archives

o Five Movie Studios Partner for Video-on-Demand Venture
o AOL Time Warner Launches Interactive Video Division
o Wireless Video Developer Hantro Raises $3.2 Million
o Production Software Provider Creative Planet Lays Off 25% of Staff
o Digital Rights Management Firm InterTrust Acquires Zero Gravity
> Pepper Hamilton Legal Update
> DMW Panel Discussion: Microsoft vs. AOL | August 30 | D.C.
> DMW Panel Discussion: iTV | Sept. 5 | New York
o Briefly Noted: GodGames, GetMusic, Video Networks - Premier League
football, Riot Entertainment - "Bridget Jones's Diary," Friskit, 3Q -
Haptek, Tonos, Digital World Services
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> Job Postings: Client Service Rep., Jr. Web Designer, Editor at Large

> Events/Services: "SHORTSPAN Film & Video Festival: SF BAY AREA Tour,
August 17th-20th," "Free Web Demonstration"

Full Job/Event/Services descriptions listed below "Briefly Noted" section
or at http://www.digitalmediawire.com/postings.html

To Post a Job: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/jobs.html
To Post an Event/Service: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html
_____________________________________________

o Five Movie Studios Partner for Video-on-Demand Venture

Hollywood -- Five major movie studios -- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and
Warner Bros. -- announced on Thursday that they have formed a joint
venture to distribute movies on the Internet. The open access service will
deliver recently-released as well as older movies to PCs, and to TVs
connected to PCs using an S-video or other connection. Additional devices
for distribution to be rolled out after launch. Each content provider will
independently determine its own release windows and pricing strategies for
the service; other major and independent studios will also be able to
license content to the service. Two major studios -- Disney and 20th
Century Fox -- have not yet announced plans to join the venture. The
service will use "an appropriate level of copyright protection… with the
latest digital rights management software incorporated and updated over
time." The five participating studios did not provide either a name for
the new service or a proposed launch date.
http://www.prnmedia.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=107&STORY=/www/story/
08-16-2001/0001556467&EDATE=
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o AOL Time Warner Launches Interactive Video Division

New York -- AOL Time Warner announced on Thursday the creation of a new
interactive video division, which the company said will accelerate the
growth of consumer services such as video-on-demand, subscription
video-on-demand and cable IP telephony. The new division will work closely
with Time Warner Cable and America Online to accelerate the delivery of
these services over Time Warner Cable's systems as well as other broadband
systems. Joseph J. Collins, who is currently chairman and CEO of Time
Warner Cable, will become chairman of the interactive video unit,
reporting to AOL Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin. Collins will oversee the
company's roll-out of multiple ISP's on its cable systems -- as mandated
by the FTC as a condition of its approval of the AOL - Time Warner merger
-- as well as an enhanced version of AOL TV and subscription
video-on-demand services for cable channel HBO.
http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/press_view.cfm?release_num=55252122
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o Wireless Video Developer Hantro Raises $3.2 Million

Oulu, Finland -- Hantro Products, a developer of wireless video
technology, has raised $3.2 million from Nexit Ventures, 2M Invest and
Menire in the first closing of its second round of venture capital
financing. The round is scheduled to close on October 31. Finland-based
Hantro Products develops MPEG-4 based encoding technology for wireless
video that enables 15 frames per second video to be transmitted in high
quality with low power consumption.
http://cws.huginonline.com/M/3108/PR/200108/830591_5.html
http://www.hantro.com
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o Production Software Provider Creative Planet Lays Off 25% of Staff

Los Angeles -- Creative Planet, a provider of software and digital
services for film and television producers, has laid off 25 employees, or
about a quarter of its staff, Webnoize reported Thursday. The company said
the layoffs are aimed at helping it to become profitable more quickly. Los
Angeles-based Creative Planet laid off 70 employees in March, and
announced another round of layoffs at the same time that it closed a $30
million financing round in December 2000.
http://news.webnoize.com
http://www.creativeplanet.com
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o Digital Rights Management Firm InterTrust Acquires Zero Gravity

Santa Clara, Calif. -- InterTrust, a provider of digital rights management
technologies, announced on Thursday that it has acquired Zero Gravity
Technologies, a developer of email-based rights management. InterTrust
paid $500,000 cash and 500,000 shares of its stock to acquire all shares
of Zero Gravity that it did not already own. In addition to technology,
InterTrust will also take on six of Zero Gravity's employees. Santa
Clara-based InterTrust will integrate Zero Gravity's Z-Mail into its
digital rights management packages. The technology ensures that only
intended recipients can open email messages and attached files, provides
detailed audit trails, manages expiration date policies and allows senders
to restrict the recipient's ability to print and forward the messages. The
product will initially be targeted at the financial services, legal and
biotech industries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010815/sfw074.html
http://www.intertrust.com
http://www.zerogravitytech.com
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|||||||||||||||||| Pepper Hamilton Legal Update ||||||||||||||||||

> Digital Dustin: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go (In the Ninth Circuit)

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Dustin
Hoffman could not obtain a damage award against a magazine that published
a digitally altered photograph of him. Hoffman v. Capital Cities/ABC,
Inc., 59 USPQ2d 1363 (2001). In fact, the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower
court determination that awarded Hoffman three million dollars for the
digital transgression. The Hoffman case involved a magazine's use of
digital technology to clothe Hoffman's famous cross-dressing "Tootsie"
character in a new dress designed by Richard Tyler and high-heeled shoes
designed by Ralph Lauren. The modified depiction was placed in a
collection of sixteen other celebrity images, e.g., Cary Grant, Elvis
Presley, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which had been digitally
manipulated to place them in contemporary fashion clothing.

Was this use of Hoffman as an involuntary "runway model" simply a playful
form of free speech? Or was the magazine engaging in cynical,
straightforward commercial exploitation of Hoffman's image? The Ninth
Circuit held that the use was non-commercial speech protected by the First
Amendment. The decision in Hoffman has been characterized as a severe blow
to the many actors and celebrities who have aspirations of controlling
more fully the exploitation of their unique "personas." However, despite
the controversy occasioned by issuance of the Ninth Circuit's Hoffman
opinion, the Court did not create a general license to appropriate and
manipulate celebrity images and attributes. As explained by Gary Rinkerman
in a recent article on the Hoffman case, the right of publicity and
licensing considerations, the Hoffman opinion should not precipitate an
unbridled rush by e-publishers, print publishers, website operators, ad
agencies, and other providers of content to make their own unauthorized
uses of celebrity images.

http://www.pepperlaw.com/pepper/show_article.cfm?RID=218.0

Look for this regular legal update, written and produced by the law firm
of Pepper Hamilton, every other week in Digital Media Wire.
_____________________________________________

> Digital Media Wire Presents a Panel Discussion:
"Microsoft vs. AOL: The Battle of the Internet Titans"

McLean, VA | Thursday, August 30th at The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner

This panel of journalists, policymakers and others will discuss the
increasing rivalry between these two monolithic companies -- and how their
competition will affect the development of the Internet for years to come.
For more information and to register:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/DCbattle.html

MODERATOR:
Paul Sherman - Editor | Potomac Tech Wire

SPEAKERS:
Declan McCullagh - Washington Bureau Chief | Wired News
Edmund Sanders - Staff Writer | Los Angeles Times
***Additional Panelists TBA***

MEDIA SPONSOR: Potomac Tech Wire

For more information and to register:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/DCbattle.html
_____________________________________________

> Digital Media Wire & iLounge Present a Panel Discussion:
"iTV: Defining the New Face of Television"

NYC | Wednesday, September 5th at the Verizon Headquarters

This panel of players ranging from content providers to middleware
developers will discuss the new face of television, which will include an
amalgam of services like email, IPGs (interactive program guides), PVRs
(personal video recorders), enhanced TV, etc., and what it means for
Hollywood, the tech industry and most importantly, the consumer.
For more information and to register:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/NYCitv.html

MODERATOR:
Lydia Loizides - Senior Analyst | Jupiter Media Metrix

SPEAKERS:
Sean Bratches - EVP, Affiliate Sales & Marketing | ESPN
Tim Larcombe - Regional President iTV, North America | AGENCY.com
David Nathanson - VP, Broadband Strategy & Channel Development | FOX
***Additional Panelists TBA***

SPONSOR: Verizon

For more information and to register:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/NYCitv.html
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(Dallas) GodGames, an independent video game publisher that created the
current top-selling first person shooter game "Max Payne," has closed its
operations in Texas and will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of New
York-based Take 2 Interactive. The company's CEO and most of its staff
have moved on to launch SubstanceTV, an interactive DVD-based
videomagazine that will explore contemporary culture. GodGames was
originally created by a group of developers who wanted to produce and
market their own games, but the costs associated with the process combined
with a number of flops forced the company to sell out. "Many of our
developers weren't financially independent," GodGames co-founder Mike
Wilson told Wired News. "So when they needed another year [to finish a
game], they also needed another million dollars."
http://www.godgames.com/main.php?section=news#entry1865
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46063,00.html

(New York) GetMusic, an online music entertainment site operated by
Vivendi's Universal Music Group, has developed a recordable karaoke
program that lets users record their own vocal renditions of pre-recorded
songs and then share them with other users. New York-based Oddcast
developed the karaoke program, which was launched with 93 songs provided
by karaoke company SoundChoice. Users sing into a PC microphone to lyrics
and music streamed to them through GetMusic. The finished product can then
be uploaded to GetMusic, and users can share the link to their karaoke
rendition with friends and other GetMusic users.
http://www.prnmedia.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=107&STORY=/www/story/
08-15-2001/0001555608&EDATE=
http://karaoke.getmusic.com/start.php
http://www.oddcast.com
http://www.soundchoice.com

(London) Video Networks, a provider of interactive TV programming, said
that it has licensed the video-on-demand rights for the next three Premier
League football seasons. The popular English soccer matches will be
available to London-based Video Networks' HomeChoice subscribers on BT's
broadband network shortly after they are played in their entirety, at a
cost of just under $9 per month. Matches played during the week will be
available at midnight on the day they are played, and games played Sunday
will be available on Monday at 10 p.m. The deal also includes access to
indexed video archives of the league's last nine seasons.
http://www.videonetworks.com/article29.html
http://www.homechoice.co.uk/revolution/tv_premierleague.html

(London) Mobile entertainment developer Riot Entertainment said on
Thursday that it will offer daily diary entries to cell phone users in
Asia as part of a marketing campaign for the film "Bridget Jones's Diary"
in the region. The company partnered with wireless operators NTT DoCoMo
and J-Phone in Japan, Telstra in Australia and Globe in the Philippines on
the promotion. The book that the film is based on has sold six million
copies and has been translated into 25 languages and published in 33
countries.
http://www.riot-e.com/press/bjinasia.html

(San Francisco) Friskit, which provides a search engine of available
streaming audio and video music on the Internet, announced on Thursday
that its technology is now available for licensing. Companies can use San
Francisco-based Friskit's technology to create their own branded streaming
media search engines, as well as the company's metadata on the millions of
streaming files housed at various websites in its index.
http://www.friskit.com

(Los Angeles) 3D game developer 3Q announced that it has partnered with
Haptek, a developer of software that can be used to imitate facial
expressions and emotions, to create software that will let game players
insert their faces onto the characters in video games. Atlanta-based 3Q
has designed software that is currently used in video games such as Id
Software's "Quake III Arena;" the company said the addition of Santa
Cruz-based Haptek's technology will make characters more lifelike.
http://www.3q.com/qnewsitem.asp?ID=102
http://www.haptek.com

(Culver City, Calif.) Tonos Entertainment, a provider of tools and
resources for songwriters and the recording industry, announced on
Thursday that it has released a Mac version of its software that lets
musicians record and collaborate with one another online. The TC8 program
offers an eight-track digital recorder that musicians can manipulate
online with studio effects such as reverb and distortion.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/212280133&ticker=
http://www.tonos.com

(Cologne, Germany) Bertelsmann subsidiary Digital World Services, a
provider of digital music distribution services, has introduced new
promotional products and subscription service offerings for record labels
and other content owners. The promotional products offering is a CD that
when placed in a CD-ROM drive connects to a website where downloads are
stored. With the correct provided key, users can download promotional
tracks under certain conditions. The subscription service can offer
pre-defined playlists that allow for updating frequency, a consumer-driven
model that enables the consumer to fill a limited number of "active slots"
for a certain time period as well as broader genre-based subscription
models. Both services use InterTrust's digital rights management scheme.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/212282104&ticker=
http://www.dwsco.com/solutions/index_solutions.html

===================================================
Job Postings:
===================================================
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

===================================================
Events/Services Postings:
===================================================
To Post Events/Services: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html

> SHORTSPAN Film & Video Festival, SF Bay Area Tour, August 17th- 20th

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 from Tokyo: a flying,
spinach-eating, ultra-modern woman in "Lady-GO!", the mixed up antics of a
cartoon character gone sinister in "Butchu-Kan" and 57 more shorts! The
tour will travel to 30 North American cities. SF Bay Area tour dates
include:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA: The Castro Theatre - August 17th -8PM & 10PM
SAN RAFAEL, CA: The Rafael Film Center -August 18th - 7PM and 9:15PM
OAKLAND, CA: The Parkway Theatre - August 19th - 9PM
BERKELEY, CA: The Jupiter Outdoor Cinema - August 20th - 9PM

More info: http://www.dreamspan.com/shortspan
______________________

> 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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