Media News - Friday, September 05, 2008

Google tweaks Chrome licence text

Google has rescinded an article of the user agreement for its new browser, Chrome, released on Tuesday. The initial agreement claimed rights over 'any Content which you submit, post or display on or through' the browser. Google reworded the agreement on Wednesday, leaving those rights in the hands of Chrome's users. A spokesperson for Google said its user agreements were re-used and the initial claim was an oversight. The initial End User Licence Agreement (EULA) claimed 'a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.' Rebecca Ward, senior product counsel for Google Chrome, said the problem arose because Google re-uses swathes of its Universal Terms of Service across all its offerings 'in order to keep things simple for our users'. 'Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product,' she said. The amended article instead suggests that users 'retain copyright and any other rights' that they already hold on the content they submit or display using the browser. The situation echoes last year's controversy surrounding the EULA for Google Docs, its online word processing and spreadsheet programs. Google initially claimed similarly wide-ranging rights, but eventually reworded the agreement in response to users' concerns. (BBC News)

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Australia: The Age to shed up to 55 journalists

Between 45 and 55 editorial staff at The Age and The Sunday Age will be made redundant over the next two months, acting editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge said Wednesday. The cuts, representing between 11 and 14 percent of the papers' editorial staff, are part of 550 redundancies outlined last week by Fairfax Media. The redundancies are the company's response to declining revenues in classified advertising for metropolitan daily newspapers. Ramadge, who became acting editor-in-chief last week after Andrew Jaspan was abruptly removed, told staff the redundancy program would be completed in eight weeks, along with a restructuring of editorial operations. (The Age via AsiaMedia)

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Netherlands has most members of social websites

The Netherlands has the most members of social network websites relative to its size. Nowhere in the world is a greater proportion of the population affiliated to such sites. In the Netherlands, 49 percent are members of social network sites. Next come the United Arab Emirates at 46 percent, Canada at 44 percent and the US at 40 percent. The global percentage is 26 percent, market research bureau Synovate reports based on an international study among 13,000 people aged 18 to 65. Hyves, Linkednl and MSN Spaces are the most popular networks in the Netherlands, in that order. As their greatest concern, Dutch social network users name their privacy (54 percent). (NIS News)

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Paris Match Taliban photoshoot shocks France

Politicians of the right and left blasted the magazine Paris Match Thursday for publishing a photograph of a Taliban guerrilla dressed in the combat uniform of one of the ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan last month. The defence minister, Hervé Morin, accused the magazine of taking part in a Taliban 'propaganda' exercise. The Green politician, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leader of the French student revolt 40 years ago, said that Match was guilty of 'abject voyeurism'. The photograph was taken by a Paris Match photographer a few miles from the scene of the ambush in which ten French paratroopers were killed 30 miles from Kabul on 18 August. It showed Taliban fighters, who claimed to be part of the force which attacked the French troops. One of them was entirely dressed above the waist in French uniform, helmet, goggles and bullet-proof vest. Further pictures in the magazine's ten-page spread showed Farouki, the 'leader' of the Taliban force amid seven young men holding assault rifles and other 'trophies' taken from the bodies of the French soldiers. Anger and revulsion in France at the pictures was deepened when the newspaper Le Monde reported Thursday afternoon that Taliban fighters had cut the throats of four of the French soldiers as they lay wounded on the ground. The meeting with the Taliban fighters was arranged by Eric de Lavarène, an experienced and respected Paris Match war correspondent, accompanied by a photographer, Véronique de Viguerie. M. de Lavarène Thursday rejected suggestions that the magazine had allowed itself to be manipulated by the Taliban. (The Independent)

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Michael Moore to release free documentary on Web

Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore will release his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free on September 23, eschewing a traditional theatrical rollout, he said on Thursday. 'Slacker Uprising' documents Moore's 62-city tour of key swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when he tried to convince young non-voters to give voting a shot. 'This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,' Moore said in a statement. 'The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.' 'Slacker Uprising,' budgeted modestly at over USD 2m (EUR 1.38m), was funded by Moore along with movie executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who hold international rights, said a spokesman for Moore. Moore's spokesman said no consideration was ever given to a theatrical release. A low-cost DVD will be released on October 7. The download will be available on by BlipTV (http://www.blip.tv). (Reuters)

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Paralympic Games get live online coverage

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced today that the 13th Paralympic Games in Beijing will be covered live extensively online, Xinhua news agency reports. Viewers can visit the IPC's Internet TV channel, ParalympicSport.TV, for the live coverage. Other matches will appear in highlights programmes on the channel. China's state television, China Central Television (CCTV), also announced plans to broadcast at least three events a day live during the Paralympics which runs from 6 to17 September. Sign-language interpretation will be incorporated into every event for the hearing-impaired. CCTV's Sports Channel Director, Jiang Heping, said the live broadcasts would be a major boost from previous Games. The only event broadcast live from the 2004 Athens Paralympics was the final of wheelchair basketball. (Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union)

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