archives

o Labels, Music Publishers Ask for Summary Judgment Against Napster
o Napster Appeals Judge Patel's "100% Effective Filters" Ruling
o Salon.com Raises $2.5 Million, Lays Off 14 Employees
o Music Site Listen.com Lays Off 32% of Staff
o Wireless Streaming Developer Celltick Raises $10 Million in Second Round
o Asset Management Software Firm Agari Mediaware Raises $5 Million
o Tickets.com Gets to Stay on Nasdaq
o Streaming Services Provider EdgeStream Raises $1 Million in First Round
o Briefly Noted: Clear Channel - Encite Commerce, U.S. 'Net usage, Midbar
Tech, Joe Montana - online porn, CountingDown.com, Premium Wireless
Services - AirMedia, Music City, Print vs. Web comics
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o Labels, Music Publishers Ask for Summary Judgment Against Napster

San Francisco -- Major record labels represented by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) and music publishers this week asked U.S.
District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to declare Napster guilty of
enabling copyright infringement in a summary judgment, which if granted,
would avoid a trial entirely. The record labels and publishers have asked
for a hearing with Judge Patel on October 1 to discuss the matter. A
summary judgment against Napster would move the case to the damages phase,
where penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement could be assessed
against the file-sharing service. Meanwhile, the company is working to
roll-out its new subscription service, which new CEO Konrad Hilbers
recently stated in the German press would cost consumers about $5 per
month. The company has also appealed Patel's ruling that ordered its
filters be "100 percent effective" before the service can come back
online.
http://www.riaa.com/pdf/PlaintiffsSJM.pdf
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o Napster Appeals Judge Patel's "100% Effective Filters" Ruling

Redwood City, Calif. -- Napster has filed an appeal of U.S. District Court
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel's July 11 ruling that the company must keep its
file-sharing service offline until its filtering of copyrighted songs is
"100 percent effective." A temporary stay of the order has already been
granted by the Court of Appeals, which would have allowed Napster to go
back online. But Napster's file-sharing service has been offline since
July 2, when the company voluntarily disabled it while it fixed "technical
problems" associated with its file-filtering technology. In its 96-page
brief, Napster says that the lower court has too vaguely defined the
standards for "policing" its service for unauthorized copyrighted works,
which the Court of Appeals said in its ruling is "not an exact science."
Napster reiterated that a substantial amount of non-infringing songs have
been blocked by over-zealous filtering. It also said that the
court-appointed technical expert, Dr. A.J. Nichols, has been granted too
much authority over Napster's operations. "By July 11, Napster found its
core file-sharing business in receivership, with Dr. Nichols at the helm,"
Napster attorneys wrote in the brief.
http://dl.napster.com/010808-summary.pdf
http://dl.napster.com/010808-brief.pdf
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6820135.html?tag=cd_pr
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o Salon.com Raises $2.5 Million, Lays Off 14 Employees

San Francisco -- Salon Media Group, which operates online magazine
Salon.com, announced on Thursday that it has raised $2.5 million in the
first phase of a new financing round. Bill Hambrecht, CEO of WR Hambrecht
and Co., led the investment round; WR Hambrecht and Co., Adobe Systems'
chairman John Warnock, McKay Investment Group, Alacrity Ventures and
Constellation Ventures also participated. San Francisco-based Salon also
said that it has laid off 14 employees in an attempt to cut costs, in
addition to turning its previously free "Table Talk" discussion board into
a paid service. "This new financing helps ensure that Salon will survive
this current Internet shakeout and achieve its goal of becoming
profitable," said Michael O'Donnell, Salon's president and CEO. However,
the company will likely soon face the prospect of being delisted from the
Nasdaq; its stock has traded below the $1 minimum since January.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010809/sfth074.html
http://www.salon.com
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o Music Site Listen.com Lays Off 32% of Staff

San Francisco -- Listen.com, a provider of Web radio, music videos and
songs downloads to consumers and businesses, has laid off 32 percent of
its staff, or 30 employees, Webnoize reported. The company said the
layoffs are part of its intention to focus solely on developing a
streaming music subscription service, which it plans to launch in the
fall. San Francisco-based Listen.com laid off 35 employees in April.
http://news.webnoize.com/daily.rs?y=2001&m=08&d=08
http://www.listen.com
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o Wireless Streaming Developer Celltick Raises $10 Million in Second Round

Herzliya, Israel -- Celltick, a developer of streaming technology for
wireless mobile networks, announced that it has raised $10 million in its
second round of venture capital financing. Elwin Capital Partners led the
investment round; Jerusalem Venture Partners also participated.
Israel-based Celltick's platform delivers streaming media to cell phones
and handhelds using the GSM network standard. The company is currently
developing its technology for GPRS and 3G networks as well. Celltick will
use the funds for sales and marketing initiatives.
http://www.celltick.com
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o Asset Management Software Firm Agari Mediaware Raises $5 Million

McLean, Va. -- Agari Mediaware, a provider of software that businesses can
use to organize and aggregate the distribution of their digital media
assets, announced on Thursday that it has received a $5 million investment
from Safeguard Scientifics. Virginia-based Agari Mediaware's software lets
businesses more easily transmit video, audio, images, text and Web content
to multiple vendors. The company will use the funds for marketing, sales
and product development.
http://www.agarimediaware.com/news/press-8-09-01.html
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o Tickets.com Gets to Stay on Nasdaq

Costa Mesa, Calif. -- Online events ticket seller Tickets.com said on
Thursday that it has been informed by the Nasdaq National Market that
steps it has taken will allow for its continued listing on the exchange.
Costa Mesa-based Tickets.com closed a $17 million financing round and
executed a one-for-eight stock split that boosted its stock price above
the Nasdaq's $1 minimum. Tickets.com closed the day Thursday at $3.03 on
the Nasdaq.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010809/lath025.html
http://www.tickets.com
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o Streaming Services Provider EdgeStream Raises $1 Million in First Round

Laguna Hills, Calif. -- EdgeStream, a provider of streaming media services
to businesses, has raised $1 million in its first round of financing from
individual investors. Laguna Hills-based EdgeStream is currently
developing a product to be released in January that it says can deliver
high bit rate streams during times of high Internet congestion. The
company will market its product to ISPs, news services, online advertisers
and the film industry for services like digital dailies. The funds will be
used for product development.
http://www.edgestream.com
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o Briefly Noted:

(San Antonio, Texas) Radio conglomerate Clear Channel said on Thursday
that it has hired Kentucky-based Encite Commerce to develop, host and
manage branded music stores for its network of radio websites. Encite will
create sites that will sell CDs, vinyl and cassettes for Clear Channel's
1400 radio stations. Clear Channel did not say whether paid digital
downloads or streaming music would be features on the websites.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010809/dath020.html
http://www.encitecommerce.com/
http://www.clearchannel.com/radio

(Reston, Va.) Usage of the Internet in the U.S. dropped to its lowest
level since March, but entertainment sites were the most visited during
July, according to figures released Thursday by Virginia-based comScore
and Diameter, a division of ad firm DoubleClick. The top entertainment
sites, according to the report, were Real.com, Flowgo.com, Napster.com and
WindowsMedia.com.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010809/2285.html

(Tel Aviv, Israel) Midbar Tech, a provider of CD copy-protection
technology, said that it has employed its technology on over one million
CDs released in the European market. Israel-based Midbar maintains that
its CDs play on all types of machines without making any change to the
quality of the recording or the abilities of the playback machinery
itself. The company plans to enter the U.S. market to compete with
SunnComm and Macrovision, two companies whose technologies are being
market tested by major labels.
http://www.midbartech.com/pr/08082001.html

(Los Angeles) Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana has sued
a high school student in Burbank, California for selling pornography from
a site called JoeMontanaFanClub.com, Bloomberg News reported. The teen
says he doesn't even know who Joe Montana is, and only bought the $10
domain name because it came with links to sex sites already in place.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la000064616aug09.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology

(Glendale, Calif.) CountingDown.com, the film site that now houses some of
the content originally intended for the never-launched Pop.com, announced
on Thursday a new Web variety show hosted by director Ron Howard's
brother, Clint Howard. Guests on "The Clint Howard Variety Show" will
initially include Henry Winkler, Andy Dick and musician Johnny Ramone.
Glendale-based CountingDown.com also offers short films from USC students
and on-location live images from Spielberg movie shoots.
http://www.countingdown.com

(Santa Monica, Calif.) Premium Wireless Services, a provider of music
ringtones and graphics to cell phone customers, announced on Thursday that
it has partnered with wireless marketing firm AirMedia to provide combined
marketing and content offerings to businesses. AirMedia will offer its
clients -- including U.K.-based Capital Radio, Rivals.net and Tiny
Computers -- branded logos and musical ringtones that users can download
to their cell phones.
http://www.pws.ws
http://www.airmedia.com

(San Francisco) CNET on Thursday offered a video interview with Steve
Griffin, chairman of file-sharing service Music City, which offers the
Morpheus program. Griffin says his application now serves between 500,000
and 1 million users at any given time, allowing them to share music,
movies, images and other files. He says that Morpheus does not face the
same legal problems as Napster because "consumers choose what they want to
put in their shared folder," unlike Napster, which provided a central
directory of files. Morpheus serves ads on top of its file-sharing
software to make money, and plans to integrate the service with
Gnutella-based networks in its next version.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6817555.html#
http://www.musiccity.com

(San Francisco) Salon.com featured an article on Thursday that explores
the wrangling between traditional comic book creators who publish on paper
and the advent of webcomics that look to the Internet for distribution.
The debate focuses on a work written by 'Net-friendly comics critic Scott
McCloud called "Reinventing Comics." Taking the side of the print comics
business are Gary Groth, co-owner of comic book publisher Fantagraphics,
60's comics pioneer Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman, author of the
Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel "Maus."
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/09/comics/index.html

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Job Postings:
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To Post Jobs: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/jobs.html

> Verance, Client Service Rep. (Western Region) - Los Angeles
Responsible for the day-to-day servicing of the advertiser/agency client
base, which includes training clients in all aspects of utilizing the
various Media Information Group systems and product offerings, encoding
content, utilizing the website for registering content, producing and
understanding reports and utilizing these reports to further their
respective business. Minimum 3 years advertising industry-related
experience.
Send resumes to: jobs@verance.com
http://www.verance.com
______________________

> Maxim Online, Jr. Web Designer - New York City

Must have experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML, Fireworks, and
understand multiple browser and platform issues. Responsibilities include:
designing marketing contests and advertorial projects; designing party
pages to promote magazine events; designing banners to promote marketing
and editorial projects; and maintaining subscription pages throughout the
Maxim website.
Send resumes & URLs to: maximonlinejobs@hotmail.com
http://www.maximonline.com
______________________

> CNET Networks, Editor at Large - San Francisco

This newsroom leader is expected to write an average of 1-3 stories per
day if needed, and on a more analytical & exclusive basis than the average
reporter's assignment. Other duties include proposing and writing Special
Reports, news analyses, features and investigative stories. This position
also plays a key role at budget meetings, performs editing functions as
needed and serves as a mentor for less experienced reporters.
Send resumes to: careers@cnet.com and seanl@cnet.com
http://www.cnet.com
______________________

> Mapcom Systems, Senior Sales Director - Richmond, VA

Small and growing software company seeks Senior Sales Director with
telecom background to develop and maintain overall sales plan. Position
requires 7+ yrs. sales exp., extensive knowledge of telecom industry
products and services, as well as exceptional communication, phone and
presentation skills. Knowledge of facilities management, GIS mapping,
client billing, work order management or customer relationship software
products desired. Bachelor's degree required, advanced degree preferred.
EOE.
Send resume, letter and salary history to jobs@mapcom.com
http://www.mapcom.com

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> 9th Annual SHORTSPAN Film & Video Festival - Pacific Northwest Tour: Aug. 3-13

SHORT MOVIES! Dreamspan presents the 9TH Annual Short Attention Span Film & Video Festival. Shortspan is a non-stop two hour program of ALL NEW
two-minute-or-shorter films, including Michael Moore's "Testify," Canadian
David Weir's collaboration with Douglas Coupland, "Night Shift"-- and 57
more shorts! The tour kicks off in the Pacific Northwest and will travel
to 30 North American cities! Pac NW tour dates are:

VANCOUVER, B.C.: The Blinding Light Cinema - August 3rd and 4th - 8:30PM
SEATTLE, WA: 911 Media Arts Center - August 9th and 10th - 8PM
PORTLAND, OR: Northwest Film Center - August 12th and 13th - 7:30PM
http://www.dreamspan.com/shortspan
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> Free Web Demonstration: Learn How A Federal Agency Saved $36 Million

Leading organizations are saving millions by more effectively managing
their company's diversified operations and scarce resources. With Pacific
Edge Software's project portfolio management solution, you'll get a clear
snapshot of your business, enabling you to balance strategic and tactical
requirements, so you can make informed business decisions. For more
information on how you can better manage your business, please visit
http://www.pacificedge.com/campaigns/digitalmedia
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