Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Three from BNA News: APPEALS COURT HEARS BLIZZARD DMCA CASE The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard arguments yesterday in a case that may decide how the DMCA applies to computer software and the important practice of reverse engineering. At issue is what a group of programmers did when analyzing video games published by Blizzard Entertainment in a successful bid to make the games work with servers other than Blizzard's official Battle.net. story LA TIMES PULLS READER-EDITORIAL WEB SITE In a short-lived mass media experiment, the Los Angeles Times has closed a Web site it launched last Friday that allowed readers to rewrite editorials. The paper said it made the move after the site was flooded with obscene messages and photos. news.com story NYT story COMPANY UNLEASHES 'BADAPPLE' A new company called BadFruit has anticipated Apple Computer's plans to add podcasting support to iTunes with a software plug-in called "BadApple" that does the trick itself. For now, the plug-in provides seamless access to hundreds of podcasts inside the iTunes shell, with downloads functioning in much the same way that the iTunes music store itself works. story (Edited to make hyperlinks of bare urls.) 11:44:08 PM    comment []

Suddenly, nonprofits seek profits, by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, The Christian Science Monitor. Known for producing classic plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, and Shakespeare, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis didn't originally set out to put outrageous costumes on the backs of rowdy revelers at Mardi Gras or Halloween. But costs upwards of $30,000 per year for costume storage led managers at the historic theater to think outside the box, or closet, as the case may be. Result: a three-year-old costume-rental business that not only pays for all storage costs but also generates extra cash flow for the Guthrie and its business partner, the Children's Theater Company "At first, we thought maybe we'd make a little money and put it into the theaters, but not make this a for-profit business," says Maribeth Hite, special-projects manager at the Guthrie. "But we discovered we had a really good idea." Others in the nonprofit world are discovering the same thing. For-profit side businesses that leverage unique physical and intellectual assets found at schools, museums, and charities are generating much-needed revenue in a time when few nonprofits can thrive on beneficence alone. 10:42:05 AM    comment []

Kevin summarizes a report in the Wall Street Journal: A NEW WAVE OF 'ADVERTISING' PAYS PRODUCER, NOT NETWORK In the new CBS reality program "Rock Star: INXS," about the search for a new lead singer for rock band INXS, audio equipment from audio-systems manufacturer SLS International Inc. will be prominently featured. To get its products on the show, SLS offered compensation -- but not to CBS. Instead, the program's producer, reality show impresario Mark Burnett, received SLS stock options with a current value of about $100,000. CBS was cut out of the equation. SLS isn't buying traditional commercials on the show and hasn't dealt with CBS for the program, says SLS Chief Executive John Gott. With the sort of exposure SLS products will get, traditional commercials "probably won't be necessary," he says. The deal highlights a quandary likely to confront TV networks increasingly in coming years. Advertisers are starting to cut back on the money they spend on traditional TV advertising, conscious that digital video recorders make it easier for people to zap through commercials. Instead, advertisers are putting more money into featuring their products on TV shows, in what are known as product placements. But fees from product placements don't automatically flow to the TV outlet that airs the show. The financial arrangement varies with the deal. In some cases, networks, ad-space-buying firms or third-party consultants can get the money. But in other cases, like SLS's deal with "Rock Star," the money goes to the producer. 9:42:03 AM    comment []

Center City braces for protests, by Anthony S. Twyman, Philadelphia Inquirer. Center City is likely to be awash in puppets, protesters and skateboarders today, as two major demonstrations are expected to draw thousands of people and temporarily shut down many streets. The protesters are expected to gather this morning at three Center City locations, and march to the Convention Center at 12th and Race Streets this afternoon to rally against BIO 2005, a biotechnology conference that is being held at the center. Each group of marchers will have a different theme and be led by large puppets made by Spiral Q Puppet Theater. The three groups will rally at JFK Plaza, at 15th Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard, from noon to 1 p.m. before proceeding to the Convention Center, according to protest organizers. "Our intent is not to clog traffic. We're not here to irritate Philadelphians," said Hart Feuer, a spokesman for BioDemocracy 2005, the group organizing the protest, who acknowledged that there is likely to be some traffic disruption. The protesters plan to regroup at 6 p.m. at JFK Plaza and march to the Art Museum, where businesspeople and scientists from BIO 2005 are expected to hold an evening reception, Feuer said. Separately, thousands of skateboarders are expected to gather at noon at Nocturnal Skateboard Shop, 610 S. Third St., and at Elite Sports, 611 South St., for the launch of "Wild in the Streets." Should be interesting . . . 9:41:56 AM    comment []

Three from bOingbOing: Combining US census and Google Maps A reader writes, "Jimmy Palmer [ed: editor of the fine DRM Blog] combined 2000 census data with Google maps. The result is that you can now see how many people live in any area in the United States. You can even see how many people live on a single city block." Darknet: How an Intel VP broke federal law to talk to Congress JD Lasica is the author of Darknet, an excellent new book on the copyfight (the cover blurb I provided for it: "The entertainment companies are stealing your future -- robbing you blind with locks and laws and rhetoric that tunrs anyone who makes and shares culture without their permission into a crook. Get mad, get even, get on the darknet and *fight back*."). He's posting excerpts from the book on his site. This excerpt deals with the presentation that Intel VP Donald Whiteside made to Congressional panels on the way in which copyright is limiting the technology industry, and how he had to break federal law to do normal, everyday things. "I used a program to copy a few seconds from the DVD of the movie Rudy," he said. "It's the scene showing the final game of the Notre Dame season with Rudy's family in the stands cheering wildly when he got to play. I then spliced in some snippets of pro players doing a touchdown dance from NFL Films, and I overlaid it with audio from 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' "I stitched this all together with video of my son, and it turned out to be the piece of home video that gets watched the most in our house. When relatives or members of the football team come over, we pop it in and we just laugh. The added scenes and music really bring it all to life." There was just one problem. "It turns out to do this, I violated the DMCA. I used the DeCSS program to circumvent the encryption and access the movie clips on the DVD that I own," Whiteside told the aides. "The end product is a DVD that I don't sell or distribute but is considered a derivative work under copyright law. Dead online game resurrected by dumpster-diving its servers Fans of Castle Infinity, an early, defunct massively multiplayer game, brought their virtual home back from the grave by sneaking into the company's dumpsters, rescuing the servers that the game lived on, and starting them up again. 8:41:47 AM    comment []