The New York Times writes:

YouTube has also become a vast repository of video taken without permission from television shows and movies, not to mention home movies constructed — with nary a cent paid in royalties — from commercial music and imagery.
...
In an interview this week, YouTube's Mr. [Chad] Hurley, not surprisingly, portrayed himself as mainly trying to improve the site for its users while working to find arrangements that will satisfy Hollywood.

The Doc Searls writes:

We need to serve market (not marketing) relationships that arise from decisions customers have already made to buy something. They have money in hand, and the intention to book a hotel, rent a car, buy a basketball backboard. Whatever they want, marketing's job is done. Sales needs to show up now. But how? That's the question. And the answers that work can't come from the sell side. We need new means to the buyer's ends, coming from the buyer's side.

What I want is for vendors in an open and free market (not a proprietary silo like eBay or Amazon or Travelocity or some other intermediator with a walled garden) to respond to the intentions (or gestures, or expressions, or whatever) of the customer. On customers' terms. I want to turn the tables on the lame customer management systems every big vendor has, and which have no idea how to relate. Especially to humans who would rather not be "managed", thank you.

Download Squad writes about three feed readers which recently got updates: FeedDemon, Google Reader and Bloglines.

Om Malik writes:

Unlike US, PC penetration is not that high even in many developed countries, such as France, thereby limiting growth opportunities for broadband service providers. Neuf Cegetel, a French ISP, thinks low cost Linux PCs are the answer. The company has come up with Easy Gate, a device that looks like a yogurt maker, but is a stripped down PC that runs Linux.

The ISP which plans to go public is targeting “technophobes” with this device1, that will be bundled free with a 40 Euros a month broadband connection and unlimited calls to landlines in France. Users can buy a screen, keyboard and webcam for about €99. This will help the company grow its user base, especially since it faces a lot of competition from Free and France Telecom.

CNN writes:

"It's starting to become, typically, one country a month," said Michael Jones, CTO of Google Earth. In a recent update, Google Earth added high-resolution images of the entire Netherlands, he said.

Jones, who has more than 100 engineers working on his team that also develop Google Maps, said local advertisement can make the geographical data much more useful.

"There are several tens of billions of dollars in revenue available for local advertisement," Jones said. "I will be really proud to see more advertisement on Google Maps and Google Earth. Wouldn't it be great if you could look up locations of hotels, and also get a list of top five-rated ones?"

Today is October 2. Gandhi Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. A holiday for most of us. Or, as Munnabhai puts it, “dry day.”

Rarely has a movie captured the imagination of a nation in recent times as Lage Raho Munnabhai (LRM). Blending comedy with a strong message through the words of Gandhi and Munnabhai (a role played amazingly well by Sanjay Dutt), the movie is set to become one of Indian cinema’s biggest blockbusters. More importantly, it is having two side-effects. It is reawakening a desire amongst Indian youth to know more about the Father of the Nation. It is also bringing about behavioural change in some – the adoption of ‘Gandhigiri’ to tackle challenges.

Gandhi has been a forgotten figure for most of us. We learnt about Gandhi in our history textbooks. Some of us also saw Ben Kingsley play Gandhi in the Richard Attenborough movie. While in school, we stood in silence for two minutes to mark the time when Gandhi was assassinated. We see a photo of Gandhi every so often on TV serials and movies when they show police stations or court rooms. And of course, the ubiquitous presence on currency notes. That is Gandhi for most of us.

Every year, around October 2, the media publishes articles and broadcasts programmes discussing the relevance of Gandhi to modern India. Some channels will broadcast movies and documentaries about Gandhi. And then, the day passes. Life carries on.

This year, a movie has forever changed the perceptions of Gandhi for a young India. The line, “Bande mein tha dum”, has become some sort of a signature byline defining Gandhi. His principles of satyagraha and being true to yourself are starting to find favour in a mass searching for an identity. If the year started with the movie Rang De Basanti (RDB) bringing to life the problems of corruption and a generation in search of a mission, LRM has taken the cause further – but in a more benign way.

LRM has gotten rave reviews since its release just over 4 weeks ago. People have been watching the movie in large numbers even now – rare for movies now in India where, in Hollywood-style, they tend to fade within a couple weeks of release. The word-of-mouth has been extremely strong for the movie. So, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, it is time you should…even if you don’t care much about the underlying message, go watch one of the most original entertaining films of the year.

Tomorrow: LRM Reviews