Media News - Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Myanmar reforms press council after criticism

Myanmar's government on Monday replaced a press watchdog agency criticized as repressive with a new more liberal council in another boost for freedom of expression. The action came at the initiative of new Information Minister Aung Kyi, whose predecessor was more closely identified with the hardline policies of the former military government. The new council reduces the powers that the earlier agency, established Aug. 9, had to vet foreign publications and initiate criminal and civil complaints against journalists. Aung Kyi took office at the end of August. There has been an easing of restrictions on freedom of expression since last year, when the elected nominally civilian government of President Thein Sein began political and economic reforms after almost five decades of repressive military rule. The abolition in August of direct media censorship was the most substantive move so far toward freedom of the press. However, several laws still exist that pose legal threats to the media, and daily newspapers remain a state monopoly. The new council, like the old one, is an interim body pending establishment of a permanent press council after a new media law is passed by parliament. The defunct interim council had 20 members, while the new one has 28, including some from the old body and an increased number of journalists, and is chaired by a retired supreme court judge. (AP)

Chinese writers ‘win’ in lawsuit against Baidu

A Chinese court ordered Internet search giant Baidu Inc. to compensate three writers for a fraction of the amount they were seeking for failing to protect copyrighted material in a widely watched trial featuring two of the country’s most popular authors. The case, which included hugely popular blogger Han Han and novelist Hao Qun, better known by his pen name Murong Xuecun, was widely watched. But the outcome means it is likely to have little impact on the way copyright cases are handled, highlighting the struggles of both artists and Internet companies to control the rampant exchange of pirated content on the web in China. Baidu, widely known as the Google of China, must pay CNY 145,000 (USD 22,900) to the three writers after it did not take the necessary steps to prevent their works from being distributed illegally on its document sharing site, according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency. Han Han originally sued for CNY 760,000, according to Xinhua. The court also rejected other demands, including that Baidu shut down its document sharing site, known as Baidu Wenku. (Wall Street Journal)

Local news still king in the US TV market

Even though the majority of American households take a pay-TV subscription, cable news is dwarfed in terms of viewership by local news broadcasts, according to research from TVB, the not-for-profit trade association of America’s commercial broadcast television industry. TVB reports that the combined audience for early and late evening news in the top 10 US TV markets delivers an audience of nearly 6 million viewers nightly, compared to an audience of approximately 700,000 viewers for national cable primetime news. The local broadcast advantage over cable news is 168% in the top 3 U.S. TV markets, while local broadcast news beats the national cable news networks by more than 430% in the top 10. One of the reasons for this advantage, according to TVB, is that local broadcasts offer advertisers the ability to reach a more demographically balanced audience relative to that of primetime national cable news programming. (Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union)

Pirated music downloads top three billion with UK and US worst offenders

Illegal music downloads are booming despite the FBI's ongoing anti-piracy campaign and the existence of legitimate sources like iTunes and Spotify, according to new research. Musicmetric revealed that Torrent downloads had surpassed the three billion milestone during the first half of 2012 on Monday. Within the UK the agency reported detecting 43 million album and single release downloads during the period. The figure makes the UK the second biggest Torrent downloader, only beaten by the US, where Musicmetric reported detecting 96 million downloads. Musicmetric's findings come after numerous measures by law enforcement to stop online piracy, including blocking several file sharing sites like the Pirate Bay. "For the first time, we have evidence that blocking Pirate Bay had little effect on BitTorrent downloading," said Gregory Mead, chief executive of Musicmetric. "The challenge for copyright holders is to find ways to monetise music files 'torrented' online. While the file sharing network is largely ignored as a proactive channel, little progress can be made on figuring out how this might be possible." (V3.co.uk)

Al Jazeera English launches iPad magazine

A new digital magazine was launched by Al Jazeera English last week, with hopes it will help highlight the "broader offering" of content produced by the Qatar-based broadcaster. The iPad magazine, which will feature freely accessible monthly issues, launched on Friday 14 September, following the launch of similar digital magazines earlier in the year by Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera Documentary. Acting head of online for Al Jazeera English Will Thorne said it was "always the plan" to launch a digital magazine for Al Jazeera English. The current issue of the magazine is offering around 60 per cent original content, produced specifically for the platform, compared to 40 per cent which "would have been available on the web", Thorne said. The first edition was produced by the existing web team, but Thorne said future development of the digital magazine is like to "suck up more effort, energy and resources", and therefore he hopes to hire additional people as time goes on. Now Al Jazeera English is watching with interest to see if the new iPad magazine will prompt an increase in Al Jazeera English's audience numbers, and bring new audiences to its content. (Journalism.co.uk)

US: All the TV news since 2009, on one Website

Inspired by a pillar of antiquity, the Library of Alexandria, Brewster Kahle has a grand vision for the Internet Archive, the giant aggregator and digitizer of data, which he founded and leads. “We want to collect all the books, music and video that has ever been produced by humans,” Mr. Kahle said. As of Tuesday, the archive’s online collection will include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news. The latest ambitious effort by the archive, which has already digitized millions of books and tried to collect everything published on every Web page for the last 15 years (that adds up to more than 150 billion Web pages), is intended not only for researchers, Mr. Kahle said, but also for average citizens who make up some of the site’s estimated two million visitors each day. Many conventional news outlets will be available, including CNN, Fox News, NBC News, PBS, and every purveyor of eyewitness news on local television stations. (New York Times)

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