The Latest from Boing Boing

---

• Last decade's English libel legal sharks poised to make a new fortune on stupid privacy lawsuits and superinjuctions
• Cinema chains dimming movies "up to 85%" on digital projectors
• Tree of Life wins Palme d'Or
• Black Rapid RS-4 Camera Strap
• RIAA boss takes home $3 mil+

Last decade's English libel legal sharks poised to make a new fortune on stupid privacy lawsuits and superinjuctions Posted: 23 May 2011 01:56 AM PDT With all the noise about superinjunctions, you might think that the recent spate of absurd, censorious "privacy" lawsuits spontaneously arose from the minds of football players, toxic dumpers, and evil viziers of the banking industry. But as Peter Preston writes in the Observer, the architects of these suits are the same lawyers who got rich embarassing England around the world with absurd, censorious libel lawsuits in the last decade, who are now chasing a new business-model as the old one fades away. For the other defining change of the last 12 years has gradually seen the essential big earner for England's small but richly endowed libel bar sliding away. English libel law, offering heavy damages, huge fees and real advantages to a prospective litigant, has slowly become another victim of the digital revolution. Our courts have traditionally welcomed cases from all over the globe, however vestigial publication to a UK audience may have been. In that sense, the internet seemed to offer still plumper pickings. But American administrations, first at a state then a national level, became disgusted by the justice they saw meted out to their citizens by the Strand. They have decided that no English ruling that infringes the right to free speech can be enforced across the Atlantic. Our own politicians, spurred into action, are seeking to reform the gross imbalances of English libel. And this decline in libel rewards is fundamentally connected to the rise in privacy speculation since 1998. Max Mosley could have chosen libel, but opted for privacy. Lawyers, naturally, have moved into this fresh, potentially lush area of litigation. Sweeping injunctions - nobody has quite counted them yet - have become the weapon of first resort. Sometimes (as with Trafigura's attempt to gag the Guardian) the case has been too outrageous to endure. More typically, though, the queue of celebrities at the court door has succeeded in buying expensive secrecy for marital misdeeds - even if some, such as Andrew Marr, eventually repented of going to court. John Naughton produced the handy spreadsheet above, which presents a rough estimate of the cost of trying to sue Twitter over pointless superinjuctions: about two days' wages. As Naughton notes: "In the case of footballers earning anything up to £200k a week, the fees probably look like small beer, so there's clearly room for business expansion here -- for lawyers." Twitter and WikiLeaks have made a mockery of the courts

Cinema chains dimming movies "up to 85%" on digital projectors Posted: 22 May 2011 09:37 PM PDT The Boston Globe reports that AMC, National Amusements, and Regal cinema chains are leaving 3D projector lenses on for 2D movies. This means that the projected image is polarized and far dimmer than it should be. The chains won't acknowledge that they're doing it, but one quoted insider says its an "unspoken" corporate policy. Given that your HD TV set shows it just fine, and your living room doesn't smell of weaponized butter, aren't they driving customers to piracy? Try this for irony: one reason operators hate changing lenses is reportedly because of crippling DRM on Sony's digital projectors, which "will shut down on you" if a mistake is made when resetting the system. So, they just don't change them, because serving a ruined product is better than serving no product at all.

Tree of Life wins Palme d'Or Posted: 22 May 2011 04:23 PM PDT Terrence Malik's The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. [BBC]

Black Rapid RS-4 Camera Strap Posted: 21 May 2011 04:08 AM PDT I've been shooting photographs for years and the common neck strap has always given me nothing but neck pain. My father though he had found a solution with a neoprene neck strap, but eventually it had the same shortcomings as its predecessor. One day, while attending a convention, a friend pulled a Black Rapid strap out of his bag. Within an hour I had found and purchased one for myself. The strap slips easily over one shoulder and allows your camera to hang comfortably at your side with no strain on your neck. The camera attaches to the strap through a custom tripod mount and a carabiner connecting kit that allows the camera to be brought up to shooting position without having to shift the strap (the metal connection slides across the fabric strap). This makes it easy to swing your camera up and shoot in a simple fluid motion, and return the camera back down to your side the same way. Another benefit of this connection method is that it reduces strain on the camera body when shooting with large lenses that have tripod collars. The straps are sturdy, well built and come in a variety of sizes and styles including the RS-DR-1 which can hold two SLRs at once, although that's really more for the professional photographer. --Tim Edwards Black Rapid RS-4 Camera Strap $53 For more information there is a great thread detailing other camera strap models and using tripod quick release plates over at Cool Tools.

RIAA boss takes home $3 mil+ Posted: 22 May 2011 06:46 AM PDT Found amid a list of top compensation for industry lobbying association CEOs in 2009 (the last year for which we have stats): Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA, and his whoppng pay-packet: $3,185,026. That'd sure buy a lot of ramen for starving musicians. Another Member Of The Overpaid (Thanks, @kembrew!)

You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610