Archives

Wal-Mart Launches $0.88 Digital Song Download Store

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:48am.
Brisbane, Calif. -- Retail giant Wal-Mart on Tuesday officially launched its digital music download store, which will undercut the current industry pricing standard of $0.99 by charging $0.88 per song. The company said it has increased its available catalog by over 50% since it launched a test of the service in December 2003. The service was developed in partnership with Anderson Merchandisers -- which also supplies physical CDs to Wal-Mart -- and features songs from Liquid Digital Media (formerly Liquid Audio), which was acquired by Anderson last year. Launch promotions will include exclusive tracks from Curb Records (Tim McGraw, LeAnn Rimes), exclusive singles from John Michael Montgomery and Gretchen Wilson, and songs by finalists of Oprah Winfrey's "Pop-Star Challenge."
tags: Downloads | Wal-Mart | Digital | Musics |

RIAA Sues Another 532 Alleged Song Pirates; Many Students Targeted

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:44am.
Washington -- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on Tuesday that it has filed 532 additional lawsuits against alleged music file-swappers, bringing the total number of individuals sued for copyright infringement by the record label trade group to 1,977. This third wave of suits includes actions filed against students at 21 different universities, where peer-to-peer file-sharing is extremely popular. "It's important for everyone to understand that no one is immune from the consequences of illegally 'sharing' music files," said RIAA president Cary Sherman. "Piracy, which is particularly rampant on college campuses, continues to hurt retailers, musicians, producers, record labels and the thousands of less-celebrated individuals involved in making music." The current RIAA lawsuits were filed against "John Doe" defendants, following a federal court ruling that stipulated an earlier expedited process used to obtain file-swappers' identities from their Internet service providers was illegal. None of the RIAA's lawsuits against individual file-swappers has gone to trial; the group has settled over 400 of the suits for sums averaging $3,000.
tags: RIAA | Musics | Students | Pirates |

Microsoft Attacks Proposed $615 Million Fine By EU

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:43am.
Brussels -- A day before the European Commission's official announcement, Microsoft accused the European Union on Tuesday of overreaching by including its U.S. business in calculating a fine for abusing its monopoly position. Various news outlets have reported that the EU plans to impose a fine of about $615 million on Microsoft, in addition to requiring various remedies. "We believe it's unprecedented and inappropriate for the Commission to impose a fine on a company's U.S. operations when those operations are already regulated by the U.S. government," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's chief European lawyer. "The conduct at issue has been permitted by both the U.S. Department of Justice and a U.S. court." However, critics of Microsoft have reacted with dismay about the size of the fine, arguing that it will have little impact on the company, which has over $50 billion in cash. Various Wall Street firms have characterized the size of the fine as being "non-material" to Microsoft's financial position. In addition to the fine, Microsoft will be forced to offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player.
tags: Microsoft | EU | Proposed | Fine |

Jack Valenti to Step Down As CEO of MPAA in Coming Months

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:40am.
Washington -- Ending months of speculation, 83-year-old Jack Valenti, the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced he will retire in the coming months. Valenti is one of the most powerful lobbyists in D.C. on media and technology issues, and has battled against the illegal copying of movies for years. "This is the time for me to depart as CEO. I feel that in my gut," Valenti told reporters at a trade meeting. Valenti is a former aide to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
tags: MPAA | CEO | Step Down | Jack Valenti |

Sony Launches $99 Hard Disk Drive Accessory for PlayStation 2

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:38am.
Foster City, Calif. -- Sony Computer Entertainment America on Tuesday launched its 40GB internal Hard Disk Drive accessory for the PlayStation 2 video game console, enabling the addition of downloadable and episodic content like new tracks, stadiums and characters to PlayStation 2 game titles. The $99 device will come pre-loaded with developer Square Enix's "Final Fantasy XI," the latest installment in the 49 million unit-selling game franchise. The massively multiplayer online roleplaying game will be free to play online for 30 days, after which time gamers must pay $12.95 per month. "With 2.6 million network ready PlayStation 2 consoles in more than 25 million homes throughout North America, the internal Hard Disk Drive paves the way for delivering countless forms of digital entertainment to this massive audience," said Sony Computer Entertainment America executive vice president Andrew House.
tags: Sony | PlayStation 2 | Accessory | Hard Disk |

Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP Sets First-Year Game Console Sales Record

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:34am.
Redmond, Wash. -- Nintendo of America announced on Tuesday that it sold over 6.5 million Game Boy Advance SP handhelds during the device's first year of availability, marking the highest one-year sales figures of any video game system in history. The Game Boy Advance SP, which features a flip-top and front-lit screen, was designed with an older demographic in mind than the typical kids who have purchased over 160 million Game Boy handheld systems over the past 14 years.
tags: Games | Nintendo | SP | First-Year | Sales Record |

Kodak, Movie Tunes to Screen Weekly Music Concerts in Digital Theaters

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:31am.
Las Vegas -- Eastman Kodak, which distributes its own digital cinema projection system, announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with Studio City, Calif.-based Movie Tunes to offer alternative content like music concerts on theater screens equipped with Kodak's digital system. Movie Tunes will provide a new hour-long "Music Scene" program -- targeted at teens and featuring developing bands -- to Kodak each week, which Kodak will then distribute to its digital theaters during prime time every night during the summer. Kodak will install four new systems in Carmike Cinemas locations in connection with the program, which the company plans to extend more widely in the fall if the current test is successful.
tags: Kodak | Musics | Digital Theaters | Movie Tunes |

Europeans Largely Indifferent to 3G Services, Report Finds

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:27am.
Washington -- According to a report published in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, nearly one out of every two Europeans has no interest whatever in 3G, the much-anticipated technology on which many European telecommunications companies have spent billions of euro. The Harris Interactive survey showed that nearly 49% of mobile-phone users in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. were completely indifferent to the new technology. The British, who have had access to full commercial 3G services for months now, were especially indifferent, with more than 60% of mobile users saying they were uninterested in buying a 3G phone. The report also found that 52% of all those surveyed thought that the mobile industry as a whole had failed to explain what 3G is, or why it is worth having.
tags: Europe | Reports | 3G Services | Indifferent |

Streaming Video Firm Optibase to Acquire Media 100 Assets for $2.5 Million

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 23, 2004 - 4:22am.
Marlboro, Mass. -- Optibase, a provider of streaming video technology based in Israel, has agreed to acquire the assets of Massachusetts-based Media 100, a developer of advanced media systems for content design, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Under the acquisition agreement, which is subject to court approval, Optibase will acquire substantially all the assets of Media 100 for $2.5 million, as well as provide up to $1 million of secured financing. "Following approval by the Court, Optibase intends to keep Media 100 activity intact as a unit in Optibase in order to continue the development, sales, and support of the Media 100 products," said Tom Wyler, CEO of Optibase, which is a Nasdaq-listed company.
tags: Streaming Video | Media | Optibase | Assets |