archives

o Report: Piracy Cost Video Game Industry $1.9 Billion in 2001
o SEC Questions Graphics Chipmaker Nvidia on Accounting
o U.S. Customs Halts Imports from 'Net Game Retailer Amid DMCA Violations
o Online Record Label Garageband Takes Site Offline, Seeks Distributor
o Game Developer Take-Two Resumes Trading After SEC Probe
o High-Tech PR Firm Niehaus Ryan Wong to Shut Down
> Digital Media Wire Panel: Interactive Games | Coming to L.A. and S.F.
> Note to Readers: Presidents Day
o Briefly Noted: RealNetworks - Turner Sports Interactive - NASCAR.com, On
Command - Espial, Digital rights management failures, Sonic art
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o Report: Piracy Cost Video Game Industry $1.9 Billion in 2001

Washington, D.C. -- The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), a
video game industry trade group, reports that video game firms lost out on
$1.9 billion in sales last year due to worldwide piracy. By contrast, the
IDSA reported a total of $6.35 billion in worldwide video game sales in
2001. The piracy figure will be included along with a list of 100
countries considered to be the top piracy offenders in a report sent by
the International Intellectual Property Alliance -- which also represents
business software providers -- to be filed with the United States Trade
Representative.
http://www.iipa.com/news.html
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.021202/220430235
http://www.idsa.org
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174543.html 
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-838300.html?tag=cd_mh
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o SEC Questions Graphics Chipmaker Nvidia on Accounting

Santa Clara, Calif. -- Nvidia, a manufacturer of PC graphics and video
chips, said on Friday that it is conducting an internal review of its
accounting practices in accordance with a formal request from the SEC. The
company also said it believes the SEC and U.S. Attorney's Office have
launched their own investigation. The SEC previously asked Santa
Clara-based Nvidia for information regarding alleged insider trading among
non-executive employees, the results of which the company says are the
cause for the current investigation.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020214/sfth079_1.html
http://www.nvidia.com
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o U.S. Customs Halts Imports from 'Net Game Retailer Amid DMCA Violations

San Francisco -- Wired News reported on Friday that the U.S. Customs
Service has halted incoming shipments from Lik-Sang, an online retailer of
video games and accessories. The Customs Service says that NEO4 "mod"
chips that Lik-Sang sells, which can eliminate regional coding, violate
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Regional coding allows game
firms and movie studios to release several versions of games or DVDs into
different areas at staggered intervals and prices; breaching the
technology that allows such coding has been deemed a violation of the
DMCA. Although Hong Kong-based Lik-Sang sells many other items besides
NEO4s, all imports from the company are being seized. "The shipper is
having things stopped by the U.S. Customs Service," UPS spokesman Dan
McMackin told Wired News. "I don't know what is being held, but the
probability is that multiple things come in a shipment and some are
outlawed and some are not. The customs doesn't know which is which."
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,50450,00.html
http://www.lik-sang.com
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o Online Record Label Garageband Takes Site Offline, Seeks Distributor

San Francisco -- Online record label Garageband Records has taken its
website offline, citing a need to conserve funds in light of a failed deal
to arrange a distributor for its artists' album releases. "Earlier this
week, a deal which is critical to the distribution of our records and
which we've been negotiating for some time fell apart. It goes without
saying that it's difficult to be in the record business without releasing
records," the company wrote in a note on its site. "To conserve cash as we
endeavor to close another distribution agreement, we have pulled the
garageband.com website off line." The company has set up a Yahoo group
bulletin board in the meantime for its community of musicians. San
Francisco-based Garageband Records was co-founded by ex-Talking Head Jerry
Harrison; the company's CEO is former Washington Post music critic Tom
Zito and its board of advisors includes producer and artist Brian Eno.
http://www.garageband.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/garagebandrecords/
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o Game Developer Take-Two Resumes Trading After SEC Probe

New York -- Take-Two Interactive Software, a developer and publisher of
video games, announced on Friday that its stock has resumed trading on the
Nasdaq. "The past several months have been a difficult time for Take-Two
and its management, but we have worked hard to restate our historical
financials," said Take-Two president Paul Eibeler. Trading had been halted
since Jan. 22 when the SEC launched a probe into New York-based Take-Two's
accounting, over how it booked sales and other matters. The company is
behind such popular games as "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Max Payne."
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020215/152073_1.html
http://www.take2games.com
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o High-Tech PR Firm Niehaus Ryan Wong to Shut Down

San Francisco -- CNET reported on Friday that Niehaus Ryan Wong, a public
relations firm that has catered exclusively to technology clients like
IBM, Apple and Yahoo, is shutting down. "We are dissolving the company and
have given our clients 30 days' notice," company co-founder Tom Ryan told
CNET. San Francisco-based Niehaus Ryan Wong laid off most of its 20-member
staff this week, which numbered around 100 in 1999. Ryan told CNET that
the decision came about because the company's founders wanted to pursue
other opportunities.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-838668.html
http://www.nrwpr.com
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> DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE PANEL DISCUSSION SERIES:
"Interactive Games on the Internet: Recent Developments and New Business
Opportunities"

Join leading executives and professionals in the digital media industry at
our upcoming breakfast panels at exclusive venues in Los Angeles and San
Francisco:

LOS ANGELES: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2002, Four Seasons Hotel, Beverly Hills

Confirmed panelists include: Tracy Fullerton, President of Spiderdance;
Seth Gerson, Co-Founder of YaYa; Victor Hwang, COO of LARTA; Chris
Kantrowitz, Co-Founder of The Groove Alliance and President of 7ate9
Productions; Mark Kapczynski, Principal Consultant, Microsoft; and Mark
Surfas, Founder, Chairman and CEO, GameSpy.

For more information and to register for the Los Angeles event:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/LAgames2.html

SAN FRANCISCO: Tuesday, March 12, 2002, The City Club of San Francisco

Confirmed panelists include: Greg Kasavin, Executive Editor of GameSpot;
Chad Richards, CEO of NoizePlay; Mark Surfas, Founder, Chairman and CEO,
GameSpy; and John Welch, VP of Games and Product Development for
AtomShockwave.

For more information and to register for the San Francisco event:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/SFgames2.html

Sponsorships and Inquiries: Ned Sherman at 323/464.0793
Or esherman@digitalmediawire.com
_____________________________________________

> Note to Readers:

Digital Media Wire will not be published on Monday, Feb. 18, in observance
of Presidents Day. The next edition will be published on Tuesday.
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(Seattle) RealNetworks said on Friday that it has signed a multi-year
agreement with Turner Sports Interactive to offer premium NASCAR content
through a subscription service. The service will be available for
$29.95/year or $4.95/month on NASCAR.com, or through a subscription to
RealNetworks' RealOne. It will offer a live leaderboard and race summary
for each race, personalized video highlights and live audio coverage of
all races provided by Motor Racing Network and Performance Racing Network.
In addition, subscribers will get to choose among live in-car audio feeds
from the top nine racers as they communicate with their pit crews.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020215/sff025_1.html
http://www.nascar.com

(Denver) On Command, a provider of video-on-demand, broadband Internet and
other entertainment services to hoteliers, on Friday announced it will
implement a new Internet browser in all of its rooms, developed by
Ottawa-based Espial. The new browser will be fully compatible with AOL,
Hotmail, and MSN, and also provides fit-to-width browser windows formatted
for television. Denver-based On Command serves 929,000 rooms in
approximately 3,450 hotel properties.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020215/laf022_1.html
http://www.oncommand.com
http://www.espial.com

(Cambridge, Mass.) M.I.T.'s Technology Review recently featured an article
on digital rights management, which explores the reason why so many
companies founded to develop the technology that copy-protects media on
the Internet have failed. New York-based Reciprocal, San Jose -based
Vyou.com, Massachusetts-based Digital Goods and Mountain View-based
Preview Systems have all shut down in the last eight months. "To actually
build technology that enforces a degree of control over content without
creating some horrid security framework turns out to be despicably
difficult," said Martin Lambert, founder of London-based SealedMedia.
http://www.techreview.com/articles/innovation10302.asp

(San Francisco) Wired News offered a feature article on Friday about the
growing acceptance of sonic art as a medium, and mentions some of the
installations performing during the Activating the Medium festival, now at
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Dutch composer Edwin van der Heide
and his group Sensorband, one of the artists showing, has a sonic piece
based on noises generated by dialup Internet connections, manipulated in
real-time. San Franciscan Scott Arford's audio-visual presentation takes
video static and correlates it with sounds generated via computer. "I'm
interested in being able to see a sound and hear an image," Afrord told
Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,50406,00.html
http://www.23five.org/2002.html
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