Hewlett-Packard has made an agreement with RioPort to license RioPort's online music purchase technology and licensed content. HP plans to sell music downloads for users of its new desktop and laptop computers that include Windows XP operating system. RioPort has existing licenses from all five major record labels and it has licensed its technology for various companies, including MTV.
Listen.com has licensed music from 19 independent record labels for its upcoming subscription-based streaming service Rhapsody. Labels include Amazing Grease, Aware Records, Concord Records, Emperor Norton Records, Monolyth Records and KOCH Entertainment (KOCH is the third biggest indie label in the world).
Listen.com is about to launch their subscription service by end of this year and will compete with major record label-backed subscription services MusicNet and Pressplay.
Ok, I got really tired of people asking the very basic questions about audio and video terms and decided to create a very basic "glossary" (or "dictionary", whatever sounds better..).
Currently the thing is in development and it only contains like 30 - 40 terms with full explanations, but in other hand I've tried to be very specific with these explanations and tried to provide all the basic information about each term in plain English. You can take a look at this URL:
https://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/
Bertelsmann confirmed today that it has given another round of funding for Napster -- the amount was unspecified, but industry sources say it was very likely around $26 million. Also, according to analysts, Bertelsmann gave the extra funding for Napster because company has cut its cash-burn rate by laying off people in this week and also by licensing its legal distribution platform for Bertelsmann's online music company BeMusic, also in this week.
Bertelsmann was the one of the five music industry giants that stepped down in its fight against Napster in last year and instead started funding Napster in order to transform it into a legal subscription-based online music business. Napster's controversial P2P service has been shut down since July and company expects to launch its "legal Napster" by end of this year.
I just got back today from pretty lame Streaming Media Europe 2001 conference with only handful of companies showing up and most of them related to backbone technologies such as hosting and encoding of streamed video. Lack of content companies made the whole event pretty pointless for me -- sure it was an excellent event if you're shopping for your company's upcoming streaming provider, but comparing the event to previous similiar events in Europe and in U.S., you can see really how the economic downturn is taking its toll. And there was Content Management 2001 expo at the same place and one of the biggest CMS provider that was listed didn't have a booth at all... Well, maybe next year we'll see more interesting stuff in there -- although PacketVideo's show video was kind of cool providing ideas how wireless streaming can be used in everyday life. And yeah, Microsoft was there, next to RealNetworks' booth, providing 101% XP marketing with Windows Media theme :-)
Anyway, today was one of those days that all of the companies decided to post their Q3/2001 financial reports and EBITDA results. ArtistDIRECT, one of the indie promoting sites, posted EBITDA loss of $5 million, down over 60% from previous year. Also their revenues went down 59% from previous year's Q3 to $2.3 million. Meanwhile, Sony Corp reported $111 million losses for its financial second quarter, down from $151 million profit in Q2/2000. Despite that, Sony's revenues increased almost 6 percent to $15 billion. Last but not least, Roxio, a spin-off from parent Adaptec, posted its second quarter's results -- net loss of $1 million, down from $1.9 million of profit in last year (when it was part of Adaptec). Roxio's revenues increased 3.4% to $30 million.
Napster announced today its history's first round of layoffs, handing out pink slips for 16 members of its staff or 15% of total 104 employees. Layoffs weren't targeted on any specific division of the company and were made -- just like any other layoffs in any other company -- to cut the costs.
Napster has developed its legal service last year or so and has received about $100 from Bertelsmann, mostly in loans, to fund its operations until the service launches, which should happen before the end of the year.
Bertelsmann eCommerce Group announced today that it will license parts of Napster's technology for its upcoming BeMusic online music service, scheduled to launch in beginning of 2002.
BCG doesn't license the peer-2-peer technology, but the secure service and distribution platform that Napster has developed for last year or so. Bertelsmann is a major owner of Napster and has funded Napster's development of its legal service, scheduled to launch this year.
Intel announced last week that it will cease its consumer electronics division that currently manufactures portable MP3 players, digital cameras, etc.. Company says that these markets didn't have the long-term growth potential company was originally seeking from CE business -- instead company will focus on networking products and processors, its core business.
Microsoft confirmed Friday that their copy protection scheme used in Windows Media digital right management software has been successfully cracked by "Beale Screamer". Crack that is widely available in various underground sites, strips off the piece from the WMA or WMV file that prevents copying the file.
News are extremely bad for Microsoft as it has strongly pushed its way to the entertainment world trying to get deals with movie studios and record labels in order to get WM used as a standard in digital media distribution online.
Anyway, Microsoft's DRM software has been built in way that does allow copy-protection upgrades, so even that songs that are previously locked with WM technology can be unlocked, new songs can contain new copy-protections. But it is almost certain that those locks will be cracked as well -- history has proven that all copy protection methods can be cracked.
Yesterday MP3.com announced that it will split its business into two companies, both operating under mother company Vivendi. MP3.com website will continue to offer music for masses, while new division dubbed as MP3 Technologies will provide technical solutions for MP3.com, other Vivendi services, Pressplay and possibly also for third parties who wish to use MP3.com's technology in their services.
Pressplay, a joint online music venture of Sony and Vivendi, announced today that it has reached an agreement to distribute music from six independent record labels. Labels include Madacy Entertainment Group, Navarre, OWIE, Razor&Tie, Roadrunner Records and Rounder Records.
Pressplay has already distribution rights from its owners, Sony and Vivendi as well as from EMI which is the only major record label to distribute music through both yet-to-be-opened major record label -backed online music services, MusicNet and Pressplay.
According to Webnoize news service, Virgin Records and Roxio (a spin-off from Adaptec that continues the development of Easy CD Creator) have announced a contract that allows Roxio CD burning software owners to download Lenny Kravitz's new video from Viacom's websites VH1.com and MTV.com and to store it on CD for later use. Other users can also download the video, but they lose access to the file after 30 days. Users with Roxio software can also copy the file to their friends, but their friends have to register themselves to Virgin -- original downloader ahs to do the same in the first place before proceeding to the download -- and they have the same options as the original downloader, either to burn it on CD if they have Roxio's software or to lose the file after 30 days.
Video is encoded and protected by using Microsoft's Windows Media DRM solution and Digital Island handles the actual delivery of the content.
Pressplay, joint online music venture between Sony and Vivendi, has licensed Alliance Entertainment's music information database AllMusicGuide for its service.
AllMusicGuide contains artist biographies, album and song informations, reviews, pictures of artists and other similiar content.
Tommi, our dear audio quality freak (otherwise pretty harmless guy anyway :) has made a short review of Creative's relatively new audio card, Audigy Platinum. If you're interested, you can read the review from here:
https://www.afterdawn.com/articles/archive/creative_audigy.cfm
Ok, finally we managed to change our "artist of the month" from Orgasmatron to an excellent band called Evermore. Band is from Nashville, Tennessee and no, they don't play country, but something totally different instead. I recommend you to check them out. Here's the URL:
http://music.mp3lizard.com/evermore/
Justice Department of U.S. has intensified its investigations of major record label -backed online music services, MusicNet and Pressplay, Wall Street Journal writes.
Last week, Napster told in court (in its hearings in Napster vs. RIAA case) that when it signed an agreement with MusicNet in order to license its music to up-coming legal Napster service, the contract had a clause that says Napster can't license music from other major record label services like from Pressplay. This has obviously made alarming sounds in Justice Department who tries to investigate whether or not major labels have violated competition laws in their licensing policies.
Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electric Inc (which owns brands like Panasonic) unveiled today a recordable digital versatile disc (read: DVD) that can store up to whopping 50GB of data per side. Current DVDs can store appx. 5GB of data per side.
Technology is based on blue-light lasers instead of regular red-light lasers. Matsushita's rival Sony released its own DVR-Blue technology in January that can store up to 22.5GB of data per side and is also based on blue-light laser.
Schedule for commercial debut is not released, but it is expected that first recorders/players will become available in 2003 when Japan finally shifts to digital TV.
RealNetworks announced yesterday that it has made an agreement with CBS to offer exclusive additional footage of CBS' popular "reality show" Survivor through its subscription-based GoldPass streaming service. GoldPass subscriptions cost $10 a month.
Meanwhile, Real's biggest rival in streaming business, Microsoft, announced that it has made an agreement with NHL to offer NHL games exclusively in WMA audio format through its MSN service. Webcasts will be free, at least for now.
Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia released a new "entertainment phone" dubbed as Nokia 5510 today. Phone will be available for GSM900/1800 markets (Europe, Asia, Australia) later this year and is aimed at young consumers.
Phone's design is radically different from any other Nokia model -- it has larger keyboard and keys are placed in both sides of the screen, making it look a bit like a PSX gamepad. Phone includes 64MB MP3 player, AM/FM radio, WAP browser and 5 games.
More: Nokia 5510
RIAA, representing recording industry, and NMPA's (National Music Publishing Association) licensing arm Harry Fox Agency reached an agreement yesterday over online music royalties for publishers.
RIAA will pay the agency an advance of $1 million as part of the arrangement that allows its member companies, including all five major record labels, to use NMPA's songs in upcoming online services such as MusicNet and Pressplay. The actual licensing rates have yet to be determined, but RIAA will pay monthly advances totaling $750,000 per year until a rate is set.
N.Y.Post / DotComScoop says in its article that RIAA is about to sue Austin, Texas -based AudioGalaxy over its Satellite P2P application. Sources close to RIAA say that RIAA is ready to file a lawsuit within next three to four weeks and that this case should be much more straight-forward than the one that RIAA sued against FastTrack and its allies in last week.
Source: New York Post
Online music company Uplister told yesterday that it will cease its operations because it couldn't find any funding in current economic downturn. Company operated a playlist-sharing website and had plans to launch a legal subscription service in end of this year. Uplister managed to license music catalogs from various independent labels in July, including TVT Records.
Internet Streaming Media Alliance or ISMA has released a new standard dubbed as ISMA v1.0. ISMA is a video streaming standard that is based on MPEG-4 video technology, the very same core technology that Microsoft's WMV and DivXnetwork's DivX4 are based on. ISMA is an open standard and companies behind it include Philips, Apple, Sun and Cisco.
ISMA has two profiles in its first version; Profile 0 is meant for narrowband and wireless devices and Profile 1 is meant for broadband connections.
Compaq, a computer giant that is about to merge with HP, is trying to extend its reach in consumer electronics. Company announced that it will introduce its first MP3/WMA/AAC player dubbed as Ipaq Personal Audio Player PA-2. Product will ship with 64MB of memory that can be extended to 128MBs.
Music and film studios reported on Wednesday that they have filed copyright lawsuits against companies providing FastTrack -based services. Grokster Ltd., MusicCity.com Inc., MusicCity Networks Inc. and Consumer Empowerment BV were sued by roughly 30 companies ranging from Walt Disney Co. to Capitol Records.
The FastTrack -based services are much like Napster - only alot bigger. In addition to music, also video and software titles can be exchanged on the service. What makes the peer-to-peer sharing services even more frustrating to record labels is the fact that they are opening their own digital music services, e.g. MusicNet and Pressplay, soon.
``We cannot sit idly by while these services continue to operate illegally, especially at a time when new legitimate services are being launched,'' said Hilary Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.
FastTrack has also been accused of having more control over the network than what they've lead to believe. A couple of open-source FastTrack clients appeared on the scene only to be blocked by FastTrack only days later. This indeed rose quite a few eyebrows about the peer-to-peer nature of the network. If certain clients can be blocked from the network then the entire network can be controlled by FastTrack. Which in turn means that the service can indeed be shutdown.
EMI, smallest of the "big five" record labels, became the first to license its music catalog to both services, MusicNet and Pressplay, when it announced yesterday its deal with Pressplay.
Now it seems more likely than ever that Pressplay and MusicNet can create a duopoly in online music distribution business, if other labels follow EMI's footsteps and license their music for both services. After EMI's deal, Pressplay now has the biggest range of music available among these two services -- from Vivendi Universal, Sony and now from EMI.
Both services are about to open before end of this year.
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