Main Stories
o Report: Europe Overtakes U.S. for Most P2P File-Sharing Activity
o Loudeye, Microsoft Partner to Offer Branded Digital Music Stores
o Game Developer Turbine Entertainment Raises $18 Million in First Round
o MPAA Sues Bankrupt Cable TV Firm Adelphia Over Unpaid Royalties
o Video-on-Demand Delivery Firm N2 Broadband Raises $10 Million
o Company Sues Napster Parent Co. Roxio Over CD Burning Patent

o Briefly Noted: Apple iTunes - 25 million downloads, Prismiq MediaPlayer/Recorder, Faith West - Wireless Latin Entertainment - AT&T Wireless, Anytime - Chung Hwa Telecom's HiNet, Nvidia - Activision's "Call of Duty," Ubisoft - "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Dark Motives," Miramax - Kung Fu website - legal action

London -- More Europeans used the Kazaa file-sharing application than did Americans during the month of October, overtaking the U.S. for the first time as the "capital of file-sharing," according to new Internet audience data released on Monday by New York-based Nielsen/NetRatings. A total of 9.35 million Europeans either logged into Kazaa or visited the company's website in October, compared with 8.24 million Americans. The dwindling U.S. numbers are due in part to a legal campaign launched in the spring by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which began suing individual U.S. users of Kazaa and other services for copyright infringement; currently, the European recording industry has not announced plans for similar legal action. Nielsen/NetRatings said that since March, the monthly number of U.S. Kazaa users has been halved from a peak of 16 million.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?J3E0141D6
http://www.netratings.com
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o Loudeye, Microsoft Partner to Offer Branded Digital Music Stores

Seattle -- Loudeye Technologies, a provider of digital music encoding and delivery services, announced on Monday that it has partnered with Microsoft to allow third-party companies to offer branded digital music stores. The first customers for the products are AT&T Wireless and Gibson Audio, which will launch their own digital music initiatives using Loudeye's licensed tracks and Microsoft's Windows Media 9 delivery technology. In addition to the download stores, Loudeye and Microsoft will offer the Loudeye iRadio Service, featuring 100 channels of pre-programmed music targeted to online retailers, portals and other content companies, as well as off-line for consumer electronic devices and appliances, digital home entertainment systems and other digital broadcasting outlets.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031215/sfm045a_1.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031215/sfm067_1.html 
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5123634.html 
http://www.loudeye.com
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o Game Developer Turbine Entertainment Raises $18 Million in First Round

Westwood, Mass. -- Nearly ten years after its founding, Turbine Entertainment Software, a developer of massively multiplayer online games, has raised $18 million in its first round of venture capital. Highland Capital Partners led the investment, which included funds from Polaris Venture Partners and existing individual investors in the company. Massachusetts-based Turbine created Microsoft's popular "Asheron's Call" online game, and is currently developing both "The Lord of the Rings: Middle-Earth Online" for Vivendi Universal Games, and an online version of the popular roleplaying game "Dungeons and Dragons," for which Turbine holds a sublicense. The company employs about 120 people.
http://www.turbinegames.com
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o MPAA Sues Bankrupt Cable TV Firm Adelphia Over Unpaid Royalties

Los Angeles -- The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sued bankrupt cable TV operator Adelphia and its directors for copyright infringement, claiming the company broadcast content owned by its member companies without having paid royalties associated with retransmission laid out in the Copyright Act. Saddled with over $7 billion in debt, Denver-based Adelphia declared bankruptcy in June 2002. The MPAA's suit alleges that Adelphia has not paid its requisite statutory license fees dating back to August 2002. "We would have loved to have not sued, but when payments aren't being made and, without dispute, were due to be made, our members felt they had no other choice but to use the courts," MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor told Reuters. The MPAA said it is also suing the officers and directors of Adelphia because they had the ability to control Adelphia's decision to infringe and received direct financial benefit from the infringement, and therefore are directly liable for copyright infringement.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/031211/media_adelphia_2.html 
http://www.adelphia.com 
http://www.mpaa.org
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o Video-on-Demand Delivery Firm N2 Broadband Raises $10 Million

Atlanta -- N2 Broadband, a provider of video-on-demand delivery technology, announced on Monday that it has raised $10 million in its third round of venture capital financing. Tudor Ventures led the investment round; Highland Capital Partners also participated. Atlanta-based N2 Broadband's customers include cable TV operators such as Adelphia, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable. The company will use the new funds to bolster its domestic sales and marketing efforts, expand into international markets, and to expand the features available with its video-on-demand delivery technology. N2 Broadband achieved cash-flow break-even status in 2003, and has raised a total of $27 million to date.
http://www.n2broadband.com
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o Company Sues Napster Parent Co. Roxio Over CD Burning Patent

Irvine, Calif. -- Optima Technology, a distributor of software that lets users burn photos, music and video onto recordable CDs, has sued Roxio for patent infringement, Reuters reported. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Roxio distributes the Easy CD Creator and Toast applications for burning content onto CDs, and also recently launched a version of Napster that lets users burn songs onto CDs. Irvine, Calif.-based Optima is seeking an injunction against the sale and distribution of Roxio's products, as well as unspecified damages. The company also says that widely accepted industry standards, set by the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA), are also covered by its patent. "Optima believes most every company in the CD burner industry may be infringing," the company's attorney, Robert Lyon, told Reuters.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/031215/tech_roxio_1.html 
http://www.optimatech.com 
http://www.roxio.com

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> Making Your Way thru the Homeland Security Maze

Small businesses wanting to do business with the government face unique challenges when entering the federal marketplace. The 2003- 2004 Directory of Homeland Security includes a detailed list of procurement information and small business government contacts for the various federal departments and agencies. Contact names, titles, phone and fax numbers and descriptions are included in the listings. The Department of Homeland Security portion of the directory has entire section titled, "Doing Business with the Department of Homeland Security." To order the 2003-2004 edition, go to: http://www.tech-directories.com/dmw.htm
 

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(Cupertino, Calif.) Apple Computer said on Monday that its iTunes Music Store has now sold over 25 million song downloads since its launch in April 2003. Additionally, the company said over $1 million of iTunes online gift certificates and allowances have been purchased since the features were added to the store on October 16.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031215/sfm069_1.html
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store

(San Mateo, Calif.) Consumer electronics firm Prismiq on Monday announced its Prismiq MediaPlayer/Recorder, a diskless digital video recorder, home media gateway and set-top box. The $300 device, expected to become available in the second quarter of 2004, can record TV shows directly to a PC's recordable DVD drive, as well as stream music and video files from the PC to a home stereo or TV. It is also compatible with online subscription services like CinemaNow and Musicmatch.
http://www.prismiq.com

(San Francisco) Wireless entertainment publisher Faith West announced on Monday that it partnered with Miami-based Wireless Latin Entertainment (WILAEN) to offer Latin music ringtones and graphics to AT&T Wireless subscribers.
http://www.faithwestinc.com 
http://www.wilaen.com

(Taipei, Taiwan) Anytime Pte Ltd., a provider of online entertainment content, said on Monday that its music video library has been licensed by Taiwanese broadband provider Chung Hwa Telecom, and will be accessible by the 3.4 million subscribers to its HiNet broadband service. Anytime said it has licensed content from providers including Universal Studios, MGM, BMG, EMI, Warner Music and Zomba.
http://www.anytimeworld.com 
http://hinet.anytimeworld.com

(Santa Clara, Calif.) Graphics chipmaker Nvidia on Monday announced a promotional partnership with game developer Activision. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia said it will bundle a copy of Activision's "Call of Duty" PC game with select models of its GeForce FX graphics cards.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031215/sfm050_1.html 
http://www.nvidia.com/cod

(San Francisco) Video game publisher Ubisoft Entertainment said on Monday that it will release "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Dark Motives" for the PC in March 2004. The game is based on the CBS drama series and is under license from CBS Consumer Products.
http://www.ubi.com/US/Articles/news_2004-12-15_csi.htm

(San Francisco) Wired News on Monday reported on the owner of a Kung Fu movie aficionado site who received a cease-and-desist letter from Miramax Films, for linking to a site that sold the Chinese DVD version of a martial arts film that has not yet been released in the U.S. Although Mark Pollard, operator of the Kung Fu Cinema website, sells nothing other than a t-shirt on the site, Miramax said it was justified in sending the legal notice because Pollard was "encouraging people" to buy the unauthorized copy by linking to the third-party retailer. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital civil liberties group, said the MPAA erred when it targeted Pollard. "This guy clearly runs his website to give his opinion about movies that he loves, and links to more information on the movies, such as where you can buy them," EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz told Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,61554,00.html
http://www.kungfucinema.com

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