But there is a much bigger issue at stake, because it concerns where the future—and a good deal of the present—is: the Internet. The studios can now sell you a movie, or an episode of a TV series, or a whole series of series, right over your computer. Not only is it convenient for you, it has dramatically reduced the studios’ costs: they need not make a videotape, with its plastics and tape and spools and boxes. They need not print and package a DVD, with their team of overzealous shrink-wrappers that make your average DVD harder to get into than Princeton. They have no shipping costs, no storage costs, only the movie or TV show that already exists.

With their costs substantially reduced, this would be the right time to correct the old imbalance of the DVD rate and give writers a share more fairly in line with the level of our contribution. But the studios are not looking to find a more equitable residual rate—it seems they are hoping that the new media will allow them to do away with the idea of residuals altogether.

Right now, if you go online and watch a streaming version of a TV show, the company that owns that property is getting paid by the advertisers whose commercials appear at the top of it. Just like TV, but with one difference: the writers are paid no residual, not even the four cents. The companies say they don’t need to pay us for this: it’s “promotional.” By that I suppose they mean that it promotes the size of their earnings from smaller to larger.

Read more here…

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“*Two moons on August 27th 2007*

*August 27th, the day the Whole World is waiting for ……

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting in August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65 Million miles of earth.

Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons.

The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

Atleast not in this body !”

Apparently, this is a hoax that is circulated through email every year in July (see that the email doesn’t mention the year).

But given the useless interesting nigerian scam email, I would take this any day! Wonder who originates it….

http://www.universetoday.com/2007/07/25/will-the-mars-look-as-big-as-the-moon-on-august-27-nope/

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