I’ve been swamped this week so I haven’t had a chance to do any blog posts, but I came across the latest Wallace & Gromit movie on the Vanity Fair web site and thought I’d share it with you. I love Nick Park’s storytelling and I’m not the only one–once again, a Wallace & Gromit short is up for an Oscar in the short film category.

But then I looked at the source of the video on the Vanity Fair site.

Surely, Vanity Fair would have an official source for the movie they’re displaying, right? I mean traditional media outlets get very cranky when you pirate their writing and such, so surely they would respect the copyright of other professionals.

Right?

It turns out that the source of the video is a MySpace profile for some 19-year-old in the UK who is NOT Nick Parks or the official MySpace page for Wallace & Gromit. And the official web site for Wallace & Gromit only lets you look at clips of the new movie Loaf and Death, presumably because the money is made on the DVDs or iTunes downloads.

Looks like a pirated movie. Smells like a pirated movie. Walks like a pirated movie.

What am I to think?

#1: I know naming characters is tough, but this is the first time I’ve heard of someone doing market research with Google adwords to name their character. It’s interesting to see that names do make a difference. Now I’m curious if there are class or culture biases at work with the names–too bad the author doesn’t reveal the names.

#2: Not sure what to make of this: Random House Canada and McClelland & Stewart are closing their rights departments and outsourcing subsidiary rights sales/management to an independent agency. From the article:

The Cooke Agency International will handle the selling and licensing of foreign rights, permissions, and dometic book club sales. The selling of first and second serial rights will be handled by the Publicity departments of each company.

#3: Got an iPhone or an iPod Touch? Love handmade, geeky stuff? Yummypocket over at Etsy makes some really neat holders for the iPhone including an Etch-a-Sketch holder and a cassette holder.

#1: I’m a Winnie-the-Pooh fan (some of you know this) so I couldn’t pass up the 100 Acre Wood’s solution to swine flu. Poor Piglet.

#2: Learn to be a James Bond girl and kick ass by spending a weekend at the Stiletto Spy School in Las Vegas (where else?).

#3: While discussing the merits of snark and written sex scenes (don’t ask), I was reminded of The Bad Sex Award for literature, “Britain’s most dreaded literary prize.” You can read the shortlisted passages here (theoretically not-safe-for-work and if you only read one then 2003 is the best/worst): 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004. 2003, 2002 (there are nine more years if you are so inclined). You may wish to bleach your eyes afterward and/or write letters of protest to the offending authors.

#4: Speaking of #3, I was also sent this link in which an erotica editor pleads for authors to stop using some rather bizarre euphemisms. I’m not sure which group of writers offends more.

#5: In a bid to cut itself off from the rest of the Internet, AP has decided to charge anyone who quotes more than 4 words of any of their stories at the princely sum of $2.50 USD/word. Who’s going to link to them, thereby sending them traffic, at that price? No one, that’s who. I know news agencies need to make money from their online content, but this is not going to get them there. Speaking of which, News Corp. is taking a different approach (but one that’s been tried before) by charging their readers for online content. Good luck with that. I can see it working for a niche news service, but not for a general news service–too many alternate sources of information.

#6: I posted a link to author Justine Larbalestier’s thoughts on the misleading cover on her book Liar in a previous links edition. This week, the publisher is giving in to pressure from the Internet and changing the US cover.