The Associated Press reports that Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar — the world’s oldest newspaper — has now dumped its print edition and gone digital only.
The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. It’s a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world’s most venerable journals.
“We think it’s a cultural disaster,” said Hans Holm, who served as the chief editor of Post-och Inrikes Tidningar for 20 years. “It is sad when you have worked with it for so long and it has been around for so long.”
A short movie on YouTube that is getting millions of hits, and is a total riot!
Just a short note on how the video about the Medieval “Book” Helpdesk got here.
As with so many people, I had played with YouTube once a month or so to do a little searching for certain things and look over the hot lists, but the major YouTube experience had pretty much eluded me, that is, until my Mom, who is turning 95 shortly, sent me The Medieval Helpdesk. I loved it much and forwarded it to a few dozen friends, who then forwarded it on and on– and it just kept going. The result, I am now an official YouTube member– but all the names I tried based on my own name were taken, so…I am now Johannes Gutenberg on YouTube, and hope to be uploading in a few months. ;-)
It was time for another Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension to keep Disney’s star property out of the public domain. Somebody’s nephew had a bright idea. Instead of telling Congress to add the standard twenty years to the length of copyright, why not go for the big time? Extend copyright by 500 years.
Somebody’s niece added a smarter reason: A 500 year extension would let Disney track down Shakespeare’s heirs and buy all rights to the Bard. No matter how much the heirs wanted, the deal would pay for itself in no time. Every school that ever wanted to perform or study Shakespeare would have to send a check to Disney. Every newspaper or magazine or radio show that wanted to quote the Bard would have to send one, too. So Disney asked, and Congress gave, and the World Intellectual Property Organization followed Congress’s example. Disney paid off Shakespeare’s heirs, then used the Shakespeare profits to buy all rights from the heirs of Dumas, Dickens, Twain, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Bram Stoker and more. Once most of the films in every other studio’s library were subject to Disney’s copyright, they went bankrupt or became divisions of Disney.
And everyone was content, except for the storytellers who had to buy a Disney license or prove that their work owed nothing to the last 500 years of literature.
Then Jimmy Joe Jenkins’s DNA proved he was the primary descendent of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible. At first, Jimmy was satisfied with ten percent of the price of every KJV sold and 10 percent of every collection plate passed by any church that used the KJV. But when some churches switched to newer translations, Jimmy sicced his lawyers on all translations based on the KJV. That got him a cut of every Bible and every Christian service in English.
Some translators claimed their work was based on older versions and should therefore be exempt, but none of them could afford to fight Jimmy in court.**
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