Microsoft has expanded its latest WGA initiative — you know, the one that turns your computer off or screen black every hour — to China. An guess what! Since the majority of Chinese computer users run unauthorised copies of Windows, they’re kind of upset. Of course, there are plenty of good discussions to be had about how measures like this could affect Microsoft’s image and limit computer access in poorer parts of the world, but one awesome Chinese blogger/aspiring economist sees things differently:
Led by the writer of Air Bud (that bodes well), a large posse of out-of-work Writers Guild of America-ers is looking to launch the online video company, Visual Arists, later this year with over $US30 million in funding with Silicon Valley types. Supposedly a bunch of A-listers are on board, which gives small hope that they punch out fare along the lines of name-checked Juno and The Office.
“You don’t need to pour a sh-load of money into entertainment to find an audience.” But having an audience and being good are not the same thing— YouTube, reality TV and Air Bud have taught us this, if nothing else. [NewTeeVee]
David Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants is—we believe—the first to reach an agreement with the Writers Guild of America for internet royalties. Since The Late Show and The Late Late Show are owned, not by CBS but Letterman’s own company, the show was able to circumvent CBS negotiations altogether and settle with the WGA without setting major broadcast-wide precedents.
Most people are familiar with Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage program—whenever you have to “validate” Windows, that’s WGA in action. Since there is no copy protection on OS X, lifelong Mac users might be unfamiliar with this whole idea. Don’t worry, it looks like you might get acquainted real soon! Apple has a new patent called “Run-Time Code Injection To Perform Checks” (sounds cold and medical, no?), that’s pretty much exactly like WGA. And it’s all because you’ve been breaking promises to Apple!
Like late-night white knights, Jon Stewart and Colbert are returning to save us from rerun/reality TV/web purgatory on Jan. 7—the news has been the exact same for weeks, right? But they won’t have an army of writers to make sure every word out of their mouth kills, so we’ll see just how much funny naturally spills out of their brains. I have faith, do you? [TechCrunch]
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has a fun new flash widget on their site with a running tally of how much income the writers have dropped into a black hole since the strike started. Right now, it’s at about $120 million. Kind of a dick move if you ask us, since producers trying to screw writers is why they’re at impasse. Besides, writers stand to lose a lot more if they let producers slime their way out of fair compensation deals for new media and internet distribution. [AMPTP] More »
The Writers Guild strike languishes on: Heroes ends for the year next week. In a bid to end our suffering, the producers’ trade group has made a “groundbreaking” offer to the Writers Guild, grandiosely titled the “New Economic Partnership.” The deal’s a mind-blowing less-than $US250 flat fee for an hour-long show to be re-broadcast on the internet for up to a year. If you recall, internet distribution’s sort of the sticking point and writers asked for 2.5 percent of the “distributors’ gross revenue”. Let us count the ways writers get screwed by the producers’ Scrooge-y offer. More »
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Because of the WGA strike, there’s no Daily Show, which sucks. But if you think you’re suffering, think of how the writers of that wonderful program feel! In this video that the writers of our favourite mock newscast made on the picketline, they clearly explain why this strike is happening and how the studio chiefs are total hypocrites. And they have a point! I mean, how can Viacom go around suing YouTube for one billion dollars and then turn around and say there’s no money to be made on the internet? Scumbags! [Defamer] daily More »
Despite the fact that IE7 ships with every copy of Vista and is a free download for every Windows XP user, the browser only has a marketshare of 20-27 percent. Contrast that with Firefox’s 17% share, according to one site, and things are looking dour for Microsoft. So what do they do? No, not improve the browser. They remove the WGA check on the download, which previously required users to have a legit copy of Windows XP before installing. Is this going to dramatically increase usage? We’ll see. [Ars Technica] More »
