Case in point:

Zune: Microsoft Developing Copyright Filter for Zune, Will Block Pirated Content

“In the long term, the consumer wants there to be quality premium-produced content, and in order for that to continue to be a viable business, there needs to be significant protection around it.” This is the same NBC that was working with AT&T to build a network-wide dragnet for pirated content, so color us totally not surprised. Just don’t know why Microsoft would agree to this and give people a reason to avoid Zunes (whether it’s a legitimate one or not), when they’re already way behind the iPod (which told NBC to take a flying hoo-ha).

I PVR’d it every day, and actually enjoyed the Lab even more than Call for Help! Reruns in tech seem odd, but I look forward to TWiT Video.

Best of luck Leo!

Ten Years After : LOL: The Life of Leo

I have a plane ticket to Vancouver for this Monday. I was scheduled to fly there to tape Week 44 of The Lab with Leo. Except I’m not. After 645 Canadian episodes of Call for Help and The Lab, Rogers has decided to cancel the show.

Smart.

“Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister” to be found on P2P

Broadcasters in Europe aren’t the only ones experimenting with BitTorrent as a means of distributing TV shows. Canadian broadcaster CBC is now hopping on board with P2P in an attempt to see how well the BitTorrent works for distributing legal video content. Beginning on March 24, CBC will seed a full, DRM-free copy of the previous evening’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister to BitTorrent. The move will make CBC the first major North American broadcaster to embrace P2P—even if it’s only experimental for now.

Whether he mucks it up or not, self-financing 100 episodes, networks be damned, is a luxury few modern producers could even dream of (imagine a self-financed Sorkin West Wing on HBO, or Whedon Firefly…) Yet hopefully lower cost 4K cameras, Final Cut Pro, and the Internet will mean that, one day, you don’t need Lucas-bucks to do this kind of thing.

George Lucas’ ‘Star Wars’ plan | George Lucas | The Q&A | Movies | Entertainment Weekly | 2

Have you built any sets or done any mockups?

No, what we do in our TV series is we write the entire first year and finish it as a script. Then we start getting ready to shoot it, then we start casting, and then we do it. We know where the whole first year is before we even start to work on it. I mean, I can do that because I’m financing the whole thing. So I’ve got it pegged out for 100 episodes, and I know exactly what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it and what the risks are.

You get no credit for not doing what you shouldn’t do? How about recognizing that we’re in 2008 and your place between content creators and content consumers is no longer welcome, thank you very much.

Here’s your new formula: Make irresistible product and sell it at no-brainer prices, bumping your bottom line with advertising (preferably product placement that doesn’t distract from the content itself). Then let consumers consume it how they like, where they like, on what device they like. B’okay?

Canadian labels: We get “absolutely zero credit” for not suing fansGraham Henderson, the boss of CRIA, comes across as a man not out to screw the world (as CRIA is sometimes portrayed), but as a man about ready to tear out his own hair in frustration over the fact that the music industry is so consistently demonized by consumers even as those consumers take its core product without paying. A skilled talker, Henderson is the most interesting person at the table, and it’s actually quite humanizing to listen as his polished façade cracks a bit. He points out that Canadian labels have not chosen to sue their fans, but then goes plaintive for a moment, saying, “We get absolutely zero credit for that.”