Updating Blog – losing Chinese

I've jsut updated my blog, from the old Blogger to the Google Account thingamy. Fairly painless. All I had to do was re-order the sidebar, and retype the one bit of Chinese here, the link to Heather's blog. The Chinese doesn't look as clear as before, at least on Mac OS X.
Otherwise, all good.

Little Star -- good documentary on RTE R1

I've a backlog of Documentary on One podcasts -- that's from RTE Radio 1. It's a weekly 45 minute slot.

At the top of the list was one from December. With a name like "Little Star", I assumed it was something Christmassy, and put off listening "for the time being".

I had a listen at the weekend, and it's really good! Bear in mind the podcast removes the cue, so I heard it without any info at the beginning. I hope the cue was short! Cos this documentary has lovely surprises in it.

It's a very good documentary. No flash effects, but an interesting enough story presented very well.

Reuters AlertNet MediaBridge

A pleasant surprise today in the inbox from Reuters AlertNet. Their MediaBridge.
They describe it as:

"tools and services developed to help journalists cover humanitarian crises through a handy one-stop shop on our website, "AlertNet for journalists":

http://www.alertnet.org/mediabridge/index.htm

New features include hotspot mapping, which allows you to search, scan and zoom in on the world's crises through an advanced Microsoft mapping system, and e-learning for journalists, where we'll be constantly adding new humanitarian training modules on topics ranging from how aid works to understanding famine.

This is in addition to our other tools developed as part of MediaBridge. All our free services can be accessed from the microsite link above, including up-to-date crisis briefings, aidworld contacts and the AlertNet World Press Tracker."

I've kicked the tyres, and I like it! I think it applies as much to someone bound to an office in London as elsewhere. I have an idea of the strength of radio, and wish I could use it for humanitarian good. After all, my first radio job was Reports From Developing Countries, and I still regret not having done a better job of it. But that's another story! Right now, I'm happy the Reuters Foundation has given us this. I've put a link in the side column, and I intend to be a regular visitor.

Music royalties might get paid by Chinese radio stations

Last month, that bastion of radio blogging, Radio Netherland's Media Network, carried this story.

Methods and standards of paying royalties should be promulgated this year. A law about paying royalties has been on the books for six years, it says, but since there wasn't a method in place...

In 2004, when I was a feature producer in China Radio International (CRI), I got a talking to for refusing to use James Bond theme music on an interview with Sir Roger Moore (Yes, it is far and away the biggest interview I've ever done!).

The interview was for Unicef, and made only one mention of Bond in the whole 23 minutes. But the main reason I didn't want to use the music was because it's very distinctive and I didn't want to be held responsible if an angry Hollywood studio came along demanding.. well, demanding anything at all. Working in CRI encourages cowardice (at least in people like me, and party members. But not everyone...!)

So. For the second time that year, the features editor Li Peichun sat me down and explained earnestly: look, we had a meeting once, and "we decided, copyright doesn't apply to us".

I got away without using the music, as we were close to TX.

It's going to be a huge shock to the system for Chinese radio stations to start reporting the use of music. However you can be sure the regulations won't be enacted, or maybe enforced, until the main broadcasters have the "methods and standards" all sorted out -- in other words automated into their audio databases and playout systems. I wish that were the case in the World Service! Still, it keeps me busy on admin shifts.

Some more stuff on royalties and copyright in China. In 2006, I believe CRI received a letter from AP's legal representatives, demanding they stop cutting and pasting AP stories onto their website. This would have suited some of the editors there: stories referring "the wrong way" to Chinese history, politics etc have appeared on the CRI website. (example) You can hardly blame the short-contracted and under-paid web staff, way down at the bottom of the pile there, for copy-pasting longer stories.
Of course if the editors don't check it properly, that's another matter.

The Sound of Life

I'm listening online to a series from July - September. It was on Radio 4, and is called The Sound of Life. It's about sound in the natural world, and in natural ecosystems (not Sound Ecology, something I've only just discovered. I'm looking forward to learning more about that, though it's a bit daunting for now).

The Sound of Life is a good programme. Traditional Radio 4, sure, but there is a lot of nature sounds, more so than in the usual nature and science programmes there. So far, I'm loving it.

So far means I'm on programme three of eight. Here is the webpage, with all eight episodes there to listen again.