MPAA boss Glickman says goodbye to Hollywood (tech)
LAS VEGAS – Dan Glickman spent his Hollywood years aiming to improve the ratings system that tells Americans what to expect in a movie — and fighting pirates. Glickman, the outgoing chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America , inherited a tough job from longtime predecessor Jack Valenti to defend Hollywood against counterfeiters distributing illegal copies of movies, first on videotape and DVD, now on the Internet. For studios, “the protection of their content is the No. 1 issue. Without question, it’s piracy,” Glickman said in an interview at ShoWest, a convention for theater owners, as he prepares to take a new job April 1 as head of Refugees International. “But it’s broader than just piracy. It’s how to protect content in this digital world, particularly on the Internet. The Internet is ubiquitous. Kids can access it. It’s all available in their homes, and they feel it’s theirs. Our job has been to try to educate people that in fact it’s not theirs, unless there’s some form or system for paying for it. At the same time, it’s our responsibility to provide it in ways that are easily accessible and at reasonable prices.” As Internet speeds increase to the point where huge movie files can be downloaded easily, Hollywood has scrambled to avoid the sort of free sharing of songs that bulldozed the music industry. As the key studio lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Glickman has been the point man on movie piracy since taking over the MPAA job in 2004 from Valenti, who had overseen the association for 38 years and implemented the ratings system that has been in place since the late 1960s. Valenti died in 2007. While piracy has been the main financial threat facing studios, Glickman recalled a word of advice from Valenti about the job’s most important aspect. “I remember Jack talked to me about this, and he was right. When I took this job, he said, `the preservation of the ratings system is as key as anything else you’ll do. You’ve got to make sure it’s on the level, serves the public, and it’s fair and transparent,’” Glickman said. As during Valenti’s tenure, the ratings system continued to draw criticism under Glickman, detractors saying it was too puritanical about sex and overly permissive about violence. The system judges movies by content, assigning them ratings of G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 to help parents determine what films might be appropriate for children to see. Kirby Dick’s 2006 documentary ” This Film Is Not Yet Rated ” took the MPAA to task on sex and violence and also said the ratings system was stacked in favor of deep-pocketed studio films and against independent filmmakers whose movies might get slapped with restrictive NC-17 ratings arbitrarily. The film also characterized the ratings system as secretive and lacking consistent standards. “The criticism that came from that movie, some of it was legitimate, some of it wasn’t. We’ve done some things to try to improve the openness of the system, particularly on how we relate to independent film. We’ve really opened the doors to that movement and been much more, I think, constructive in the dialogue between them and the MPAA on their ratings and advertising issues,” Glickman said. “I’m really big on the importance of documentary movies, because I think they can have an impact, and I think that movie had some impact on us, quite truthfully.” Glickman, 65, is a former congressman and served as U.S. agriculture secretary under President Bill Clinton. As president of Refugees International, Glickman will oversee the nonprofit group’s efforts to provide humanitarian aid for people displaced by crises around the world. A successor has not yet been chosen at MPAA, but Glickman’s new job will be a big change from his Hollywood gig, which took him to such swanky events as the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards . “I wouldn’t say I got addicted to it, but I would say it was a hell of a lot of fun,” Glickman said. “I thought to myself, boy, my parents wouldn’t believe this. This kid from Kansas — my dad was in the scrap-iron business — and here I’m walking down the red carpet, and I’m commenting on issues like what’s the best movie or who’s a talented actor or actress.”
Egypt regulator enforces Internet voice call ban (tech)
CAIRO () – Egypt has begun enforcing a ban on international calls made through mobile internet connections , the head of the telcoms regulator told on Tuesday, potentially boosting voice revenues at landline monopoly Telecom Egypt . The ban will apply to the three mobile operators in Egypt — Mobinil, Etisalat Egypt and Vodafone Egypt — who offer internet access for computers via USB and other mobile modems, as well as via mobile phone. “The ban is on Skype on mobile internet, not on fixed, and this is due to the fact it is against the law since it bypasses the legal gateway,” said Amr Badawy, the executive president of the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA). Under Egyptian law, international calls must pass through a network controlled by majority state-owned Telecom Egypt, which this week reported disappointing earnings. While only mentioning Skype by name, Badawy did not rule out extending the ban to other services in the future. “We are targeting any illegal voice traffic on the mobile (internet),” Badawy said, adding that the ban was communicated to the three mobile operators earlier this week. “Any traffic outside the international gateway is against the law.” Several other providers, including Google, Yahoo and Windows Live , offer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. The NTRA had tolerated mobile internet telephony until a drop in international call volumes over recent months pushed them to tell Egypt’s operators to enforce the ban, Badawy said. “We monitor what is happening on international voice calling and it has had an adverse effect on it,” he said by phone. Internet telephony firm Skype’s free calls on computers have become an internet phenomenon since the company was founded in 2002 and it has some 520 million registered users worldwide. Skype signed a deal last month with Verizon Wireless , the first U.S. mobile operator to actively push the service, which will work on phones such as Research In Motion’s BlackBerry. Telecom Egypt offers fixed-line internet, as does LINKdotNET , owned by Orascom Telecom. Officials from Etisalat Egypt and Mobinil were not immediately available to comment, but a spokesman at Vodafone Egypt confirmed the ban was in place. “We’ve been informed of the decision and we are already abiding by it,” Vodafone Egypt spokesman Khaled Hegazy said. The moves comes after the United Arab Emirates said on Monday it would not yet give VoIP licenses to international companies like Skype. In September, India’s security agencies recommended a ban on international internet telephony until a system to trace the calls was put in place. The NTRA’s Badawy said he could not say whether Egypt’s ban would be extended to international voice calls made over fixed-line internet. (Editing by Simon Jessop)
Erin Andrews peephole stalker lands in jail (tech)
LOS ANGELES () – A Chicago insurance salesman was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Monday for making nude videos through hotel peepholes of television sports reporter Erin Andrews and posting them on the Internet. Michael Barrett , 48, had pleaded guilty to stalking Andrews over an 18-month period and removing the peepholes from the doors of at least three different hotel rooms to shoot video of her naked on his mobile phone. After a celebrity web site turned down buying the videos, Barrett posted 10 of them on the Internet, identifying the ESPN reporter as the victim. Barrett was sentenced by a federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday and ordered to pay Andrews $7,366 in restitution. Andrews, 31, told Monday’s sentencing hearing that she still suffers fear, anxiety and public humiliation as a result of having been stalked. “I’m being victimized every day…and I did nothing to deserve it,” Andrews said, adding the videos will likely always be on the Internet. “I’m living public humiliation. It’s my body that’s on the Internet…He stalked me, he terrorized me — this will never be over for me, and I don’t want it to ever be over for you,” she said, looking at Barrett. Barrett apologized, saying; “I have no words to adequately tell Miss Andrews how sorry I am for what I’ve done to her. I hope that one day she will forgive me.” At least 16 other women were victimized by Barrett in the same way, according to court papers. Their names were not revealed but the court papers described them as “female sports reporters and other television personalities .” Andrews, who was voted America’s “sexiest sportscaster” by Playboy magazine in 2007 and 2008, will be one of the celebrity contestants in the upcoming season of ABC’s ” Dancing with the Stars “, starting on March 22. (Reporting by Jill Serjeant)
China again tells Google to obey the law (tech)
BEIJING () – China on Tuesday again warned Google not to stop filtering its web search engine results, as speculation mounted about the company’s plans following its threat to leave over censorship and cyberattacks. The US Internet giant has said it could abandon its Chinese-language search engine and possibly pull out of China altogether after the hack attacks. It also says it no longer wants to bow to the Chinese government ’s web censors. “We have all along maintained a policy of opening-up and welcome foreign investments in China. But the prerequisite is they should respect and abide by Chinese laws ,” commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian told reporters. “We hope Google will abide by the law, no matter whether it continues to do business in China or makes other choices.” Yao said if Google were to decide to shut down its businesses registered in Beijing , it would have to notify the commerce ministry — and so far, no such notice had been received. The spokesman also said Beijing was “opposed to politicising business issues” — an apparent jibe at the US government and lawmakers who have spoken out on behalf of Google and against Internet censorship in China. Beijing tightly controls online content in a vast system dubbed the “Great Firewall of China”, removing information it deems harmful — including pornography and violence, but also politically sensitive material. Google threatened in January to abandon google.cn and perhaps leave China altogether over what it said were cyberattacks aimed at its source code and at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The company has since continued to filter results on google.cn, but says it will not do so forever. “Google is firm in its decision that it will stop censoring our search results for China,” Google vice president and deputy general counsel Nicole Wong told the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last week. “If the option is that we’ll shutter our .cn operation and leave the country, we are prepared to do that.” China’s minister of industry and information technology, Li Yizhong, warned Google last week that it would face “consequences” if it were to violate Chinese law by ending its filters, saying such a move would be “irresponsible”. The Financial Times reported at the weekend that Google was “99.9 percent” certain to move forward with plans to abandon google.cn, citing an unnamed source. But Google China spokeswoman Marsha Wang said Tuesday that, for now, no changes had been made. “Google has not stopped censorship. This is a rumour. We do not have any update to share,” she told .
China without Google: ‘a lose-lose scenario’ (tech)
BEIJING – China without Google — a prospect that looks increasingly likely — could mean no more maps on mobile phones. A free music service that has helped to fight piracy might be in jeopardy. China’s fledgling Web outfits would face less pressure to improve, eroding their ability to one day compete abroad. The extent of a possible Google Inc . pullout from China in its dispute with the communist government over censorship and hacking is unclear. But on top of a local search site that Google says it may close, services that might be affected range from advertising support for Chinese companies to online entertainment. “If Google leaves, it’s a lose-lose scenario, instead of Google loses and others gain,” said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, a Beijing research firm. Chinese news reports say Google is on the verge of shutting its China site, Google.cn , and has stopped censoring results. A Google spokesman, Scott Rubin, denied censorship had stopped and would not confirm whether Google.cn might close. “We have not changed our operations in China,” Rubin said by phone from Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. CEO Eric Schmidt said last week something would happen soon, and Rubin said he had no further details. Google says it is in talks with Beijing following its Jan. 12 announcement that it no longer wants to comply with Beijing’s extensive Web controls. But China’s industry minister insisted Friday the company must obey Chinese law , which appears to leave few options other than closing Google.cn, which has about 35 percent of China’s search market. Such a step could have repercussions for major Chinese companies as well as local Web surfers. It would deliver a windfall to local rival Baidu Inc ., China’s major search engine, with 60 percent of the market. But other companies rely on Google for search, maps and other services and might be forced to find alternatives. China Mobile Ltd ., the world’s biggest phone company by subscribers, with 527 million accounts, uses Google for mobile search and maps. Baidu offers mobile search but China Mobile passed up a partnership with it earlier after they failed to agree on terms, according to industry analysts . Millions of mobile customers might lose access to Google’s Chinese-language map service. A key issue is whether Beijing, angry and embarrassed by Google’s public defiance, would allow the company to continue running other operations, including advertising and a fledgling mobile phone businesses in China if Google.cn closes. China promotes Internet use for business and education but bars access to sites run by human rights and political activists and some news outlets. Officials who defend China’s controls by pointing to countries that bar content such as child pornography are stung that Google has drawn attention to how much more pervasive Chinese limits are. Chinese Web surfers are blocked from seeing Facebook , YouTube, Twitter and major blog-hosting services abroad and a Google pullout would leave them increasingly isolated. Google hopes to keep operating its Beijing research and development center, advertising sales offices and mobile phone business , according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking. But the person said the company won’t do that if it believes its decision to stop censoring search results will jeopardize employees in China. Industry analysts estimate Google has a work force of 700 in China. The government says Chinese mobile phone carriers will be allowed to use Google’s Android operating system but there has been no word on whether efforts to sell its own phones in China might be affected. Google postponed the launch of two phones with a major Chinese carrier due to the dispute. Uncertainty also surrounds Google’s China music portal, a free, advertising-supported service launched last year in partnership with four global music companies and 14 independent labels. Industry analysts say it has helped to undercut China’s rampant music piracy by offering an alternative to unlicensed copying. The music service is run by Top100.cn , a company part-owned by Google, but can be accessed only through Google.cn . Employees at Top100.cn referred questions to executives who did not immediately answer phone calls. “Without that, are we back to, `Piracy wins’?” said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a technology market research firm. “Piracy thrives because of censorship.” The biggest impact of a Google departure could lie behind the scenes, where Chinese companies, many of them small entrepreneurs, rely on its AdWords advertising service, Gmail e-mail and documents services. Those might be disrupted if Beijing turns up Internet filters to block access to Google’s sites abroad. Its U.S. site has a Chinese-language search engine but is already inaccessible due to government filters. In an uncomfortable irony for Beijing, Google might suffer little commercial loss from a pullout while China’s own companies are hurt. The bulk of Google’s estimated $300 million in 2009 revenues in China came from export-oriented companies that would need to keep advertising on its sites abroad even if Google.cn closes, according to Yu. “We believe the majority of revenue would still be kept on, with keyword purchases listed on Google.com instead of Google.cn,” he said. The loss of competitive pressure from Google also might slow Chinese development in search and other Internet services, Yu said. “This is definitely a bad thing for Chinese companies that want to go abroad in the future,” he said. The industry minister, Li Yizhong, said Friday that China’s Internet industry would develop without Google. But even some Chinese industry leaders who normally toe the government line in public are warning that controls on Internet companies and media are handicapping their growth. Beijing has steadily tightened controls over Internet content and foreign investment in the industry. Video sharing sites must have state-owned media outlets as partners. People in the industry say it is getting harder to register privately financed sites. “Without full and fair market competition, there will be no quality, no excellence, no employment opportunities, no stability and no real rise of China,” said the chairman of major Chinese portal Sohu Inc., Charles Zhang, in a speech in February, according to a report on Sohu’s Web site. “How do we do this practically?” Zhang said. “The problem is complicated, but the fundamental point is to limit the power of the government.”
China star Zhang takes blame in ‘Donationgate’ (tech)
BEIJING () – Chinese film starlet Zhang Ziyi has taken the blame for an earthquake donation scandal in her first comments on a flap that sparked a firestorm of Internet criticism and questions about her honesty. Fighting back tears, Zhang told the China Daily in an interview published Tuesday that she failed to follow up with her staff after telling them to transfer money she had promised to victims of China ’s huge May 2008 earthquake. “I take the main responsibility for the lapse and causing my staff to mix it up,” said the 31-year-old Zhang, the star of films such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and ” Memoirs of a Geisha “. “Donationgate,” as China’s state media dubbed the row, surfaced in January when a popular Chinese website said Zhang had given only 840,000 yuan (124,000 dollars) of a promised one million yuan. The donations were eventually made. The 8.0-magnitude quake devastated parts of southwestern China, leaving at least 87,000 people dead or missing. Zhang has long been a lightning rod for criticism in her home country, but came under intense fire on the Chinese Internet and media over the donations. Even normally staid state television, whose typical fare consists of reports praising government leadership, ran a talk-show segment implying Zhang had not come clean. In the interview, Zhang also denied widespread allegations of missing funds in a foundation she set up for quake victims, saying: “We have never done anything illegal.” Zhang said she had remained mum on the issue up until now on the advice of lawyers, but admitted the attacks on her character had taken a toll. “Of course there were moments when I felt bad,” she said. “I wanted to do something good, but we had our problems, such as my lack of experience, my failure to disclose to the public, my limited knowledge about philanthropy and other reasons.” Zhang has come under attack before in China, where fans often savage entertainment stars online for actions deemed shameful to the country. She has been criticised for having a foreign boyfriend — Israeli billionaire Vivi Nevo — and for playing a Japanese woman in “Geisha”. In 2008, actress Gong Li ’s decision to become a Singapore citizen sparked a similar outcry, with many branding her a traitor.
HBO puts "The Pacific" online (tech)
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – HBO has put Sunday’s first hour of its WWII mega-budget production “The Pacific” on its Web site. Don’t get used to it, though, the other nine hours will air only on HBO (until the DVD release, of course). Since HBO is a pay channel that re-runs its best content for decades, it tends to be shy about putting content on the Internet. The network has uploaded the pilot episode of some series online, though not movies. The amount of violence and profanity in “The Pacific” is a concern, so registration is required to watch (hey kids, can you type “1991″ as your date of birth ? Then you’re in luck).
Ambitious plan seeks to make US a broadband leader (tech)
WASHINGTON () – US regulators have unveiled details of an ambitious plan designed to vault the United States into the ranks of world leaders in high-speed Internet access over the next decade. The National Broadband Plan, which is to be presented to Congress on Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission , sets a 10-year goal of connecting 100 million US households to affordable 100-megabits-per-second Internet service. President Barack Obama has pledged to put broadband in every American home and his administration designated more than seven billion dollars in economic stimulus money to expand broadband access in underserved communities. The United States lags behind many other countries in high-speed Internet penetration and connection speeds, and the FCC plan proposes broadband speeds 25 times faster than the current national average. US connection speeds average less than 4.0 mbps according to the latest report by Web analytics firm Akamai, placing the United States 18th in the global rankings behind leaders South Korea (14.6 mbps) and Japan (7.9 mbps). The United States ranks 12th in terms of broadband connectivity with 24 percent of the population enjoying average speeds of over 5.0 mbps compared with 74 percent in South Korea and 60 percent in Japan, according to Akamai. “The National Broadband Plan is a 21st century roadmap to spur economic growth and investment, create jobs, educate our children, protect our citizens and engage in our democracy,” FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said. “It’s an action plan, and action is necessary to meet the challenges of global competitiveness , and harness the power of broadband to help address so many vital national issues,” Genachowski said in a statement. According to the FCC , 93 million Americans — a third of the US population — currently lack home broadband service and 14 million Americans do not have access to broadband even if they want it. The FCC plan calls for providing ultra high-speed broadband of at least one gigabit per second to schools, hospitals and military installations. It proposes more competition among broadband providers and to make 500 megahertz of spectrum available for broadband, including 300 megahertz for wireless mobile broadband . That FCC proposal is likely to meet with resistance from the broadcast television stations that currently own the rights to 120 megahertz of that spectrum. “We are concerned by reports today that suggest many aspects of the plan may in fact not be as voluntary as originally promised,” Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters , said. “As the nation’s only communications service that is free, local and ubiquitous, we would oppose any attempt to impose onerous new spectrum fees on broadcasters,” Wharton said. Full implementation of the plan, which is estimated to carry a price tag as high as 350 billion dollars, would require a substantial commitment from both the public and private sectors . Some US telecom giants and cable television companies — the main Internet Service Providers in the United States — have also been wary of the broadband plan and what they see as too much government intervention. The call for greater competition was welcomed, however, by Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association. “The FCC plan recognizes that while the biggest network operators are investing billions, we have too few network operators,” Black said. “That is, there’s not enough competition, and we’re stuck with local market duopoly unless new entrants can break through with next generation mobile broadband.” Some companies have expressed support. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt , in a blog post Monday, compared broadband deployment with the US-Soviet space race. “Networks in many countries, from Western Europe to East Asia, are faster and more advanced than our own,” Schmidt said. “This broadband gap will be a dead weight on American businesses and workers, unless we act now. “As with the space race in the 1960s, America needs a national effort by our scientists, engineers, companies, educational institutions and government agencies,” he said. Google announced plans last month to build and test one-gigabit-per-second broadband networks that would allow streaming of 3-D medical imaging over the Web or downloading of a full high-definition movie in less than five minutes.
Cuba slams US easing of sanctions on Web services (tech)
HAVANA () – A US decision to ease sanctions on Cuba and two other countries to allow exports of Internet services is intended to “destabilize” the communist island, Cuba’s government has said. The US State Department announced March 8 it would ease sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan to increase citizens’ access to online communication tools and boost “free speech and information to the greatest extent possible.” But Cuban President Raul Castro’s government said the decision “said clearly that its objective was to use these service as tools of subversion and destabilization,” according to statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry. “This shows once again that the US government is not interesting in softening its policy nor in developing normal relations with Cuba, but only in developing a network that facilitates its subversive actions in our nation,” the statement added. The US Treasury Department modified sanctions against Iran , Cuba and Sudan to allow exports by US companies of services related to Web browsing, blogging, email, instant messaging, chat, social networking and photo- and movie-sharing. Cuban authorities exercise strict control over the Internet, blocking communication sites like Skype and blogs that are critical of the government. Few Cubans have access to the Internet, which is cannot be installed in private residences without express permission from authorities. Where access is available in places like hotels, the cost — often eight dollars an hour in a country where a monthly salary runs around 20 dollars — is prohibitively high.
Venezuela denies plans to censor Internet (tech)
CARACAS () – Venezuela is not planning to censor the Web or to shut down social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook , officials said on Monday, after President Hugo Chavez called for regulation of the Internet. Opposition leaders, bloggers and media freedom groups are worried Chavez’s socialist government is preparing to clamp down on the networking sites or install tight controls such as those used by Cuba , Iran and China. Chavez last week said authorities should act against news and opinion site Noticerodigital after it published user comments claiming that a senior minister had been assassinated. He said the OPEC nation’s laws must apply to the Internet. The government is also planning to change the structure of the Internet in Venezuela by installing a “unique connection point.” It says such a system is more efficient and provides faster access, but critics worry it will lead to censorship. “They say the government is looking to control what appears on the Internet, its not like that — but those who use the Internet have to be responsible,” said Manuel Villalba, president of the science and technology commission in the national assembly. He said the assembly was not planning to change the law to increase state control of the Internet. Attorney General Luisa Ortega, who on Monday opened an investigation into Noticiero Digital, said the assembly should create new legislation. Under Venezuelan law, owners of media outlets can be punished with jail sentences for publishing incorrect information, Villalba said, but added the government had no intention of banning sites such as Twitter and Facebook. “That is made up; they are looking to generate opinion. This has never been planned. It’s not true,” Villalba said. GOVERNMENT PRESSURE Users of such social networking sites , which are popular in Venezuela among opponents of Chavez to organize protests and disseminate political views, say the government is trying to force the sites to censor members. “President Chavez…wants speech on this site, or any other via Internet, to be previously censored. It’s like making Twitter, Facebook, or other networks and Internet forums responsible for their users’ messages,” Noticierodigital said, adding that it has over 120,000 contributing members. Freedom of speech advocates Reporters Without Borders published a global report last week warning of a growing trend toward government attempts to control the Internet in countries from Turkey to Australia . “Applying restriction to the Internet will not resolve the problem of the diffusion of false news stories . This case serves as a pretext for the government to regulate a space it has not controlled up until now,” said Benoit Hervieu of RSF in a statement about Venezuela on Monday. In 2007, Chavez refused to renew the license for television station RCTV after it openly supported a coup against him. RCTV is now battling to survive as a cable-only operator. The government has also put pressure on opposition TV network Globovision to soften its editorial line and last year closed dozens of radio stations for administrative breaches. “I want to categorically deny that the government wants to put the muzzle on. To say that is just to continue an international campaign to say Venezuela attacks free speech and closes the media,” said Aristobulo Isturiz, a leader of Chavez’s Socialist party . “This is not about covering anybody’s mouth. It’s about the media acting responsibly.” (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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