Jack Schofield
NETWATCH
Fatbrain is offering writers 100% commission for the rest of this year if they upload their works to e-matter, its digital bookstore. You can set your own price, which readers will pay to download secure texts when the service goes live on October 18. Normally Fatbrain will charge $1 a month to host files, and pay a 50% royalty. Fatbrain will continue to sell printed books at www.fatbrain.com.
Save our Web
A group of European Internet users is campaigning to save the Web from the copyright ideas of global media corporations, government surveillance and so on. If you have a website you can link to a logo, or, if not, sign a petition at www. savetheweb.org.
MS propaganda
Microsoft’s new search engine is now in place at http://search.msn. com. The company has also launched Freedom to Innovate Network (www. microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate) to encourage grassroots opposition to “regulation, litigation and government intervention” in the software industry.
Scalpel!
Arabella Churchill, granddaughter of Winston, is getting a facelift in November, and the surgery will be broadcast live over the Internet. This is by no means a first: actors have done it before – but it’s the first Webcast from www.celebritydoctor.com with a British angle. The surgery will be performed by Dr Steven Bloch, who has appeared on Oprah. Check his website at www.bodybybloch.com. We eagerly await the response from rival “celebrity featured” website, www.ADoctor inYourHouse.com, where you can still watch the video of (Beach Boy daughter) Carnie Wilson’s gastric bypass.