MediaMorphosis: A Multimedia Leadership Retreat

* March 10-12, 2004, at the Four Seasons Newport Beach, CA
* Join the leaders and thinkers shaping the digital future at this international, inter-industry brainshare on media, technology and society. 
* More information

Main Stories
o European Paid Music Downloads Top 3 Million in 2003
o Patent Holder E-Data Licenses European Music Download Services
o Coca-Cola Launches U.K. Music Download Service
o Video-on-Demand Server Firm Broadbus Raises $25 Million  
o Top U.K. Wireless Carriers Issue Code for Protecting Children
o AtomFilms Launches Hi-Def, Full-Screen Internet Movie Service

o Briefly Noted: GameCube Linux Project, HP - "Project Greenlight," Rainbow Media Holdings' sportskool - Cablevision, "Final Fantasy X-2," V-Games, DVD-Audio - SACD - "negligible" sales, Morpheus - Poisoned - FastTrack Network, Sundance - $218.32 movie

London -- Europeans purchased over 3 million song downloads in 2003 from On Demand Distribution (OD2), a company that provides fulfillment services for many online music services on the continent, Reuters reported on Tuesday. OD2 CEO Charles Grimsdale additionally told Reuters that the volume of downloads sold through its network, which offers 260,000 songs through stores managed by companies including HMV and Microsoft's MSN, is growing by 25% each month. By contrast, over 30 million song downloads were sold in the U.S. during 2003, fostered by the launch of services including Apple's iTunes Store and Napster. Grimsdale said OD2 is currently encoding hundreds of thousands of additional songs it holds under license, with the goal of soon offering one million songs for download.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q6E821127 
http://www.od2.com
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o Patent Holder E-Data Licenses European Music Download Services

Port Washington, N.Y. -- E-Data Corporation, a company holding a patent on technology it says covers the downloading and recording of information, such as music, from a computer onto a tangible object, such as a CD or MP3 player, announced on Tuesday that it has settled outstanding litigation and will receive past and future royalties from European online music distributors On Demand Distribution (OD2), HMV, Tiscali and Microsoft. Financial terms of the settlements were not disclosed. New York-based E-Data said it hired a law firm to aggressively enforce its patents in Europe. The company has also secured licenses from over 30 U.S. companies for its patent.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040120/nytu063_1.html 
http://www.e-data.com
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o Coca-Cola Launches U.K. Music Download Service

London -- Coca-Cola has launched a service in the U.K. allowing users to download songs for 80 pence apiece and entire albums for 6.40 pounds ($11.50). The soft drink company, which claims to have "the first consumer branded, legitimate downloadable music site," said the MyCokeMusic.com site would feature more than 250,000 new and old tracks. Coca-Cola also said that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has given its support to the site.
http://www.mycokemusic.com/alt_%20indexflash.html
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o Video-on-Demand Server Firm Broadbus Raises $25 Million

Boxborough, Mass. -- Broadbus Technologies, a developer of video-on-demand server equipment for the cable TV industry, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $25 million in its second round of venture capital financing. Star Ventures led the investment round; previous investors Battery Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Comcast Interactive Capital, Infineon Ventures and Wolf Ventures also participated. The company's servers are used by cable TV operators to deliver advanced services like video-on-demand, subscription video-on-demand and ultimately, the company says, full-scale "television-on-demand." Boxborough, Mass.-based Broadbus said it will use the funds for expansion of sales, marketing and product development efforts. 
http://www.broadbus.com
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o Top U.K. Wireless Carriers Issue Code for Protecting Children

Paris -- The top 6 mobile phone companies in the U.K. have published a new code of conduct designed to stop children from accessing pornography and gambling services on their mobile handsets. Orange, 3, T-Mobile, O2, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile agreed that an independent content board -- the ICSTIS (Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services) -- would set guidelines determining what is suitable for children younger than 18 years of age. The group also promised to prevent children from accessing any adult content offered by commercial partners or the companies themselves.
http://www.icstis.org.uk/icstis2002/default.asp
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R21F32C17
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o AtomFilms Launches Hi-Def, Full-Screen Internet Movie Service

Park City, Utah -- Internet short films site AtomFilms announced on Tuesday the launch of 'AtomFilms Hi-Def,' a new advertising-supported service that delivers high-definition films over the Internet in full-screen mode. AtomFilms partnered with Massachusetts-based Maven Networks to provide content management, production and the delivery platform for the movies, which are transmitted to users at 850kbps using Microsoft's Windows Media High-Definition Video at 720p resolution. Users will be asked to download Maven's software, after which they will automatically receive three new shorts from AtomFilms' library to their PCs each week. Advertisers signed on for the launch of AtomFilms Hi-Def include Nintendo and Microsoft Windows XP Media Center.
http://www.maven.net 
http://hidef.atomfilms.com

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(Los Angeles) A group of independent programmers has begun the process of porting the Linux operating system to Nintendo's GameCube video game console, so that in addition to playing games the device can also function as a server or media terminal, Reuters reported. Already, the GameCube Linux Project has released a program that causes the GameCube to recreate the Linux penguin logo on a TV screen. Many of the developers on the project also worked on a similar endeavor to port Linux to Microsoft's Xbox. Sony has sanctioned the use of its PlayStation 2 as a Linux-based computing device, going so far as to offer its own $199 developers' kit.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=4170233  http://www.gc-linux.org

(Park City, Utah) PC maker HP announced on Tuesday it partnered with HBO/Miramax's "Project Greenlight" independent filmmaking contest to create an ancillary digital photography contest. The "YOU Take Five!" contest will ask amateur photographers for photo story submissions, with the winner becoming the on-set photographer for the third Project Greenlight film and receiving a walk-on role in the movie. HP said its partnership is one part of a $300 million advertising campaign centered on its digital photography products.
http://www.projectgreenlight.com 
http://www.hp.com/you

(Jericho, N.Y.) Rainbow Media Holdings said on Tuesday that cable TV operator Cablevision has launched "sportskool," its sports and fitness instruction video-on-demand service, for 3 million New York metropolitan area Cablevision subscribers. Professional athletes featured in the instructional programming include Mia Hamm, Nomar Garciaparra, Bill Walton and Anna Kournikova.
http://www.cablevision.com 
http://www.sportskool.com

(Los Angeles) Square Enix U.S.A., the U.S. distribution arm of the Japanese video game developer, said on Tuesday that its "Final Fantasy X-2" title has surpassed one million units sold in North America. The game was released in North America on Nov. 18, 2003; the title has also sold over two million units in Japan since its release there in March 2003.
http://www.square-enix-usa.com/games/FFX-2

(New Orleans) Organizers for the V-Games, a console and PC video game tournament, on Tuesday announced that the first V-Games will be held from March through October, featuring qualifying rounds in 30 U.S. cities for $150,000 in prizes. Sponsored by Ziff Davis Game Group and EB Games, the tournament will feature eight game titles and is expected to draw 30,000 participants.
http://www.thevgames.com

(Washington) The Washington Post recently reported on the "negligible" sales for both players and discs that support two new audio formats, DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD (SACD), both of which have hopes of supplanting the ubiquitous compact disc. Both formats use the same CD-sized disc, and both offer up to six times greater storage capacity than a standard CD. However, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reports that only 100,000 DVD-Audio discs were sold during the first half of 2003, compared with 245 million CDs; the group does not yet track SACD sales.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30490-2004Jan19.html

(San Francisco) CNET News.com on Tuesday reported on the growing number of file-sharing applications that are being developed so they may access multiple file-sharing networks, and tap into an even greater number of total users and available files. StreamCast Networks' new version of its Morpheus application lets users trawl the much larger FastTrack network, where users of the popular Kazaa application trade files. Another program, the open-source Poisoned Project, allows Mac users to share files with Kazaa users.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5142626.html

(Park City, Utah) Wired News on Tuesday reported from the Sundance Film Festival on filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's "Tarnation," which cost $218.32 to produce using Apple's basic iMovie DVD creation software. Since screening at the festival, directors John Cameron Mitchell and Gus Van Sant have signed on as executive producers for Caouette's film. "People assumed that one day film would be as accessible and inexpensive as writing, and now it practically is," Van Sant told Wired News. "For the price of a typewriter, you can make films with sound and burn them on a DVD."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,61970,00.html

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