archives

o Napster Lays Off Another 30 Employees
o RIAA Comments on Gateway's Digital Music Ad Campaign
o WSJ: Garageband.com to Re-Launch Following Sale of Assets
o FullAudio Licenses Songs from Harry Fox Agency for Subscription Service
o AOL Names Radio Executive to Head Interactive Unit
o Briefly Noted: TDK Mediactive - Vicious Cycle - "Robotech," MovieLink -
MPEG-4, SunnComm - Windows Media, PlayStation 2 - Memory card shortage,
College webcasters - proposed reporting rules
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> DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE PANEL DISCUSSION SERIES:
"iTV: New Interactive Services Fuel Big Expectations
Slow Market Penetration Raises Questions: How Big is iTV Going to Be?"

Register by clicking on the links below to join leading executives and
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o Napster Lays Off Another 30 Employees

Redwood City, Calif. -- Just one month after laying off 10 percent of its
staff amidst an ongoing legal battle with the major record labels,
file-sharing service Napster announced on Thursday that it has laid off
another 30 employees, or about 30 percent of its remaining staff. "We
remain committed to launching our new secure membership-based service, but
we're faced with the hard decision to further streamline our operations.
As a result, we have laid off 30 employees," said Napster CEO Konrad
Hilbers. "We have full confidence that our remaining team can provide the
strategic know-how and technical guidance to effectively prepare for the
launch of the new service." Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middlehoff told a
German newspaper last week that he is prepared to purchase Napster for
between $15 and $30 million, but a dispute among Napster's board members
concerning voting rights, evidenced by a Delaware lawsuit filed by company
founder John Fanning -- uncle of Napster creator Sean Fanning -- has
reportedly put the sale on hold.
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/archives_040502.html
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o RIAA Comments on Gateway's Digital Music Ad Campaign

Washington -- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on
Thursday commented on PC maker Gateway's announcement yesterday of a new
ad campaign to "support consumers' digital music rights." "The Gateway
commercial is fun, but their website is nothing but a gateway to
misinformation," said RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen, in a statement. "No one has
proposed anything that would 'prevent all digital copying.' If only they
would devote a little bit of the millions of dollars they're spending on
this ad campaign to help stop illegal downloading...but that wouldn't help
them sell more CD burners, would it?" Gateway, in its press release
announcing the campaign, specifically targeted Sen. Fritz Hollings' (D-
S.C.) recently-introduced CBDTPA bill, saying that it could take away
consumers' current ability to "convert a legally acquired CD to MP3 format
for use in a portable player, or burn a backup copy of a legally acquired
CD as a safety measure." Gateway plans to host digital music clinics and
give away free blank CDs in its retail stores.
http://www.riaa.org/PR_story.cfm?id=510
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020410/law014_1.html
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o WSJ: Garageband.com to Re-Launch Following Sale of Assets

New York -- According to a note on its website, Garageband.com, a
now-defunct site that let independent musicians post and sell their music
and receive reviews from website visitors, will re-launch within a month.
"A group of diehard Garageband employees, music lovers, and musicians have
stepped forward to purchase Garageband, to preserve and expand its core
mission: empowering and bringing together rising musicians and their
fans," reads a note on the site. Garageband founder Tom Zito told the Wall
Street Journal on Thursday that he "has signed a letter of intent to sell
the company's assets to an affluent individual who intends to reopen the
site." The site went off-line in February after failing to secure a
much-needed distribution deal for the CDs of artists discovered through
the site. The new Garageband.com site will survive with its review process
intact but will "discontinue some features for lack of money," according
to a note on the site.
http://www.garageband.com/
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o FullAudio Licenses Songs from Harry Fox Agency for Subscription Service

Chicago -- FullAudio, a provider of digital music subscription services,
announced on Thursday that it has reached a licensing agreement with the
Harry Fox Agency (HFA), which represents music publishers, to include all
songs authorized by publishers to be licensed by HFA in its soon-to-launch
music subscription service. In addition to on-demand streaming and limited
downloads, the agreement will also allow FullAudio subscribers to transfer
tracks from their PCs to portable devices. Chicago-based FullAudio has
licenses to use songs from record labels Universal, BMG, EMI and Warner,
as well as from the music publishing arms of Universal, BMG and EMI. "This
agreement with the Harry Fox Agency is particularly important to us, as it
is the final building block before we launch our service this month with
ClearChannel," said FullAudio CEO Chris Copeland Gladwin. The largest U.S.
broadcaster, Clear Channel partnered with FullAudio to create a music
subscription service for 30 radio stations it owns in markets including
Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston -- which FullAudio says will launch yet
this month.
http://www.fullaudio.com
http://www.nmpa.org/hfa.html
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o AOL Names Radio Executive to Head Interactive Unit

Dulles, Va. -- In the latest in a series of management changes, America
Online on Thursday named James de Castro, former CEO of AMFM Radio Group, as president of AOL Interactive Services, where he will run the flagship
AOL service. De Castro is credited with building AMFM, which owns 465
stations in 105 markets. His appointment comes two days after AOL Time
Warner named Barry Schuler, chairman and CEO of America Online, as the new
head of a division that will develop digital services for the company,
replacing him with Bob Pittman, president of AOL before the merger with
Time Warner.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020411/112191_1.html
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o Briefly Noted:

(Calabasas, Calif.) TDK Mediactive, a publisher of entertainment software,
announced on Thursday that it has partnered with toymaker Mattel to create
video games based on the popular children's animated TV series,
"Robotech." Calabasas-based TDK Mediactive will release "Robotech:
Battlecry" for Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube,
as well as "Robotech: The Macross Saga" for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance in
the fall of 2002. The games are currently being developed by Chapel Hill,
N.C.-based Vicious Cycle.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/221010030&ticker=tdkm|mat
http://www.tdk-mediactive.com
http://www.viciouscycleinc.com/
http://www.robotech.com

(Las Vegas) MovieLink, an Internet video-on-demand joint venture between
Hollywood movie studios, is expected to use MPEG-4 video technology to
deliver movies to Internet users when it launches later this year, CNET
reported. The announcement was made by Vivendi Universal vice president of
emerging technologies Peter Marx at this week's National Association of
Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. Although the use of MPEG-4 by
MovieLink is apparently non-exclusive, its inclusion will lend credibility
to the format, whose licensing fees have stirred controversy. MovieLink is
a joint venture between Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros. and Universal Studios.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-878552.html?tag=cd_mh
http://www.movielink.com
http://www.mpegla.com

(Phoenix, Ariz.) SunnComm, developer of the CD copy-protection technology
incorporated on a release from country singer Charley Pride and being
tested by several record labels, announced on Thursday a new service that
will allow purchasers of its copy-protected CDs to send secure, authorized
songs to friends via email. The PromoPlay feature uses Windows Media
digital rights management to allow recipients of the songs to access them
for a pre-specified number of plays or number of days, depending on the
record labels' wishes.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020411/110222_1.html
http://www.sunncomm.com

(San Francisco) Purchasers of Sony's PlayStation 2 console are finding it
difficult to locate the most common accessory -- an 8MB memory card that
saves game status and settings in longer games -- at retailers and on
Sony's website, CNET reported. The cards enable players to save their
status as they progress through levels in roleplaying games, such as
"Final Fantasy," as well as to save team and season statistics in many
sports games. CNET quoted IDC figures saying that 87.5 percent of those
who bought a PlayStation 2 also bought a memory card. "We're trying to
keep up with demand," Sony spokeswoman Molly Smith told CNET, adding that
stock can vary day-by-day for major retailers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-880116.html?tag=cd_mh
http://www.us.playstation.com/product_detail/product_detail.jhtml?_DARGS=%2
Fproduct_detail%2Fcontent_product_detail.jhtml

(Washington) The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Thursday on how
proposed fees and usage reporting that non-commercial webcasters, such as
college radio station websites, would have to submit in order to continue
webcasting their music would affect the stations. Harvard University's
WHRB-FM wrote in public comments submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office
that if new reporting rules went into effect, "we would have to cease
webcasting immediately." The new reporting rules would entail creating
listener logs to include the date and time listeners logged in and out of
the broadcast, and their identifiers.
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/04/2002041102t.htm
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fedreg/2002/67fr5761.pdf
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> DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE PANEL DISCUSSION SERIES:
"iTV: New Interactive Services Fuel Big Expectations
Slow Market Penetration Raises Questions: How Big is iTV Going to Be?"

========================================================
LOS ANGELES: Tuesday, April 16, 2002, Four Seasons Hotel, Beverly Hills
========================================================
Moderator: Ken Rutkowski, Founder and CEO, KenRadio.com
Stephen Condon, SVP and CMO, Intertainer
K.C. Hildreth, COO, GoldPocket Interactive
Steve Hoffman, CEO, Spiderdance
Mark Kapczynski, Principal, Media & Entertainment Solutions Group,
Microsoft
David Nathanson, VP of Broadband Strategy & Channel Development, Fox Cable
Networks

Sponsored by: SpyWorm.TV, LARTA
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========================================================
SAN FRANCISCO: Wednesday, April 17, 2002, City Club of San Francisco
========================================================
Moderator: Sean Badding, VP and Senior Analyst, The Carmel Group
Martijn Lopes Cardozo, VP of Product Management, GoldPocket Interactive
Mitchell Linden, Head of Operations - North America, BBC Technology
Bill Niemeyer, Founder, Centrimedia (former Director, Strategic Dev.,
Spiderdance)
Peter Schultz, Director of Business Development, PopTV Program, Liberate
Bridget Steele, Business Development Manager, Microsoft TV

For more information and to register for the San Francisco event:
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=========================================================
NEW YORK: Thursday, April 25, 2002, Cornell Club of New York City
=========================================================
Moderator: Art Cohen, SVP, Advertising, ACTV
Patrick Donoghue, VP, Interactive Television, Cablevision
Malia Flynn, Director of Product Management, WorldGate
Christopher S. Lucas, VP & Exec. Producer, Digital Media Group, Showtime
Networks
Rod A. Nenner, Director, TV & Entertainment Solutions Group, America
Online
Carla Sinatra, Vice President of Business Development, NBC
Todd Krieger, Senior Manager, Business Development, Microsoft TV

Sponsored by: WorldGate, iTV Marketer (http://www.itvmarketer.com)
For more information and to register for the New York event:
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Sponsorships and Inquiries:
Ned Sherman at 323.464.0793 or esherman@digitalmediawire.com
Paul Sherman at psherman@digitalmediawire.com

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