and the Internet). What is interesting is that the same drama is being played out in the US by the main TV networks too (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/media/28network.html?_r=1 partner=rss emc=rss pagewanted=all) (such as CBS and NBC); 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.' (Hat tip to Techdirt.com (http://techdirt.com/articles/20090301/1215153931.shtml))

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? (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/20/2059233) 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...