How Apple could shake up TV: A la carte channels

Apple's much-expected TV could have one big trick up its sleeve: Giving consumers the power to pick--and pay for--only the channels they want. C/Net reports.

... Apple already offers a number of TV programs as subscriptions through its online store, giving buyers a way to purchase both single episodes and entire seasons. The difference, of course, being that customers must wait for the show to be broadcast before it's available to download. (In some cases, shows aren't available until the entire season has aired.) Wu is suggesting that Apple would rather move to live streaming of the programming, just like what customers get through their cable provider.

Read more.

Court Order Blocks BitTorrent, Megaupload and More

In a sweeping attempt at stopping piracy of their latest movie, a studio has obtained a court order forcing India’s ISPs to block some of the world’s largest file-sharing sites. A company spokesman gave a SOPA-style reason for their actions, claiming that site blocking is the only way they can stop foreign sites from engaging in “rampant online piracy.” Megaupload says the ban presents a great opportunity for them to test their anti-blocking technologies.

For us the India block is a great opportunity to see how users respond. In India we have one of the highest installation rates of our Megakey application. It gives users direct access to our servers. The Megakey instantly cures any kind of ISP or DNS blockade and always finds the fastest route to our servers,” Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom adds.

[via TorrentFreak]

Paid video revenue in the U.S., UK, France and Germany will reach $3 blllion in 2011

According to FutureSource Consulting via PaidContent, paid video revenue in the U.S., UK, France and Germany will reach $3 blllion in 2011, having tripled from last year.

[via @StKonrath]

YouTube Slam pits viral videos against each other

Google is attempting to remedy the dispute between which viral videos are the most entertaining with a new experiment called YouTube Slam. VentureBeat reports.

According to the YouTube official blog, YouTube Slam is a video discovery experiment it created in partnership with Google Research. Every week the staff will pick a new crop of videos in several categories (including Comedy, Cute, Music, Bizarre and Dance) that users can vote on. The winning videos get featured on a leaderboard.

The new service allows you to earn points for predicting the Slam winners, and gives you the ability to see how you stack up against other players each week. It’s an interesting development since we don’t typically see these kinds of simple gaming mechanics used to motivate people into using a new Google service.

Read more.

Don't Like That Shot? Tell the Filmmaker in Online Chats

If you've ever wondered about plot twists and casting decisions, some movie makers are giving viewers a chance to ask in live, online screenings, according to the WSJ.

Independent film "Archie's Final Project" star Gabriel Sunday and co-writer/director David Lee Miller recently screened the movie live on Facebook. They took turns answering questions from logged-in viewers. They explained which scene was a spoof of crime drama "Goodfellas" and how they declined the producers' request to tweak some potentially offensive language.

The online screenings are the latest effort by the movie industry to try to follow viewers online as the traditional movie business struggles. DVD and Blu-ray disk sales are expected to drop 8% this year from 2010, continuing years of decline, according to Nielsen VideoScan data analyzed by research firm IHS Screen Digest.

To promote his upcoming movie, "Damsels in Distress," director Whit Stillman will host a screening of his 1990 film "Metropolitan" next month on website Constellation.tv, which bills itself as an online movie theater. He expects to answer questions from fans who log in and to tease clips from Constellation.tv.

"Not many people live in places where they can participate in real Q&A screenings," Mr. Stillman says.

Read full article. Download nielsen Webinar: TV Viewers Get Social

The battle for the future of social video

At this very moment, there’s massive change happening in the way movies and TV are consumed. Videos are becoming an entirely social experience. The future of television is one where viewers watch, share and discuss videos with friends simultaneously. TheNextWeb reports.

A ton of startups competing for you and your friends’ attention. Everyone’s gunning for the same thing, and honestly there isn’t room for all of these services to co-exist.

According to TNW’s Editor Paul Sawers: Social video is “a bringing together of content and conversation. It’s an evolution of ‘viral’ and it has grown up a lot now; it’s content that sparks conversation, it’s content that people want to be associated with through their social media profiles. It’s something that draws the viewer towards it, rather than being pushed in front of people.”

Continue reading Sawers review of start-ups offering social tv.

Hurt Locker BitTorrent Lawsuit Dies, But Not Without Controversy

The record-breaking lawsuit, filed by the makers of The Hurt Locker against 24,583 alleged BitTorrent users, has come to an end. Although this appears to be good news for the defendants, the lawyers representing the movie studio are continuing with their cash demands. During recent months the lawyers engaged in dubious behavior, asking people to settle with them after they were dismissed from the lawsuit, and targeting people who were never included to begin with.

[TorrentFreak]

Pro-copyright group The Heritage Foundation takes SOPA to task

The Heritage Foundation, probably the nation's most influential conservative advocacy group, has long been a reliable ally of large copyright holders. But not when it comes to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. C/Net reports.

The venerable think tank, which enjoys close ties with the Republican Party and inspired President Reagan's missile defense program and the GOP's welfare reform effort, warned today that SOPA raises important security and free speech concerns.

The Heritage Foundation, President Reagan's favorite think tank and a longtime copyright hawk, is warning of the dangers of SOPA. From left: Ronald Reagan, Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek, and Heritage President Ed Feulner.

"The concern with SOPA is that it enforces private property rights at the expense of other values, such as innovation on the Internet, security of the Internet, and freedom of communication," James Gattuso, Heritage's senior research fellow in regulatory policy, told CNET this evening. While SOPA addresses a "very real problem," he says, it's not necessarily the right solution.

Read full article.

iPad (concept) game for bored pigs

File under fun, this iPad concept game aims to keep pigs entertained.

Since 2001, according tot European law, farmers have to do something to "entertain" their pigs - so they don't get bored in their stable and start eating each others tails...

Now some Dutch researchers and artists came up with an iPad concept game you can play with the pigs. The game called 'Pig Chase' lets you project lights on the wall of the stable (how this is done is not exactly clear), which the pigs like to follow with their nose... so they're entertained.

[via PortableGear]

Appeals Court reaffirms DMCA protection for user-generated content

A court's ruling against UMG affirms that the DMCA's safe harbor provision protects video hosting sites from copyright liability for videos uploaded by users. arstechnica reports.

In today's ruling, the EFF explains, "The appellate court squarely rejected UMG's assertion that the DMCA safe harbors do not apply to any service that 'displays' or 'distributes' copyrighted material rather than simply 'storing' it. As EFF (with several other public interest groups) pointed out in an amicus brief on which the court expressly relied, every Web hosting service 'displays' and 'distributes' the material that its users upload—that's how the Web works.

Read full article.

New 'Firewall' song protests SOPA copyright bill

The songwriter behind the 2007 Internet hit "I Got a Crush on Obama" is now taking aim at the Stop Online Piracy Act. C/Net reports.

Leah Kauffman, a Philadelphia-based singer and songwriter, has released "Firewall" to protest the Hollywood-backed copyright bill, which a House of Representatives committee had been scheduled to debate tomorrow. Earlier today, the committee debate was postponed until 2012.

TorrentFreak’s annual Top 10 list of the most pirated television shows

Via DigitalTrends, TorrentFreak’s annual Top 10 list of the most pirated television shows:

The RIAA Pirated $9 Million Worth of TV Shows

The same RIAA that makes examples out of ordinary folks by suing them for millions of dollars for file sharing? Turns out someone there's been pirating full seasons of Dexter. Nine million dollars worth.

Again, this is the same RIAA that has been shaking down a Minnesota mother of four for $1.5 million over 24 songs she shared on Kazaa.

[via Gizmodo]

Related: - French President’s Residence ‘Busted’ For BitTorrent Piracy. French President Nicholas Sarkozy is a man who has championed some of the most aggressive anti-piracy legislation in Europe (Hadopi law).

Koreans embrace social TV

Korean consumers are rapidly adapting to new online technologies such as social and mobile TV, in a trend that is reshaping the nation's media landscape. Warc reports.

According to a new report from Motorola Mobility, which looked into the video consumption habits of online consumers across 16 markets, the Asian nation shows consistently high engagement levels with new media platforms.

Use of social TV, defined as online applications allowing TV viewers to interact with the content or chat with other viewers, had increased from 31% of Korean respondents in 2010 to 76% this year.

Over the same period, the proportion of Koreans that had viewed TV content on a smartphone also rose seven times over.

Moreover, South Korea was the only nation in the region in which a majority (71%) preferred to use their mobile phone, rather than a laptop, to watch TV.

Other mobile platforms are rapidly gaining traction, with 14% of Koreans saying they had watched TV on tablet PCs such as the iPad in 2011. Last year, just 1% said the same.

Read more.

Time Warner Cable to Offer HBO Go

HBO and Time Warner Cable said late Friday that they will begin a "brief trial" of HBO's online service HBO Go, before rolling it out widely in the next month. While HBO launched the service in early 2010, it had not been available to Time Warner Cable subscribers.

[via The WSJ]

SOPA: Delayed Indefinitely, But Far From Dead

The Stop Online Piracy Act has hit a major snag, with the House Judiciary Committee adjourning before it could send the bill to the floor—and setting no date to continue proceedings. It's not a deathblow—not by a longshot—but it's a welcome pause for consideration for a bill that has the potential to grow into a digital Patriot Act.

[via Gizmodo]

Megaupload's Viral Music Video Is Back on YouTube as Dispute Raises New Issues

Universal Music Group says it doesn't need takedown notices to remove videos from YouTube, pointing to its contract with the video-sharing service as the method by which a controversial video starring recording artists and celebrities endorsing Megaupload was taken off the site.

[via The Hollywood Reporter]

The Internet erases borders, SOPA puts them back

Stacey Higginbotham for GigaOM on the Stop Online Piracy Act bill (SOPA).

... Amid the debate on SOPA Thursday, while the House tries to figure out if it should pass this legislation (and its 71-page amendment that is intended to make it slightly less frightening), we need to remember that this isn’t just a debate over intellectual property protection, but a fight to maintain the business models that used to exist 15 years ago, before the rise of the web helped make the Internet a popular pastime and started the disruption we still see today. Keep that in mind if this goes forward or even if the government tries to push another act aimed at preventing IP theft, the so-called OPEN Act.

According to CNet, more than 1 million people have signed a petition posted by the Avaaz.org advocacy group, and more than 700,000 people chose to "like" the AmericanCensorship.org anti-SOPA site.

Read full article and in C/Net, Vint Cerf: SOPA means 'unprecedented censorship' of the Web.

French President’s Residence ‘Busted’ For BitTorrent Piracy

French President Nicholas Sarkozy is a man who has championed some of the most aggressive anti-piracy legislation in Europe. But today it’s revealed that the occupants of his very own office and home are responsible for a nice selection of pirate downloads using BitTorrent. Three strikes? Those with access to the Presidential Palace’s IP addresses have already doubled that quota.

[Torrentfreak via @Openattitude]

Lines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills

The House and the Senate are looking to cut off oxygen for sites that offer free copies of entertainment by taking aim at search engines like Google and Yahoo that allow the pirates to function.

[via The New York Times]

YouTube launches schools-friendly video service

YouTube, the world's largest video sharing service, has launched a new school-friendly version of its site. The BBC reports.

YouTube For Schools promises classrooms access to educational videos without the risk of pupils being "distracted by the latest music video or cute cat".

The Google-owned site has put together playlists according to subject matter and intended age level.

Google said it hoped to attract schools which had previously been put off by inappropriate content on the site.

Read full article.

Megaupload is suing Universal for unjustly yanking its commercial off YouTube

In an interesting reversal on usual Internet copyright disputes, file-sharing site Megaupload is taking Universal Music Group to court. VentureBeat reports.

Megaupload’s Mega Song commercial is a bizarre and surreal commercial featuring endorsements from an impressive A-list roster of celebrities, including Will.i.am, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Serena Williams, Snoop Dogg and a host of others.

As the ad campaign picked up steam, UMG apparently contacted YouTube with a Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown notice, claiming that the work infringed on their copyright and demanding that it be removed immediately, which it was.

However, the song was an original composition, not something that belonged to UMG. And Megaupload said it signed contracts with all the celebrities to appear in the video. When the site’s management reached out to UMG, they didn’t get any answers.

Read full article.

Video Privacy 'Protection' Act: curious to know what your friends have video-streamed?

According to The New York Times, if Netflix has its way, Facebook members in the United States may soon be able to see which of their friends and family members have just video-streamed “Paranormal Activity” or “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Netflix is backing a bill in Congress that would amend the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 law that requires a video services company to get a customer’s written consent when it seeks to disclose that client’s personal information, such as rental history. The new bill, passed by the House last Tuesday, would allow consumers to give one-time blanket consent online for a company to share their viewing habits continuously.

Read full article. via Liquid News Room

Major artists record song to benefit MegaUpload, even as RIAA vilifies it as a 'pirate site'

via boingboing: Drunkenmaster sez, "MegaUpload is one of the main sites frequently vilified by the RIAA and MPAA as a rogue site dedicated to destroying their business models. But top music stars including P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West disagree and are giving the site their full support in a brand new song. The song itself is pretty mediocre, but still seems like a PR coup."

The video has been removed.

Google buys YouTube.XXX domaine name

According to Fusible, a blog that tracks domain name purchases, Google has just bought youtube.xxx.

It doesn't mean YouTube is getting into the porn business. It's likely a move to protect the YouTube brand.

[via Business Insider]

YouTube offers Japanese and Hollywood releases for rental

YouTube will now offer Japanese and Hollywood releases for rent at youtube.com/movies.

In their own words:

We’re starting off with a few hundred titles — both new releases and classic films — from two of the biggest Japanese studios Bandai and Toei, as well as from Hollywood studios Warner Brothers, NBCUniversal, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

... Over time we'll be adding additional videos and features to the Movies page, as well as featuring titles from additional studios.

Twitter's Trending Algorithm: A new tool to up TV show ratings

The list of "trending topics" on the right side of Twitter's home page is a coveted spot because millions of people see it. It often reflects what's hot in the news, from the death of Steve Jobs to Kim Kardashian's latest exploits. npr reports.

Sometimes a topic that seems hot, like Occupy Wall Street, doesn't trend, leading some activists to charge Twitter with censorship. But the complex algorithms that determine trending topics are intended to find what's trending in the moment, and not what's been around for a long time.

Getting a spot on the trending list has become so important that television programs hire consultants to help them get there.

Read full article.

'Monopoly': A YouTube sensation knocks Saudi royalty

Young Saudi videographers are using YouTube to air a series of video reports that reveal the underside of life in the world's biggest oil producer. The Christian Science Monitor reports.

The narratives are compelling and the journalism impassioned as they guide their audience through slums in the major cities, satirize the severe national housing shortage and ridicule the government's failure to respond.

Since its posting, the Arabic version of "Poverty" has been viewed more than 1.5 million times. That would be equal to nearly one-tenth of Saudi Arabia's population of 18 million. (Version with English subtitles embeded above here.)

Read full article.

Twitter trends changing live TV

According to The Telegraph, Twitter executives are increasingly working with TV editors during live shows to help them know what’s trending on the site and how to change footage accordingly.

For instance, during the recent MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga became a trending topic on Twitter, after her dress made of meat caused a storm. Consequently, the camera crews at the MTV event duly focused more of their coverage on the US star, instead of other celebrities at the event.

Simon Cowell has also been using audience feedback from Twitter to influence how he puts out The X Factor in the US. Having reviewed tweets about one of the shows, he then tweaked the format and content during the following week.

Read more.

5 Ways the Film and TV Industries Use Twitter

Mashable looks at the ways the film and television industries are using Twitter.

1. Premiering Content - One of the more interesting uses of Twitter in recent months has been as a platform to distribute content. Paramount kicked things off back in March when it released the first trailer for Super 8 on Twitter.

2. Second Screen Apps - Companies like yap.TV, which powers USA Networks’s new USA Anywhere app are building applications that are designed to help users take part in the social conversation while watching a show.

3. Connecting With Fans - During November Sweeps, CBS ran a “Social Sweep Week” campaign that let CBS stars take over the social media accounts of their respective shows. That means the stars themselves were tweeting from official Twitter accounts and communicating with fans.

4. Being Part of the Show - Live competition shows like The Voice and The X Factor use Twitter during the show itself and allow fans to vote.

5. Spreading the Word - The film and television industries have fully embraced Twitter as a promotional platform. It’s almost impossible to find a TV show or movie without an official Twitter handle or hashtag.

Read full article.