A new royalty structure approved by the federal Copyright Royalty Board has webcasters quaking. Formerly they paid the music industry's SoundExchange between 6 and 12 percent of their revenue. But under the new royalty structure, they'll pay $0.0008 to stream one song to one listener, rising to $0.0019 in 2010. That may not sound like much, but it would amount to 1.28 cents per listener per hour, more than estimated current ad revenue of 1.1 to 1.2 pennies per hour. And that's just for starters. Rates would continue to rise every year. More bad news for small webcasters: There would also be a minimum charge of $500 per year per channel. And the new rules don't apply to songwriter publishing royalties, potentially an additional expense. Whether all this will kill web radio as widely predicted remains to be seen. But the fledgling medium will certainly have to find a more lucrative business model if it wants to survive. So, a speculative question: Just how much would you be willing to pay for Internet radio?
After Nielsen Videoscan sales numbers showed Blu-ray outselling HD DVD by a two-to-one margin in January, Sony up and declared the format war as over. February's sales data probably isn't going to do much to reign in the confidence of the Blu-ray camp. A Video Business article cited industry sources claiming that the Sony-backed format outsold HD DVD by two-to-one again in February: 250,000 units to 125,000 units.
In the past few months we've seen a revolution in the video projection business. A revolution no one expected. The prices of home theater front projectors have been dropping nearly as fast as flat panel displays.
I predicted years ago that we would be downloading music over the Internet long before <I>high quality</I> downloads were possible. That's the state we're in at present. Downloads that offer genuine CD-quality sound (forget about downloads up to SACD or DVD-Audio standards) are still more a promise than a reality.
Video: 3
Audio: 4
Extras: 3
Amazingly, the first time I saw this movie was just a few months ago. What can I say? I’m a Batman kind of guy. Superman is campier than many of the more serious comic-book adaptations of late, but, compared with other comic-book movies of the time (and for many years after), it’s downright somber. It holds up well and is still the quintessential Superman movie. Covering the last days of Krypton to the time when Superman saves Earth from a toupeed Gene Hackman, it’s quite a film. It’s not least recognizable for its excellent score, which earned John Williams one of his 4,383 Oscar nominations.
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 5
And so the pirate saga continues. Johnny Depp boards the Black Pearl once again in Dead Man’s Chest, taking the ever-flamboyant Jack Sparrow on a soul-searching journey…literally. As the legendary Davy Jones resurfaces, it seems our favorite cap’n has a huge debt to pay. Jack may be good, but his pirating skills won’t be enough unless he finds the fabled chest and barters its contents with the formidable Jones, brilliantly portrayed by Bill Nighy, who takes villainy far above sea level. Orlando Bloom also returns as the virtuous Will Turner, offsetting his pretty-boy charm by adding a bit more ruggedness to the character this time around.
I'm looking for a lead. Let's see, famous people named George. OK, my pick is George Harrison. Asked what he called his then-unusual Beatle moptop, he replied in a magnificently deadpan manner: "I call it Arthur." In similar spirit, Chestnut Hill Sound calls its iPod-centric compact audio system George.
