Five Bucks a Month for New York Times Online? Yeah, Right.

Lot’s of people are talking about a New York Time’s survey asking if folks would pay $5/month for full online access to the “paper.”

Gawker thinks its a great and necessary idea while Business Insider says they should charge more.

They’re both wrong.  Here’s why:

1) If the NYT erects a pay wall bloggers will be far less likely to link to them and their own readers will be less likely to share links. This is the life-blood on the online world and without it no site can survive.

2) There is FAR too little original content to convince readers to pay the New York Times for news that is widely reported by, well, everyone else.  Unless every single news reporting site agreed to similar pay walls (not gonna happen) the New York Times simple places itself in a barren desert with nary a reader in sight.

There are more minor reasons this would fail, but those are the big two.

Oh, and in response to Business Insiders comment that:

Kindle pricing also forces the question: If Times stories without video, without interactivity, without color — and without all the other stuff at nytimes.com — are worth $14 a month on the Kindle, why in the world is the web site only worth $5?

Except, how many Kindle owners are actually subscribing to the NYT via their Kindle?  Even if a good number are doing so, Kindle owners are by definition affluent and so what’s another few bucks.

MacGyver Should Sue MacGruber. Right?

Considering the way that judges have been ruling lately, seemingly bending over backwards in an effort to “protect” intellectual copyrights against evil writers (see: J.D. Salinger v. John David California), musicians (see: GirlTalk) and artists (see: Shepard Fairey) I am waiting for the next law suit to be filed in MacGyver v. MacGruber.

See, MacGyver was a TV from the 80’s where a guy would somehow extricate himself from a bad jam with nothing more than a stick of gum, a ballpoint pen and his belt.

MacGruber is a Saturday Night Live skit in which Will Forte plays a guy who tries to do exactly what MacGyver did, but fails.

Now, there would be absolutely no entertainment value at all to MacGruber if it weren’t for the existence of MacGyver.  One could easily argue that the producers of MacGruber should pay the producers of MacGyver for having taken their premise and turning it into a mockery.

Of course, MacGruber is a parody and should be protected from such a law suit.

In fact, I’ll bet the MacGruber people are already figuring out how much it is going to cost.

Nudes Still No-Go For iPhone but Booze Apps No Problem

Since Apple has decided, wrongly, to play moral gate-keeper over the App Store, banning any iPhone App they deem “inappropriate” for a score of muddy reasons, I think it is fair to ask why they are banning nude women but happily allowing booze brands like Absolut to promote drinking through sponsored applications.

Absolute’s new iPhone App, “Drinkspiration” is free to all and simply requires that the downloader click a box promising that they are over the age of 17.  Now, let’s forget about how worthless this is as an effective age barrier, how about the fact that the legal drinking age in the US is 21?

In truth, I don’t think Apple should ban this App, or any other App for that matter.  Instead, I am trying to make the point that Apple has opened itself up to a world of criticism now from all  sides.  If they ban the App they are unwanted gatekeepers and if they allow it then they are aiding in the corruption of America’s youth.

Maybe Apple will someday relinquish their role and let adults decide what they want to see in the App store but until then I hope Apple gets nothing but grief for every decision, pro or con, they make in regards to Application approval.

“Catcher in the Rye” Sequel Banned but Readily Available in US

Adding to the absurdity of the recent court decision to ban “60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye” from being sold in the US is the fact that the book has already been published in the UK and, thus, it is readily available to anyone willing to shop online.

TechDirt has pretty good dismantling of Judge Betts’ dangerous and ill-conceived ruling.

For those looking to pick up their own copy of this “banned” book try here, here or here

Judge Indefinitely Bans “Coming Through The Rye”

If there is one thing I learned during almost ten years developing feature film scripts, is that there is no such thing as a completely original idea.

Every script I read (well into the thousands) could be seen as being derivative of a pre-existing work.  In fact, if one eliminated every script from Hollywood that was derivative of a pre-existing work there wouldn’t be any screenplays left.

The same can be said for the world of novels.

Unfortunately, one Judge Betts disagrees and has indefinitely banned the wholly original novel “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” which imagines what  Holden Caufield would be like at the age of 76.  While clearly building from the foundations of “A Catcher in the Rye” there is nothing in the new work that is a direct quote or paraphrase from the original.

Judge Betts has rejected the defenses’ argument that the new novel…

…did not violate copyright laws because it amounted to a critical parody that had the effect of transforming the original work.

This is one of the major elements of the “fair use” defense and one that did not strike me as even a bit far-fetched.  Instead, Judge Betts claimed:

“Both narratives are told from the first-person point of view of a sarcastic, often uncouth protagonist who relies heavily on slang, euphemisms and colloquialisms, makes constant digression and asides, refers to readers in the second person, constantly assures the reader that he is being honest and that he is giving them the truth.”    LINK

If that’s enough to ban a this book, I’m sure there is an endless stream of young adult fiction that should certainly be given the same treatment.

Seeing judges ban books is never a good thing.  Seeing a judge ban a book for such flimsy reasons as this is downright frightening.  If her ruling stands, expect to see a long line of similar suits in the near future.

Michael Jackson SELLS 2.6 Million Digital Downloads

I’ve never really given much value to the absurd figures thrown around by the RIAA when it comes to revenue lost due to piracy.  Aside from being based on guesses and estimates, it always fails to take into account revenue generated due to the same piracy (increased sales for concerts, etc).

Most importantly, with iTunes going DRM-free and the general accessibility of legally accessible music on the rise, I just don’t believe that piracy is the real problem at all.

One good example of this is:

…based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, 2.6 million Michael Jackson (his work with Jackson 5 and the Jacksons included) digital downloads were sold in just one week.   LINK

Yup, even though Michael Jackson’s music is readily available on all the major torrent sites, it looks like most people just went ahead and paid to download the music.

Why? Well, first, they knew exactly what they were getting. Unlike trying out a new band and wishing you didn’t need to plunk down the better part of $20 just to check them out, everyone buying Michael Jackson tunes did so with full knowledge.  Second, they wanted it immediately and the truth is that, for the vast majority of computer users, the intricacies of bittorrent are just too complicated.

So, while I am sure plenty of people downloaded themselves some free Jackson this past week, it doesn’t look like they are going to bring down the whole system.

Citizen Journalist Blow Lid Off Fake Vegan Restaurants

The newspaper people will tell you that if they are obliterated by the evil internets one of the big loses will be investigative journalism.  If it hadn’t been for those gritty investigative journalists the newspaper hires there’d be no Watergate, no Whitewater Gate, no ‘Gates of any kind.

Of course, that’s just plain silly.  Newspapers didn’t invent investigative journalism any more than they invented news or reporting news.

In fact, in this digital age where anyone willing to do the work can spill the beans to a massive audience, there is more reason than ever for independent investigators to step up to the plate.  The folks at QuarryGirl, a blog dedicated to animal rights, have done just that.

Having been given a great deal of anecdotal proof that some food at Vegan restaurants around LA contained animal by-products, they decided to see if they could prove it.  One might assume, as a bunch of bloggers with, potentially, no J-school experience whatsoever, they might make a hash of things.  Instead, they made a plan:

Here’s an outline of the plan:

* Locate a facility that has no traces of egg, casein or shellfish in which to perform the advanced tests
* Purchase anti-contamination equipment including industrial sterilization supplies, lab coats, uncontaminated bags, swabs, razor blades, gloves and floor coverings
* Obtain highly restricted industrial food testing “kits” only available to the food manufacturing industry
* Develop a regimented process to test each food item with the highest standards of inter-test cleanliness, ensuring that absolutely no food particles from one food item contaminate another
* Select a diverse set of menu items from 100% vegan-only restaurants throughout LA (with one exception, see later)
* Order the food for carry-out, and seal it in an airtight bag in its original packaging either inside, or very close to the point of purchase
* Transport the food items to the testing facility intact and sealed, and perform the tests within 48 hours of purchase, keeping them refrigerated until immediately before the test
* Develop a strict bracketing control, with a thorough analysis of the testing facility and equipment before testing: A negative control to ensure no pre-existing contamination, and a positive control test on a known-positive food product (containing all three target non-vegan items) to ensure that the tests do indicate positive results
* Conduct the test in absolute secrecy to ensure that no restaurant would know they were providing samples, and pose as regular customers ordering take-out food in a normal way, with no disclosure that the items would be used for a test.

So, we divided up the work between us, and dedicated a Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday as well as over $1,000 of our collective money to pulling off the most extensive scientific test that we know of to find out, once and for all, if samples of restaurant food are vegan or not.

Not sure about you, but that sounds like a pretty sound plan.  Find out what happened here.

This is just one example of how the inevitable death of newspapers will simply not be the information apocalypse they’d like you to think it will be.

Quincy Jones Speaks the Truth, Will Try to “Save” Vibe

Yesterday came word that Vibe Magazine was folding.  Not all that surprising in this climate.

Now comes word that the magazine’s founder, Quincy Jones, is trying to take the title back and create an online-0nly version of Vibe.  One can argue that plenty of magazines are or will try this approach and will or already have failed.

That said, it is refreshing to hear someone from Jones’ generation say something like this:

“We gotta get into the 21st century you know,” Jones said. ” “Print and all that stuff is over, we gotta remember that. The Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Post Intelligencer. The Miami Herald. They’re over the same way as the record business. We have got to get into this century.”      LINK

If more publishers and studio execs would make the same admission they might at least have a fighting chance in the digital age.  But I’m not going to hold my breath.

The Dangers of Chess Circa 1850

TechDirt has a totally classic post today that demonstrates on of the great truths: the more things change the more they stay the same.

Today, it is common to hear everyone from politicians to parents blaming video games for making kids fat and lazy.  It turns out, back in the 1850’s the threat came from a pastime we consider nearly high art these days, chess:

chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body.

Check out the whole story here.

It’s a solid reminder that every generation faces its own demons but that those demons only change clothes, not form.

Giant Boobs, Pig-Faced Men and Shocking Violence – Now That’s a Book Promo

Publishers continue to make small forays into using short videos to promote their books.  This has taken every form from a simple talking head to an elaborate webseries.

According to AdRants, “Champagne-Fueled Jungle” a first novel by James Palumbo, is:

…about a society gone wrong. A society in which reality channel Shit TV (yes, that’s what it’s called) has overtaken the small screen and filled it with “homicidal dwarfs on rollerblades and obese mamas in tutus.” Title character, Tomas, has had enough and with the help of his tommy gun, he hopes to eradicate the world of this filth.

And if that doesn’t sound good enough for you, check out the lavishly animated promo video.  Beware, while entirely in black and white, the violence is quite graphic:

It’s great to see this level of attention and artistry dedicated to a book promotion.  Currently creeping near 4000 views, if just ten percent of viewers go get his book it would seem worthwhile.  Of course, that might be asking a lot from your average YouTube viewer.

Still, the combination of great animation and a violent, sexy story make this a video that could catch on and spread to some potential new readers Palumbo would never reach through traditional marketing.