Amazon.com Inc. is starting a Web business aimed at helping filmmakers get their movies onto the big screen.
Amazon Studios, which the online retailer announced Tuesday, is seeking full-length films and scripts from filmmakers and screenwriters that can be entered through its website, http://studios.amazon.com . It plans to distribute a total of $2.7 million to those who submit the best works by the end of next year. Amazon said this includes an annual award of $100,000 for the best script and $1 million for the best film it receives by Dec. 31, 2011, as well as monthly awards.
Amazon Studios may then produce these projects as feature films through a “first-look” agreement with Warner Bros. Pictures, which means Amazon Studios is obligated to show Warner Bros. the projects first, but if the movie studio passes Amazon Studios can take them elsewhere.
Amazon said that, in addition to the annual and monthly awards, it will pay $200,000 to the screenwriter or filmmaker behind a project that it ends up releasing as a feature film. The company will also pay an additional $400,000 if the film brings in over $60 million in U.S. box office sales.
Several judges — who include Mark Gil, a producer and former Miramax and Warner Independent Pictures president, and Mike Werb, screenwriter of films including “Face/Off” and “The Mask” — will choose the best movies and scripts.
Amazon already has some experience in the film industry: It owns the Internet Movie Database, or IMDB, and holds a stake in LOVEFiLM International Ltd., which is a European subscription DVD rental company.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More