It can be tough sometimes for reporters to liven up a dry bit of business news such as the acquisition of LA’s Norm Marshall & Associates by the Bill Gates-owned Corbis. But tipped ahead of Monday’s press release, New York Times writer Stuart Elliott managed to add some good color.

That’s because Marshall is a seasoned, fun interview. In addition to telling Elliott that his movie and TV product placement agency has previously turned down more than a half-dozen acquisition offers, he had this response when the reporter inquired about the Microsoft-minted price tag:

Mr. Marshall and [Corbis exec] Mr. Shenk said they could not discuss the financial terms of the deal. “Bill has a thing about not divulging financial stuff,” Mr. Marshall said, referring to Mr. Gates, adding that Mr. Shenk had told him, “‘Norm, if I do it, Bill will fire me.’”

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It’s not just print journalists taking it on the chin these days. Per a long and highly informative article at ConsortiumNews.com by Don North, the acquisition of agencies Bettman Archives and Sygma by Bill Gates has done little to bring order to the domain of photo rights compensation.

In fact, fueled by the Internet’s power to at once disperse and devalue image assets, today’s consolidated photo news industry has become a virtual war zone. North zeroes in on an awful chapter involving photographer Dominique Aubert (pictured):

In 2000, during a trip to Los Angeles, Aubert discovered that some of his photos were being used in magazines for commercial advertising, which he had not authorized and had not been paid for.

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Barbara Sehr, who once worked for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and now does both stand-up in Seattle and the occasional blog entry for Seattle PI, has a fun piece framed within the context of the sordid NOTW scandal.

As a cub reporter for the long gone LA daily, Sehr writes that she was working in the halo of 1976 Oscar winning film All The President’s Men. In those days, there were no concerns about protecting voice mail PIN codes:

The only hacking going on back then was the occasional techno-wizard who could figure out how to make a free call from a pay phone (anyone remember pay phones?) or better yet, make a free long distance call…

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As Seattle Times business reporter Melissa Allison so aptly puts it today in her article lede about Corbis Images’ acquisition of 21-year-old LA outfit Splash News, Bill Gates now owns a piece of Angelina Jolie. Or at least a piece of her luscious lipped photographic image.

The two biggest consumer photo licensing companies, Corbis and Getty Images, are both now headquartered in Seattle. To a certain extent, the decision by Corbis to purchase Splash for an undisclosed amount is just one more example of the “TMZ-ization” of the media. Per today’s press release:

””We are thrilled to join Corbis and will continue to do what we do best–deliver the authentic, breaking content that connects the media with its audience,” said Splash CEO Gary Morgan. “We look forward to providing our global network of photographers the ability to expand beyond their current reach through Corbis’ global footprint.”

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There’s a very informative interview today over at SoCalTech.com with CauseCast.com head honcho Ryan Scott. The Culver City firm, nurtured in 2008 by Arianna Huffington (who remains on the Advisory Board), is mainly about helping non-profits master the web and create online pathways at pinnacle media-attention moments.

FishbowlLA had no idea that CauseCast’s co-branded blogger ranks had passed the 1,000-person threshold. Thanks to contributors like George Lucas and Bill Gates, the site gets over a million uniques per month. Scott shares a great example of how the company was able to help extend the underlying mission statement of Davis Guggenheim‘s most recent documentary:

We launched an education section–partially in response to the Changing The Equation effort by the White House, but also because of the Waiting for Superman movie, which catalyzed a lot of the current talk about reforming education. We launched that section with Paramount, with the movie ad as the lead sponsor. It’s doing very well.

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If Clare Major wins a 2011 Student Academy Award for Best Documentary, she will have the opportunity to thank two most impressive patrons – Bill Gates and his wife Melinda. Feast & Sacrifice, her 26-minute look at the day-to-day life of a family in Senegal, Africa, was funded in part by a grant from the couple’s foundation.

Major served with the Peace Corp in Senegal from 2004 to 2006, later turning those experiences into her graduate thesis film at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she completed her studies in 2010. Per the film’s official website:

Living for two years with the Bah family in Saare Muudu, I was intrigued by how the village existed at the intersection of First and Third Worlds. This film is an attempt to convey some of the stories of individuals – men working abroad, women left at home, and children confronting the divergent paths before them.

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Business journalist David Kirkpatrick, Peter Petre and Brent Schlender are founding partners in the media venture dubbed Techconomy. They’re debuting their concept at a forward thinking conference this August in Lake Tahoe. And yes, of course Bill Gates is speaking there.

More info here.

We just got word from our person on the inside that the new Microsoft commercial featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates was most likely directed by Bryan Buckly. The same commercial director that did the American Express Ellen Degeneres spots. The one with the animals that won an Emmy and the other one with Beyonce and the Village People.

For people with TiVo, we sure watch a lot of commercials…

This one features Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. As we reported earlier – there is a bunch of celebs that will be in these spots. Some names being thrown around were Sarah Silverman, Willie Nelson, motorcycle rider Travis Pastrana, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Nadar, Rob Corddry and Stephen Colbert.

And of course they plan to feature real people. People who use computers. People that managed to let go of their bitterness about Vista to do a national spot. There must be some of those out there.

Anyway, so far not Alex Bogusky‘s best work. But maybe it’s a set up for something cool.

Dan Cox, on special assignment for FishbowlLA, covering the 2008 Sun Valley Media Conference.

On the closing day of the Sun Valley Media Conference, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett held court with individual speeches about — what else — money.

Gates spoke about collecting it for his Gates Foundation, while Buffett discussed how it could be spent to help the country, according to people who listened.

“Bill said amazing things,” said James Robinson III, former chairman of American Express. “He had all sorts of things to say about raising money for such things as medicine and diseases. He was very engaging and interesting, as he is every year.”

About 200 of those left at the conference attended the speeches, which had a ridiculously inordinate amount of security, with every entrance and exit to the speakers’ hall watched by four guards. Mediabistro, which was kept out by at least three different guards at entrances, thinks that’s what billionaire-type money brings.

But a few who stuck around to listen to billionaire mentality included William Morris Agency’s Jim Wiatt, Yahoo!’s Sue Decker, ICM’s Chris Silbermann, Page1Media’s Isaac Lee, Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Starr & Co.’s Ken Starr, News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, Time Warner’s Richard Parsons, media chef Rachael Ray, Scripps Co.’s Ken Lowe, former Disney chair Michael Eisner, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Though almost half the invitees departed on Friday night, some stuck around to celebrate host Herb Allen with a special dinner last night. And, as every year, a special outdoors ice show (in the middle of summer!!!) took place behind the Sun Valley Lodge.

Friday night, Murdoch and Parsons were secluded at a table in the Sun Valley Lodge bar, discussing either some pending deal or the mixed drinks they wanted to order.

Parsons, who stepped down as Time Warner chair a few months ago, earlier told a reporter he was happy to be an observer at the conference this year rather than a corporate participant.