Hard
Rock Bringing in
Live Music
- The Hard Rock
Cafe made its name
with music
memorabilia,
guitars and gold
albums safely
preserved behind
display-case
glass. Now, after
a decade of
falling
merchandise sales
and the implosion
of the themed
restaurant
industry, the
granddaddy of
theme restaurants
hopes to bring in
new business by
taking the music
down from the wall
and onto the
stage...
Driver
Who Hit Stephen
King Buried
- The accident
that put Bryan
Smith in the
spotlight _
running over
horror writer
Stephen King - was
far from his
biggest worry
before he was
found dead in his
trailer last
weekend. He took
pain medications
for a longstanding
back injury. One
of his arms was
weak. Carpal
tunnel syndrome
and depression
only added to the
problems of a
43-year-old
grandfather who
was surviving on
disability
payments...
Senate
blasts 'culture of
carnage' -
Senators decried
the level of sex
and violence in
movies, videos and
TV shows Wednesday
and warned
entertainment
industry
executives to
clean up material
aimed at children
or face federal
regulation...
Directors Call for Expanded Ratings
- Responding to federal criticism, the
Directors Guild of America said Thursday that the entertainment
industry needs a better self-regulatory system to keep violent and
sexually oriented material away from children. The directors said increased federal scrutiny of movie marketing
is welcome, as long as it doesn't cross the line into censorship. ``This is not a repudiation of the current system,'' said
director Gary Ross. ``It's opening a dialogue. The system needs to
be evolving...''
Mr.
Moore Goes To
Washington
- The
FTC released a
report entitled
Marketing Violence
to Children, which
created waves of
tension in the
entertainment
industry. The
report condemned
several sectors of
the industry
(including the
games industry)
for marketing
violent
entertainment to
young,
impressionable
audiences. Seeming
to forget issues
of parental
responsibility and
individual
restraint, the
report blames the
entertainment
industry as a
whole for the
recent disturbing
rash of child
violence...
Film
industry wins DVD
hacker ruling
- A federal judge
Thursday gave the
film industry a
victory in a
high-profile
lawsuit by barring
a journalist from
republishing
software code that
unlocks scrambling
on DVDs, enabling
them to be copied
and swapped on the
Internet. Earlier
this year, U.S.
District Judge
Lewis Kaplan in
New York issued a
preliminary
injunction barring
the defendant Eric
Corley, publisher
of 2600, a top
magazine and Web
site of the hacker
underground, from
posting the code.
The plaintiffs in
the case, which
include
Hollywood's
biggest studios,
Seagram Co. Ltd.'s
Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Inc. and Time
Warner Inc.'s
Warner Bros., had
sought a permanent
injunction. The
case has drawn
wide attention as
one of Hollywood's
latest attempts to
stem a potential
flood of digital
video piracy...
The
Great Moon Hoax of
1835 -
Every History of
American
journalistic
hoaxing properly
begins with the
celebrated moon
hoax which
"made"
the New York Sun
of Benjamin Day.
It consisted of a
series of
articles,
allegedly
reprinted from the
nonexistent
Edinburgh Journal
of Science,
relating to the
discovery of life
on the moon by Sir
John Herschel,
eminent British
astronomer, who
some time before
had gone to the
Cape of Good Hope
to try out a new
type of powerful
telescope...
