Two big noteworthy news tidbits this morning, both relating to the Internet and media.
MGM recently announced its plans to post full feature movies on YouTube. According to the New York Times,
"On Monday, YouTube will move forward a little, announcing an agreement to show some full-length television shows and films from MGM, the financially troubled 84-year-old film studio.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios will kick off the partnership by posting episodes of its decade-old “American Gladiators” program to YouTube, along with full-length action films like “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” and clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde.” These will be free to watch, with ads running alongside the video."
So is this a desperate attempt by YouTube to regain some ground in the online video universe, or are we moving ever closer to a world where everything available on television will be available online? Frankly if the type of titles that will be available online will only be craptastic things like "Bulletproof Monk" I'm not sure this will be a huge draw, but it would certainly pave the way for bigger and better things. Perhaps someday studios will be creating full length feature movies with Class A actors that would only be released on the web...you think?
Google must have been busy lately because in addition to the venture with YouTube (who Google owns), Google has also signed a deal to e-publish out of print books. Again, the New York Times chronicles the story:
"Last week, American authors and publishers reached an agreement with Google to settle lawsuits over Google’s Book Search program, which scans millions of books and makes their contents available on the Internet. The deal lets Google sell electronic versions of copyrighted works that have gone out of print.
“Almost overnight, not only has the largest publishing deal been struck, but the largest bookshop in the world has been built, even if it is not quite open for business yet,” wrote Neill Denny, editor of The Bookseller, a trade publication based in London, on his blog.
The settlement remains subject to court approval, and the bookshop would operate only in the United States for now. But the agreement is only one of many initiatives under which books are making what may be the biggest technological leap since Gutenberg invented moveable type."
Do you agree that this move may one day be considered one of the biggest technological leaps since moveable type? Do you think it's a bad idea that will inevitably lead to Google World Domination? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
For your morning music fix, head over to Largehearted Boy and check out a few of the great covers from this post such as Ryan Adams covering The Foo Fighters and Smashing Pumpkins covering Simon and Garfunkel.
Ryan Adams - Times Like These (Foo Fighters cover)
More after the jump