archives

o MightyWords.com Cutting Some Authors' Profits, Dropping Others Entirely
o B2B Digital Media Services Provider Amplified Acquires OneBigCD.com
o Developers Of DivX ;-) To Compete With Microsoft For Web Video
o IArtisan May Invest In Entertainment Site ICast
o Urban Box Office Delays Plans To Re-Hire Terminated Employees
o Briefly Noted: Tonight's "Nightline," Bryan Media Group,
LodgeNet - "Sex and the City"/"The Sopranos," "e-WritersConference,"
Madonna, Neil Young DVD-A
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o MightyWords.com Cutting Some Authors' Profits, Dropping Others Entirely

San Francisco -- MightyWords, an online publishing company, has informed
5,000 of its authors that their contracts will either be terminated and
their works no longer be sold by the company, or the sales profit
percentages they receive will be reduced by 50 to 70 percent, Wired News
reported on Friday. The money-saving cutbacks will eliminate nearly half
of the company's roster of authors. "Our customers have reported that the
vast majority of the titles they want to buy fall into a few main
categories, including brand-name business, technical, health and fiction
titles from well-known authors," said Judy Kirkpatrick, executive VP and
general manager of MightyWords. "So that’s what we are going to
concentrate on." Santa Clara-based MightyWords said that by guaranteeing
their authors at least 30 percent of sales profits, the authors will not
be affected by discounts given to consumers by distributors like
Amazon.com. Publisher Random House announced this week that it would split
its e-book sales profits evenly with authors.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,40086,00.html
http://www.mightywords.com
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o B2B Digital Media Services Provider Amplified Acquires OneBigCD.com

Atlanta -- Amplified, a provider of digital and physical distribution for
entertainment products, announced on Friday that it has acquired "digital
locker" provider OneBigCD.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Atlanta-based Amplified creates web sites for retailers that sell custom
CDs, DVDs and digital music downloads. The company said that the deal will
allow it to provide its clients with a custom-branded digital locker
service, created with technology from Virginia-based OneBigCD.com.
Consumers will be able to store CDs and downloads they purchase at sites
that Amplified creates for its clients in the online storage space, and
access the music from PCs, portable MP3 players, and home stereos
connected to the Internet.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001110/ny_amplifi.html
http://www.amplified.com
http://www.onebigcd.com 
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o Developers Of DivX ;-) To Compete With Microsoft For Web Video

Santa Monica -- The latest print edition of Digital Coast Reporter
magazine features an interview with the founders of Project Mayo, who
gained recognition for creating
DivX ;-). DivX ;-) is a video codec that shrinks DVD-quality video files
to a size of 500MB, small enough to stream over broadband connections. The
original software was created by altering the makeup of an early version
of Microsoft's Windows Media software. San Diego-based Project Mayo has
been secretive about its plans to develop Divx Deux, an original consumer
software program that has the potential to create similar problems for the
movie industry that MP3 and Napster created for the recording industry.
"Right now, the process of "ripping" DVDs is complicated enough where I
don't think there's much danger of widespread adoption," said Jerome Rota,
co-founder of Project Mayo. "Certainly, the "MP3-izing" of film is not a
reality today, nor will it be for perhaps the next year. After that,
unless the studios have done something to eliminate the need or the desire
for piracy, their fears could become a reality." Currently, there is no
link to the story on the Digital Coast web site.
http://www.projectmayo.com
http://www.digitalcoastdaily.com
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o IArtisan May Invest In Entertainment Site ICast

New York -- IArtisan, the investment arm of film studio Artisan
Entertainment, may be looking to invest in music and film entertainment
site iCast, The Hollywood Reporter wrote on Friday. Wired News reported
this week that CMGI, the Internet company incubator that owns a majority
stake in iCast, is seeking buyers for the company. In addition to
IArtisan, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. also showed interest in purchasing
the company, according to Inside.com. However, Murdoch denied that his
company was in discussions to acquire the company on Wednesday.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/index.asp
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39989,00.html
http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,14199_9_16_1,00.html
http://www.icast.com
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o Urban Box Office Delays Plans To Re-Hire Terminated Employees

New York -- Urban Box Office, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection and fired nearly 300 employees last week, said its plans to use
an emergency infusement of $1.8 million to re-hire 50 of the terminated
employees will be delayed, Inside.com reported on Friday. The company said
it is exploring other options, including selling the company off in
pieces. New York-based Urban Box Office's layoffs and bankruptcy filing
followed the retraction of a proposed $20 million investment from Eco
Associates. The company was soon after provided an emergency loan of $1.8
million, which it used to pay its employees. Urban Box Office provides a
network of urban-lifestyle web sites, including LatinFlava.com and
IndiePlanet.com.
http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,14416_7_4_1,00.html
http://www.urbanboxoffice.com
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o Briefly Noted:

(New York) ABCNEWS.com announced on Friday that it currently accepting
questions for a town hall meeting on Friday night's ABC News "Nightline"
program, hosted by Ted Koppel. The program will pose questions, including
those garnered off of the Internet, to constitutional and election law
experts on the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election and
the electoral process. Koppel will moderate the 90-minute forum at
Georgetown University Law School, which will air tonight at 11:35 p.m.
EST.
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/Nightline/nl001110_town_meeting_mailform.html

(Phoenix) Bryan Media Group, a developer of Internet video technology,
announced on Friday that its video-on-demand codec software will be
available to consumers in the first quarter of 2001. A "codec" allows
video files to be compressed to a smaller size, allowing them to be
delivered more quickly and with higher quality over the Internet.
Phoenix-based Bryan Media Group's CEO Steven Chanen said that the video
will deliver DVD quality with digital audio and crisp resolution at full
screen to users with 128 Kbps broadband connections.
http://www.bryanmg.com

(Sioux Falls, S.D.) LodgeNet, a provider of information and entertainment
over high-speed networks to hoteliers, announced on Friday that it will
provide on-demand episodes of HBO's "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos"
to guests who stay at hotels that provide LodgeNet's services. South
Dakota-based LodgeNet provides video games, movies-on-demand, and
high-speed Internet connections to hoteliers.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001110/mn_lodgene.html
http://www.lodgenet.com

(Santa Barbara) The first "e-WritersConference," a gathering of authors,
agents and publishers that produce e-books will be held November 16-20 at
the Santa Barbara Inn in Santa Barbara, California. The conference is
being hosted by Mystic-Ink, a community of writers with interest in
electronic publishing.
http://www.e-writersconference.com

(London) Microsoft has announced that it will provide a live webcast of
Madonna's first British concert in seven years, which will be attended by
only 3,500 invited guests. The company said that the webcast could gross a
record amount of viewers, topping the current record of 3 million set for
the webcast of Paul McCartney's concert at The Cavern in Liverpool in
1999.
http://www.msn.co.uk/madonna    

(Burbank) Reprise Records announced on Friday that its first release in
the high-quality DVD-Audio format will be Neil Young's "Road Rock Vol. 1."
The DVD-Audio release will allow the live concert recording from
Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater to be played on DVD-Audio players in
six-channel surround sound. Currently, most DVD-Audio discs are played
through DVD players on home theater systems that feature multiple speaker
setups.
http://www.repriserec.com/neilyoung
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