Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the group responsible for the launching the Ministry of Silly Walks and the Parrot Sketch on an unsuspecting world, was on Monday celebrating 40 years since the comedy sketch show was first broadcast. The show, which was written and acted by John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, first aired on October 5, 1969 and ran for a total of 45 episodes. It was the Pythons’ surreal and satirical humour which shot them to global fame in the 1970s, as they broke new ground in what was acceptable in terms of both style and content
Pioneering Australian documentary filmmaker and one half of the Leyland Brothers, Mike Leyland, has died aged 68 from Parkinson’s disease-related complications. The Leyland Brothers rose to fame as explorers and documentary filmmakers, best known for their popular Channel Nine television show Ask The Leyland Brothers
David Bowie has had a large, yellow, hairy spider from Malaysia named after him. A German spider specialist told the Observer newspaper he named the new species after Bowie — whose album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was a huge hit in 1972 — because he wanted to raise awareness about the discovery. Peter Jaeger, who has found 200 new species of arachnids in a decade, says he’s named it Heteropoda davidbowie. Jaeger says most of the species he’s uncovered are endangered
Thousands of music videos pulled from YouTube in a royalties dispute will go back online after peace broke out today between the website and the music industry. A new licensing deal with PRS for Music, the trade body that collects music royalties, has brought the six-month dispute to an end. But while this conflict has been resolved, another dispute has erupted over the digital future of the music industry. A rift has opened between music’s creators and its record labels, with a broad alliance of musicians, songwriters and producers fiercely criticising the business secretary Lord Mandelson’s plans to cut off the broadband connections of internet users who illegally download music. In a statement seen by the Guardian, a coalition of bodies representing a range of stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John and Damon Albarn attacks the proposals as expensive, illogical and extraordinarily negative
The Walt Disney empire is to buy the superheroes stable Marvel Entertainment for $4bn (£2.5bn) in a star-studded Hollywood deal that unites family names such as Mickey Mouse with lucrative characters including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men. Disney hopes to put Marvel’s 5,000 characters to work on its television channels and in video games, theme parks and movies. The agreed takeover is for a mixture of cash and stock, with Disney shares accounting for roughly 40% of the buyout price
Les Paul, whose innovations with the electric guitar and studio technology made him one of the most important figures in recorded music, has died, according to a statement from his publicists. Paul was 94
ITV has sold Friends Reunited for ¬£25m, despite having agreed to pay a total of £175m for it in 2005. The buyer is Brightsolid Limited, which is owned by DC Thomson, Dundee-based publisher of comics such as the Beano
The Futurama
characters won’t be sporting new voices after all. The five Futurama
cast members — John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille — have just sealed pacts with 20th Century Fox TV to return to the show as it reboots with 26 new episodes for Comedy Central. Both the actors and 20th are believed to have found a compromise. Move comes after 20th put out a casting call earlier this month to find replacement actors for the show
The music industry knows how to hang out itself, even if it lacks the correct length pf rope. EMI, certainly reeling from declining physical album sales like the other Big 4 record labels, is now apparently telling independent album retailers that it will no longer sell them CDs
The attorney general in Brussels has concluded a three year investigation into the money trails at the the local music royalty collecting agency SABAM. The attorney general concluded that the copyright group is not paying the artists the money owed to them, and will prosecute five managers for forgery of documents and abuse of trust
The winner of 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is David McKenzie, a 55-year-old Quality Systems consultant and writer from Federal Way, Washington. A contest recidivist, he has formerly won the Western and Children’s Literature categories. His winning entry was the appalling: Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the ‘Ellie May’, a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin’ and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests
Those who swear by vinyl say that records provide a warmer sound compared to compact discs, and that the larger packaging and gatefold artwork offer a superior tactile experience (and certainly to digital downloads). But where’s the love for the 8-track, those bulky blasts from the past which sounded fine enough in your El Camino, and which broke down classic albums indiscriminately into four programs. Don’t look now, but the cartridges are back, brought by a band from the same era, Cheap Trick. This month the boys of the Budokan release their new album, The Latest, not only in CD and vinyl, but in a long-departed format as fashionable as Tang, bell-bottoms and porn-star mustaches
Five years after Fox canceled the animated comedy, 20th Century Fox TV has officially struck a deal with Comedy Central to produce 26 original episodes of the Matt Groening series. It will return as early as mid-2010. The studio doesn’t have a broadcast network deal yet, but it said it might yet reach an agreement for a network window
In the seminal science fiction book Dune
, Frank Herbert envisioned the Fremen collecting water from the air via moisture traps and dew collectors. Science Daily reprints a press release from the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, where scientists working with colleagues from Logos Innovationen have developed a closed-loop and self-sustaining method, no external power required, for teasing the humidity out of desert air and into potable water via Slashdot
The Ben Rose Home — site of the famous movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Cantilevered over the ravine, these two steel and glass buildings — which can never be duplicated — have incredible vistas of the surrounding woods. This is a unique property designed by A James Speyer and David Haid, both notable architects of the 20th Century
A budding British director is enjoying success on a shoestring at Cannes with Colin
, a new zombie feature that cost a scarcely believable $70 to make. Japanese distributors are currently in negotiations for the rights to the film and buzz around the no-budget zombie chiller has attracted interest from some major American distributors — all of which is a very nice surprise for the team behind Colin
Last week, a group of music and other entertainment industry representatives urged the UK government to consider drafting legislation that would force ISPs to disconnect alleged pirates. This proposal now faces opposition from an unexpected corner as a coalition of top artists has spoken out against it, saying that disconnecting their fans is the wrong path to take
Barbara Ringer believed, above all, that copyrights should protect the creative people in American life — the authors, songwriters and performers whose work was too often printed, plagiarised or broadcast without permission. By 1955, she was writing papers and commissioning studies on how the nation’s copyright laws should be revised. For years, Ms Ringer devoted much of her time to drafting a new, comprehensive copyright act and educating congressmen about why it was needed. Foreseeing the rise of the Internet, she inserted provisions into the law to protect authors from the unauthorized reproduction of their work, even by means not yet devised. The basic human rights of individual authors throughout the world,
she warned in a 1975 speech, are being sacrificed more and more on the altar of … the technological revolution.
Ms Ringer spent 21 years drafting the legislation and lobbying Congress before the Copyright Act of 1976 was finally passed. She wrote most of the bill herself
Copyright term for music recordings must be extended from 50 years to 70 years, says legislation adopted on Thursday by the European Parliament. By adopting the report by Brian Crowley (IE, UEN) with 377 votes in favour, 178 against and 37 abstentions, MEPs voted to increase the term of copyright protection to ensure that performers continue to receive royalties for 70 years from the first publication or performance of their song. The European Commission had previously proposed an extension of the copyright protection up to 95 years. According to Mr Crowley, the compromise reached by the Parliament on 70 years takes into account Council’s resistance and would facilitate an agreement with national governments
An almost finished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman has been leaked online a month before its cinema release. The high quality copy of the film has been uploaded to several file sharing and streaming video web sites. The movie is incomplete, with some special effects still in need of fine tuning and green screens and wires attached to actors still visible. The film is not due for release in the UK until 29 April and 1 May in the US
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