A collective news site about Iran

iranFilter is a new collective news website -- written by registered members -- that focuses on Iran. Thanks to BoingBoing for the pointer.

Music stores look to play a different tune

Jon Healey in today's LA Times: Looking to Play a Different Tune. As the number of online music stores grows, carving out their own niches may get tougher.

With 99-cent music downloads moving quickly from novelty to commodity, Full-Audio Corp. needed to set its online store apart.

So along with the standard layout of hit albums and popular songs, its MusicNow site features exclusive anthologies — such as "Shaken, Not Stirred," a collection of songs from James Bond movies, and "Mullet Rock," featuring bands with bad '70s hairdos.

By contrast, audiolunchbox.com doesn't peddle any hits, or even any flops, from the major record companies; the founders couldn't afford the labels' licensing fees. Instead, the store stands out online by offering an array of tunes from independent labels, including Epitaph Records and Barsuk Records. And unlike all its competitors, it puts no limits on what shoppers can do with the songs they buy. ...

'Reagans' is no hatchet job

From today's NY Times: Hatchet Job? Reagan Movie Is Run of the Mill

There is no reason Showtime's version of "The Reagans" could not have been broadcast on CBS earlier this month.

Tonight's made-for-television movie incited conservatives to threaten a boycott, which led the network to cancel it. Consigned to Showtime, a premium cable channel owned by CBS's parent company, Viacom, "The Reagans" turns out to be neither a liberal screed on Reaganomics nor a character attack on former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy.

It is a movie. More precisely, it is a made-for-television movie that squeezes real life characters and historical moments into a convenient dramatic arc: a love story lived out against a backdrop of the cold war, California politics and Washington intrigue. "The Reagans" is reasonably accurate, at times engrossing, at other times silly and sometimes even dull. It is not a thoughtful look at a critical moment in American history. It is a domestic drama about a loving couple beset by Hollywood agents, Republican backers, scheming advisers and, most of all, their angry, needy children.

Anyone eagerly anticipating or dreading a hatchet job on the 40th president is bound to feel confounded. ...

When it canceled "The Reagans," CBS said it was not responding to pressure, but making a "moral call." But the three-hour version on Showtime does little to support the network's claim. "The Reagans" may not be a cinematic masterpiece, but it is hardly an act of treason.

The iPod: The guts of a new machine

In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Rob Walker has a long look at the iPod, marking its two-year anniversary. (We've got two.) "The Guts of a New Machine" explores its design aesthetic and much more.

Will the broadcast flag break your TiVo?

Paul Boutin in Slate: Will the broadcast flag break your TiVo?

Where copyright violations are a civil, not criminal, affair

InfoWorld: Breach of copyright would be no crime under a draft European Union law, as a European Parliament committee suggests making it a civil, not criminal offence, but enlarges scope of the draft law.

Meantime, the UK's Register has been following the latest exploits of "DVD Jon" Johansen, who recently unlocked itunes' locked music. The readers also respond here and here.

A game to sink the music pirates

Jon Healey in today's LA Times: Hey, kids! Want to join the FBI and chase music pirates? That would be the Funny Bureau of Investigations, and the chase would take place in the make-believe world of a computer game based loosely on Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island." But the underlying message is serious: Don't bootleg music.

Next-generation DVD OK'd

From today's wire services, via the San Jose Merc:

Forum OKs standard for next generation

Toshiba and NEC said Friday that the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios, has approved the two Japanese companies' standard for next-generation DVDs.

The move gives Toshiba and NEC a leg up on a rival standard based on the Blu-ray disc format, which has a larger recording capacity, advocated by Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial, which makes the Panasonic brand, and Philips Electronics of the Netherlands.

But the approval does not rule out development of Blu-ray disc products. Sony, Panasonic and Philips are also members of the DVD Forum.

Next-generation DVDs will be able to record five times the amount of information of current DVDs.

The news brief leaves two key questions unanswered (and the DVD Forum website provides not a clue): Will these next-gen DVDs be playable on the tens of millions of DVD players now on the market? And, what kind of additional encryption do these DVDs contain?

The $163 mistake

I decided -- mistakenly, in retrospect -- to forgo my new Packet8 Internet phone (which sometimes causes small dropoffs in connectivity) in favor of a traditional land line when I interviewed Ian Clarke, founder of Freenet, by telephone from Scotland three weeks ago.

Today I got the bill (courtesy of SBC). For a 72-minute call, I was charged $163.

They'll be receiving a call from me on Monday morning.

Fellowship of the nitpickers

Newsweek has a fun little story about gaffes found by moviemistakes.com in the first two Lord of the Rings movies -- with director Peter Jackson's responses. Meantime, it looks as if the Dec. 17 finale, The Return of the King, may be the best of the bunch. (Saw Master and Commander on Friday, so I'm in an epic mood.)