YouTube content creators can use a new feature, Hot Spots, to see exactly where viewers gain and lose interest in their videos. Among the applications that suggest themselves, Jason Kincaid writes: "Publishers can objectively determine which segments of the video are the most appealing, and edit their content accordingly. Advertisers can use multiple YouTube videos to run different versions of an ad to see which ones are the most effective. Other users will likely find more creative applications -- I wouldn’t be surprised to see a comedian test out a stream of jokes to see which ones bomb." [TechCrunch]

As a filmmaker, Robert Downey Sr. is best known for the 1969 racial satire "Putney Swope," but Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation has teamed with Anthology Film Archives to preserve three other Downey films -- "Babo 73" (1964), "Chafed Elbows" (1966) and "No More Excuses" (1968) -- with new 35mm prints. Reports Rick Karr: "Anthology Film Archive's Andrew Lampert, who oversaw the restoration, says 'No More Excuses' hadn't been shown for 40 years — which is a pity, he says, because it's truly a groundbreaking film... as important as D.W. Griffith's masterpiece, 'Intolerance.' " [NPR]

The National Music Publishers' Association wants a 66% hike in royalty rates, from 9 cents to 15 cents per track; Apple claims the increase would mean the end of iTunes. And both sides are waiting for the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C., to have its say on Thursday, Devin Leonard writes. In a statement submitted to the board last year, iTunes VP Eddy Cue said, "If the (iTunes music store) was forced to absorb any increase in the ... royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss - which is no alternative at all. Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate (the iTunes music store) if it were no longer possible to do so profitably." iTunes is the internet's most successful music retailer. [Fortune]
>> RELATED: Analyst forecasts "doomsday" for Apple's Mac business in a recession [Silicon Alley Insider]

NBC's "Friday Night Lights" will start its third season tonight with a commercial-free 13-episode run on DirecTV. In exchange for the access, DirecTV helps subsidize the show's production costs. Scott Collins calls the move "a Hail Mary pass to save the low-rated but critically acclaimed fan favorite," adding that producers had to trim 5%-7% of last year's budget, which ran around $2 million per episode. [Channel Island]

PC manufacturer Dell and Paramount Pictures have made a deal in which buyers can receive "Iron Man" preloaded into newly purchased Dell computers. However, the option, with "exclusive bonus footage," costs an extra $20. (The two-disc-set is $22.99, plus shipping, at Amazon.com.) Nor does Dell give you a head start; the deal is available starting today, same as the DVD release. [Market Watch]

Here's something else to blame on the economy. Although Sony's Blu-ray won the war, Toshiba's HD DVD format is going down fighting thanks to aggressive price cuts, Matthew Garrahan writes. The players, which also play standard DVDs, can be found for less than $60; the HD DVDs cost as little as $10 and the thousands of available titles included relatively recent ones like "American Gangster." Says Jeff Wisot, VP marketing at Buy.com, "We expected to see a huge increase in Blu-ray sales and HD DVD dying (when Blu-ray won the format war), but it just hasn't happened." [Financial Times]

Music licensing firm TRF Music is suing the companies and the CEOs of A&E Television, Discovery, Fox, Disney, Lifetime Entertainment, Hearst, Amazon.com, among others, for $6.6 million, claiming they have violated copyrights on more than 50,000 "music cues," or background music. The federal complaint also demands that the infringing recordings be destroyed. [Courthouse News Service]
>> RELATED: Man claims MTV used audition tape as TV theme music [CNS]

Universal Music Group wants to launch a Hulu-ish standalone music video site, hopefully early next year. And why not? Universal has the most-watched YouTube channel, with 2.6 billion views over the past year, and internal projections put Univeral's video revenue at $100 million for 2008. However, unlike Hulu, this appears to be an in-house project; as Peter Kafka points out, "It'll be a lot harder to convince EMI, Sony or Warner to contribute their stuff to the site. And while Universal is the biggest player on the block, a video site that only has one label's videos isn't that compelling." [Silicon Alley Insider]

AdAge has just released its annual list of the Top 100 Leading Media Companies and while looks a lot like last year's list, readers may appreciate the nifty digital addition of a Media Family Tree. Hardly surprising: Newspaper owners held half of the top 10 slots a decade ago; today it's down to News Corp. and Cox. However, as newspaper analyst and Kent State professor Lauren Rich Fine points out, "Their position in a listing is the least of their problems." Also noted: Media growth was at its lowest since 2001. [AdAge]

Take that, Mark Gill: "I can't talk about the 'crisis' of the indie film industry," producer Ted Hope told the Film Independent Filmmakers' Forum Saturday in Los Angeles. "There is no crisis." What there is, he says, is "a profound paradigm shift" that will bring "true independence." However, that shift also means giving up dreams of fat distribution deals and taking full responsibility for a film all the way through marketing and distribution. "We have to step back from the glamour," Hope says. "We have to stop making so many films." [indieWIRE]

>> The cheapest ways to watch USA Today's top 15 finance-themed films [The Business Sheet]
>> Bands that perform full albums in concert sell tickets [Christian Science Monitor]
>> Russell Crowe as the Sheriff and Robin Hood in "Nottingham"? [CHUD, MTV]
>> Comedian sues "Family Guy" for $2 million over "stolen routine" [Courthouse News]
>> "Our Gang" member and founder of drug treatment programs dies at 85 [Los Angeles Times]

"We're fucked," says Sony Pictures Classics' co-president Tom Bernard. Specifically, he tells Claude Brodesser-Akner, he's depressed about the audience decline where big critics like Michael Wilmington (Chicago Tribune), John Anderson (Newsday), David Ansen (Newsweek), and Jami Bernard and Jack Mathews (New York Daily News) are no more. Says Bernard: "Our numbers in Chicago are down 20%, and it's only been three months since Michael Wilmington left." The death of specialized distributors (Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage, et. al.) also casts a pall. Among the titles that could use a friend: Columbia Pictures' "Seven Pounds," (Will Smith, suicidal IRS agent), Miramax' s "Doubt" (Meryl Streep, nun confronting sexually abusive priest), Warner Bros.' "Gran Torino" (Clint Eastwood, Korean War vet reforming teen carjacker), Paramount's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Brad Pitt aging in reverse) and Focus' Features "Milk" (Sean Penn, America's first openly gay city official, assassinated). Says Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan: "The studios all say, 'A film is a film. We can handle those releases.' But the question is, 'Can they?' " [Ad Age]

According the album's mastering engineer, Ian Shepherd, the CD was over-compressed in a bid to make the music as loud as possible. It's the same technology utilized by TV ads that want the volume to go up from the programming that proceeds them. He writes, "the CD version on the bottom has been heavily compressed, limited and/or clipped, and sounds massively distorted as a result." Head engineer Ted Jensen chimes in: "I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case, the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place... Believe me I'm not proud to be associated with this one." [Wired.com blog Listening Post]

Distribution consultant Peter Broderick takes on the brave new world of distribution post Mark Gill, going into internet fundraising, podcasts, YouTube and direct website sales, along with 10 "guiding principles of New World Distribution." Best of all, however, is this handy-dandy chart. Clip and save! [PeterBroderick.com]

It's the 20th anniversary of Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans. In the media sector, that includes Viacom's Sumner Redstone ($9 billion), News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch ($5 billion), LucasArts' George Lucas ($3 billion), Ted Turner ($2.2 billion), Oprah Winfrey ($975 million), Barry Diller ($900 million) and Jeffrey Katzenberg ($800 million). See the slideshow here. [Forbes]

How The Mighty Have Fallen, Dept. of: The site, which launched in beta this summer, bills itself as "the women’s web destination for celebrity and entertainment news, casual games, fashion and community." The release goes on: "The five-minute webisode will feature Joan and Melissa’s refreshingly candid 'best dressed' comments, as well as their fiercely funny 'worst dressed' barbs and the Ooooh! Shoe Review. The Ooooh! Shoe Review portion of the show will highlight interactive links to online shoe retailer Zappos.com, which was among the first brands to be featured within MyHollywood content." [BusinessWire]

Don't look to Asia for a bailout; the roiling of Wall Street has Asia wondering just why they invested trillions in the U.S. in the first place. Writes Keith Bradsher, "Asia’s savings have, in essence, bankrolled American spending for decades, and an Asian loss of confidence in American financial institutions and assets would have dire consequences for both the United States government and American taxpayers." Bradsher quotes a Hong Kong homemaker waiting in line to close her A.I.G. investment account (“I do not believe in U.S. financial institutions anymore; I don’t think any U.S. bank is safe anymore.”) and Thomas Lam, senior treasury economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore. “All these top executives, Indonesians and others, started asking, ‘What do they really do?’ They bought because the next company did.” [New York Times]

Tobey Maguire may earn $50 million as well as family time with his toddler daughter, Ruby, in exchange for shooting "Spider-Man 4" and "Spider-Man 5" back-to-back, according to John Harlow, the London Times' man in Hollywood. Writes Harlow, "Sony, which declined to comment, is thought to have been wary of allowing 'family time' because it could set a precedent. Finally its chairman, Amy Pascal, herself a mother, stepped in, saying six months without family time would not be fair on any parent." [The Times]

PREVIOUSLY: "Spider-Man" 4 good to go; maybe "Spider-Man 5," too

Under the beta feature that launched Sept. 15, more than 6,000 TV episodes are available for viewing in full, for free, with "limited commerical interruption." Says founder Col Needham, "Our goal is to show our users every movie and TV show on the Internet for free on IMDb.com." Creators can also download their content to IMDb. Among the shows included in the launch are "24," "Family Guy," "Heroes,"  "The Office" and "The Simpsons." Launch partners are CBS, Hulu, Sony Pictures Television and assorted indie filmmakers. [Press release]

Is this available as its own DVD? And if not, why? Rick Burin praises "The Warner Bros. Breakdowns," a collection of blooper reels that include flubs from the likes of Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, James Cagney and Carole Lombard. Writes Burin, "They were compiled annually by the studio's social club, open to all Warner employees, and from 1935 to 1949 formed the centrepiece of the group's Christmas party, held at LA's Biltmore Hotel. The reels are now surfacing on DVD." Unfortunately, they're parsed out as the extras on the U.K. versions of  the "Warner Gangsters, Vol. 2" and "Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection Vol. 2" box sets and on "Adventures of Robin Hood." Warners Home Video senior VP George Feltenstein describes the footage as "a very insightful view into the overall spirit of Warner Bros in its formative years. No other studio could let their hair down and have a little fun at their own expense the way this company did." [The Guardian]

"The deal is expected to be announced shortly for the two-part biopic," reports Lou Lumenick in a blog post from the Toronto Film Festival. He updates it later to say that a Magnolia rep calls an announcement "premature," but Lumenick writes, "I hear they're already booking theaters." "Che" will screen in Toronto Sept. 9 and 10 in a version that's slightly shorter than the one that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. [New York Post]

UPDATED: That publicist was telling Lou the truth; it went to IFC Films instead.

"No need for a question mark at the end of our headline," writes Columbus-based Cole Abaius, who credits "a production source." The film's proposed location is Cleveland, where Ness was the police chief durning the Torso Murders of the late 1930s. Fincher's directing from a script by Ehren Kruger, an adaptation of Brian Bendis and Marc Andreyko’s graphic novel, “Torso.” The Paramount production is supposed to start shooting "in February or March," but, as Abaius writes, "We can also confirm that Cleveland may lose the production if they don’t pony up some sweet tax incentives. Basically, if you want to film there, you’ve got about six days to make it happen before the weight of some awesome taxes come crashing down. Without tax incentives, the production may have to settle for exteriors in Cleveland and the rest of the shots in Michigan. One Great Lake is as good as another right?" [Film School Rejects]

Scott Kirsner has a modest proposal for film festivals and indie filmmakers who love them: "During the festival, or on the day it ends, (filmmakers) should make their movie available through their own Web site, perhaps using DVD-on-demand services like NeoFlix, Film Baby, or CreateSpace/Amazon. Same thing for making downloads available: get that movie onto Amazon Unbox, B-Side, or iArthouse." Festivals can help out by making deals with iTunes, cable channels or pay-per-view. Writes Kirsner: "If I read a glowing review of something playing at Toronto this weekend, I’m going to want to download it or buy the DVD right then –- and I may not feel the same way a week later, after the festival ends (I may not remember the movie at all by that point.)" Toronto’s rules say that films can’t be available on the Internet prior to the last day of the festival. [CinemaTech]

U.K. media watchdog Advertising Standards Authority has banned two posters of Angelina Jolie promoting "Wanted." In one, she's crouching and holding a gun pointed upward; the other shows her brandishing guns while lying on her back across a car's hood. The ASA upheld complaints that the images glamorized guns and violence. [Reuters]

Didn't the GOP's parents teach them not to take without asking? Dave Burdick compiled a list of musicians that the McCain campaign has officially annoyed to date by using their music without permission: Van Halen ("Right Now"), Jackson Browne ("Running On Empty"), Heart ("Barracuda") Orleans ("Still the One") and Frankie Valli ("Can't Take My Eyes Off You"). Noted: The founding member of Orleans and the song's cowriter, John Hall, is currently a New York Democratic congressman. [The Huffington Post]

HD TV is already retro; it's 3-D TV that has everyone excited. "A few weeks ago I found myself in a converted warehouse in Burbank, where a rig housing two cameras shot my image and transmitted it onto a flat-screen TV on the other side of the room," writes Richard Siklos. "With the benefit of polarized glasses - the cheap clear-plastic ones you now put on when you go to a 3-D movie in a theater - I saw myself in three crisp dimensions, practically leaping out of the television." Most enthusiastic about this development are producers of sports and porn, but ESPN exec Chuck Pagano estimates the first 3-D broadcasts in the U.S. are three years away. [Fortune]

Tobey Maguire and director Sam Raimi have agreed to make "Spider-Man 4" and may even shoot the fifth one at the same time, according to Nikki Finke. She writes that as of a few weeks ago, sources told her that Sony topper Amy Pascal "was openly discussing Tobey's potential replacements with various Hollywood agents because Tobey was hanging tough about a deal." [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who once appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee to decry the availability of Metallica 's catalog on Napster, says he welcomes the internet leak of their new CD. "If this thing leaks all over the world today or tomorrow, happy days," he said in an interview on San Francisco radio station Live 105. "It's 2008 and it's part of how it is these days." "Death Magnetic" is scheduled for release Sept. 12. [BBC News]

Anne Thompson takes a look at the mega-budget wannabe/better-be blockbusters "Avatar," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Where The Wild Things Are." Bottom line: "Avatar" is the most expensive at $250 million-$300 million, but likely stands the greatest chance of success; "Benjamin Button" will need lots of Oscar love to turn a profit; and "Where the Wild Things Are" is a real wild card. While Warner Bros. production chief Jeff Robinov puts a brave face when he says, "He's making a Spike Jonze family movie," Thompson writes, "The movie doesn't seem to be the family-friendly commercial picture the studio had in mind." [Variety]

"Slacker Uprising" follows Moore's 62-city tour during the 2004 election to rally young voters. It will be available for three weeks beginning Sept. 23 at SlackerUprising.com as a free download to North American residents. Moore says it's a symbol of gratitude to fans as he approaches the 20th anniversary of "Roger & Me." His last two films, "Sicko" ($24 million) and "Fahrenheit 9/11" ($119 million) are two of the three highest-grossing documentaries ever. The DVD release is Oct. 7. [Associated Press]

According to El Mayimbe, Russell Crowe may play Professor Moriarity in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes," which will star Robert Downey Jr. Mayimbe also says that Gerard Butler was offered the role of Dr. Watson (a role Crowe was also rumored to play), but passed. [Latino Review; art credit, too]

Hollywood has shown untold patience in waiting for the digital cinema revolution. In an excerpt from his book "Inventing the Movies," Scott Kirsner writes that digital cinema was anticipated more than half-century ago by no less than Samuel Goldwyn, who anticipated video-on-demand systems; in 1954, CBS engineer Albert Abramson published the article “A Motion-Picture Studio of 1968” that outlined digital cinematography, film-free distribution system and 3-D imagery. [Digital Cinema Report]

Activision bought a synchronization license to the Romantics' '80s hit "What I Like About You," but the band filed a lawsuit when they found the result (used on "Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80s") to be too close to the real thing. However, U.S. District Judge Nancy G. Edmund disagreed in a summary judgment that thew out the suit, noting that the band “failed to establish that their 'sound' is distinctive.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld publicity rights claims involving the “distinctive” voices of singers Bette Midler and Tom Waits. [On Point News]