media

In its effort to calculate direct loss from piracy taking into account economic multipliers AFACT approached for help to Oxford Economics and Ipsos MediaCT.

Thus, the results of the study released by AFACT (the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft), the multipliers mean that piracy sucks $A1.37 billion out of the Australian economy.

Direct effects made up $A575 million, the study claims, including $A225 million attributed to “secondary piracy”, in which an individual either “views or borrows” pirated material.

The case of WikiLeaks shows that the traditional media has deviated from its true mission and instead of bringing the facts to the audience it relies heavily on official source, on the point of view of governments, while it should instead be less dependent on such, thinks award-winning journalist John Pilger.

Discussing his film "The War You Don't See," the veteran Australian reporter told Reuters the Internet, and more specifically WikiLeaks, would bring about a "revolution" in journalism which too often failed to do its job properly.

A number of partnership agreements were signed by Google with media and internet companies, including NBC Universal's CNBC, Time Warner's HBO and Amazon, for its proposed Google TV service.

According to reports Turner Broadcasting is working to optimize some of its websites for viewing on Google TV, including CNN and Cartoon Network. Meantime, NBC Universal will bring access to financial news television CNBC, while HBO will also provide programing.

AOL posted a massive quarterly loss, having swallowed a Q2 goodwill impairment charge related to its sell-off of Bebo. To make things worse the company also reported that its advertising revenue dropped by 27% in the quarter ended June 30. In the same period a year earlier AOL pulled in $355.7m.

Overall revenues declined 26% to $584.1m during the quarter.

The loss reported by AOL made up $1.6bn, or $9.89 a share, compared with a profit of $90.7m or 86 cents a share in its 2009 Q2. AOL was also hit with a goodwill impairment charge of $1.4bn during the quarter.

As it became known, a number of major media companies have started to launch users’ authentication via third-party logins by using as many as 16 different social-networking providers, like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo LinkedIn and others.

 In his speech delivered during town hall meeting in Shanghai on Monday the US President Barack Obama encouraged China to abate the government censorship and strengthen free speech on the Internet. While we have already reported the news yesterday the interesting point about it is that the national authorities in the Celestial Empire unsurprisingly showed their commitment to the usual repertoire by again censoring the US leader’s words on their local media. Only one channel in China delivered the live speech without any cuts.

 According to a 2009 international ranking by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) the United States saw an improvement in press freedom in the last year and the country climbed up to Number 20 in the group's Press Freedom Index. The media expert noted that the shift in the Washington approach was likely influenced by the expectations of the presidency by Barack Obama in January after eight years under President George W. Bush. Meantime, European countries lost their upper positions.