davextreme

Farhad Monjoo, writing for Slate, argues that Apple should allow any mp3 player to sync with iTunes, and I agree. Palm’s decision to make its Pre pretend to be an iPod was interesting but strange. iTunes should sync with any player that plugs into it, but since all the music Apple sells (and any music you load in from a CD) is copy-protection-free, Palm could have written its own sync software that reads anything in the iTunes Media folder. People could keep using iTunes to play music and use another utility to sync their Pre.

I happened to notice that The Night of the Living Dead is available on iTunes for $5. This is notable because one, it’s a great flick, two, $5 is cheap, yet three, it’s actually a work in the public domain, and thus obtainable for free from the Internet Archive. Wikipedia explains:

Copyright status

Night of the Living Dead lapsed into the public domain because the original theatrical distributor, the Walter Reade Organization, neglected to place a copyright indication on the prints. In 1968, United States copyright law required a proper notice for a work to maintain a copyright. Image Ten displayed such a notice on the title frames of the film beneath the original title, Night of the Flesh Eaters. The distributor removed the statement when it changed the title. According to George Romero, Walter Reade “ripped us off”. (Wikipedia)

Still, $5 for a copy that’s pre-formatted for an iPod or AppleTV isn’t so much.

Staci D. Kramer reports that Lifetime will not offer Project Runway on iTunes. You can watch it on Lifetime’s website starting two days after it airs, but that’s it. This quote by Lifetime Digital’s Dan Suratt shows, characteristically, that Lifetime still thinks of the internet as a nuisance that detracts from their real business of television: “I think what it really goes to is we firmly believe in the power of our site to drive people to our channel and that’s what we use it for.” Because clearly everyone gets Lifetime. And wants to watch your show on Thursday nights, and certainly would make time in their schedules if only they saw a glimpse of it online. Because while you can’t stop the internet, you can funnel traffic to your site where at least you can limit the damage. Forget Hulu, which offers a nice user experience with lots of shows from different networks. Forget iTunes, where people will actually pay you to download a show. Just build a site and force people who don’t want to/can’t watch Lifetime to watch your show on a tiny computer screen instead of their nice, big TVs.

So yeah, I’m bitter. I really like Project Runway. I have an Apple TV and prefer watching shows on my TV instead of my laptop enough that I’ll (gasp) actually pay for episodes, yet they don’t want my money.