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DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- March 7, 2003
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o WSJ: AOL Time Warner May Sell CD/DVD Manufacturing Operations
o Vivendi Shares Plummet After Record Loss
o "Metroid Prime" Takes Top Honors at Game Developers Choice Awards
o Dutch P2P Firm Honest Thief to Use Distributed Computing to Pay Musicians
o TiVo Subscriber Base Grows 64% in 2002 to 624,000
o Digital Media Creation Equipment Maker Media 100 Gets Nasdaq Notice
> DMW Publications: February Law and Policy Report
o Briefly Noted: T-Mobile - Universal Mobile, Major League Baseball
Advanced Media, Super X Studios - Independent Game of the Year, "SOCOM:
U.S. Navy SEALs" - PS 2 online, Media industry CEOs - approval ratings,
SmartVideo Technologies - Internet Marketing Consortium, Xingtone
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> Events: Games & Mobile Forum: April 28 | NYC
> Marketplace: Entertainment & Corporate Legal Services, Game Industry
Report, iTV Chronicle, Interest-Based Navigation
Full Classifieds located beneath "Briefly Noted" section below.
To post a Classified Ad:
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o WSJ: AOL Time Warner May Sell CD/DVD Manufacturing Operations
Dulles, Va. -- Under pressure to reduce its sizable debt, estimated to be
$26 billion, AOL Time Warner is mulling the sale of the manufacturing arm
of its music operations, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. AOL's
Warner Music unit makes DVDs for AOL's film businesses and Home Box Office
cable network in the same factories that manufacture the music division's
compact discs. A sale would make sense since the division is not
considered a core part of AOL Time Warner's business. The sale could fetch
a much-needed $1 billion.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030307/media_aol_report_1.html
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o Vivendi Shares Plummet After Record Loss
Paris -- Vivendi Universal's shares plunged in Friday trading on the
London Stock Exchange as investors punished the company's woeful earnings
report yesterday. The French media giant recorded net losses of more than
23 billion euro ($25 billion), much higher than expected. On Friday, the
company lost more than 1 billion euro ($1.1 billion) in market value after
already having lost more than 4 percent of its share value Thursday.
Vivendi Universal now holds the dubious distinction of having posted the
largest loss in French corporate history, beating a day-old record set by
France Telecom.
http://www.vivendiuniversal.com/vu2/en/news/00001224.cfm
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o "Metroid Prime" Takes Top Honors at Game Developers Choice Awards
San Jose, Calif. -- The International Game Developers Association (IGDA)
named Austin-based Retro Studios' "Metroid Prime" title for Nintendo
GameCube the Game of the Year last night at the Game Developers Choice
Awards, held as part of the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif.
Retro also took home the award for Rookie Studio of the Year. Electronic
Arts' "Battlefield 1942," developed by Sweden-based Digital Illusions, won
the award for Excellence in Game Design, while the Lifetime Achievement
Award was given to Gunpei Yokoi, creator of Nintendo's Game Boy handheld
video game device. A complete list of winners is available at the link
below.
http://www.igda.org/awards
http://www.metroid.com
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o Dutch P2P Firm Honest Thief to Use Distributed Computing to Pay Musicians
Arnhem, Netherlands -- The Honest Thief, a Netherlands-based file-sharing
software provider that is aiming to take advantage of a P2P-friendly court
ruling in the country, on Friday announced the release of a beta version
of Thank You, its software program that will pay musicians for songs
traded through the sale of its users' unused computing resources to
research facilities. The company said version 2.0 of Thank You will be
available in the second quarter, and will offer file-sharing providers a
system that utilizes its users as distributed computing nodes whose
computing power is sold to research facilities -- the proceeds from which
will be collected and doled back out to musicians whose music is traded on
the service. "We are the first to figure out a way for both file sharing
providers and musicians to earn an honest Euro," said company founder
Pieter Plass. "We are the first, but certainly not the last, to eliminate
the record companies from the equation. The record companies are not dead
yet, but they're certainly on life support. And The Honest Thief pulls the
plug."
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/230665103&ticker=
http://www.thehonestthief.com
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o TiVo Subscriber Base Grows 64% in 2002 to 624,000
San Jose, Calif. -- Digital video recorder manufacturer TiVo announced
that the company's subscriber base for its service grew 64 percent during
2002, adding 115,000 during the fourth quarter to end the year with a
total of 624,000 subscribers. The company said it expects to add 450,000
to 600,000 subscribers in its fiscal year 2004, so that it counts well
over 1 million subscribers by Jan. 31, 2004. "TiVo achieved important
milestones during the year," said TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay. "We delivered
record subscriber growth, we added important consumer electronics
companies who have licensed TiVo technology and will deliver TiVo products
this year, and we accomplished a key financial objective in Q4, reporting
positive cash flow for the quarter."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030306/sfth044_1.html
http://www.tivo.com
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o Digital Media Creation Equipment Maker Media 100 Gets Nasdaq Notice
Marlboro, Mass. -- Media 100, a manufacturer of media content design
systems equipment, announced on Friday that the Nasdaq has given notice
that the company's shares are not in compliance with its standards and are
in danger of being delisted from the exchange. Massachusetts-based Media
100's shares have traded below the Nasdaq's $1 minimum for continued
listing since December. The company has 90 days to regain compliance or
else may apply to have its shares moved to trading on the Nasdaq's
SmallCap Market.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030307/70023_1.html
http://www.media100.com
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DMW Publications: February Law & Policy Report
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Contact tinzar@digitalmediawire.com or call 323-464-0793 to order your
copies.
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Digital Media Law & Policy Report - New Issue
Must-read publication on legal and policy matters related to digital
media. 35+ pages of case summaries, news and analysis, policy updates,
court filings, and exclusive interviews with legal counsel and business
leaders.
Published monthly. February issue on sale now!
**Special Reduced Rates available for a limited time**
Price: $19.00 Per Issue | $195.00 Annual Subscription
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/marketplace.htm
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FEATURED SECTION
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Briefly Noted:
(Berlin) Wireless network operator T-Mobile announced that it has
partnered with Universal Mobile, the wireless entertainment arm of major
record label Universal Music, to offer new music content across its
t-zones portal in major European markets. The service will let cell phone
users download international and local polyphonic ringtones or logos and
send songs as a greeting. Shortly, the service will offer videoclips of
extracts from Universal Mobile and the ability to view, via MMS, images of
artists and their latest albums. Services will be rolled out in various
European markets beginning in the first week of April.
http://www.t-mobile.net/CDA/news_details,20,0,newsid-1498,en.html?w=792&h=433
http://www.universalmobile.com
(New York) Major League Baseball Advanced Media on Friday began selling
subscriptions for its Gameday Audio service, which offers fans the chance
to hear streaming audio of all MLB regular season games or only the games
of their favorite team. The service offers both home and away live audio
feeds for each game, as well as Spanish-language streams. A package
featuring access to streams from every game played costs $19.95, while a
single team's games are offered for $11.95 for the season. Currently, free
audio broadcasts of 400 Spring Training games are available from the site.
http://www.mlb.com
(San Jose, Calif.) Washington-based independent game developer Super X
Studios took top honors at the 5th Annual Independent Games Festival, held
last night during the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif. The
company's "Wild Earth" title won the $15,000 Seamus McNally Grand Prize
for Independent Game of the Year.
http://www.igf.com
http://www.superxstudios.com
(Foster City, Calif.) Sony Computer Entertainment America announced on
Friday that since its release on Aug. 27, the company's "SOCOM: U.S. Navy
SEALs" for PlayStation 2 has sold over one million units nationwide. The
company said 30 percent of all users have taken advantage of the game's
online component, reporting 50,000 to 60,000 going online daily and up to
13,000 simultaneous players online on average. Developed by Redmond,
Wash.-based Zipper Interactive and SCEA's Foster City, Calif. studio,
"SOCOM" will soon be released in Europe, Japan and Korea.
http://us.playstation.com/games/MCurtain.asp?referringPage=/games/SCUS-97134/
http://www.zipperint.com
(Dulles, Va.) Only 29 percent of respondents gave AOL Time Warner head
Richard Parsons a positive job approval rating in February, according to a
newly released Forbes poll. Fox's Rupert Murdock led the list of media
industry CEOs with a 62 percent approval rating, followed by USA
Interactive's Barry Diller (54 percent), Viacom's Sumner Redstone (46
percent), Parsons and Disney's Michael Eisner (24 percent).
http://shorterlink.com/?QPXID6
(Atlanta) Atlanta-based SmartVideo Technologies Inc., a provider of
streaming video software for the Internet, has formed a new joint venture
with Pennsylvania-based Internet Marketing Consortium (IMC), a marketing
services firm. Under the agreement, IMC will market SmartVideo's products
to its own customers. Beryl Wolk, the founder of IMC, said he expects
SmartVideo's products to generate more than $1.5 million in revenue per
month for the joint venture.
http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=CpMBv0bKbytu0ndy
(Los Angeles) Reuters recently reported on Xingtone, a Los Angeles-based
firm offering a service that converts MP3 song clips into cell phone
ringtones. The service circumvents current offerings from music industry
entities such as Universal Mobile, which sell licensed ringtones based on
its artists compositions, and instead simply uses files derived from cell
phone users' own PCs. "I know that we'll have licensing issues, but if
people take their own music and put it on their phone, it's not my
responsibility," Xingtone's Brad Zutaut told Reuters. The Xingtone service
currently supports only Sprint PCS Vision-enabled cell phones, but the
company said 3,000 users have already signed up to use it.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2341185
http://www.xingtone.com
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CLASSIFIEDS - JOBS
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CLASSIFIEDS - EVENTS
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Digital Media Wire Presents...Games & Mobile Forum
April 2003, New York City
Focusing on games and mobile entertainment opportunities and business
models. Panel topics will include "The Battle to Control the Living Room:
Is the Game Industry Winning?", "Mobile Games: Business Models & New
Opportunities", "Legal & Policy Issues Impacting the Game Industry &
Mobile Entertainment", and "Home Networking: Technology for Modern Living
& Entertainment."
Door Tickets Price: $250. For Early Bird Specials, pre-register at:
http://kb.digitalmediawire.com/register.php?eventid=1025
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Top Credentialed Attorney with 9 years of experience representing major
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trademark registration and disputes, copyright issues and other
transactional and contract law services. Qualified in California and
Texas. Retainer required to commence services. Tel. 323-363-3620.
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Game Industry Law & Policy Report
Special industry report covering law & policy matters impacting the game
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President, Interactive Digital Software Association. Price: $19.00
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