Peter Black's Freedom to Differ

David Tench Tonight

Tonight during Big Brother, David Tench was revealed.  And he is an animated talk show host.  There is also now an official website: http://www.davidtenchtonight.com.  It's a funny ad and webpage. 

The show will premiere on Thursday 17 August 2006.

YouTube overtakes MySpace

YouTube is apparently now even more popular than MySpace.  From Media Guardian:

YouTube has established itself at the top of the league of the new generation of community websites by becoming even more popular than MySpace, according to research.

The video sharing site has taken a 3.9% share of global internet visits a day compared with 3.35% for MySpace, according to internet analysis company Alexa.

YouTube's popularity has grown immensely over the first six months of the year. In May its reach outgrew that of the BBC's websites.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, YouTube's American user base grew by 297% in the first half of the year.

Read more here.

Google challenges Coke and Microsoft for fame

From Media Guardian:

Google is challenging Coca-Cola and Microsoft for global fame after becoming the fastest growing brand in the world, only eight years after it was set up in a California garage by two college friends.

The search engine has dispelled the cynical boom-to-bust view of internet ventures and now outranks old media stalwarts such as Sony, MTV and Reuters in terms of worldwide renown, according to Interbrand, the brand consultancy. A survey of the world's best global brands, published yesterday, pointed to Google's "almost limitless" potential as a company that has expanded beyond search and into email, advertising and aerial maps. The $117bn (£63bn) business is ranked 24th by Interbrand, one year after it first entered the top 100 of the annual brand survey. The survey estimates the proportion of a company's sales that are driven by its brand.

"You could argue that Google is pursuing in an online form what Virgin has pursued in the off-line world, where it can build franchises outside its own," said John Allert, chief executive of Interbrand. "They are trying to demonstrate that they are a brand all about delivery of information. If Google can show that it is more than a search company then its boundaries are almost limitless."

China cracks down on foreign investors in Web portals, e-commerce

From FindLaw:

China is trying to tighten control over foreign investors in Internet ventures in a crackdown that a state newspaper said Friday could see some companies stripped of operating licenses.

...

A notice on the Web site of the Ministry of Information Industry, which regulates Internet use, orders companies to comply with rules on domain names and other regulations.

The three-sentence order, dated Wednesday, doesn't give details of violations or which companies might be affected. The ministry press office didn't immediately respond to a request for more information.

Read more here.

Metallica joins iTunes

Although this news is now a few days old, it is worth noting that Metallica is finally joining iTunes.  From Metallica's website:

Metallica music now available on iTunes

Happy Monday!! From the “It's about fucking time!” file, comes this....

At 12:01 AM, on Tuesday July 25th, we will begin offering our music on the iTunes Music Store, a Cupertino, CA based upstart outfit, who we feel may very well have a bright future . . . .

Over the last year or so, we have seen an ever-growing number of Metallica fans using online sites like iTunes to get their music. So, in continuing with the tradition of offering our albums for sale online (which we've been doing for a few years through various sites), as well as making our live concerts available for download in their entirety (through the livemetallica.com site), we are now offering fans the opportunity to obtain our songs individually.

Since many fans already have our albums in one form or another, but might still want to check out the digital versions, we decided to throw a couple of previously unreleased live tracks (Seattle, '89) on to each of the first four albums (Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, & ...And Justice For All). We chose these four because, unlike the more recent releases, we were only capable of writing 8-9 songs for each of these albums!

Oh, and by the way, the iTunes Music Stores in the U.S. and Canada are the only ones that will be offering Metallica. This is unfortunately due to the fact that our record company overseas doesn't seem to want to play ball with us on this at the moment. Hopefully this will get sorted out ASAFP, but we didn't want our fans in North America to have to wait any longer while our overseas record company tries to get their shit together!

So on Happy Tuesday, fire up your iTunes, your iPods and whatever else you've got, like we do, and enjoy iMetallica!

There are still some artists and bands that are still holding out.  According to CNN, other holdouts for include the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Radiohead.

Ruddock trying to force his tastes on all of us?

Michael Shmith for The Age looks at some of some historical parallels between Philip Ruddock and Britain's First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Robert Walpole:

Perhaps I am not the first to draw a comparison between Britain's First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), and the federal Attorney-General, the Hon. Philip Ruddock, MP. Different men, different times. Yet, the Whig in a wig and the stony-faced man in a suit meet across the centuries in one respect: censorship and their willingness to apply it.

Read the full piece here.

Deleting Online Predators Act

Reblogged from Tech Law Prof Blog:

The House Passes DOPA

The House passed DOPA today by a vote of 410-15.  DOPA, or Deleting Online Predators Act, is the response by Congress to sexual predators using the Internet and social-networking sites to prey on children.  Protecting children is a worthy goal, although critics view the act as poorly written and overly broad to accomplish the task.  The act gives the FCC power to define social networking sites and chat rooms which then would be rendered inaccessible to minors at schools and libraries that receive federal money.  This, of course, does nothing to stop predators from gaining access to social networking sites other than to bring more attention to the fact they are present on the sites.  It will also annoy students who will look for ways using their laptops to gain access anyway while at school, and do nothing to stop them while they are not at school.

Social networking sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, and others are magnets for teens and pre-teens as a way to connect with others like them.  NewsCorp, the owner of MySpace, was taken by surprise at the popularity of the site which has now become one of the most heavily visited sites on the net. Critics charge that the bill is so broad that it could encompass most any web site that allows people to set up public profiles.  This includes sites such as Amazon, Yahoo, and others.  The FCC will have to decide how broadly or narrowly the characteristics of offending web sites, assuming the bill passes the Senate.  As this is an election year and focus groups show that this resonates with suburban voters, there will be pressure.  The text in this bill, in fact, made it to the House floor without even the benefit of a committee hearing.  It would have likely been a different story sans voter accountability.  Congress claims that it doesn't want to see regulations on the net, hence the negative votes on net neutrality.  If there was a way to combine net neutrality concepts with a save the children theme, maybe by claiming that without net neutrality AT&T will speed vile programming from FOX and Comedy Central on demand and at faster online speeds to children....

DOPA is HR 5318.  The story is in CNET.

Newspapers linking to rivals

Although in Australia Fairfax has been doing this for quite a while on NewsBreak, this is apparently a new phenomonen in the US.  From New York Times:

Want the latest news on Floyd Landis’s positive drug test from The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times or USA Today?

Soon, it will all be on Washingtonpost.com.

The Washington Post, The New York Sun and The Daily Oklahoman, in Oklahoma City, have contracted with an online news aggregator, Inform.com, to scan hundreds of news and blog sites and deliver content related to articles appearing on their Web sites, regardless of who published those articles. Links to those articles will appear in a box beside the site’s original article or within the text of the story.

Newspaper Web sites, which commonly post articles from sister publications, wire services and even blogs, have typically stopped short of providing generous doses of news from competitors. The move made by these papers is not a result of cooperation across the industry as it is a counterattack by publishers against Google and Yahoo, which have stolen readers and advertisers from newspapers in recent years, both with their search engines and their own news aggregation services.

Read more here.

Bill Bragg nervous about MySpace

Musician Billy Bragg has some concerns about MySpace:

Although MySpace had not claimed ownership of his music or any other content, Mr. Bragg said the site’s legal agreement — which included the phrase “a nonexclusive, fully paid and royalty-free worldwide license” — gave him cause for concern, as did the fact that the formerly independent site was now owned by a big company (the News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch).

Mr. Bragg said that he himself had kept most of the copyrights to his recordings, licensing them out to the various record companies that have released his albums over the years. “My concern,” he said in a telephone interview, “is the generation of people who are coming to the industry, literally, from their bedrooms.”

Read the full New York Times story here.

The wait for David Tench is over ...

Apparently we will meet David Tench tonight in the finale of Big Brother!

How to create a cable show

A student (thank you to Justine Bell) sent me a link to the California Department of Housing and Community Development that gives advice on "How to Create a Cable TV Show about Affordable Housing".  It provides a 16-step process from calling the station to "gauge their interest" to remember to "tape the show" and sending a thank you letter to the guests (and provides a template).  It also tells you what clothes look good on television:

Don’t Wear:

• Solid white clothes
• Solid red or pink clothes (of any shade)
• Very tight patterns or bold prints
• Clothes with stripes or polka dots

Recommended Wear:

• Solid colors/patterns
• Blue, green, light brown, beige, and purple

Make-Up:

• It is recommended that both men and women wear a little powder and/or make-up to cut the glare of the lights.

Accessories:

• Avoid hats, they shade the eyes.
• Do not wear loose and noisy jewelry, especially noisy earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. The noise will be picked up on the microphone and amplified.
• Notepads and pencils are good accessories to use during the discussion.
• Wear something with a lapel or button front to attach the microphone to.

Also, if you want to bring a cup to drink out of during the show, that is fine. It makes the atmosphere look more natural

Read more here. It's pretty funny stuff.

Bert Newton on Don't Date Him Girl

Bert Newton appears on the Don't Date Him Girl, a website dedicated to exposing cheating men.  The spoof entry says that Bert Newton "Bert likes to attempt to seduce women on his show through witty banter and a polyester demeanour, often grabbing at their girly bits off-camera and from behind the centre podium with his card-free hand".  It also says that "The Australian viewing public has suffered the indignities of this indivdual for a decade too many, and those tempted to switch on are strongly advised to look elsewhere for entertainment".  View the entry on Bert Newton here.

Bert Newton will now need to consider whether he wishes to sue the site's creator, Tasha Joseph, like Attorney Todd J Hollis did after  two Pittsburgh-area women and other anonymous users posted items about him on the site.  Read more here.

QUT Law thrashes UQ Law ... in netball

Last night, QUT law students played UQ law students in the annual UQ-QUT netball showdown.  Apparently it was a great result for QUT.  From UQLS.com:

The grudge matches went ahead as planned in perfect weather conditions, with lots of fun had by all and plenty of goals scored by some (sadly, not by us). Final scorelines were as follows:

TEAM 1 - QUT narrowly defeated us 62-2

TEAM 2 - QUT won 25-4

From The Age:"R rating shackles, not protects, teenagers"

Tracee Hutchison writes for The Age about some of the problems with the R-rating for films.  Here is a taste:

The talk as we filed out of Wednesday's opening night film at the Melbourne International Film Festival was all about its R rating and the wasted opportunity that the people who need to see it most won't be able to.

2.37, the debut feature of 21-year-old Adelaide filmmaker Murali Thalluri, is an astonishing achievement. Not least because it is entirely non-government funded. This is a potent and graphic portrait of the lives of seven teenagers struggling with their transition into adulthood.

It is a confronting time of life and this is a confronting film, a film that should be seen by the people who inform its powerful narrative of emotional turmoil and sexual awakening - 16 and 17-year-old teenagers.

...

It might be uncomfortable, but many parents of teenagers who saw this film at its Australian premiere this week felt a compelling need to share it with their children. Which is what makes its R rating so inappropriate. It should be rated MA.

Just like last year's controversial inclusion, Gregg Araki's compellingly beautiful and R-rated Mysterious Skin, which explores the sexual abuse of two under-age boys by their baseball coach, the audience that should see 2.37 will be denied the chance.

Read the whole article here.

Wikitravel

Visit Wikitravel, "a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable world-wide travel guide".  A wiki travel guide - thw perfect use for a wiki!

Congratulations to QUT Torts Mooters

Congratulations to Jodie Connolly and Andrew Trotter who won the QUT Junior Torts Moot Competition last night.  Congratulations also to the runners-up, Troy Blakeney and Leith Helsdon.

Former blogger named Washington editor of Time.com

From WWD.com:

Former Wonkette Ana Maria Cox's transformation from blogger cover girl to Old Media's new hope is almost complete. Cox on Thursday was named Washington editor of Time.com, where she will coordinate political coverage and continue to contribute articles. "I've been trying to sell out for a very long time," Cox wrote in an e-mail to WWD. "I'm proud to say I finally have."

Read more here.

More Snakes on a Plane

Check out Entertainment Weekly's Snakes on a Plane cover story here.

Today Tonight and Behind Big Brother

On Thursday night, the Network Seven program Today Tonight aired a report on an alleged drug scandal in the Big Brother house:

The Behind Big Brother website that was featured in that story, responded in this way:

Today Tonight Dramas:

On July 27 Channel 7's Today Tonight program broadcast a lazy and inaccurate story about Camilla and David which involved this website.

For clarification: this is not the official Big Brother website, and it is not owned by Channel 10 or Endemol Southern Star. We did not delete forum posts discussing Camilla and David in the house. We suggest Today Tonight "journalists" do more research before putting totally incorrect facts to broadcast.

Today Tonight used images and content from behindbigbrother.com without permission and we kindly but sternly suggest Today Tonight staff stay away from our website and to stop emailing us with requests for footage.

We are saddened that Channel 7 believe the Big Brother program should be highlighting and promoting drug use on a show targeted to a youth audience - labelling it a "cover up" when it is not. The "trash TV" here is not Big Brother - it's Today Tonight.

View it here.  The site's hosting partner, Jumba.com.au, also issued a statement:

Hi everyone,

Earlier tonight, national current affairs program 'Today Tonight' aired a report which led viewers to believe that they had uncovered a huge secret about Big Brother, and that viewers where not being made aware of the full story.

During the story, the clearly uninformed reporter shows screen shots of the Behind Big Brother forums, and pages of a print out of the topic being discussed on the same forums. This also, at numerous times, shows the Jumba logo.

While showing these images, the reporter claims that the forums being shown was a website which was owned and operated by Network Ten/Southern Star Endemol, the producers of Big Brother.

This statement is entirely false, and extremely misleading.

Behind Big Brother is a community-based site for fans of the show, and is not run by a company, instead it is owned by an individual and run by them, and several others who assist with story publishing and forum moderation.

Jumba has hosted this website for many years. We donate dedicated servers and Voice over IP resources to the Behind Big Brother community in order to continue what is a great resource for fans of the show.

This is not the only website we donate servers to. We do it for other community websites including MyCoffeeLounge.Net.

Tonight, the Behind Big Brother website and forums have taken an extremely large beating due to the excessive amount of traffic caused from the report.

Tomorrow morning I will be speaking to a representative at Channel 7 and Today Tonight, demanding an on-air correction and a full apology to Behind Big Brother and Jumba, as I believe both parties have been potentially defamed by this false report. I will also be seeking compensation for the excess data used by this report going to air without our prior consent or knowledge.

If you missed the story, you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaT9VuxJ72Y

It seems to me that the so-called "drug scandal", as well as the use of the Behind Big Brother website, is just yet another example of a silly Today Tonight beat up.

Movie titles

Check out this fun piece on movie names ...

Attacks on free speech

Charles Richardson for Crikey is justified in expressing his concern about further changes to Australia's censorship laws:

Going by this morning's papers, the Federal Attorney-General's plan for additional book-banning is facing some resistance. Philip Ruddock said that "his state counterparts had agreed to re-examine classification laws", but Victoria's Rob Hulls said "Mr Ruddock was told to go away and work up a more substantial proposal".

The fact that this idea is still on the table, however, should be a matter of great concern. Although we already have sedition laws that potentially cover a wide range of material, extending the "war on terror" into the classification laws represents a bold new attack on basic freedoms.

To our ancestors, "freedom of speech" did not mean the right to publish material without legal liability: it meant the right to publish without prior restraint. Free speech campaigners realised that writers and publishers would still risk prosecution for libel, blasphemy, and so on, but their main objective was the abolition of the licensing systems that stopped unapproved books reaching the market in the first place.

That battle, so we thought, has been won. We still have a classification scheme, but it is basically directed against pornography, which has always been treated as a special case (wrongly, in my view, but that's a separate argument). One section allows the banning of materials that "promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence", but it is very rarely used.

That is the section that Ruddock now wants broadened to encompass "Material which urges or advocates terrorist acts", so that books the government finds politically unappealing can be stopped, not by subsequent prosecution in open court, but by an administrative procedure before they even appear. Yet the attorney had the hide to say yesterday that "We are not about curtailing freedom of speech."

On the contrary, this goes to the very heart of what free speech is about. Books do not even need that "sophisticated electronic device", the off switch: if you don't like what you read, you can put it back on the shelf. But those who do want to read them should not have to get government approval first.

Malcom Fraser is also against proposed media laws

Malcom Fraser, writing for Crikey, has also come out against the proposed new media laws (see my summary here):

Let's be clear: the federal government's proposed media law changes will be extremely unhealthy for Australian democracy and for the political management of the country.

If some of the major television and newspaper interests were to merge as a result of these proposed laws, media power would be consolidated in ways that would never have been contemplated in the past.

If a media owner with this level of power decided to turn his guns on one political party, for example, that would almost guarantee that party would lose an election. The power in a few hands would be enormous. And which minister or parliamentarian would risk antagonising a proprietor who possessed so much power?

If the new laws pass, the remaining media owners will have an enormous capacity to influence opinion and ration news. You only have to look at the news and opinion page coverage now between Fairfax and News Limited newspapers to see a major difference – and to see that one of our two major newspaper publishers is already heavily influenced by the views of American neo-conservatives.

In any case, support for the end of the cross-media rules is not, in reality, support for a free market because there are still many regulations left in place. The most important thing is that existing television stations are protected from competition.

And even before any more concentration occurs there is already a severe limitation on Australian media. In my time in politics there were seven or eight major newspaper proprietors, a number which has now been cut in half.

The proposed cross-media changes would almost certainly cut the number of proprietors even further – and it says something about the character of a nation that would allow this to happen.

Arrested Development to be shown for free on MSN

This is great news, not only because it invovles a new business model, but because it will hopefully allow more people to see the funniest TV show that has come out of the US in the last decade (if not ever):

Microsoft Corp. will run free episodes of the quirky TV comedy "Arrested Development'' through its MSN Video service later this year, making the show available online for the first time.

MSN, the software maker's Internet unit, said Wednesday it will run display and video ads instead of charging viewers to watch the critically lauded show that was a hit with a relatively small but fiercely loyal audience.

"On TV, 'Arrested Development' created an incredibly passionate and dedicated fan base, and we're thrilled to bring this series to the global MSN audience,'' Rob Bennett, MSN's general manager of entertainment and video services, said in a statement announcing the deal.

MSN will have exclusive portal rights to syndicate the show's 53 episodes for three years.

Read more here.

New Federal Magistrates

Commonwealth Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock has announced this morning three new Federal Magistrates - all barristers.  The Queensland Bar will be pleased. 

The appointments are:

• Toni Lucev, a barrister in Western Australia since 1999, mainly in the areas of industrial relations and employment law.  He will be the first Perth-based Federal Magistrate.
• John Morcombe, a barrister in South Australia since 1995, in the areas of family law, de facto property, and commercial litigation.
• Keith Wilson SC,  a barrister in Queensland since 1986 who was appointed a Senior Counsel in 2002. His practice has been in general civil litigation across a wide range of matters, including insurance law, trade practices law, professional negligence, contract law, tort law and civil procedure.

Kazaa settlement

Kazaa has agreed to pay more than US$115 million to the entertainment industry to settle global piracy lawsuits.  From Wired:

Sharman Networks, which produced and distributed the popular Kazaa software also promised to "use all reasonable means" to discourage online piracy, including building into its software "robust and secure" ways to frustrate computer users who try to find and download copyrighted music and movies, court papers said.

The settlement included payment of $115 million to music companies and a lesser amount to the movie industry, said people familiar with those provisions. They agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because some provisions were included in secret agreements not disclosed in the public court papers. Sharman Networks has already paid nearly all the money to the entertainment industry, these people said.

...

"Services based on theft are going legit or going under, and a legal marketplace is showing real promise," said Mitch Bainwol, head of the Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest labels.

The head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Dan Glickman, called the settlement an important victory in a historic legal case.

Sharman Networks indicated it will negotiate licenses with entertainment companies to distribute music and movies lawfully over its Kazaa service, similar to Apple Inc.'s iTunes service. The settlement does not prohibit Sharman Networks from legally distributing copyrighted files.

The chief executive of Sharman Networks, Nikki Hemming, said the settlement "marks the dawn of a new age of cooperation" between file-sharing services and the entertainment industry. "This settlement ensures that we will be working together with the content providers to the benefit of consumers, businesses and artists," she said.

Read more here.  And according to the New York Times, Kazaa hopes to continue with an advertiser-supported model (rather than charging users):

The music industry federation said that Sharman had agreed to license music from the four major recording companies — Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music and the EMI Group — that own the vast majority of music copyrights. Independent record labels are not included, but would be free to pursue their own licensing deals with Sharman, executives said.

Sharman also said it would take steps to prevent unauthorized distribution of material through Kazaa.

...

Under the agreement, the major recording companies will not invest directly in Kazaa but will be entitled to 20 percent of the proceeds of any eventual sale of the service, Mr. Kennedy said, giving them a stake in the success of the new arrangement.

Music company executives welcomed the settlement, and Universal said it would share the proceeds with its artists.

David Munns, vice chairman of EMI Music, said in a statement, “While the award may seem like a vast pot of money, it will merely offset the millions we have invested — and will continue to invest — in fighting illegal pirate operations around the world and protecting the works that our artists create.”

In making the switch to a licensed, royalty-paying business, Kazaa would follow Napster, one of the original file-swapping services, which was reborn after an adverse court ruling in 2001.

Kazaa has been earning revenue primarily from advertising, and Mr. Kennedy said the recording industry would not object if it persisted with an advertiser-supported model, rather than charging users, as long as it pays royalties. The movie industry has also begun to embrace peer-to-peer technology as a way to distribute material. Several download-to-own services, which allow users to buy digital files of films on the Internet, have also been started.

Read more here.

But, all of this is not necessarily good news.  Wired's blog Listening Post has this perspective:

RIAA Gets $115 Million from Kazaa

Not that anyone uses it anymore, but Kazaa has joined the list of other P2P companies which have settled with the RIAA.  The price tag is a hefty one: $115 million. As a part of the settlement, Kazaa is supposed to "go legal," but so were Grokster, Scour, and others, and nothing's come of it so far.

The RIAA claims that each song transmitted via P2P networks is worth up to $150,000 (good luck with that).  Here's some of what they've made from P2P settlements.

- BearShare: $30 million

- Grokster: $50 million

- iMesh: $4.1 million

- P2P users: $100 million (estimated)

- Scour Networks: Declared bankruptcy

- Sharman/Kazaa: $115 million

Aside from the fact that there's no clear mechanism for getting this money to the artists who are supposedly losing their livelihoods due to all of this downloading, what's really shocking is how little a it all adds up to in comparison with how much the record labels might have made by agreeing to Napster's proposed plan, which would also have solved all of the device compatibility issues that still plague us today.

Napster reportedly offered the record labels $150 million per year for starters (plus $50 million per year to indies) for the right to continue to offer its practice of letting users trade unprotected MP3s with each other, albeit with a $10/month subscription fee. Napster's centralized servers would have provided a clear accounting method for paying artists their due (in fact, maybe that's why RIAA members prefer these settlements).

It's impossible to say what the world would look like if the RIAA members had agreed to Napster's proposition, but for now, users and labels alike seem set on continuing the cat-and-mouse game they've been playing for years, with users fleeing to networks that are harder to track (ironically, making any sort of eventual legitimate P2P service even less likely).

Read it here.  Finally, Kim Weatherall expresses her disappointment that due to this settlement we have missed out on big copyright decision to dissect:

Well well well. All the news today reports that Kazaa has settled with the American Music Industry, agreeing to pay $US115 million ($A151 million) and convert to a legal business model with licensing arrangements to be negotiated with record labels (see The Age here, Washington Post here, Techdirt here)

Now I can't help but wonder whether we have several Federal Court judges who, having spent quite a few days in February hearing the matter, and perhaps a bit of time writing a judgment, are now a little deflated.

Guess we won't be getting a Full Federal Court view on what constitutes authorisation of copyright infringement. The rather spare reasoning of Justice Wilcox will stand.

Sigh. And I was so looking forward to dissecting another big copyright judgment or two.

Hysterical video from Stephen Colbert

From The Huffington Post Eat The Press:

Yesterday, both GMA and Today ran segements on the Colbert Report's "Better Know A District" feature wherein Stephen Colbert gets congressmen to act like idiots and say embarrassing things like "I enjoy cocaine because it's a fun thing to do." Besides the fact that it's hilarious that they both chose yesterday morning to run near-identical segments, it provided fantastic fodder for Colbert & Co. to unleash on the morning shows bigtime. The clip is long, and worth every second.

You have to watch this video - it's great TV.  It's a real shame we don't get The Colbert Report in Australia ...

Appointing judges' associates

The Australian reports allegations of nepotism on how judges appointment their associates:

CONCERN over the potential for nepotism and abuse has triggered a push to reform one of the last unaccountable privileges of judicial office: the ancient right of judges to select their own associates.

This follows a recent incident in NSW involving senior District Court Judge Phillip Ronald Bell, who appointed as his associate a law student working as a waiter in an up-market restaurant, after the student approached him during dinner.

The associate was later dismissed for having pornography on his work computer.

Read the full report here.  Although there are no doubt some examples of nepotism, the practice is nowhere near as common or problematic as the story makes out.

The aftermath at the Queensland Bar

There are a couple of interesting segments in Prejudice in The Australian today on the aftermath of the recent controversy at the Queensland Bar.  One is on the farewell dinner for Ann Lyons from the Guardianship and Administration Tribunal, which was on the same night the Council of the Queensland Bar Association met to discuss the situation, leading ultimately to the resignation of Peter Lyons QC as President.  Another is on Anthony Holland's take on the situation.  Anthony Holland is a former President of the Law Society of England and Wales and helped to lay the groundwork for reforms to the judicial appointment system in Britain.  And the final one is on the dinner that finally brought Peter Lyons and Martin Daubney SC together, the farewell dinner held for Frank Connolly, who is retiring after 57 years at the Queensland Bar.  As Prejudice is not online, I have scanned a copy that you can download here.

There is also this note in Hearsay in The Australian Financial Review:

The fallout from the row at the Queensland bar over judicial appointments continues.  Hearsay has received correspondence from a Queensland barrister highlighting that there is only one female silk in the state, out of 113. 

"It is no the Attorney-General who controls the appointment of senior counsel, it is the profession, primarily the bar," the barrister says.  "The senior bar is a closed male shop,m certainly in Queensland."

There is no doubt the debate over appointments to the bench from outside the bar places the onus on the Queensland bar to demonstrate that it can recognise talented female barristers when it announces the latest batch of silks later this year.

Snakes on a Plane

A friend of mine said this morning that I should post on movies a bit more (apparently all my internet law posts are pretty dull).  So, never let it be said that I'm not responsive to my readers ...  Here is a post all about what will undoubtedly be the movie of the year - Snakes on a Plane (after all, it has been almost two months since I first blogged about it). 

Now, I still remain excited about this film - I mean, Snakes ... on ... a ... Plane, how can it not be good? - but I am a little nervous by what Jeffrey Wells had to say recently on his blog, Hollywood Elsewhere:

For yours truly, the helium began to leak out of the Snakes on a Plane balloon when it was announced last Tuesday that New Line had decided not to advance- screen it for critics. That was a big uh-oh for those who knew the code. Then came last Friday afternoon's Snakes presentation at Comic-Con, and that was it. End of story, case closed, unplug the phones.

Judging by the eight or nine-minute reel I saw in Hall H, Snakes on a Plane is going to be a wackazoid cheeseball thriller for the pseudo-hippers. But not that much fun for people like me.

The reel seemed to promise a film that will be energetic and kick-assy and will almost certainly do the old New Line exploitation bootie-shake from start to finish. But it also had some fake-snake CG that seemed to be generated by FX software created in 1997. And of course the snakes are lethal killing machines that actually go "hssss!" like a pissed-off audience sitting in a movie theatre. And some of the big snakes, like Spielberg's Jaws shark, rumble and growl like lions on  the plains of Kenya. And some of the animatronic snake models don't look right.

...

The impression I got from the short reel on Friday is that Snakes on a Plane is maybe one-tenth as hip as the Snakes riffs we've all enjoyed the last three or four months on www.snakesonablog.com....if that.

Read more here.  And if you haven't ever visited Snakes on a Blog, you really must.  There are also some fun links from the movie's Wikipedia page.

All this hype surrounding Snakes on a Plane prompted a story in the New York Post by Lou Lumenick on "mockbusters":

IF you can't wait until the much buzzed-about "Snakes on a Plane" slithers into theaters on Aug. 18, you can get a reptile fix two days earlier - just rent the suspiciously similar-sounding "Snakes on a Train." Where "Snakes on a Plane" stars Samuel L. Jackson as a U.S. marshal coping with venom at 20,000 feet, "Snakes on a Train" features the much lower-profile Alby Castro (who?) in a yarn about snakes unleashed by a "Mayan curse" aboard a Los Angeles-bound train from Mexico.

"Snakes on a Train" is the seventh in a series of low-budget, direct-to-video "mockbusters" over the past year designed to ride the coattails of big-budget studio releases like "The War of the Worlds," "King Kong" and "The Da Vinci Code."

Read more here and see a trailer for Snakes on a Train here.

Let's end with a quote from Samuel L. Jackson, while presenting the award for best movie at the MTV Movie Awards:

"I'm here tonight to present the award everyone's been waiting for: best movie. This award holds a special place in my heart because next year I'll be winning it for Snakes on a Plane. Now I know, I know that sounds cocky, but I don't give a damn. I'm guaranteeing that Snakes on a Plane will win best movie next year. Does not matter what else is coming out. New James Bond... no snakes in that! Ocean's 13... where my snakes at? Shrek the Third... green, but not a snake. No movie shall triumph over Snakes on a Plane. Unless I happen to feel like making a movie called Mo' Motha-fuckin' Snakes on Mo' Motha-fuckin' Planes."

Snakes on a Plane opens in Australia on 24 August 2006.

Cause for concern: Attorneys-General on the "books of hate"

The Commonwealth Attorney-General Philip Ruddock issued this media release today:

States & Territories reconsider classification of terrorist material

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock today welcomed the willingness of the States and Territories to re-examine laws relating to the classification of material advocating acts of terrorism, including the so-called books of hate.

"The Classification Scheme is intended to reflect community standards and a significant proportion the community is outraged that this material is available," Mr Ruddock said today at a meeting of Australia's Censorship Ministers in Melbourne.

Mr Ruddock questioned whether current censorship laws strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the community's right to be protected from material that incites terrorism.

"Material which urges or advocates terrorist acts should not be available for sale. Our laws should be effective to keep offensive material off the streets, and protect the vulnerable and impressionable in the community," Mr Ruddock said

"We are not about curtailing freedom of speech.

"I believe there is a case for the Classification Board to be given the power to ban material which has been submitted by law enforcement authorities and contains depictions or descriptions that advocate terrorist acts.

"I am pleased that the states and territories, some of whom had previously expressed concerns about the availability of particular books, are willing to support a fresh look at the Classification Scheme," Mr Ruddock said.

Unfortunately it is all about curtailing freedom of speech.  We all need to watch this very carefully.

The West Wing

Although we are a long way off getting the final season of The West Wing on Australian TV, the last episode is about to air in the UK, prompting Janine Gibson to blog about why she will miss The West Wing:

I know, I know. We've devoted quite a lot of words on this blog to a show which struggles to pull in a million viewers. But that's enough about Love Island. This is, probably, the last time we'll have a post about the show that many believe to be the best television drama ever made (including as of this week, the US TV critics association which gave it a special heritage award.

...

It's been an illuminating seven years. I've learned about filibusters and why laws are like sausages. I know about President Andrew Jackson's big block of cheese and that the ten year projections may as well be made with an ouija board. Mostly, of course, I've been watching a workplace-based drama with some good jokes in it and kidding myself that I'm enjoying an erudite dissection of US politics.

It'll end on Friday. I already know what's going to happen, because I'm incapable of staying away from websites which reveal these things. Don't worry, I won't say a word - there are plenty of places you can go for that. For now I suggest we just wallow. And praise the ever present comfort blanket that is the DVD box set.

Read the full post here.

The Deltafication of Jessica Rowe?

Check out this interesting comment by Jack Marx on the "Deltafication" of Jessica Rowe.

Campaign finance law before the Supreme Court

Writing for FindLaw's Writ, Julie Hilden comments on Randall v. Sorrell, the recent US Supreme Court decision on campaign finance law:

The opinions, taken together, were notable primarily in that they held a line: They neither broadened the Court's key campaign finance decision, Buckley v. Valeo, nor did they curtail it.

But the particular reasons why the Court held the line, in this case - and the views of the Justices who would have happily crossed that very line - deserve attention.

...

In sum, if the Court does agree to reconsider Buckley, it's very likely we'll see Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg in favor of broadening it substantially, to let legislatures regulate political expenditures and contributions as they choose; and Thomas and Scalia in favor of junking Buckley entirely.

The other Justices' views, as noted above, are less clear. Perhaps Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote once again here: His worries about the problem of PACs, as I noted above, could cut either way.

I think the Court should indeed decide to accept full briefing and a new factual record, in light of thirty years of experience, technological innovation, and cutthroat politics. What it should do when it hears this crucial argument, is a much more difficult question.

Read the full case note here.

The Simpsons Movie

Some footage from The Simpson's Movie shown at the Comic Con in San Diego has hit the internet.  View it here.

ACMA report on digital channels not to be released

The ACMA report on Australia's two spare digital TV channels will apparently not be made public.  From The Australian:

THE federal Government is refusing to release a key report likely to determine what new television-like services Australians will get on our two spare digital TV channels and who could own them.

The new services, expected to include mobile TV, have been flagged by the Government as a way to increase diversity of media ownership as it prepares to remove media ownership restrictions.

Announcing the preliminary media reform package in March, Communications Minister Helen Coonan requested the media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, to canvass opinion on potential uses for the spare channels.

It received 27 submissions that were placed on ACMA's website, although three had appendices removed due to confidentiality concerns.

Senator Coonan's spokesman told Media the ACMA report would not be publicly released.

Read more here.

Microsoft shy on net neutrality

From Australian IT:

MICROSOFT wants to block a shareholder vote forcing it to explain its support for internet neutrality, a company letter says.

The Free Enterprise Action Fund, a mutual fund that says it offers both financial and ideological returns, wants Microsoft shareholders to seek a report on the company's rationale for backing net neutrality, which the group says would result in "expanded government regulation of the internet".

The debate centres on whether US broadband internet providers should be barred from charging companies like Microsoft or Google to carry their content or guarantee service quality.

Read more here.

The Chaser to be vodcast

ABC's The Chaser will be vodcast.  From The Australian:

YOU'VE heard of podcasting, well now there is vodcasting. From tomorrow night the ABC's first "vodcasts", or video podcasts, will be available for downloading on to an MP4 player or mobile phone.

The Chaser team's Friday night TV show, The Chaser's War on Everything, as well as some JTV content, including interviews, comedy and music clips, will be available for download each week. "All year long people have been telling us that they'd love to watch our show, really they would, but that their social life just doesn't allow them to watch TV on a Friday night," Chaser executive producer Julian Morrow says.

"So we've come up with a way that they can watch it anytime they like. Now the only excuse is that they just don't like it."

WiMax

Also from Australian IT:

GLOBAL media and internet companies including News Corporation and Yahoo are eyeing WiMAX as a new media alternative to traditional mobile networks and fixed-line broadband.

...

WiMAX is the latest generation of wireless technologies based on fixed-line computer networks. Its first iteration, known as Wi-Fi, is used by laptop computer users to connect to the internet in so-called hotpots, popular in places such as airports and coffee shops.

Wi-Fi is also used for wireless home networks, using a fixed-line broadband service such as cable or asymmetric digital subscriber line to connect to many devices throughout the home.

WiMAX offers the promise of high data speeds - at least as fast as the next generation of cable networks and copper-based ADSL broadband services and allows operators to bypass fixed networks for the so-called last mile to the customer.

The technology also extends to 8km, about four times as far as ADSL.

Another benefit of WiMAX is that it offers easy interactivity.

As with many new technologies, the promise often lies many years from reality. WiMAX has been talked up by many vendors and operators for number of years.

Read more here.

Secure online hard drive

With the race on to develop and market a secure online hard drive, an Australian is set to be the first.  From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Nik Cubrilovic looks to have everything he needs to succeed in Silicon Valley. He's a university drop-out, he's still in his mid-20s and he's got a good idea that's got backing from venture capitalists.

The 26-year-old Wollongong-born entrepreneur is now just weeks away from the commercial release of a product to give PC users the means of storing personal files and content online so they can be accessed anywhere.

Splitting his time between offices in Wollongong and Silicon Valley, Mr Cubrilovic's Omnidrive venture is no small-time local operation.

The result of 18 months of pure research and development, he has built up a 90,000-strong base of beta users for his virtual storage solution and is now racing against the likes of Microsoft and Google to get his product onto the international market.

Read more here.

Today's Media section in The Australian

There are a couple of interesting stories in the Media section of today's The Australian:

• Lara Sinclar reports on PBL's plan to do advertising deals with radio and newspaper organisations before the cross-media ownership rules are relaxed in a bid to boost its share of the $10 billion advertising market.  Read more here.  The story also includes some information on the financial situation the Nine Network now finds itself in:

As McGuire was telling advertisers that Nine would broadcast all four sold-out days of every Ashes Test in every capital city, which is expected to lead to a double-digit increase in cricket revenue, the metropolitan television advertising figures were released, revealing the magnitude of the challenge ahead.

Nine lost almost $30 million in revenue for the six months to June compared with the same period last year, despite attracting $52 million in Commonwealth Games revenue.

The network squandered the $90 million lead it had over Seven this time last year: its $462million total for the half was down 6.1 per cent, leaving it just $2 million ahead of Seven's $460million haul.

McGuire would not comment on Nine's revenue expectations for the next six months, but told advertisers Nine hoped to be "still the one".

Nevertheless, several media buyers are already predicting Seven will be a clear winner by December.

• The Diary comments on the frustrating new AFR website, AFR Access.  Apparently not even AFR journalists get access:

FAIRFAX has a new website for its business newspaper The Australian Financial Review. It's called AFR Access and it provides "a flexible investment research application that combines our news and analysis with a range of renowned information and data sources and adds rich tools and unprecedented search technology". It doesn't come cheap and is charged on top of a newspaper subscription. Access to the site costs between $25 and $150 a month. Fin Review journalists wishing to access this rich mine of information, however, have been told by publisher and editor-in-chief Michael Gill that they will have to pay for the pleasure of using the magic tool kit - even for work purposes. A company spokesman confirmed for Diary there are no staff discounts for AFR Access.

• Amanda Meade reports on the launcf of JTV.  Read more here.
• Errol Simper looks at SBS and the state of "quality television".  Read it here.

Australian Legal Philosophy Students Association 2006 Annual National Essay Competition

The Australian Legal Philosophy Students Association are calling for students to enter in their Annual National Essay Competition.

Here are the details:

Theme:  Ethics

Examples of topics for Essay (NB:  You are not limited to these topics)   

- Legal professional ethics
- The ethics of interpretation
- International fair trade/human rights and trade
- International human rights/Human rights bill for Australia
- Refugees/indigenous/womens' rights
- Legal theory on ethics
- A commission on judicial corruption
- Law and future generations

Length:  2500 - 6000 words

Deadline:  2nd October 2006

1st prize:  $750
2nd prize:  $400
3rd prize:  $250
Encouragement award:  $200
(NB:  Prize amounts may increase as more funding is given). 

Please attach to your essay a title page with:
 
- Your full name
- University, Year of Studies and Course of Studies
- Title of Essay 
- Number of words
 
Essays that have been previously used for university assessment are welcome for entry.

All under-graduate and JD students are encouraged to enter.
 
The essays are judged by a panel of distinguished academics and there is possibility of publication.
 
Please send electronic copies of your essay to:  lyma@alpsa.net

For any enquiries, please email:  lyma@alpsa.net

Crikey on tomorrow's meeting of attorneys-general

Christian Kerr for Crikey, commenting on this morning's story in The Sydney Morning Herald (see here):

Big Brother and the nanny state

Christian Kerr writes:

Australia's attorneys-general meet tomorrow, with restrictions on television programs such as Big Brother on the agenda.

Big Brother has always been good moral panic material, here and overseas – and even more so after recent events in the house. It's also provided libertarians with the perfect illustration of the failures of regulation.

After the “sexual assault” in the Big Brother house earlier this month, Communications Minister Helen Coonan demanded a report on whether Channel Ten had breached the Broadcast Act. She then had to admit that no violation had occurred as the episode had been streamed online, not televised. Her populist stunt backfired.

The NSW Government is normally hamstrung by a hilarious mixture of populism and political correctness – take its reaction to the Peter Breen case – but this time its Attorney-General, Bob Debus, has offered an intelligent response. “There is already a sophisticated electronic device for filtering this kind of material,” he told The SMH. “It's called the off switch.”

Exactly – but is anyone else prepared to blow the whistle on the Commonwealth?

We all know about the populism of the Howard Government, but what about its addiction to the nanny state? Even the Prime Minister knows it's a problem. He admitted as much back in May, in a speech at the thirtieth anniversary celebrations for the libertarian right Centre for Independent Studies think tank that, curiously, has never been posted on his website:

There are times when governments need to look seriously at policies which might appear paternalistic in the libertarian lecture hall, but which help to reinforce social norms and values that are under assault in various ways.There are also things we can do better and cheaper ourselves. Like turn off the TV.

Here, here!

Sir Peter North visiting QUT

Sir Peter North is visiting QUT next month:

Former Oxford University vice-chancellor Sir Peter North will visit the Queensland University of Technology on August 2 to give a free public lecture on the universal challenges of law reform.

Sir Peter is spending a week at QUT as part of the Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Visitor program.

His talk at the Faculty of Law will discuss how successful reform can be measured from the perspectives of consultation, workable solutions, and government and politics.

Sir Peter is one of the world's leading private international lawyers and one of Britain's top legal academics.

He was vice-chancellor of Oxford University in England from 1993 to 1997, and has also provided advice to the United Kingdom Government on a range of topics.

He chaired the Road Traffic Law Review (which led to the Road Traffic Act 1991), and the Independent Review of Parades and Marches in Northern Ireland (which lead to the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998).

He has also provided legal advice in a number of cases involving cross-border international legal issues, including those relating to international trade, bankruptcy and insolvency, international shipping and intellectual property.

He is a former Law Commissioners for England, with responsibility for making a wide range of proposals for law reform. His particular areas of activity were private international law, contract, tort, and a range of negotiations within the EEC on behalf of the United Kingdom Government.

Sir Peter North will speak at the QUT Faculty of Law's free public lecture series on Wednesday, August 2, from 6pm at the Gardens Point campus.

Seats must be booked so please RSVP by emailing qutlawpubliclectures@qut.edu.au or calling 07 3864 5344.

QUT's Faculty of Business and the Brisbane Institute will also host Sir Peter for a public lecture on August 1 at Customs House where he will discuss the topic of constitutional change.

People interested in attending should phone the Faculty of Business on 3864 2532 or email k.walker@qut.edu.au.

Happy Birthday FoxNews!

FoxNews is about to turn 10.  From Los Angeles Times:

As Fox News approaches its 10th anniversary, the top-rated cable news network is not about to let people forget the skepticism it encountered when it first came on the scene.

The network opened its Monday afternoon panel at the semi-annual television press tour in Pasadena with a video montage featuring excerpts of the withering comments written about its 1996 launch, many authored by the very television reporters assembled in the room.

After noting that Fox News has beat the competition for the last 55 months, a message on the screen suggested coyly: "Can't wait to see what people say about us in the next 10 years."

Nowadays, no one can argue the standing of the network, which regularly attracts twice as many viewers as second-place CNN, if not more. But Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes wasn't on hand Monday to discuss ratings.

Read more here.  Although FoxNews gets frequently criticised for its biased coverage, I maintain that the reason for its success is not its political bent, but the simple fact that it uses compelling journalists, good graphics, and provocative commentary to make watching the news interesting and entertaining.

More censorship proposed

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the nation's attorneys-general will consider banning books that praise terrorism and placing fresh restrictions on reality shows like Big Brother when they meet tomorrow.  Read more here.

As this blog has said before such proposals are little more than political grand standing and if implemented would be a significant curtailment of free speech in Australia.  Let's hope that we don't go further down that path tomorrow.

Photos not allowed

The management of Southgate, on the south side of the Yarra River in Melbourne, have erected "no photos without permission" signs to stop people from taking photos at their shops and eateries.  Understandably, this has upset civil libertarians:

Liberty Victoria president Brian Walters said restrictions on taking photos outside or inside shopping centres were legally questionable and an infringement on free speech.

"The fact that it's privately owned is not to the point," he said. "It's still public space.

"The problem with this kind of completely arbitrary and discretionary rule is that it's a rule of whim … It's a very harmful way of ordering our public places."

Read more here.

"The lawyer-led oppression must be rolled back"?

In her column for The Australian, Janet Albrechtsen writes about a new book by Paul Sheehan, Girls Like You:

Sheehan's book raises disturbing questions about a legal system that has swung too far in favour of defendants, one that encourages a war of attrition aimed at grinding down traumatised victims of horrendous crimes, allowing offenders to walk free.

...

In many ways the chief villains in all this are the lawyers. They have grown to believe they, not society, own the legal system. They know better how justice should be meted out, invoking jargon, mystique and experience to defend their proprietorship. The lawyers' conflict of interest is exposed by Sheehan's astute observations. They protect their ownership, their belief systems and their careers against society's legitimate demand that the law serve the interests of society, not a small cabal of lawyers. They have elevated protection of the interests of a minority - accused people - into a form of oppression of the majority: society at large.

Sheehan is right. The lawyer-led oppression must be rolled back.

Although I can't say I agree with Sheehan's or Albrechtsen's argument, it is an interesting article.  Read more here.

Eddie is fooling no-one

From The Australian:

AS the Seven Network closes the ratings and revenue gap, Nine boss Eddie McGuire yesterday orchestrated the ultimate publicity stunt, embracing the woman he plotted to sack.

"Let's put them out of their misery - come here," Mr McGuire joked as he closely hugged Today show host and mother-to-be Jessica Rowe.

The rapprochement occurred at an extravagant launch for advertisers of Nine's crucial summer programming schedule.

Read more here.

E-voting in Australia?

There is a possibility that Australians could use electronic voting systems in next year's federal election.  A proposal to allow e-voting for blind and visually impaired people is apparently going to be considered by Federal Cabinet in the next six weeks.  The proposal comes from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and their report, The 2004 Federal Election: Report of the Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2004 Federal Election and Matters Related Thereto.  Read the relevant part of the report here.

Australian IT puts this proposal in context:

The news follows last week's announcement that Victoria would become the first state to allow electronic voting systems to be used by visually impaired people, making them available for November's state election after amendments to the electoral act.

Six electoral centres would be used to test the system in the November 25 poll, four in metropolitan areas and two in regional centres.

The ACT pioneered the use of electronic systems in Australia, using them in the past two territory elections.

Read more here.

Privatising ICANN

Today the US Commerce Department will hold a hearing on the US government's September deadline to give up control over Internet domain names.  From The Washington Post:

The U.S. government controls the naming system for ".com" and all web addresses through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based not-for-profit company that decides what names can and cannot be registered.

Some foreign governments and critics have been concerned that the U.S. government has too much control over what has become a global commerce, communications and social engine. The transition is currently slated to take place by September 30, but the U.S. Commerce Department has the option to extend its control.

The European Commission was highly critical of what it called "political interference" by U.S. officials last May in rejecting a proposed .xxx Internet domain for pornography websites -- a system supporters said would help confine and filter such sites.

Read more here and visit ICAAN here.