Top Stories
o N.Y. Post: Microsoft Planning to Launch Digital Music Player, Song Store
o Senate Republican Bill Would Increase Regulations, Penalties on Explicit Sites
o Game Developers Who Undermine Ratings to Suffer $1 Million Fine
o Game Industry Files Suit to Overturn Louisiana Video Game Law
o File-Sharing Site The Pirate Bay Back Up in Sweden Following Crackdown
o Verizon Inks Deal to Carry PBS Stations on FiOS Internet TV Service
o Industrious Kid Launches Imbee Social Networking Site for Kids 8-14
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Briefly Noted
o MSN, LivePlanet Team on Minor League Baseball Interactive Reality Series
o Nintendo Sells 136,500 DS Lite Handhelds in 2 Days in U.S.
o IDG Launches Online Reality Series Featuring Online Game Developer
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New York - Microsoft is preparing to launch its own portable digital music player and accompanying service in a bid to compete with Apple's iPod and iTunes, The New York Post reported on Friday, citing "multiple sources close to the major record labels." Microsoft has quietly developed a portable digital music device that also plays video, and has recently been displaying the technology for the labels, with whom it has also restarted licensing talks on a digital music store, the sources told The Post. "It seems like an exact head-to-head competition with Apple," one source told The Post. "It's really like an Apple approach, to control the device and the whole stack of technology. This is like Xbox versus PlayStation." Microsoft already operates MSN Music, which sells digital song downloads, and also powers the Urge music service recently launched with partner MTV.
http://tinyurl.com/zf5o3 (New York Post)
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o Senate Republican Bill Would Increase Regulations, Penalties on Explicit Sites

Washington - A new bill introduced by Senate Republicans this week would increase regulations and penalties for websites that post sexually explicit content, CNET News.com reported. The Stop Adults' Facilitation of the Exploitation of Youth Act, or Internet SAFETY Act, would triple fines on Internet service providers who fail to disclose sightings of child pornography on their networks to authorities, to $150,000 for the first offense and $300,000 for subsequent offenses. It would also bump from 5 to 15 years the prison term for commercial website operators that fail to embed government-designated labels warning users of explicit content on each page containing such content. "The increase in Internet use has given sexual predators new ways to prey on children," said bill co-sponsor Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "This bill, among other things, is intended to shut down these opportunities, and severely punish the degraded individuals who are involved in the sexual exploitation of our youth." Critics said the bill is very vaguely worded, citing issues such as what constitutes a "commercial" website; what the definition of "initially viewable" content on a site means; whether sites that sell bathing suits will run afoul of the law; and where the line is drawn with respect to artistic works and political commentary.
http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=257045
http://tinyurl.com/l7uhm (CNET)
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o Game Developers Who Undermine Ratings to Suffer $1 Million Fine

Washington - At a Congressional hearing this week on the video game industry, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), an industry self-regulatory group that determines game ratings, announced a new $1 million fine on game publishers whose games turn out to be inaccurately rated as a result of their submitting incomplete descriptions. The fine comes in the wake of an FTC investigation into sexually-explicit hidden content in the source code of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" that imposed no penalties on the game's makers. "In the event that material that would have affected the assignment of a rating or content descriptor is found to have not been previously disclosed, the ESRB is empowered to impose corrective actions and a wide range of sanctions, including points, monetary fines up to $1 million for the most egregious offenses, and even suspension of rating services," ESRB president Patricia Vance testified, at the hearing. "Corrective actions can include pulling advertising until ratings information can be corrected, stickering packaging with correct ratings information, recalling the product, and other steps the publisher must take so the consumer has accurate information."
http://www.esrb.org/about/news/downloads/pvtestimony_6_14_06.pdf
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/06142006hearing1921/hearing.htm
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17722
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o Game Industry Files Suit to Overturn Louisiana Video Game Law

Washington - A day after Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a bill that restricts the sale of violent video games to minors, the game industry's Entertainment Software Association (ESA) trade group filed a federal lawsuit in the state to have the law overturned. The Louisiana law, approved unanimously in both the state House and Senate, was drafted in part by Jack Thompson, an attorney who has sued game publishers numerous times over violent games. The law provides up to a year in prison and fines between $100 and $2,000 for retailers caught selling violent games to those under 18. "Legislators know full well that this bill is destined to meet the same fate as other failed efforts to ban video game sales," said ESA president Doug Lowenstein. "HB 1381 also directly undermines efforts legislators started after enactment of tax credit legislation less than year ago designed to lure video game development and production to Louisiana to generate needed high-paying technology jobs."
http://www.theesa.com/archives/2006/06/video_game_indu_5.php
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o File-Sharing Site The Pirate Bay Back Up in Sweden Following Crackdown

London - The Pirate Bay, a Sweden-based site that provides links to free movie and music files on the BitTorrent file-sharing network, has returned its servers to its home country following a police crackdown that temporarily forced relocation to the Netherlands, TheRegister reported. Working with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Swedish authorities in May conducted raids and seized Pirate Bay servers. The shutdown prompted hackers to attack the websites of Sweden's police and government, in addition to street protests against the actions. Pirate Bay site operators said in a blog posting that they are now looking to spread the site's servers across several locations in order to make it more difficult to shut down the service again.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/15/piratebay_back_sweden
http://thepiratebay.org/blog.php
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o Verizon Inks Deal to Carry PBS Stations on FiOS Internet TV Service

Washington - Verizon announced on Friday an agreement with the Association of Public Television Stations and PBS that will bring multiple digital public TV stations to subscribers of Verizon's FiOS TV Internet-based TV service. Under the multiyear agreement, every Verizon FiOS TV system will carry the full digital signal of up to three public television stations within the system's service area. Verizon's FiOS TV is currently available in parts of California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Texas. The fiber-optic video service, billed as an alternative to cable TV, offers more than 400 all-digital video and music channels.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060616/nyf049.html?.v=55
http://www.apts.org
http://www.pbs.org
http://www.verizon.com/fiostv
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o Industrious Kid Launches Imbee Social Networking Site for Kids 8-14

Emeryville, Calif. - Industrious Kid this week announced the launch of its Imbee social networking site, which is targeted at kids between 8 and 14-years-old. The service offers more parental controls than competitors like MySpace, giving parents the option of having control over their kids' friend invitations, e-mails and blogs. Children's profiles are also only viewable to family and approved friends. Imbee charges a subscription fee of $3.95 per month or $39.95 per year, which includes access for two children, one parent and one additional adult. The service was created using $6 million from the private investment of Industrious Kids founder Jeanetter Symons, EContentMag.com reported.
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=15701
http://tinyurl.com/s936j (CNET)
http://www.industriouskid.com
http://www.imbee.com

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2006 Digital Entertainment & Media Directory - 1,000+ Company Profiles

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o MSN, LivePlanet Team on Minor League Baseball Interactive Reality Series

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft's MSN announced on Friday that it has partnered with LivePlanet, the production company behind HBO's "Project Greenlight," on the first offering for the company's MSN Originals initiative. Los Angeles-based LivePlanet's "Fan Club: Reality Baseball" program on MSN will follow a real pro minor league ball team, and enable users to vote on decisions such as the batting lineup, fielding positions and pitching roster. "We were a bit stunned at first that a professional baseball team would allow our audience to manage it, but we quickly realized that 'Fan Club' is a fabulous programming concept which is perfect for the Web," said Joe Michaels, director of business development for MSN.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060616/sff011.html?.v=61
http://www.liveplanet.com
http://fanclub.msn.com
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o Nintendo Sells 136,500 DS Lite Handhelds in 2 Days in U.S.

Redmond, Wash. - Nintendo of America announced this week that its new $129 DS Lite handheld game device sold 136,500 units during its first two days of availability at U.S. retailers. The new version is on track to match sales of the original DS, which moved 500,000 units in its first 10 days on sale. Nintendo is also set to launch the DS Lite in Europe on June 23.
http://tinyurl.com/zgguh
http://www.nintendo.com
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o IDG Launches Online Reality Series Featuring Online Game Developer

Oakland, Calif. - IDG Entertainment, a publisher of magazines such as GamePro and Code Vault, on Friday announced the launch of an unscripted online reality series that will follow a group of volunteer game developers working to create a massively multiplayer online game more popular than Blizzard's "World of Warcraft." "Creating Kaos" will follow San Francisco-based Shattered Reality Interactive, a group of 40 volunteer developers led by CEO Damon Grow. A new 3 to 5-minute episode will be posted weekly on Fridays, with a total of 15 episodes currently in production.
http://tinyurl.com/ja8sw
http://www.idg-entertainment.com
http://www.games.net

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