The suicide of Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old technology wizard thrust the issue of access to information back into the limelight, Noam Cohen writes in The New York Times. Mr. Swartz was seen as a crusader by many who promote the open flow of content on the Internet, but governments and corporations sometimes view his cause as a threat to the security and privacy they need to function. Mr. Swartz was facing millions of dollars in fines and up to 35 years in prison after being accused of using MIT’s computers to access scholarly papers.
Ben Affleck’s film “Argo’’ was a surprise winner Sunday night at the annual Golden Globe awards, winning best picture in the drama category and a directing prize for Mr. Affleck. In doing so, it bested the presumed favorite, Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,’’ as well as “Zero Dark Thirty.’’ The awards ceremony, Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes report, was infused with a festive irreverence, led by the two hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
If you’re going to create your own company, you might as well give it a grandiose name, and so the creators of the irreverent television series “South Park” have called their new production company Important Studios. Andrew Ross Sorkin and Amy Chozick write in The Times that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are forming a new enterprise that will have an estimated value of $300 million and may field as one of its first projects a film version of “The Book of Mormon.’’
Conde Nast, trying to capture more profits at a challenging time for magazines, is issuing new contracts to its writers that give the company more control over the rights to their articles, Christine Haughney writes in The Times. The practice is angering writers, many of whom lack regular income or benefits and who hope to compensate that by someday selling the articles to film or television.
Television network executives gathering in Los Angeles acknowledged that they were grappling with the issue of violence in their programming, Bill Carter writes, as their content draws more scrutiny in the aftermath of the mass killings in Newtown, Conn. Most defended their content but said they needed to maintain sensitivity to cultural standards.