The Daily Loper – May 8, 2008

I Just Want to Know Where I Live Edition

Todays links of interest:

• Bruce Boxleitner Joins Heroes
  Posting this because I know that some of the ‘Loper women will be happy at the news, because they used to moon over him during the "Scarecrow & Mrs. King" days. And because of that, I’m almost ashamed to report that I’ve noticed that spoiler-boy Ausiello got the female lead of that show wrong.
• RIAA: DRM not dead and likely will make comeback
  RIAA spokesperson predicts DRM-limited subscription music services are the future of the industry. Never mind the fact that subscriptions services are the one area where digital sales are declining year over year.
• Mamma Mia! Papa John’s raking in the dough online
  The Deliverator will be at your door in 30 minutes or less.
• Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune
  A few things of note: 1) the Zune Insider blog remains alive and well; 2) despite pricing "flexibility", Microsoft is subsidizing prices to keep them competitive with iTunes; 3) NBC/Universal still doesn’t get it.
• Can any game break the ‘GTA IV’ sales records?
  Yes. Eventually another one will come along and break these records, as impressive as they are. Unless you think that gaming has peaked, of course.
• Lindsay Lohan Accused of Stealing Student’s $11,000 Fur Coat
  If you’ve happened to see or hear this story, you’ve probably come to the same conclusion that we have: everybody involved with it is a total and utter scumbag. When we were students, instead of an $11,000 fur coat, how about paying a year’s rent. A pox on all of these people.
• WiMax gets closer and further away at the same time
  Analysis of the week’s biggest news. We’re excited and skeptical, but that’s mostly because our dreams have been dashed so many times before.
• Disaggregating digital distribution
  IODA develops ways to eliminate the middleman and bring artists and consumers together — in a retail sort of way.
• Post office changing 100 S.F. addresses
  What happens when your street name is changed, but not every single database with your address knows about the change? Or you, for that matter?
• Online library gets FBI to back off
  The Internet Archive pushes back against a National Security Letter and prevails. Characteristically, Brewster Kahle had a muted reaction to his success.
• Which Author Remains Obscure Because of All the Ink Wasted on Barbara Walters?
  Ron Hogan digs into a critical (get it, critical?) question raised by Seth Godin about media saturation of certain topics at the expense of others. Special to MediaBistro: fix your page titles!
• Fewer new shows on slate for fall TV in wake of writers’ strike
  But Beverly Hills 90210 makes the cut.
• FBI rescinds secret order for Internet Archive records
  Huzzah to the EFF and ACLU for fighting this!!
• MTV Plans to Increase Its Blending of Ads and Shows
  Back in our day, MTV played music videos which were ads. Have times changed?
• TorrentSpy ordered to pay 1 million
  Because, of course, every single time that someone used TorrentSpy, they were taking money from the studios. Even if they were using it to download something that the studios weren’t offering or had no plans to offer?
• Tom Waits Press Conference
  Never mind the fact that we weren’t invited to the press conference (apparently no one was), rare Tom Waits tour dates were announced. Looks like we’ll be going to Alabama this summer.