Category: Media Moguls

Or, as it’s spelled out, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

I am, in principle at least, a believer in copyright and intellectual property. The idea that, “Hey, this copyrighted piece of music has been digitized, therefore I can make all the free copies of it I want,” has never made much sense to me, even if I’ve not always been a paragon of virtue in this area.

On the other hand, the Big Soulless Corporations who own the rights to so much music, video, etc., have been anything but good poster children for intellectual property. Instead, they’ve come across, time and again, as greedy scumbags who aren’t interested in art, just in raking in oodles of bucks from it.

To that end, I find it very interesting that Phillips, who “owns” the standard for Compact Discs, and thus the CD logo, has now decided that copy-protected CDs are not, in fact, CDs, since they are not written to the standard. Not only do they not want music companies to use the CD logo on copy-protected CDs, but they’re actually angling to have a disclaimer printed on each one that doesn’t meet the standard, so that customers know that, even though it looks like a CD and is sold like a CD, it’s not, officially, a CD.

Interesting times ahead.

(Via Words Mean Things)

Women are by far the biggest readers of fiction (and are significantly bigger readers than men, overall). And, as a result, writers and publishers are beginning to focus more on women as the purchasers of their product.

“If I’m pitching a new novel in an editorial meeting, I have a better chance of acquiring it if I say it will appeal to women,” said Carole DeSanti, a veteran editor at Viking Penguin who has worked with such noted fiction writers as Walter Mosley, Melissa Bank and Terry McMillan. “It’s not that male readers of fiction don’t exist, but they’re less of a sure bet. And women are more promiscuous readers, willing to take risks, to read across a lot of categories. As a consequence, almost every aspect of trade book publishing has been ‘gendered.’ It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy — and it effects what writers produce.”
For retailers like Brad Zellar, co-owner of Rag and Bone, a used bookstore in Minneapolis, the consequences are evident at the till: “If I had to count on male fiction readers, I’d go broke.”

(Via Cursor.org)

In Orwell’s 1984, Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth was to use scissors to (literally) cut-and-paste “unpersons” from the newspaper archives, filling them in with appropriate stories about the current “in” crowd.

Flash forward to 2001. AOL Time-Warner TBS, Princeton Video Image (PVI), Studio USA, and Dick Wolf have inked a deal to allow PVI to digitally map in product placements to Law & Order reruns once they move from A&E to TNT next month. Want to brand the precinct Coke — I mean, soda machine? Want your logo on Lenny Briscoe’s coffee cup? The sky (and your pocketbook) are the limit.

As a student of history, I have a respect for primary, original sources. One of these days, we’ll never be able to tell what the original of these shows was because it will have been digitally monkeyed around so that there is no original any more. It’s the next step from colorizing films. Next thing you know, you’ll be able to change hair color, manipulate lines, and generally speaking change the whole show around for whomever wants to pay the bill.

Heck, Melissa Gilbert might end up (digitally) playing Rhoda.

Feh.

The Register also reports on a California appellate court decision that publishing the DeCSS source code is an expression of free speech, and cannot be restricted without passing the (high) bar necessary for prior restraint.

Molly Ivins in her 10/25 column notes how media company margins have grown by cutting frills like foreign bureaus and other such trivia. “That the media have a public responsibility so important it is protected by the Constitution gets lost in the profit chase.” She notes as well, with some alarm, that our new FCC Commissioner is about to further deregulate the media.

Forbes magazine is predicting a merger frenzy in 2002 as Powell prepares to repeal the ban on crossownership of TV stations and cable operators in the same market, crossownership of TV and newspapers in one market, and the 30 percent cap, limiting one cable to 30 percent of the nation’s subscribers or 35 percent of the television audience. In a moment of painful irony Tuesday, Powell was discussing the need for back-up broadcasting capability after the World Trade Center attack knocked out many radio and television antennas, and said, “Public policy should minimize having all of your eggs in a single basket.”

Yes, Mr. Powell, it should.

While Freedom of the Press does not mean the government owes you a Xerox machine and coterie of paper boys, it’s still disturbing that we should see further consolidation and effectively less competition. Ironic, since Powell claims he’s just trying to let the free market work.

Off driving to dinner tonight, I was caught on traffic on the Schuykill (pronounced “Skoo-kill”) Expressway and fumbled around on the radio, looking for NPR.

Found it.

It’s Pledge Week here in Philadelphia ….

I listen to public radio. Listening to National Public Radio on Colorado Public Radio (AM 1340 in this area) is a regular fixture of my drive in (Morning Edition) and drive home (All Things Considered).

I want to support it. I do. I know that the “public” part is about 5% of their budget, at most. The rest is from donations.

Donations which mostly come through … (shudder) … Pledge Drives.

These are similar to public TV pledge drives, but less interesting. They basically consist in the content you want to listen to being replaced by the same CPR announcers yammering about the same statistics, the same guilt-inducements, the same mind-numbing script over, and over, and over.

I cannot tell you how much I hate Pledge Drives on CPR. With a passion undying. I start quoting Melville. It’s that bad.

It’s so bad that I refuse to donate. I cannot in any way, shape, or form, support such activities. I would sooner cut off my hands, poke out my eyes, and go diving into a swimming pool full of broken glass.

No. Frickin’. Way.

But I feel guilty. I enjoy it. I make use of it. I should support it. And the only way to support it …

No.

And I did, once. I donated something. And they spent at least three times that much over the following five year period sending me mailings to try and guilt me into donating more.

Besides which, CPR is like the Borg of Public Radio. They’ve extended their empire from the Denver Metro area up and down the Front Range, and across the I-70 Corridor to western Colorado. It’s hard to find an NPR affiliate any more that is not part of the CPR Empire. Which has meant that a lot of local voices have been stilled. Which sucks.

Don’t want to support that. No way.

But …

I do enjoy the shows. I do make use of them, listen to them, except during Pledge Week, when I’ll actually flip on other local drive-time yammerers to avoid it. And, to be fair, this particular drive the CPR interruptions have been much shorter. Five minutes of yammering, ten minutes of show, five minutes of yammering, ten minutes of show … Movng from the Utterly Awful to only being Wildly Annoying.

Still …

(Still … couldn’t they have held off on the Fall Pledge Drive for another week ….)

It’s such a pretty number

493108359702850190027577767239076495728490777215020863208075 018409792627885097658864557802013660073286795447341128317353 678312015575359819785450548115719393458773300380099326195058 764525023820408110189885042615176579941704250889037029119015 870030479432826073821469541570330227987557681895601624030064 111516900872879838194258271674564774816684347928464580929131 531860070010043353189363193439129486044503709919800477094629 215581807111691530318762884778783541575932891093295447350881 882465495060005019006274705305381164278294267474853496525745 368151170655028190555265622135314631042100866286797114446706 366921982586158111251555650481342076867323407655054859108269 562666930662367997021048123965625180068183236539593483956753 575575324619023481064700987753027956186892925380693305204238 149969945456945774138335689906005870832181270486113368202651 590516635187402901819769393767785292872210955041292579257381 866058450150552502749947718831293104576980909153046133594190 302588132059322774443852550466779024518697062627788891979580 423065750615669834695617797879659201644051939960716981112615 195610276283233982579142332172696144374438105648552934887634 921030988702878745323313253212267863328370279250997499694887 759369159176445880327183847402359330203748885067557065879194 611341932307814854436454375113207098606390746417564121635042 388002967808558670370387509410769821183765499205204368255854 642288502429963322685369124648550007559166402472924071645072 531967449995294484347419021077296068205581309236268379879519 661997982855258871610961365617807456615924886608898164568541 721362920846656279131478466791550965154310113538586208196875 836883595577893914545393568199609880854047659073589728989834 250471289184162658789682185380879562790399786294493976054675 348212567501215170827371076462707124675321024836781594000875
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