Bicoastal Coppos Films and director Scott Gillen have agreed to part company…..Director Jeremy Goodall has joined New York-based Taxi Films, coming over from Highway 61, also New York. Goodall is based in South Africa and is repped there by Thunderbird Commercial Film Production, Cape Town….….The directing team of Saul+Elliot (Saul Blinkoff and Elliot Bour) has signed with New York-based Curious Pictures….Compass Films, New York, has signed director Jonathan Lennard….Andrew Denyer, formerly of bicoastal Headquarters, is taking on an executive producer’s post at bicoastal/international Propaganda Films. He replaces Roger Zorovich, who recently joined Santa Monica-based F.M. Rocks, and Shelly Townsend, who moved over to bicoastal Anonymous Content….Editor Agusta Einarsdottir and producer Corey Evans have come aboard Jigsaw Editorial, Santa Monica. Additionally, Jigsaw has promoted assistant editor Alexis Chavez to editor…. Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Visual Music, headed by creative director/composer Tom Seufert, has added 20 composers to its virtual network. This builds upon the Web-based model launched by the company three years ago whereby an ensemble of composers/artists was linked via the Internet to Seufert for collaboration on projects. The latest additions include composers Steve Morrell, Tim Kelly, David Russell and Lori Robinson, and sound designer Arnie Schulze….
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More