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DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- October 27, 2000
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To Subscribe For Free: http://www.digitalmediawire.com

o Federal Law To Prohibit Hacks Of Copyrights On Web
o Inside.com: iFUSE Tells Employees Tuesday Was Last Payday
o Gannett To Take Stake In Space.com
o Facing Losses, Sega Will Make Games For Rival Companies
o Spice Girls' Album Available On Napster Before Official Release
o Custom CD Maker Digital Swift Closes Second Round
o Research Consortium Internet2 To Host Multi-Location Live Concert
o Briefly Noted: RESFEST, Playstation 2 Games, SCIFI.com - Stan Lee Media,
StreamSearch - DreamWorks Records Nashville, Shockwave.com - Stan Lee
Media
_____________________________________________

o Federal Law To Prohibit Hacks Of Copyrights On Web

Washington -- The U.S. Copyright Office has approved a federal law that
would make it illegal for users to hack through security measures of
copyrighted material, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Under
the law, anyone who circumvents security measures put in place by
copyright holders, such as the RIAA and MPAA, for music and film on the
Web may be prosecuted. The Copyright Office allowed only two minor
exemptions to the law, which will go into effect October 28. The
exemptions will allow for the hacking of children's web-filtering
software, so users may discuss which sites are being filtered out to
protect children, and for hacking the security measures of software that
is malfunctioning on one's own computer. Entertainment companies argued
that they needed protection for their copyrights from hackers, while
opponents such as libraries and universities argued that the law could
limit their access to books, film and music for users. They envisioned
their users facing such hurdles as having to pay each time they read a
digital book in a library.
_____________________________________________

o Inside.com: iFUSE Tells Employees Tuesday Was Last Payday

New York -- In yet another example of the current downturn of the Internet
entertainment sector, Inside.com reported on Friday that LA-based teen
entertainment site iFUSE told its 45 employees that Tuesday was the last
day they would be paid. An employee for the site told Inside that the
company was in talks with several parties who were interested in
purchasing the company, but that it could no longer afford to pay its
employees. iFUSE recently acquired College Broadcast, a cable channel that
broadcasts into college dorm rooms.
http://www.inside.com/story/Inside_Dope.html?art_id=0&podID=12
http://www.ifuse.com
_____________________________________________

o Gannett To Take Stake In Space.com

New York -- Gannett Co., the county's largest newspaper publisher, has
announced that it will make an equity investment in the space-related web
site Space.com. In exchange, Space.com will acquire Gannett-owned weekly
newspaper Space News and its accompanying spacenews.com, as well as the
space news section of the Florida Today web site. Terms of the deal were
not disclosed. New York-based Space.com, which covers NASA projects and
developments in astronomy, was founded by former CNN business anchor Lou
Dobbs.
http://www.gannett.com/go/press/pr102600.htm
http://www.space.com
_____________________________________________

o Facing Losses, Sega Will Make Games For Rival Companies

Tokyo -- Facing losses due to cutting the price of its Dreamcast console,
Sega Enterprises said that it will begin to develop and manufacture games
for competing game consoles, CNET reported on Friday. Sega did not specify
whether or not it would develop games for Dreamcast rival Sony Playstation
2, which was released yesterday in the U.S. The company said the move is
part of an effort to focus more on developing software and less on
manufacturing hardware. "It's a new step, but it's in line with our
strategy to reinforce our content business," a Sega spokesman said in the
article. "Like other game console makers, we need to make changes to
respond to the maturing game hardware market." In August, Sega cut the
price of its Dreamcast from $199 to $149, to entice customers to buy the
consoles before the launch of Sony's Playstation 2.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-3310035.html
http://www.sega.com
_____________________________________________

o Spice Girls' Album Available On Napster Before Official Release

London -- All 11 tracks from The Spice Girls' new album "Forever" are
already available on Napster, a week before its scheduled release date of
November 6, British music weekly NME.com reported on Friday. A Virgin
Records employee purportedly made a mistake by uploading all of the tracks
to the file-swapping service, having only intended to upload a couple of
tracks as a promotional gimmick.
http://www.nme.com/NME/External/News/News_Story/0,1004,7644,00.html
_____________________________________________

o Custom CD Maker Digital Swift Closes Second Round

Conyers, Ga. -- Digital Swift, the parent company of online custom CD
maker SwiftCD.com, announced on Friday that it has closed its second round
of venture capital financing. The investment came from Universal
Investment & Manufacturing Company of Atlanta. The amount of the
investment was not disclosed. Georgia-based Digital Swift provides
business-to-business custom CD creation services for record labels,
software authors and advertisers. The company said it will use the funding
to expand its Atlanta office.
http://www.digitalswift.com
_____________________________________________

o Research Consortium Internet2 To Host Multi-Location Live Concert

Atlanta -- Internet2, a consortium of 180 universities conducting network
research for future Internet network technology, announced on Friday that
it will host a multi-location live Halloween concert to showcase its
latest developments. The October 30 concert will feature live video
broadcasts of musicians in several different cities playing together over
an accelerated Internet network. These musicians will join another group
performing live at the Rialto Theater in Atlanta, with large video
monitors of the performers in other cities allowing them to hear and
interact with one another. The network technology enabling the event will
not travel over the public Internet, but rather over an advanced network
being developed by Internet2. The combined orchestra will play
Halloween-themed classical music, including Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald
Mountain."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001027/ga_interne.html
http://www.internet2.edu/html/fall00rialto.html
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(Los Angeles) RESFEST, a touring digital film festival and workshop, will
be in Los Angeles on November 1-5. The 2000 festival features screenings
of 85 shorts, features, music videos and interactive works, as well as
panel discussions and workshops for digital filmmakers.
http://www.resfest.com

(Reston, Va.) PC Data, a provider of computer and electronics sales
figures, reported on Friday that despite the shortage of Sony Playstation
2 game consoles, games playable on the console still accounted for 11
percent of sales for the week. "It's a definite measure of the hysteria
around PS2 that people that are willing to buy software with no guarantee
that they'll have hardware to play it," said Matt Gravett, game analyst
for PC Data. Overall, games for Sony consoles, including the original
Playstation, accounted for 65 percent of sales -- with Nintendo 64
following with 20 percent.
http://www.pcdata.com

(New York) SCIFI.com, the entertainment site for the USA Networks cable
channel, announced on Friday a partnership with animation company Stan Lee
Media. Under the deal, Stan Lee Media will exclusively premiere 12
episodes of its upcoming series, "The Drifter," on SCIFI.com. The series
features a post-apocalyptic world in 2074 where computers have melted
down, and the hero goes back in time to 2000 to prevent the catastrophe
from occurring.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001026/ny_usa_int.html
http://www.scifi.com
http://www.stanlee.net

(New York) StreamSearch, an aggregator and distributor of digital media,
announced on Friday that it has partnered with DreamWorks Records
Nashville to promote the upcoming release of an album by country singer
Lisa Angelle. New York-based StreamSearch said that DreamWorks Nashville
will provide a full album stream to StreamSearch's affiliate network of
entertainment sites October 27 through November 20. The album will be
released in stores on October 31.
http://www.streamsearch.com
http://www.dreamworksrecords.com

(Los Angeles) Animation company Stan Lee Media announced on Friday that it
has renegotiated its distribution agreement with entertainment site
Shockwave.com. The new agreement states that Stan Lee Media content no
longer needs to be available exclusively on Shockwave.com. "Now that we
have become a more established landmark in the entertainment industry, we
wanted to have more flexibility in our distribution deals," said Stan Lee
Media CEO Kenneth S. Williams.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001027/ca_stan_le.html
http://www.stanlee.net
http://www.shockwave.com
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