Andy Sternberg

November 12, 2006

Let’s Go Own the Times

The headline sounds facetious, but the past two times it has been brought up it makes quite a bit of sense.

Harry Chandler writes in the Sunday L.A. Times:

If 20% of Times readers invest $1,000, it could work. I’ll write the first check for the Los Angeles Times Community Owners LLC.

Chandler is the son of Otis — the man who MADE the Times. The Chandler Family Trust owns about 15% of Tribune Company — the largest single stake.

Calvin Naito opined in August, “If you, my fellow 10 million residents of Los Angeles County, each chip in $300, we can cough up the $3 billion needed to buy and collectively own the most powerful local institution — the Los Angeles Times.”

Steve Lopez has been begging the likes of Eli Broad to up and buy the paper for months. (Oddly, this column can no longer be found in the Times online despite being found in two alternate versions — “Free the Press From Corporate Profiteers” and “Finding a Benefactor Could Be Tall Order” in Lexis).

In Saturday’s paper, Tim Rutten made turning the Times back around sound like an impossible task: “the only way to reinvigorate local coverage and to establish the kind of strong online presence that will guarantee the paper’s future is to stop doing something we now do for readers or to do it less thoroughly and less well, hoping that those readers just won’t mind.”

But Chandler, whose two cents really count for something, has a more hopeful outlook — and I think I like it: “Publish only columnists with original, even provocative, perspectives. Pursue more investigative pieces and assign fewer reporters to a story that 75% of readers already saw on ESPN or CNN or Yahoo.”

Hope for a happy ending soon. Expect to hear about it first at LAObserved.

November 9, 2006

Labels to Make Cash on Every Zune Sold

Universal Music Group is assured compensation for the unknown number of pirated or file-shared tracks that are transferred/downloaded to a Microsoft Zune player after striking a revenue-sharing deal on sales of the player.

The record label will get over $1 for each $250 Zune sold and claims it will extend half of what it receives to the artists. The Zune digital media player hits stores next Tuesday and, yes, it’s available in doodie brown.

In trying to compete with iPod, Microsoft is turning the digital audio industry on it’s head — and once again Universal is saving itself from the costy litigation route.

Historically — and as decided in court — labels have never been compensated for the sales of digital audio players that can potentially play “illegally” acquired songs. In the case of Apple’s iPod, labels receive a percentage of every download via the iTunes Music Store. But clearly, this didn’t cutting it for the labels and Universal — the money-hungry bullies they are these days — threatened to give Microsoft hell (imagine that).

From NYT:

A recent study estimated that Apple has sold an average of 20 songs per iPod — a fraction of its capacity. The rest of consumers’ music files — 95 percent or more — come from ripped CDs, possibly including discs from their own collections, and illegal file-trading networks, the study said.

The article, complete with a lil’ nut graf referencing the 1999 Diamond Rio decision, includes “we make the rules now” sentiment from Universal’s whiny chairman, Doug Morris and even David Geffen. Microsoft will happily pimp the same buck n’ change to the other majors.

(A review in the same NYT Technology section harps on the Zune as an “unabashed copy” of the iPod.

Om Malik weighs in: “what a bunch of crap!”

November 8, 2006

Watch HBO’s ‘Hacking Democracy’

The HBO special comes to Google Video. Isn’t that nice of them 🙂

Sure, Diebold tried to get HBO to cancel it, actually calling bullshit on them despite never having actually bothered to screen it. i think we know who the real hacks are here.