New Mob Run Threat to film, video and artists income

Hollywood faces new piracy threat

Illegal sub services on the rise, exec tells Cinema Expo

By Carl DiOrio Hollywood Reporter

AMSTERDAM -- Consumers downloading free pirated movies are no longer Hollywood's worst nightmare, but that's only because of a new, more dreaded menace: cheap, and equally illegal, subscription services.

Foreign, often mob-run, businesses aggregate illegally obtained movies into "cyberlockers" similar to Internet storage sites used by individual consumers to squirrel away pirated video. But the for-profit version of this phenom has spawned an array of sophisticated and seemingly reputable sites selling unlimited digital movie files for as little as $5 a month.

"Cyberlockers now represent the preferred method by which consumers are enjoying pirated content," Paramount COO Fred Huntsberry said Monday.

Sports Services and Gambling

The Sports Service Industry, which blooms in Las Vegas, is the subject of a new book and was the subject of an interview this afternoon on All Things Considered. 

In the early 1980's I did work for Jim Feist and his collection of sport "service" companies, providing gamblers around the country with tips, odds, spreads, scores and more. if he had any actual gambling company, placing bets for out of state voters, I was not aware of it. In fact I would be surprised if Gary Austin of Jim Feist were involved in such activity. They earned enough money setting lines, providing "guaranteed locks" and passing customers from one "competing company" to another (all owned by Feist). The tools were spread sheets, telephones, computer monitors, recorded telephone information lines, and wire service like information services. Customers ranged from Hilo, Hawaii to Eastern Europe, Brazil to ice stations at the north and south polls.

I-11 to link Las Vegas with Phoenix, Mexico and Canada

CARSON CITY — Parts of U.S. Highways 93 and 95 should be upgraded and converted into a new Interstate 11 freeway, legislators decided Monday. Members of a legislative committee studying logistics, infrastructure and transportation issues unanimously approved a resolution calling on Congress and the Federal Highway Administration to designate U.S. 93 from the Mexican border to Las Vegas and U.S. 95 from Las Vegas north to the Canadian border as the future I-11. For more use the link to the RJ below..

From the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Dare to dream...

Dare to dream...

Dreams can come true...It's up to you!

There is aptitude and there is talent. Both can be developed to meet personal, community, and professional needs.  

How good you are, how skilled, how studied depends entirely on how much you want to put into it. 

This web site, links, and the courses I teach, are intended to help you to meet your needs, to help you make your dreams come true...

I welcome your ideas, feedback or contributions.
Art Lynchartlynch.org

Digital Divide: Not everyone has Internet

Cartoon from: geekandpoke.typepad.com/.../bridging_the_di.htm

Funding and accessibility study by the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation found that internet access up, technology better, and access better.

Yet the divide is not shrinking.

Libraries and community centers are often mentioned by those who say there is no divide, but those face reduced hours, lower purchase and update budgets, and smaller staffs. 52 % provide free wifi, and 82% of libraries are the only free providers for their community. But budgets are down 15% and plans for community free wifi have been overtaken by subscription based options as cash strapped municipalities seek "private-public partnerships" regardless of how this may limit access.

NPR's All Things Considered included a summary of the report that came out today.

The Gates Foundation is working along site the Pew Charitable Trust in examining the divide.

According to Pew Internet 68% or about seven out of Ten Americans say they use the Internet at least occasionally.  One in five Americans live in homes that do not have any form of Internet Access. While high speed access is increasing, another form of "divide" lies between dial up or G3 users and those with high speed modems. Claims by carriers and Internet Service Providers also confuse the issues, as misleading claims about speed, what is high speed and what is HD vary widely.

In addition home access is not increasing as people rely on work or other outside sources, including cell phones.

With cell phones comes Internet lite, with no where near the speed, accessibility and content of the full Internet. In addition carriers, starting with AT&T, will start to charge by use instead of flat rates.

Among the young most use the Internet for text messaging, instant messaging, Facebook and for those who are behind the curve, e-mail. Playing video games falls somewhere in that list as well. hardly the optimum use of the World Wide Web.

Digital Divide remains real.

Thank you for your kind comments

Dear Art,

I was doing some research over the weekend and came across your thesis on Screen Actors Guild and the Performers Alliance online.  It is very interesting and I enjoyed the historical snapshot of that period of time.  Thanks for putting it out there.

Best,
Rebecca

http://www.artlynch.org/writing-samples.html

Sock It To Me!

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FCC Wants Your Opinion on Proposed "Third Way" for Broadband

By Tony Bradley, PC World

Full story and links at: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/199142/fcc_wants_your_opinion_on_proposed_third_way_for_broadband.html?tk=hp_new

The Federal Communications Commission has a fairly straightforward mission. According to its Web site, "The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable." Today the FCC is struggling to adapt to the rapidly-changing communications environment, and it is looking for public input to determine the best way to accomplish that.

Things have changed. Technology has evolved, the Internet and communications industries have converged, and the regulatory framework governing the industry has to be modified accordingly to ensure that the FCC has the authority to carry out the mission it has been tasked with.At some point in the past, the FCC voluntarily deemed Internet service as an "information service" governed by Title I of the Communication Act, rather than a "telecommunications service," which falls under Title II. The logic behind that choice was based on the fact that the ISP was merely providing the connection, or pipe, that content and services were delivered through, but not the actual content or services themselves.

The industry did not seem to question the authority of the FCC to arbitrarily designate Internet service under Title I. But, as it seeks to undo that decision and apply some or all of the Title II rules to broadband providers, the FCC has faced tremendous corporate and political opposition claiming that it has no authority to reclassify broadband service.

FCC commissioner Michael Copps said in a statement, "Between a few big industry players who never liked the telecommunications law passed by Congress and previous Commissions only too ready to sacrifice the public interest to special interests, consumers find themselves in quite a box."

Copps goes on to say, "We are on the cusp of perhaps the greatest communications revolution since the printing press, yet we enter this new Digital Age arguably shorn of the ability to offer consumers the most basic of protections--such as insuring (sic) their security, safeguarding their privacy, providing them with the benefits of competition and making sure that dynamic new technologies are available to them and are open to the maximum extent possible--without needless gatekeeper control at the on-ramps to the information highway."

In arguing for the "third way" proposal, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski stated, "It's not hard to understand why companies subject to an agency's oversight would prefer no oversight at all if they had the chance. But a system of checks and balances in the communications sector has served our country well for many decades, fostering trillions of dollars of investment in wired and wireless communications networks, and in content, applications, and services--and creating countless jobs and consumer benefits."

The broadband providers argue that broadband reclassification will be detrimental, and that net neutrality regulations are unnecessary because the industry is already self-policed and swayed by free market conditions. Broadband customers should simply trust the abundant beneficence and altruistic intentions of the broadband providers.