Main Stories
o Vivendi Universal to Acquire DreamWorks' Music Label
o Report: Wal-Mart to Launch Music Download Store by Year's End
o P2P Firm Altnet Targets Anti-Piracy Firms with Cease-and-Desist Letters
o Korean Govt. Mandates Audible "Beep" for Camera Phones to Ensure Privacy

o Briefly Noted: Apple G5 - banned U.K. TV ad, Harrah's - online gambling, Kazaa - paid movie download, Financial Times, MediaBay, Atari - "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," Konami - "Yu-Gi-Oh" - "Bloody Roar 4," TDK Mediactive - The Muppets, Verio - Artifact Entertainment, Eidos - "Legacy of Kain: Defiance," Mforma Group, "Six Degrees" patent - Friendster/LinkedIn/Tribe.net, Universities - student Internet monitoring

Paris -- French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal, which owns Universal Music Group -- currently the No. 1 record company in the world -- has agreed to buy music the record label division of DreamWorks SKG, the company owned by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Although financial terms for the deal have not been disclosed, the transaction is rumored to be valued at about $100 million. The news reflects a growing trend within the global music industry: Only last week, Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann announced plans to merge their record units, while EMI is reportedly in discussions to buy Warner Music Group for more than $1 billion.
http://www.vivendiuniversal.com/vu/en/home/index.cfm
http://www.dreamworks.com
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o Report: Wal-Mart to Launch Music Download Store by Year's End

New York -- Retail giant Wal-Mart plans to launch a digital music download store by the end of this year to compete with recent entries like Apple's iTunes, Napster and one from fellow retailer Best Buy, according to "people familiar with the matter," Bloomberg News reported. These people said the Arkansas-based retailer is negotiating with record labels for the licenses necessary to launch its own download store, which would become a part of WalMart.com. "Having an alternative makes an awful lot of sense for these retailers who are already losing sales to illegal downloading and facing competition from digital services,'' Russ Crupnick, vice president of market research firm NPD Group, told Bloomberg.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=arsZlqzCq9ic
http://www.walmart.com
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o P2P Firm Altnet Targets Anti-Piracy Firms with Cease-and-Desist Letters

San Francisco -- Altnet, the provider of a secure file-sharing service that piggybacks on the popular Kazaa network, has sent cease-and-desist letters to several anti-piracy firms it says are infringing on a patent it holds on a basic technology that identifies files on peer-to-peer networks, CNET News.com reported. While also trying to obtain licenses from other peer-to-peer software providers, Altnet has now targeted firms like NetPD, BayTSP, MediaDefender and Overpeer that monitor P2P networks and are used by labels and studios to deter piracy through spoof files and other means. "Our intent has always been to commercialize peer to peer, and if anyone is misusing our patent for any reason, I have to protect that intellectual property," Altnet executive vice president Derek Broes told News.com. "If they're building business on the backs of the patent I worked hard to acquire, then they should talk to us."
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-5106093.html 
http://www.netpd.com 
http://www.baytsp.com 
http://www.overpeer.com 
http://www.altnet.com
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o Korean Govt. Mandates Audible "Beep" for Camera Phones to Ensure Privacy

Seoul, South Korea -- In an effort to address privacy issues and cut down on clandestine pictures taken in "compromising situations," the Korean government has ordered manufacturers of camera cell phones in the country to engineer them so they sound a 65-decibel "beep" when a picture is snapped, Reuters reported. The government action comes after such events as a Korean woman's apprehension after selling pictures taken with her camera phone in a women's spa on the Internet. It is estimated that one in five cell phones in South Korea is equipped with a digital camera.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y28921586

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(London) Britain's Independent Television Commission has ruled that Apple cannot run an advertisement claiming that its Power Mac G5 is the "world's fastest personal computer." The Commission said that, "there is insufficient evidence to support the claim 'world's fastest, most powerful personal computer'." Apple declined to comment on the move.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T2AA21486

(Las Vegas) Casino operator Harrah's Entertainment on Wednesday announced plans to launch an online gambling operation, initially serving U.K. residents. The company's "Lucky Me" online gaming site is set to launch in the first quarter of 2004, and will charge bettors a monthly subscription fee of between $17 and $84, instead of a pay-as-you-play model. Harrah's said it may also expand into other regions and additional distribution outlets like interactive television.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031112/law067_1.html 
http://www.harrahs.com

(Sydney, Australia) Sharman Networks, distributor of the Kazaa file-sharing software, announced on Wednesday that its partner Altnet will distribute a licensed, full-length Bollywood film on Kazaa. Altnet and filmmaker Aum Creates will offer the Hindi-language thriller "Supari" as a $2.99 download to Kazaa users; songs from the film's soundtrack will also be offered for $0.90 each.
http://www.kazaa.com 
http://www.altnet.com

(London) The Financial Times is hoping to increase subscriptions to its FT.com website by scrapping its free email news service and introducing a paid-for version, according to a report in Wednesday's Guardian. Six new emails a day will be sent to FT.com subscribers, featuring the latest market commentary and the popular Lex business column.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?P17A21486

(Cedar Knolls, N.J.) Online spoken word audio provider MediaBay announced on Wednesday that it will add a $4.95/month streaming-only subscription service to its current $19.95/month unlimited download service. New Jersey-based MediaBay's library consists of over 60,000 classic radio programs, 3,500 film and television programs and thousands of audiobooks.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031112/nyw051_1.html 
http://www.mediabay.com

(Los Angeles) Game developer Atari yesterday released its "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" title for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, on the same day that the DVD and video editions of the film began selling in stores. Developed by Santa Monica, Calif.-based Black Ops Entertainment, the game disc also includes interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger and other behind-the-scenes features.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031111/115828_1.html 
http://www.atari.com 
http://www.blackops.com 
http://www.t3game.com

(Redwood City, Calif.) Video game publisher Konami Digital Entertainment America said that it has released two new titles based on the "Yu-Gi-Oh" trading card game and WB network animated children's series, "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom" for Nintendo GameCube and "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards" for Game Boy Advance. The company also announced the release of "Bloody Roar 4" for PlayStation 2, a title published by Japanese developer Hudson Soft.
http://www.konami.com/usa/press/yugioh111103.html
http://www.konami.com/usa/press/br4111103.html 
http://www.yugioh.com 
http://www.hudson.co.jp/corp/eng

(Westlake Village, Calif.) Video game publisher TDK Mediactive announced on Wednesday the release of its "Muppets Party Cruise" for PlayStation 2 and "Spy Muppets: License to Croak" for Nintendo Game Boy Advance. Both games are based on a license from The Jim Henson Company.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031112/125212_1.html 
http://www.tdk-mediactive.com

(Englewood, Colo.) Verio, a unit of NTT Communications that provides hosting services, said on Wednesday that it will manage the servers for a new massively multiplayer online gaming environment from developer Artifact Entertainment. Artifact plans to launch its "Horizons: Empire of Istaria" online game yet this fall.
http://www.verio.com 
http://www.artifact-entertainment.com 
http://www.istaria.com

(San Francisco) U.K.-based game developer Eidos Interactive on Wednesday shipped its "Legacy of Kain: Defiance" title for PlayStation 2 and Xbox to retailers. Eidos said its original Kain title has sold 1.5 million units in North America.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031111/sftu115_1.html 
http://www.eidos.com

(Santa Monica, Calif.) Wireless entertainment publisher Mforma Group announced on Wednesday that it has opened an office in Los Angeles to facilitate the licensing of film, video game and music works for its wireless products. Kirkland, Wash.-based Mforma said it named Robert Tercek executive vice president of programming, and Scott Jensen as vice president of media and licensing for the new operation.
http://www.mforma.com

(San Francisco) CNET News.com reported yesterday on a potential patent dispute that could emerge as a result of the purchase of the "Six Degrees" patent -- covering technology that is commonly used to construct an online social network -- by two of a group of three friends who also happen to be the CEOs of Bay Area companies offering social networking sites. The patent was purchased for $700,000 by LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman and Tribe.net CEO Marc Pincus, with the conspicuous absence of their friend Johathan Abrams, CEO of Friendster. Although Hoffman and Pincus were early Friendster investors, they say they omitted Abrams from the patent grab due to concerns about Friendster's new deep-pocketed investors. "I didn't involve Jonathan [Abrams] because I thought [Friendster investors] Kleiner and Benchmark would try to bid me out," Hoffman told CNET News.com.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5106136.html 
http://www.linkedin.com 
http://www.tribe.net 
http://www.friendster.com

(San Francisco) Online magazine Salon.com on Wednesday reported on how colleges and universities are monitoring the online activities of their students -- including recording every email, every website visited and peer-to-peer network traffic -- as a means of enforcing campus policies. This collected data is also sometimes subpoenaed by third parties like the Recording Industry Association of America in its copyright investigations, or by the government under the USA Patriot Act for terrorism-related investigations. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/12/campus_surveillance

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