Video-phone pioneer 3 UK is bringing to Britain a service that could allow its customers to make thousands of pounds by shooting their own video clips -- and charging others to watch them.
The smallest of Britain's five mobile-phone network operators said that customers could now use their phones to make a 30-second video and upload it onto a "See Me TV" channel for others to view.
Each time a clip is downloaded by one of 3 UK's 3.2 million customers, the performer gets paid one penny.
Credits from downloads are accumulated in an account and then a transfer made via online payment service PayPal (EBAY). A spokesman said customers at the company's Italian sister, 3 Italia, had already made thousands of euros from the service.
But in an industry that has spawned phenomena such as "happy slapping" -- wherein people, usually teenagers, assault others and capture the action on a mobile video phone -- the company insisted it had an editorial team that would apply "very, very strict rules" on content.
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Grand theft speech: Two trade groups representing video game makers filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the recently passed California law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.
The Video Software Dealers Association and Entertainment Software Association contend the law is unconstitutional and violates First Amendment free-speech rights, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger defended the law, saying it helped parents determine which video games were appropriate for their children.
The industry groups, which have similar court cases pending in Illinois and Michigan, equated the California law to "content-based censorship" in their latest lawsuit. Industry representatives say they are confident the California law will fail to survive the legal challenge as federal courts have struck down similar statutes in recent years.
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Bits of film: 20th Century Fox film studio said it will supply digital copies of its movies for new digital projection systems offered by a venture called Christie/AIX that is at the forefront of the fledgling digital cinema business.
Fox becomes the second major Hollywood studio to commit to digital movies for Christie/AIX, which is a venture of projector maker Christie and technology provider Access Integrated Technologies. Last month, Walt Disney's (DIS) movie studio division committed to Christie/AIX.
Having major Hollywood movies to screen is a much-needed incentive for theater owners to install the expensive digital systems that promise audiences sharper pictures and possibly new forms of entertainment like updated three-dimensional movies or satellite telecasts of music concerts.
For their part, the studios stand to save hundreds of millions of dollars in distribution costs because they would beam movies into theaters via satellites or high-speed internet versus shipping thousands of film canisters around the world.
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Pivotal digital: U.S. startup S.two has convinced a Hollywood director to use its digital recorder, but its hopes of winning more devotees hang on a small production company doing a children's film in Belgium.
S.two is closely following the making of Le Poulain (The Colt) by Ring Productions because the film's technological and commercial success could open the European market for its Digital Field Recorder, or DFR, which it calls an industry first.
The DFR's key feature is its ability to preserve the original quality of the image. Its wide bandwidth helps it avoid having to compress the image -- an inevitable process that happens with other filming equipment.
Steve Roach, a founder of S.two, said he was focusing his marketing efforts in Europe rather than the United States because its film industry was mostly populated by independent filmmakers working on tight budgets -- ideal customers for the DFR.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
