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Main Stories
o Report: Record $2.2 Billion in 'Net Ad Revenue Generated in Q4 2003
o Sirius Satellite Radio Sells $250 Million in Notes
o U.S. Copyright Office Publishes Official Music Webcasting Royalty Rates
o Electronic Arts Acquires "NBA Street" Game Developer NuFX
o Hollywood Duplication Studio Fires 3 Charged With Copyright Infringement

o Note to Readers: Presidents' Day Holiday

o Briefly Noted: Ubisoft's "Uru Live," Telenor Mobil - full-song mobile downloads, Pixology - camera phone prints, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences - awards nominees, Sony Computer Entertainment America - "Rise to Honor," SunnComm Technologies - Plasma Records, Video game release delays - fallout, BitTorrent

New York -- Online advertising recorded its highest revenue-producing quarter ever in the fourth quarter of 2003, when $2.2 billion from ads was generated -- bringing revenues for the year of 2003 to $7.2 billion, a 20% increase over 2002, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The previous single-quarter ad revenue record of $2.12 billion was set in the fourth quarter of 2000. "The consistent revenue growth signals, in part the increased adoption of broadband," said PricewaterhouseCoopers new media group chair Tom Hyland. "Combined with the evolution of emerging ad formats including Search the growing health of the online medium and its proven advertising effectiveness bode well for sustainable revenue growth."
http://www.iab.net/news/pr_2004_2_12.asp
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o Sirius Satellite Radio Sells $250 Million in Notes

New York -- Sirius Satellite Radio, a provider of satellite-delivered digital radio programming, announced on Friday that it has raised $250 million through the sale of five-year convertible notes to investors. The company will use the new funds for general corporate purposes, and said it may sell an additional $50 million in notes due to demand. New York-based Sirius yesterday raised its subscriber and revenue forecasts for the year, predicting it will now reach 1 million subscribers and bring in $70 million in revenue during 2004. The company also announced a partnership with Radio Shack, which will sell the company's satellite radio receivers in its retail stores. Finally, Sirius said that Volkswagen will make Sirius a factory and dealer-installed option on its 2005 Beetle and Jetta models.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040213/nyf048_1.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040213/nyf070_1.html 
http://www.siriusradio.com
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o U.S. Copyright Office Publishes Official Music Webcasting Royalty Rates

Washington -- The U.S. Copyright Office this week published the long-delayed official royalty rates that webcasters must pay to stream music online, essentially approving an agreement proposed in April 2003 between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and a group of large webcasters. The rates, which many webcasters long argued with the RIAA and regulators would be prohibitively high for them to remain in business, will be effective for the period of 2003-2004. Webcasters must make a payment for the period of Jan. 1, 2003 through Feb. 29, 2004 by April 14, and from then on will make monthly payments. The Copyright Office also officially established SoundExchange -- an entity set up by the RIAA -- as the sole collector of these royalties, responsible for distributing payments to artists and copyright holders. 
http://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2004/218.html
http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2004/69fr5693.html
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T22342767 
http://www.soundexchange.com
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o Electronic Arts Acquires "NBA Street" Game Developer NuFX

Redwood City, Calif. -- Video game developer Electronic Arts announced on Friday that it has acquired Illinois-based sports game studio NuFX, which developed EA's "NBA Street" title and is currently at work on its "Fight Night 2004." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The two companies have worked together over the past eleven years on a total of 15 game titles, including EA's "NCAA March Madness," "NBA Live" and "FIFA Soccer" franchises.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040213/135134_1.html 
http://www.ea.com 
http://www.nufx.com
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o Hollywood Duplication Studio Fires 3 Charged With Copyright Infringement

Hollywood -- Lightning Media, a Hollywood film duplication studio and provider of new media services, announced on Friday that it terminated three of its employees following an FBI investigation that revealed the employees were allegedly violating criminal copyright laws. The employees are now facing criminal copyright infringement charges filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The FBI stated that Lightning Media is in no way culpable for the alleged infringements. "We learned, almost 6 months ago, that some employees were illegally in possession of unreleased feature films," said Lightning Media CEO Steve Buchsbaum. "These employees did so without the knowledge or authorization of Lightning Media. Apparently, they were able to circumvent our stringent piracy protection controls. We worked closely with the FBI to identify the perpetrators and to put a stop to the piracy."
http://www.lightning-media.net
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o Note to Readers

Digital Media Wire will not be published on Monday, Feb. 16, in observance of the Presidents' Day holiday. The next edition will arrive on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

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(San Francisco) Video game developer Ubisoft Entertainment has announced that it will shut down its massively multiplayer online game "Uru Live" due to a lack of enough paying subscribers to sustain its operations. The game was the online component to "Uru: Ages Beyond Myst," a sequel to the popular PC adventure game "Myst." "Even with all of the time, money, resources, code, people, sweat, and heart that were poured into Uru Live, we needed a certain number of subscribers to pay the bills. We didn't get there… We were just not able to signup the number of subscribers (even for free) necessary to pay for that effort," reads a note on the "Uru Live" website.
http://mystworlds.ubi.com/US/About/SignUp.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,62253,00.html 
http://www.ubisoft.com

(Oslo, Norway) Wireless network operator Telenor Mobil on Friday announced the launch of a service that lets users download full songs directly to their cell phones. The service, offered through Telenor unit djuice, will initially offer 250-300 songs for download. Norway-based Telenor said songs are delivered encrypted to prevent piracy, and that music transferred to other phones will not be accessible without the SIM card embedded in the original phone.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040213/lnf008_1.html 
http://www.telenor.com 
http://www.djuice.no/?wlnr=01030

(Las Vegas) Pixology, a U.K.-based provider of digital photography software and services, announced on Friday a service that allows camera phone owners to send their pictures directly to a retail store for printing. The Print From Mobile (PFM) service will not require users to first access a website, kiosk or consumer terminal, instead sending photos directly from their cell phone to the printer. Pixology said U.K.-based retailer Jessops and U.S.-based retailer Duane Reade will be the first to launch its service.
http://www.pixology.com

(Culver City, Calif.) The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), a video game industry trade group, on Friday announced nominees for its 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, which will be awarded in Las Vegas on March 4. Nominated for "Overall Game of the Year" were "Command & Conquer: Generals," "Call of Duty Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne," "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando," "Rise of Nations," "SSX 3," "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" and "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker."
http://www.interactive.org

(Foster City, Calif.) Sony Computer Entertainment America on Friday said that it will provide a multi-million dollar marketing campaign to support the launch of its "Rise to Honor" title for PlayStation 2, due in stores on Feb. 17. Part of the promotions will include appearances by Hong Kong action film star Jet Li, who participated in the creative development of the game.
http://www.playstation.com

(Phoenix, Ariz.) Quiet Tiger, the sales partner for SunnComm Technologies' CD copy-protection solutions, said on Friday that Plasma Records has licensed the technology to copy-protect an upcoming album release from its artist Manmohan Waris.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040212/125610_1.html 
http://www.sunncomm.com 
http://www.plasmarecords.net

(San Francisco) Wired News on Friday reported on the growing number of video games whose release dates are being delayed for various reasons, and the effect that these delays are having on marketing campaigns, and developers' revenue and share prices. Recently, Electronic Arts delayed both "The Sims 2" and "Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault," while Atari delayed the release of its "DRIV3R" game. "The conflict is that software is software, and games are software disguised as entertainment," an executive at one of the biggest game companies told Wired News. "Games represent some of the most complicated software engineering tasks performed today. As software gets more complicated, release dates get less solid."
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,62256,00.html

(New York) The New York Times on Friday profiled Bram Cohen, the 28-year-old programmer responsible for creating BitTorrent, a file-sharing service growing in popularity for its ability to quickly download files by using a unique architecture. The software breaks files into many small pieces instead of sending a single large file, and once a user downloads a bit of the file they also then simultaneously begin uploading that bit to other users wanting the file. The benefit is that the most popular files are at the same time the most accessible because bits may be downloaded from all the users who have come before. While working on BitTorrent Cohen lived off of credit cards, but since has taken a job with game developer Valve Software ("Half-Life 2"), and is working on the company's Steam game distribution software.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/technology/circuits/12shar.html
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent

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