Link Banana

Though he’s not dramatic enough to say it, the case could undeniably be made.

Disney’s 57 page EULA before you can watch Sleeping Beauty on Blu-ray is why we should remove any legal force from EULAs. Or ban them outright. Or at least require an executive summary so that people will know what cr*p they’re accepting before they (inevitably) blindly do so.

(via BBG)

It appears that the few-commercials honeymoon that TV-on-the-internet has enjoyed is closer to ending:

“Disney-ABC Television Group will begin conducting research next week on inserting multiple commercials into ad breaks for primetime series on its broadband player,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Upping the ad load would amount to the most aggressive move yet from ABC.com in its quest to draw as much ad revenue.”

But in a good way:

IN “RATATOUILLE”, the most recent animated film from Pixar, a film studio owned by Disney, a talented cook named Remy, who happens to be a rat, finds his way into the kitchen of a once-great restaurant. Its head chef has given up on creativity and instead plans to churn out ready meals branded with the name of the restaurant’s revered founder, Auguste Gusteau. Eventually the chef loses control of the restaurant, the frozen meals are tossed out and Remy’s cooking helps it regain its reputation and inventive flair.

Something similar appears to have happened at Disney. Four years ago it was in turmoil, with its then chief executive, Michael Eisner, under siege from shareholders who accused him of stifling the firm’s creative culture. Today under Bob Iger, who took over as chief executive in 2005, Disney is enjoying a remarkable and profitable run of hit TV programmes and films. “Disney’s creative momentum is so strong now that there’s no comparison between it and other big media companies,” says Lawrence Haverty, a fund manager at Gabelli Asset Management.

Mr. Cringely, PBS’s usually-interesting and often-prescient technology columnist, addresses it as if it’s almost a done deal.

What I DO see happening is Apple buying Adobe, which would give it effective dominance of digital content creation and distribution on a global scale. Bruce Chizen suddenly stepped down as Adobe’s CEO without warning: why? A caretaker CEO (my characterization — no slight intended) is in place. Steve has always viewed Adobe co-founder and co-chair John Warnock like a father. Warnock and co-chair Chuck Geschke are losing interest in Adobe day-to-day as they move on with their lives. Acquiring Adobe would make Apple much more of a cross-platform company. The combined professional applications could be placed in the Adobe division of Apple where they could go up in price for some markets, becoming VASTLY more profitable. But most important — keeping in mind the whole purpose here is driving content distribution — merging Flash and QuickTime would make any other video standards (like Windows Media) simply immaterial.