New material from Inamedia

French national archives has released powerful new footage of the French 5th Republic and the Bhopal disaster in India.

Inamedia.fr has released various new footage collections, including the Bhopal disaster
of the night of December 2-3, 1984, in Bhopal, India, when a toxic cloud of one of the most dangerous industrial chemicals leaked from a plant belonging to the US multinational, Union Carbide. The radioactivity killed nearly 30,000 people and left more than 300,000 ill or disabled and living in the most deplorable conditions. Ina is also promoting newly accessible footage from France's Fifth Republic showing the key events relating to the beginning of Frances Fifth Republic in 1958 and the introduction of a new constitution.

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Sep 30th 2008 22:45 // General // No comments

Historic Films Archive Acquires Jackie Barnett Variety Show Library and partners with AP

New York-based Historic Films Archive has now acquired all rights to the television variety show library of the late producer Jackie Barnett and partnered with AP Archive

From the mid-1950s until the early 80s, Barnett was a leading independent producer of television musical variety programs. He was a pioneer in the “One Man Show” concept of musical specials and his shows give a unique and valuable record of the entire acts of many of the cabaret and musical performs of the period. Full one hour programmes, all circa 1964-67 exist with such iconic performers as Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee, Count Basie, Duke Ellington , Mel Torme and many others.

Historic Films President Joe Lauro says: “We are delighted to offer this amazing library, both for clip sales and television/home entertainment programming. Fortunately we were able to transfer the original 2-inch video masters of the programmes and they are all in tip-top condition; and in colour to boot!” Many of the featured artists are here available in one entire act with no more than one guest star on the programme. Lauro says, “Most TV variety programs from that era would usually feature their performers in no more than two or three numbers broken up with performances by several other guest stars in between. The Something Special programs give us a full colour record of the entire night-club and concert programs of artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee And Eartha Kitt ; a very valuable record of these artists in their prime.”

All of the programmes have been fully logged and transferred to digital media by the Historic Films technical team. The contents of the library can be searched on the Historic online database.

Historic has also signed with AP Archive in a major distribution agreement. The deal gives AP Archives customers outside of North America access to much of Historic Films’ catalogue of vintage TV shows, musical performances, feature films, newsreels, industrial films, silent films, educational films, TV commercials, TV news, home movies, and travel films. Included in its collection is the iconic Don Kirshners Rock Concert and The Ed Sullivan Show where many important acts made their first US TV appearances, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and The Beatles.

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Sep 30th 2008 22:43 // General // No comments

Moving clips & footage

Clips & Footage has moved to the emergent media hub of Clerkenwell in the City of London. New collections have prompted the move to a space which has a dedicated client viewing area so free viewing onsite is a part of the service.

C & F is a supplier of high quality archive film and contemporary stock shots to broadcasters, independent production companies, corporate and commercial film makers with coverage of over a century of international social and political history, war and conflict, transport and aviation, and one of the biggest classic Hollywood collections outside the USA. The new location should see the archive maintain its position as a maverick supplier in a fast consolidating business.

New address:
Clips & Footage, Unit 6, Albion Buildings, 1 Back Hill, London EC1R 5EN, UK

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Sep 30th 2008 22:37 // General // No comments

Amazon Plans Content Delivery Service

It is one of the industry’s worst kept secrets that Amazon is planning to deliver video, and other media content to home users.

Amazon has announced that a new content delivery offering is under development for launch before the end of the year. It has the potential to achieve the reach of the major online content distributors, with the Amazon clout and brandname carrying weight among distributors.

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Sep 30th 2008 22:34 // General // No comments

ITN Source opens clips on demand

ITN Source has launched Clips on Demand, claiming it as the world's largest collection of broadcast-quality, rights-ready video clips available for purchase and download online. Over half a million clips are on offer, covering news, history, entertainment and wildlife selected from ITN Source's world-leading range of video archives.

A range of clips is to be added every minute of every day from ITN Source's content partners including ITN, Reuters, FOX Movitone, Setanta Sports News and UTV. Clips On Demand is the keystone of the re-launch of itnsource.com, a gateway to more than a million hours of video content. Clips On Demand allows users to search, browse, select, pay and download broadcast quality clips for all media use. Customers now have a full self service e-commerce model with transparency throughout the whole licensing process. Customers choose between two licences, either single country or world, the licences spanning a range of uses including broadcast, new media, retail, advertising, corporate, internal communications and education. ITN Source is offering a 30% discount off standard clip pricing for all customers buying content through itnsource.com.

Asha Oberoi, Content Director of ITN Source said: "We're extremely excited about Clips On Demand, it is an unprecedented move in the video content industry that enables all our customers to licence professional video content that fits their project anytime, anywhere and on demand with just a few clicks.” He goes on to say: “Giving our customers the option to download content will deliver some cost savings, which we are passing on to them in the form of a 30% discount when they purchase content through itnsource.com."

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Sep 30th 2008 22:26 // General // No comments

Time Inc. and Getty Images launch LIFE.com

New site gives access to millions of iconic photographs from Getty Images' and LIFE's combined photo collections

Time Inc. and Getty Images have jointly launched LIFE.com, the companies announced at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's MIXX Conference in New York City. LIFE.com is jointly owned and operated by Time Inc. and Getty Images; it will provide online  access to the professional photography collections. Andy Blau, president of LIFE and SVP of Time Inc. Interactive, and Catherine Gluckstein, vice president of iStockphoto and Consumer Markets at Getty Images, are to be CEO and CFO, respectively.

"LIFE.com brings together the two most-recognized brands in photography, making the defining images of our times even more accessible to people everywhere," said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. "We are thrilled to partner with Time Inc. on the launch of this exciting new venture."

The collection contains the historic photos that LIFE published, in addition to many never-before-seen pictures of Hollywood stars, sports heroes, important people and events from the '30s though to the '90s. Getty Images will be providing the majority of images at launch from its comprehensive archival and current collections. More than 3,000 new images are due to be uploaded daily from Getty Images.

"Only three percent of the LIFE archive has been seen by the public," says LIFE.com editor Bill Shapiro. "This site will put everything on display. You'll be able to look at the biggest events of yesterday and the stories making news today with just a couple of clicks."

The new site, designed with Getty Images' search technology will launch in early 2009, with consumers able to interact with imagery, including printing and sharing selected photos, playing the popular LIFE Picture Puzzle, creating collections of photos around special interests and purchasing photo albums of user-made collections. There is no cost for searching for and viewing images.

Time Inc., a Time Warner company, has more than 120 magazines, as the largest magazine publisher in the U.S. and a leading publisher in the U.K. and Mexico. Time Inc.'s brands and franchises include online, television, cable VOD, satellite radio, mobile services. Life Inc. publishes soft and hardcover books, distributes limited edition photography through galleries nationwide and offers fine art prints to consumers online. Life Inc. is a subsidiary of Time Inc.

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Sep 30th 2008 22:16 // General // No comments

Paris votes on Creation and Net Bill

In France, on 24 September, the European Parliament's voted on the telecoms package, its creation and internet' bill against the illegal downloading of works protected by copyright.

The aim is to create an independent authority, comprising judges, that is responsible for warning pirates, using written warnings, even cutting an internet subscription for a maximum of one year in the event of repeat offences. MEPs adopted an amendment according to which "no restriction can be imposed on the rights and liberties of final users [ ] without the prior ruling of the legal authorities," except in the case of force majeure (fight against paedophilia and racism), and the integrity and security of the networks.

French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said neither the Council nor the European Commission had shown any desire to support an amendment of this nature. "Its definitive adoption therefore appears highly unlikely at this stage," says the minister, whose country will hold the EU Presidency until the end of the year. Paris will try to reach a political agreement' on the package in the Telecoms Council, on 27 November.

The French minister is invoking EU case law, according to which it is appropriate to reconcile authors' rights and the freedom of communication on digital networks. According to Christine Albanel, there is no intention to have “the internet user appear before a criminal judge from the first illegal download and without any possibility of sending warnings". The UK opted for an preventive and educational approach, through an agreement between internet service providers and the music and film industry that is also aimed at curbing online piracy. "Measures planned by the bill in no way harm the fundamental rights and liberties'," assures Albanel.

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Sep 30th 2008 22:05 // General // No comments

Intel works on new video search technology

Being developed at Intel labs in US and China, the technology is aiming to cut down videos frame-by-frame and then use image and face recognition software to recognise faces, objects, voices, locations and movements. When the frames are patched together, video search becomes more possible.

According to Intel, users should be be able to search videos of football games to zoom into moments when their favourite players score. Lin Chao, a researcher with Intel said the technology recognises and categorises a player's face and objects like a goalpost and ball using algorithms and statistical processing technology that the company has developed.
   Once a user requests to see the goal, the technology looks for frames that contain related objects and delivers the video to the user.
   Users can also zoom into specific moments without watching entire videos, Chao said. The technology's recognition capabilities also help categorise images by person and object, which saves users from typing keywords to tag photographs.
   However, the technology has challenges that can only be overcome as processing power increases, Chao admitted. Processing a video to make it searchable takes hours, on current processing speeds on PCs.
   The technology is part of Intel's "visual computing," that combines multiple cores, software development platforms and graphics capabilities to enable a more human interaction with a PC, according to Justin Rattner, chief technology officer of Intel. He recently gave a keynote at Intel's research show in Mountain View, California. Intel wants to use the visual computing platform to enable interaction with a PC in life-like 3-D environments or to analyse video instantly.
   Intel already has the Larrabee platform, which will combine multicore processors, multithreaded streams and graphics capabilities to deliver teraflops of processing power, due for release in 2010.

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Sep 21st 2008 21:51 // General // No comments

EMI Music and BBC Motion Gallery strike a deal

BBC archive footage of classic rock performances from bands like Pink Floyd and David Bowie is being made commercially available for the first time.

The BBC's commercial arm BBC Worldwide has struck a deal with EMI Music that to raise the prospect of new archive-based programming that can be sold to international broadcasters and consumers.
   BBC Worldwide has also acquired the rights to distribute the TV and radio content direct to consumers via any of their own digital services such as online streaming.
In return, EMI will be able to release BBC archive material across multiple platforms including digital with both companies gaining royalties from all sales.
   The two parties are jointly identifying which programming to release. The archive of licensed BBC content includes live radio performances from Pink Floyd, including a 1967 session featuring tracks from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Cracked Actor, a 1975 Omnibus special in which Alan Yentob meets David Bowie. The EMI artists covered by the deal include Queen, Roxy Music, Depeche Mode and Coldplay.
   "In the BBC vaults there is a wealth of unreleased and high quality material from EMI artists that we will now be able to bring to fans," said Pete Duckworth, senior vice president, catalogue for EMI Music UK & Ireland. BBC Worldwide director of audio and music, Paul Dempsey added: " This deal is a prime example of the commercial opportunities available to artists, their labels and BBC Worldwide when we work together to release this incredibly rich archive of content. It's also great news for music fans who are always hungry for more content from their favourite artist or band."

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Sep 21st 2008 21:42 // General // No comments

Center for Social Media Online Fair Use Guide

The Washington DC-based Center has produced a guide to best practice as regards fair use in the US legal sense.

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Jul 11th 2008 16:46 // News // No comments