To make their work available to as wide a market as possible, the publication of newsletters, magazines and books forms one of the key elements of most think tanks. Therefore most of these institutions undertake extensive publishing programs and run their own periodicals. Mostly accessible by subscription or individual sale those publications aim at the widespread distribution of their respective ideology. Recently think tanks have also started to discover new media as useful tools for their purposes. A lot of the bigger institutions have set up websites, which provide general information as well as articles and research reports.
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Following the 1980s a sweeping restructuring of commercial media power has happened. While some firms have grown through expansion others extended through mergers and acquisitions. Examples are
In recent years those developments have led to the rise of transnational media giants, resulting in the domination of the global media system by about ten huge conglomerates. These have interests in numerous media industries, ranging from film production, magazines, newspapers, book publishing and recorded music to TV and radio channels and networks, but also include retail stores, amusement parks and digital media products.
Behind these firms are about three or four dozen smaller media companies, which primarily engage in local, national or niche markets. In short, the overwhelming majority of the world's content production facilities and distribution channels lies in the hands of approximately fifty enterprises.
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Temporal
Copyright protection is limited in time. Many countries have adopted a term of protection that starts at the time of the creation of the work and ends 50 years (in some cases 70 years) after the death of the author. Under some national laws exist exceptions either for certain kinds of creations or for certain uses. After the protection has expired works pass into the public domain. In recent years a tendency towards the lengthening of the term of protection has emerged.
Geographic
The owner of a copyrighted work is protected against acts restricted by copyright under the law of a certain country. To gain protection against such acts in other countries he must refer to the respective national legislation. If both countries are members of one of the international conventions on copyright, the practical problems arising from this geographical limitation are eased.
Non-Material Works
In some countries works that are not fixed in some material form are excluded from copyright protection. Also under certain national legislations, the texts of laws and decisions of courts and administrative bodies cannot be copyrighted (which is possible in several countries; then the government is the owner of the copyright in such works and can exercise his rights in accordance with the public interest).
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Traditional copyright and the practice of paying
Yet again new technologies have altered the way of how (copyrighted) works are produced, copied, made obtainable and distributed. The emergence of global electronic networks and the increased availability of digitalized intellectual property confront existing copyright with a variety of questions and challenges. Although the combination of several types of works within one larger work or on one data carrier, and the digital format (although this may be a recent development it has been the object of detailed legal scrutiny), as well as networking (telephone and cable networks have been in use for a long time, although they do not permit interactivity) are nothing really new, the circumstance that recent technologies allow the presentation and storage of text, sound and visual information in digital form indeed is a novel fact. Like that the entire information can be generated, altered and used by and on one and the same device, irrespective of whether it is provided online or offline.
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Within the EU's goal of establishing a European single market also
An overview of EU activities relating to intellectual property protection is available on the website of the European Commission (DG Internal Market):
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Industrial
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The largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world. The corporation resulted from the merger of the publisher Time Inc. and the media conglomerate Warner Communications Inc. in 1989. It acquired the Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS) in 1996. Time Warner Inc.'s products encompass magazines, hardcover books, comic books, recorded music, motion pictures, and broadcast and cable television programming and distribution. The company's headquarters are in New York City. In January 2000 Time Warner merged with AOL (America Online), which owns several online-services like Compuserve, Netscape and Netcenter in a US$ 243,3 billion deal.
GCHQ is the British Government Communication Headquarters, which is in fact an electronic monitoring centre which intercepts communications using spy satellites, listening devices and code-cracking equipment. The 1994 Intelligence Services Act defines GCHQ's role in the post Cold War world. National security, economic well-being and the prevention and detection of serious crime are its headline interests. It routinely gathers information on drug-dealing, terrorism, and the movement of arms and key resources such as oil, but is also said to be heavily involved in ECHELON. GCHG praises itself to use and design high end technology such as Cray systems, Tandem based storage and high-end workstations, as well as software for Signals Analysis, Complex Data Manipulation, Translation and Transcription.
Artificial Intelligence is concerned with the simulation of human thinking and emotions in information technology. AI develops "intelligent systems" capable, for example, of learning and logical deduction. AI systems are used for creatively handling large amounts of data (as in data mining), as well as in natural speech processing and image recognition. AI is also used as to support
Yahoo AI sites:
MIT AI lab: