Canada cracks down on online pirates
WASHINGTON (AP) - In an investigation that covers 11 countries, including Canada, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday a crackdown on large-scale Internet pirates who illegally distribute first-run movies, video games and other copyrighted materials.
FBI agents and investigators in the other countries conducted 90 searches starting Wednesday, arresting four people and shutting down at least eight major online distribution servers for pirated works, a Justice official said.
Authorities also seized hundreds of computers in raids in the United States, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and Britain.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales planned a news conference Thursday afternoon to announce the arrests and other measures that law enforcement officials are taking as part of Operation site Down.
Among those arrested was Chirayu Patel of Fremont, Calif., on charges of violating U.S. federal copyright protection laws, said a law enforcement official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt the official announcement.
Patel is alleged to be a member of a "warez" group, a kind of underground Internet co-op that is set up to trade in copyrighted materials. Warez (pronounced "wares") groups are extraordinarily difficult to infiltrate because users talk only in encrypted chat rooms, their computer servers require passwords and many are located overseas, the FBI has said.
Warez groups differ from popular file-swapping networks, where millions of files are shared without such precautions.
Last month, authorities shut down a popular website that facilitated the downloading of movies and other materials. Investigators said many of the copyright movies were available through the Elite Torrents site even before their commercial release. No arrests were announced at the time.
President George W. Bush signed a new law last month setting tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release.
Esthero returns with eclectic album
You've got to hand it to Esthero -- when she comes back, she does it with a bang.
The Toronto singer, born Jenny Englishman, hadn't put out a record since her highly touted 1998 debut, Breath From Another, when she emerged last fall with two teasers in advance of its followup, Wikked Lil Grrrls (out June 28).
First there was the expletive-heavy club hit O.G. Bitch. Then came the notorious EP We R In Need Of A Musical Revolution, on which she sings, "I'm so sick and tired of the s--- on the radio and MTV," and "Tell me why a grown man can rape a little girl but we still hear his s--- on the radio." You could hardly plot a better way to get a semi-forgotten artist back into the spotlight.
"It's true," Esthero laughed during an interview recently. "I'm such a child that way. There's a side of me that screams, 'Pay attention to me!'"
People certainly will, particularly if the racy, naked video for the latter song, Wikked's first single, gets any airplay.
"I hope MuchMusic plays it and carries on the tradition of supporting artists and setting themselves apart from MTV," she said. "And I hope MTV is just vain enough to play anything with its name in it!"
Luckily for Esthero, Wikked Lil Grrrls has enough going for it to get noticed anyway. It's a big, 17-track album, recorded in L.A. and Toronto with help from a diverse group including Sean Lennon, Spooky Ruben, Cee-Lo Green, Jemini and Outkast's Andre 3000 (although his contributions didn't make the final mix because the labels couldn't come to terms). So maybe it needed all seven years to emerge.
"I can't force stuff," she said. "It didn't always come when I wanted it to, and I went through times when I didn't have anything to say. It felt like it took forever, but now it seems completely natural.
"In the beginning I had all sorts of plans, but lack of funds and time prevented them from happening. At one point I thought, 'This is a mess, but it's my second album and everyone expects it to suck.' But I realized that in this weird way it did have a theme -- of constant change. I'd managed to take pictures of parts of my life, and Musical Revolution was like a bow on top that makes sense of it all."
It does, if eclecticism is Esthero's own musical revolution. The album sprawls across hip-hop, jazz, pop, Latin and R&B, with incursions into big-band and even klezmer music.
"I wish there was a section in record stores that wasn't rap or hip-hop, but urban in the sense of a city of culture," she said. "I'd put it in jazz if I didn't think the jazz police would come after me. I guess I think of it as a pop record."
And as she moves among genres, Esthero takes on different personas to match.
"I get into character when I hear the music," she said. "I create this fantasy world and expound upon it to make a good story. In If Tha Mood I'm this ultravixen character -- not me, but a part of me. And I knew Wikked Lil Grrrls had to be sung very cheekily, very Andrews Sisters. I kept thinking about Cabaret and top hats and canes. For Gone I pretended I was an 80-year-old southern man who'd had a hard life, and for Musical Revolution I tried to become Bono, or the singer from Tears For Fears. I sang like a man in that '80s style. So it's about using those characters and making my own.
"People try so hard to be original, but I've realized that it's not our influences that make us unique, it's our combination of influences. Lots of people are influenced by U2 and Marvin Gaye, but not so many by U2 and Marvin Gaye and Patsy Cline and Brandy, you know?"
Affleck, Garner Wed, Expecting Baby By JAKE COYLE, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - After months of speculation, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have tied the knot and she's pregnant.
Representatives for both actors confirmed the marriage to The Associated Press on Thursday. Their publicists, Ken Sunshine and Nicole King, also confirmed that Garner is pregnant with her first child.
Sunshine and King would not give any other details.
The confirmation came after Us Weekly reported that Affleck, 32, and Garner, 33, were wed Wednesday at the Parrot Cay resort in the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. The National Enquirer also released photos it claimed showed Garner arriving on the islands with her "Alias" co-star Victor Garber.
In stark contrast to Affleck's much publicized relationship with Jennifer Lopez, he and Garner have been tightlipped about their romance. Aside from appearing at a Boston Red Sox game last fall, they have stayed out of the public eye.
Reports in April about an engagement were never confirmed. In May, E! News reported that Garner was pregnant and the baby was due in November, but neither star confirmed that report.
This is first marriage for Affleck and the second for Garner, who divorced actor Scott Foley in March 2004 after 3 1/2 years of marriage.
Affleck and Lopez called off their September 2003 wedding and broke off their engagement in January 2004. Lopez married singer Marc Anthony later that year.
Garner and Affleck met while they were shooting the action flick "Daredevil," but they didn't begin dating until last year.
She has been filming the drama "Catch and Release" in Vancouver, Canada. Affleck will star as George Reeves, television's Superman, in the upcoming movie "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."
Canadians watching less television: CRTC
Canadians are watching less television, but what they do watch is increasingly from Canadian broadcasters, according to a new report from the CRTC.
The study, released Wednesday, contains numbers from Nielsen Media Research and the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, which both monitor the habits of this country's TV viewers.
While the two organizations differ on how many hours the average Canadian watches every week Nielsen says 25.8, BBM 21.4 they agree that viewing went down in 2004 when compared to 2003.
The average viewer watched about 20 fewer minutes of TV, roughly the length of one sitcom.
The good news for the TV industry is that even though people are watching less TV, more of what they watch is broadcast from Canada.
Outside Quebec, the audience share for Canadian stations increased to nearly 72 per cent in 2004 from 67 per cent in 1993.
In Quebec, meanwhile, audience share for domestic broadcasters went up to 90 per cent in 2004 from 88 per cent in 1993.
The survey, called the Broadcasting Monitoring Policy Report, also shows that dramas and comedies are the most popular forms of programming, accounting for 43 per cent of all viewing.
In addition, the study found that the total revenues of English-language specialty, pay and pay-per-view channels were nearly $1.7 billion equal to the total revenues of conventional English-language networks. That's the first time specialty numbers have been on par with regular broadcasters.
According to the report, Canadians have access to 679 TV outlets 511 English-language services, 115 French, and 53 third-language services.
The CRTC the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is Canada's federal broadcast regulator.
Big Brother players, twist revealed
Big Brother is now a team game. This season, Big Brother will be a battle of teams not an individual game as in previous instalments.
CBS announced today that the 14 contestants are actually seven teams of secret partners from the outside world. Friends, co-workers and significant others will play the Big Brother game as covert duos. The twist is that each team believes they are the only such partnership in the house.
As an added stipulation, if one team can keep their secret and end up being the last two people in the house, the winner will win $1,000,000 with the second place finisher winning $250,000. If a twosome does not make it to the final two, the winner will win $500,000. The pairings will be revealed to TV viewers during the first live broadcast on July 14th.
This years theme is the Summer of Secrets. There are secrets in the new two-storey house, secrets in the game and every houseguest has a secret too which will all be unveiled throughout the summer.
The series debuts on Thursday, July 7 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS. Following the premiere, BIG BROTHER 6 will be broadcast each week on Tuesdays (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT), Thursdays (8:00-9:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT) and Saturdays (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT). The Thursday broadcast, hosted by Julie Chen, will feature the live eviction of one of the houseguests. Real Networks will also be offering 24/7 live feeds from the Big Brother house by subscription. It has been reported that viewers can buy the entire season of the Big Brother 6 live feeds for $29.95 U.S. with the RealOne SuperPass or pay $12.99 per month.
Today, CBS also made public the identities of the 14 Big Brother HouseGuests. Most are in their twenties with the oldest HouseGuest being Eric Littmann, the 36-year-old firefighter from Boston. Unlike previous seasons, their professions are pretty mundane ranging from an emergency room nurse to a horse breeder.
Following are the 14 houseguests, listed across in alphabetical order, who will compete in Big Brother 6:
Maggie Ausburn, 26, Emergency Room Nurse
Beau Beasley, 25 Personal Shopper
Ivette Corredero, 25, Waitress
Michael Donnellan, 28, Artist
Ashlea Evans, 22, Fashion Design Student
Howie Gordon, 34, Meteorology Student
Sarah Hrejsa, 22, Retail Manager
April Lewis, 30, Pharmaceutical Sales Rep
Eric Littmann, 36, Firefighter
Janelle Pierzina, 25, Cocktail Waitress
Rachel Plencner, 33, Horse Breeder
James Rhine, 29, Loss Prevention Manager
Kaysar Ridha, 24, Graphic Designer
Jennifer Vasquez, 27, Arena Football League Dancer
THEY'RE OUT THERE
Tom Cruise telling a German newspaper that "of course" he believes in aliens. "Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe?" Cruise said in the interview. "No, there are many things out there, we just don't know." Cruise's alien-themed War of the Worlds opens today.
'War' Unlikely to Halt Box-Office Slide
LOS ANGELES - Even the combined powers of Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and H.G. Wells may be unable to snap Hollywood's longest modern losing streak. "War of the Worlds," Spielberg and Cruise's take on Wells' alien invasion classic, opened Wednesday as a longshot to end a slump in which domestic movie revenues have declined for 18 straight weekends compared to 2004.
The year has produced about as many hits as Hollywood typically musters, but they are not proving quite the draws that last year's top films were.
The Jedi and villains of the year's biggest hit, "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith," held less appeal than the fairy-tale creatures of last year's "Shrek 2." The talking animals of "Madagascar" had less pull than the whiz kids of " Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
As big a debut as "War of the Worlds" may have, it opens over the same long weekend as last year's "Spider-Man 2," whose record $180.1 million in its first six days paced the industry to its best Fourth of July ever.
"It's too early to say if this is something endemic. The most apparent answer still seems to be the movies themselves have lacked the same excitement, to put it mildly," said Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, an online site that tracks movie grosses. "But the audience is still there, as evidenced by `Revenge of the Sith' breaking nearly every record in its first week. If Hollywood builds it, audiences will come. But Hollywood hasn't been building it lately."
The industry has lacked the big surprises that get moviegoers buzzing, such as last year's "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," which combined for nearly $500 million in receipts, 5 percent of 2004's domestic theater revenues.
Also missing is a strong undercard of out-of-the-blue independent hits. Last year, a handful of films that emerged from the Sundance Film Festival "Napoleon Dynamite," "Open Water" and "Garden State" among them padded the box office by more than $100 million.
There's been a good mix of genres: family films, action flicks, romantic comedy, horror tales and drama. So studios cannot be blamed for failing to offer something for everyone.
Early on, Hollywood bean counters attributed this year's revenue decline to a succession of ho-hum movies that did not click with audiences.
Studio executives still hope that's the case and revenues will rebound with better movies. But the fear is that with growing competition for people's time and money from DVDs and other home-entertainment options, theater business may be on the wane for good.
"In the beginning, I said yes, it was the movies, but now I don't know," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, which has had a disappointing summer with such underachieving movies as "Cinderella Man" and "Kicking & Screaming." "I am concerned myself, especially when you have such a variety out there for everybody every weekend."
Other summer duds included "XXX: State of the Union," "Kingdom of Heaven," "House of Wax," "The Honeymooners" and "The Lords of Dogtown." Reviews for those movies were mixed to bad, yet plenty of past movies that got the cold shoulder from critics still became hits.
Familiarity may have bred some contempt among movie fans.
Russell Crowe's "Cinderella Man" was designed to repeat the success of the horse-racing flick "Seabiscuit," another serious, uplifting, Depression-era sports drama released amid summer blockbusters. While well-received by critics, Crowe's boxing tale drew may have looked like a "Seabiscuit" retread on two legs instead of four.
Will Ferrell's sports comedy "Kicking & Screaming" essentially was a soccer version of "The Bad News Bears," the baseball romp with a remake of its own hitting theaters in late July.
Audiences were apathetic toward Ice Cube stepping into Vin Diesel's shoes to take over the "XXX" action franchise or Cedric the Entertainer putting his stamp on Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in "The Honeymooners."
"House of Wax" seemed like the latest in a can't-miss formula of horror remakes, but its skimpy box-office returns may be a sign that fright fans are growing tired of retreads or co-star Paris Hilton.
The makers of "Kingdom of Heaven" had hoped to repeat the magic of Crowe's "Gladiator." Same director, Ridley Scott, same release period of early May, same concept of a reluctant hero battling impossible odds. Orlando Bloom's leading-man status proved far less potent than Crowe's, while the Crusades epic did not have the same luster as the glory of gladiatorial Rome.
If revenues are off again over the Fourth of July, it would extend Hollywood's slump to 19 weekends. A 1985 slump of 17-straight weekends had been the longest since analysts began keeping detailed box-office figures.
Domestic movie revenues climbed to a record $9.4 billion in 2004, but factoring in higher ticket prices, actual admissions were down the last two years. So far this year, revenues are at $4.2 billion, down 6.4 percent from 2004, and admissions are at 654 million, off 9.2 percent, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.
The summer season, Hollywood's busiest time, looks even bleaker. Since early May, movie grosses have totaled $1.5 billion, a 9.2 percent decline, and attendance is at 233 million, down 12 percent.
Moviegoing begets more moviegoing as people are exposed to posters and trailers for upcoming films. With fewer people heading to theaters, that ripple effect has diminished.
"There's no better marketing tool than a satisfied moviegoer," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. "They become marketing foot soldiers, but you've got to get them in the theater, make them happy, and send them out happy, so they're going out to tell other people about movies."