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DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- October 15, 2002
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To Subscribe For Free: http://www.digitalmediawire.com
o Top Retailers Ban Acclaim's Nudity, Vulgarity-Laced "BMX XXX" Video Game
o WSJ: MusicNet, Pressplay Close to Deals to Offer All Five Majors' Songs
o BMG Becomes Fourth Major to License Songs to Pressplay Service
o Wireless Game Developer Jamdat Mobile Raises $8 Million
o Optical Discmaker DataPlay Lays Off Employees, Seeks Buyer
o Wal-Mart Launches Online DVD Rental Service, Undercuts Netflix Fees
o Handheld Maker Palm Jointly Funds New Content Publishing Firm
o CNET: MPAA Raids, Sues U.S. Site Selling Imported Pirate DVDs
o Vivendi Universal Entertainment Secures Extension of Credit Line
> Digital Media Wire Event: "iTV Visions" | NYC | Nov. 14
> Featured Event: Digital Publishing Conference, USC M-Commerce Event
o Briefly Noted: TiVo - Standard Film Trust, Atom Films - "Wallace &
Gromit," SunnComm, Advance album copies - file-sharing leaks
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> Jobs
> Events
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Full Classifieds located beneath "Briefly Noted" section below.
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o Top Retailers Ban Acclaim's Nudity, Vulgarity-Laced "BMX XXX" Video Game
Los Angeles -- Top retail store chains Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and KB Toys
have all refused to sell video game developer Acclaim Entertainment's "BMX
XXX" title, saying that nudity and vulgarity contained in the game is
inappropriate for their shelves, Reuters reported. The game lets players
perform BMX bike tricks and also features strippers, prostitutes and pimps
as characters. "We're not going to carry any software with any vulgarity
or nudity -- we're just not going to do it," Wal-Mart spokesman Tom
Williams told Reuters. Retailer Best Buy said it will sell a censored
version of the game for Sony's PlayStation 2. "I still believe that we'll
get substantially full distribution in the United States," Acclaim CEO
Gregory Fischbach told Reuters. "I don't really think it goes much further
than some other video games on the marketplace." Another title, Rockstar
Games' top-selling "Grand Theft Auto," was banned in Australia due to its
violent and sexually-themed content. "We have no intent to change the
content of the game," Fischbach added.
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=search&StoryID=1574930
http://www.acclaim.com/company/pressReleases/product/FreestyleBMXXXX.html
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o WSJ: MusicNet, Pressplay Close to Deals to Offer All Five Majors' Songs
New York -- The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that MusicNet and
Pressplay, two digital music subscription services started by joint
ventures between various major record labels, are close to negotiating
licensing agreements that will allow both services to offer songs from all
five major record labels. Today, Pressplay -- a joint venture between Sony
Music and Universal Music Group that also offers EMI songs -- announced it
licensed songs from Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment label. The Journal
cited "people with knowledge of the matter" as saying that MusicNet -- a
joint venture between AOL, RealNetworks and labels Warner, EMI and BMG --
has completed a deal with Universal and is close to a deal with Sony.
Sources also said that Pressplay is close to a deal with Warner. The new
deals will reportedly include the rights to offer sought-after features
such as permanent downloads and the ability to burn songs onto CD.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/821367.asp?0dm=C12LT
http://www.pressplay.com
http://www.musicnet.com
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o BMG Becomes Fourth Major to License Songs to Pressplay Service
Los Angeles -- Pressplay, a digital music subscription service joint
venture between Sony Music and Universal Music Group, announced on Tuesday
that it has signed a licensing agreement with BMG Entertainment to include
the major label's songs on its service. BMG marks the fourth major label
to license to Pressplay, which now offers tracks from every major label
except Warner. The agreement will add songs from artists including
Outkast, Iggy Pop, Elvis Presley, Lou Reed, Frank Sinatra, The Strokes and
Wu Tang Clan to Pressplay. The service -- one of the record industry's
attempts to counter the free music offered once by Napster and now by
services like Kazaa and LimeWire -- offers subscribers the ability to
stream songs on-demand, listen to pre-programmed stations, and download
songs to a PC or portable device, as well as burn a limited selection onto
CD.
http://www.pressplay.com/pressroom/pr_20021014.html
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o Wireless Game Developer Jamdat Mobile Raises $8 Million
Los Angeles -- Jamdat Mobile, a publisher of wireless games and provider
of wireless enabling technologies, announced on Tuesday that it has raised
$8 million in its third round of financing. Wireless developer Qualcomm
led the investment round; Apax Partners, Intel Communications Fund and Sun
Microsystems also participated. Los Angeles-based Jamdat has developed
games based on both Qualcomm's BREW platform and Sun's rival J2ME platform
for downloading games and other content to cell phones and wireless
devices. The company will use the additional capital to continue
development and distribution of its wireless entertainment applications,
technologies and services.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/222880221&ticker=
http://www.jamdatmobile.com
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o Optical Discmaker DataPlay Lays Off Employees, Seeks Buyer
Boulder, Colo. -- DataPlay, a maker of quarter-sized, recordable optical
discs on which the music industry had been planning to release
pre-recorded albums, confirmed on Tuesday that it has shut down, laid off
its previously furloughed 120 employees and is seeking a buyer. The
company raised a total of about $120 million since its inception in 1998,
but said it needed an additional $40 to $50 million to fund its next phase
of operations -- the retail launch of its product. Content providers
including record labels BMG and EMI, and e-book firm Rosetta Books had
planned to release content on the 250MB and 500MB DataPlay discs, which in
addition to music can hold video, text and images. Several manufacturers
had also planned to release DataPlay-compatible portable devices for the
holiday shopping season.
http://www.dataplay.com
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o Wal-Mart Launches Online DVD Rental Service, Undercuts Netflix Fees
Bentonville, Ark. -- Retail chain Wal-Mart announced on Tuesday the launch
of a limited test of its online DVD rental service, which it plans to
launch nationwide next year. The service will let consumers choose DVDs
from an online library of 12,000 titles, and receive them by mail,
returning them at their leisure with no late fees. Like rival Netflix's
service, the Wal-Mart service will allow up to three DVDs out at one time;
however, Wal-Mart is undercutting Netflix's $19.95 per month subscription
fee by charging $18.86 for its service. The company said only a limited
number of subscribers may participate in the test of the service.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/021015/datu027_1.html
http://www.walmart.com/dvdrentals?path=0%3A14503%3A106082%3A106112
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o Handheld Maker Palm Jointly Funds New Content Publishing Firm
Milpitas, Calif. -- Palm, a maker of handheld computers, said on Tuesday
that it has made an undisclosed investment in a new content publishing
company called Mobile Digital Media. Palm said that the new Mountain
View-based company, jointly funded by a group of private investors from
the publishing industry, will aggregate, publish and distribute software
for handhelds and mobile phones via the flash memory cards used in
millions of handhelds, smartphones, MP3 players, still and video cameras,
and printers. Barry Cottle, previously Palm's COO and head of its content
and access business unit, is CEO of the company; former Palm Chief
Marketing Officer Satjiv Chahil is chairman.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/021015/sftu095_1.html
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o CNET: MPAA Raids, Sues U.S. Site Selling Imported Pirate DVDs
San Francisco -- The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) last
week conducted a raid on EDiscountTech, a website that was allegedly
selling pirated DVDs imported from Malaysia, CNET News.com reported. The
MPAA on Friday sued EDiscountTech in a federal court in Minneapolis. "We
had no prior knowledge that these DVDs were not authentic," Jonathan
Zabrocki, operator of the site, told CNET News.com. "We've been
100-percent cooperative with the MPAA. We look forward to talking with
them about this situation, and we look forward to the apprehension of this
person who sold us these pirated DVDs." MPAA senior counsel David Corwin
told News.com it will seek to settle the matter outside of court.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961999.html?tag=cd_mh
http://www.mpaa.org
http://www.ediscounttech.com
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o Vivendi Universal Entertainment Secures Extension of Credit Line
Paris -- Vivendi Universal said on Tuesday that VUE, its entertainment
business, has secured an extension of its $1.62 billion credit line from
lenders JP Morgan Chase Bank and Bank of America. The agreement expands
the credit facility, set up in May of this year as part of Vivendi's
acquisition of the entertainment business of USA Networks, from Nov. 1 of
this year to June 30 of next year.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021015/152402_1.html
http://www.vivendi.com
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EVENT -- DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE Presents...
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==================
FEATURED SECTION
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http://www.digitalmediawire.com/featuredpostingpage.htm
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Briefly Noted:
(San Jose, Calif.) TiVo, a manufacturer of digital video recorders, said
on Tuesday it has partnered with Standard Film Trust, a Los Angeles-based
production company, to offer original short film programming to marketers
and advertisers for use in branding and promotional campaigns on the TiVo
service. Standard Film Trust has produced a range of celebrity-driven
short films featuring actors including George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston
and Marisa Tomei.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/021015/latu065a_1.html
http://www.tivo.com
(San Francisco) Atom Films, an online and off-line distributor of short
film content, announced on Tuesday the launch of "Wallace & Gromit's
Cracking Contraptions," its new series of ten short films featuring the
popular claymation duo. The first film in the Aardman Productions series,
"Soccamatic," will be available free for one week; thereafter, users will
be asked to pay a one-time fee of $9.95 to receive the rest of the series
for unlimited playback.
http://www.aardman.com
http://wallace.atomfilms.com
(Phoenix) SunnComm, a developer of CD copy-protection technologies, on
Tuesday announced the release of MediaMax CD-3, its latest copy-control
system. The product allows record labels to release CDs where the main
audio tracks are protected against copying by a PC, while also offering
Microsoft WMA audio files on the CD that may be copied for personal use --
such as burned onto CD or transferred to a portable device -- but not sent
through email or uploaded through file-sharing service networks.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021015/150170_1.html
http://www.sunncomm.com
(Los Angeles) The Los Angeles Times recently reported on the recording
industry's ongoing efforts to keep new albums from appearing on
file-sharing services before they are released in stores. Warner Bros.
Records placed a digital watermarking technology that could track a
potential leak on advance copies of artist Faith Hill's new album "Cry"
that were sent to journalists and radio stations. The album did find its
way onto file-sharing networks, and The Times reports that Warner sources
say they identified the leak as a journalist and that "legal action for
copyright violation is being considered."
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/suncal/cl-ca-p
opeye13oct13,0,2488360.story?coll=cl%2Dsuncal]
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