We’re feeling pretty good today. Who knows why. Maybe day after day of little to nothing happening has finally made us snap and remember that things rarely happen in huge bursts; Britney’s fine now, we don’t need to give you minute-to-minute updates, the continued Union Bitchfighting doesn’t yet involve a strike, so no big news there.

However, our Hollywood 2.0 category could use some beefing up, especially with the cool shit that is going around the ‘net.

Here are some stories that foreshadow how entertainment is changing along with technology:

South Park’s Internet Symbiosis – The LA Times blog talked to South Park co-creator Matt Stione about how South Park “grew up” with the internet and how distribution is changing. The article includes three audio clips from Stone who continues to prove that the South Park guys know exactly what they are doing, it may not be viable, but at least they have a plan:

When I asked co-creator Matt Stone about having a show that bridged the gap from the pre-Internet era to now, he knew what to say.
“We kind of did that on purpose.”
Which is a good joke, but the thing is, there’s some truth to it. From the beginning, Stone and co-creator Trey Parker have been medium-agnostic — always saying they didn’t give a fuss if the show played on a TV, a computer or a plastic Happy Meal wristwatch as long as fans were watching it. Back in 1997, that may have sounded anathema to Comedy Central and parent Viacom Inc., but now it looks like master augury, as the line between TV and the Internet becomes ever less distinct.

NIN Releases “Discipline” - We’ve been trying to trumpet the ongoing Radiohead V. Nine Inch Nails internet spat to everyone in “real journalism” that would listen. Our conversation with a SPIN editor went nowhere, but that was before Radiohead released the re-mixable stems for “Nude” on iTunes, semi-shamelessly aping remix.nin.com, which has been giving away free stems from Trent for months already. When NIN and Radiohead were announced as co-headliners of Lollapalooza, some internet outlets started to pick up on the fact that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, the two biggest internet-release bands currently in existence, have been mirroring each other’s distribution methods.

The next shot was fired two days ago when a new Nine Inch Nails song called “Discipline” started getting radio-play to the excitement of online Nine Inch Nails fans. Turns out, the song was mastered and within 24 hours was on the radio. Within hours of its radio-debut, the track was up on NIN.com for free download. When downloaded, the notes in the MP3 said: “Check NIN on May 5th,” leading to speculation that Reznor is going to release his second NIN album in three months.

Your turn, Radiohead.

EMI Wants Music Kept Offline – Also in the music distribution biz, EMI is suing MP3tunes, a “music locker” site that allows you to upload your music, then access it from any browser. EMI suggests that this is illegal because it allows file-trading.

MP3tunes has alerted it’s users via e-mail as to why this is stupid:

Files are not MP3tunes’ possessions any more than the contents of a safety deposit box are owned by the bank that houses them. The storage provided by MP3tunes is the user’s own space. A Locker is empty when someone opens an account and that customer decides what files are placed into their Locker. All files are stored at the request of the user. People who choose to utilize remote storage should be guaranteed the same level of privacy they have for the files stored on their local hard disk… if you don’t have the right to store your own music online then you won’t have the right to store ebooks, videos and other digital products as well. The notion of ownership in the 21st century will evaporate. The idea of ownership is important to me and I want to make sure I have that right and my kids do too.

Other happenings in the loop with Hulu, et al, but nothing substantial. Just thought these points would be fun stuff to chew on for those of you ready to exploit all this new media bullshit.

Or, you know, you could take up theater again.