ANU PILOTS VIRTUAL EDITING PROCESS
Yesterday the Australian National University demonstrated a pilot project to make a multimedia work available on-line using XML technology. Essentially they took a published disk-based multimedia work and deconstructed it into the component images, text and audio. The relationships between the components were then documented using an RDF-like language and finally everything got stored in the ANU's DSPACE digital archive. Cocoon software was then used to reconstruct on demand several versions of the original work for on-screen and print use. Perhaps the ANU's approach could be used for a film like 'Sanctuary', especially since editing the metadata would create a new 'virtual edit' of the film.
BIT TORRENT SEARCH
The man behind the popular BitTorrent file-sharing program has set up a way of searching for torrent files. The search tool on Bram Cohen's website makes it easier to find links which can then be used to download large files. t was launched as US authorities shut down a prominent BitTorrent site, Elite Torrents, which had links to download the new Star Wars movie. BitTorrent has become linked to online piracy due its widespread use to distribute copyrighted material. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4587371.stm
iTUNES FOR FILMS
Sony is to make its top 500 films available digitally in the next year. Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at a US Digital Hollywood conference that it wanted to create an 'iTunes for films'. Films will be put onto Flash Memory for mobiles over the next year, said Mr Arrieta, and it will develop its digital download services for films.
iPOD VS ART
About six months ago, artist Francis Hwang was blocked from selling an unauthorized Special-Edition Negativland vs. U2 IPod on eBay's auction site after Apple complained it violated its copyrights. Sometime later Hwang decided to ditch eBay and sell the iPod on his own website with the intention of turning a statement about Pop Culture into a Free Speech issue, even if Apple should launch a legal challenge. To this day Hwang still hasn't heard a peep from the folks at Apple, which is really rather odd considering how eager Apple were to embrace the customization of their iPod by a series of notorious Artist/Illustators about a year before Hwang embarked on his Redesign Project. You can check out those iPod Skins Apple went gaga over right here: http://www.macskinz.com/MACSKINZ/artist_series.html
COPYRIGHT FREEDOM FIGHTERS QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"It's about time that the obvious esthetic validity of appropriation begins to be raised in opposition to the assumed preeminence of copyright laws prohibiting the free reuse of cultural material. Has it occurred to anyone that the private ownership of mass culture is a bit of a contradiction in terms?" - Negativland