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IFPI Sues 247 Music File-Swappers in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 4:02am.
London -- The worldwide recording industry expanded its legal campaign against file-swappers beyond the U.S. on Tuesday, as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced that it has sued 247 individuals in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada for copyright infringement. The group's U.S. counterpart, the Recording Industry Association of America, has sued nearly 2,000 U.S. citizens for allegedly offering music for download on file-sharing services like Kazaa. The IFPI said its current lawsuits were only the first wave, with additional suits soon to be filed in other countries. "This is the start of an international campaign against online copyright theft, and it is the logical next step in the fight against piracy, coming after our extensive education and warning campaigns of the last few months," said IFPI chairman Jay Berman. The IFPI noted that more than 600,000 consumers in Europe have tried the emerging legitimate download services offered there, which offer a catalogue of 300,000 tracks from 50 legal online sites.
tags: Germany | Italy | IFPI | Canada | Musics | File-Swappers | Denmark |

New Research Disputes Record Industry's File-Sharing Claims

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 4:00am.
London -- Researchers from the Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill published a report this week that contradicts the music industry's claim that Internet file sharing has had a major impact on global CD sales. According to Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, file sharing has had only a limited effect of global sales. "The economic effect is also small," the report said. "Even in the most pessimistic specification, five thousand downloads are needed to displace a single album sale." Little surprise, the Recording Industry Association of America rejected the researchers' findings, saying in a statement: "Countless well-respected groups and analysts -- including Edison Research, Forrester and the University of Texas, among others -- have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs." 
tags: File-Sharing | Record Industry | New Research |

Report: Number of Paying Music Downloaders Up Three-Fold in 2003

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:59am.
New York -- The number of U.S. music downloaders who actually paid to download a song increased nearly three-fold in 2003, as in December an estimated 10 million U.S. users had paid a fee to download music over the Internet, according to New York-based research firm Ipsos-Insight's TEMPO survey of digital music behavior. In December 2003, 22% of downloaders reported having paid for a song, as opposed to 8% in the same period for 2002. "This is the clearest sign yet that American music enthusiasts are becoming increasingly dependent on digitally formatted and distributed music, and as a result, are sampling many of the recently launched fee-based online music services to find a legal means of online music acquisition," said study author Matt Kleinschmit. "The next order of business for fee-based online music services is to both continue to lure new consumers to their respective services, as well as retain users who may be visiting for experimentation purposes only."
tags: Downloads | Music | Reports | Three-Fold |

Boeing Sells Digital Cinema Business to Access Integrated Technologies

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:58am.
Los Angeles -- Defense contractor Boeing announced on Tuesday its exit from the digital cinema business, with the sale of its Boeing Digital Cinema assets to New Jersey-based Access Integrated Technologies. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Boeing's digital cinema system eliminates the need for physical film stock by providing the ability to transmit first-run films and alternative media like sporting events and concerts directly to movie theatres via satellite. "Boeing successfully pioneered and demonstrated many advances in the deployment of advanced satellite and secure digital distribution of large data files from a single point to multiple locations simultaneously," said Boeing Network Enabled Solutions vice president Dr. Ron Maehl. "AccessIT can now take that technology to the next level with its focus on the entertainment industry and its ability to put a capital structure in place for full-scale market implementation."
tags: Digital Cinema | Boeing | Access | Integrated Technologies |

NY Daily News: Steve Case May Attempt to Buy Back America Online

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:57am.
Dulles, Va. -- Steve Case, the former chairman of America Online, is reportedly raising $10 billion in an attempt to buy back AOL from parent Time Warner, the New York Daily News reported on Tuesday. "It would be his redemption," one Wall Street source told the Daily News. Case, who headed AOL when it merged with Time Warner in 2000, reportedly explored such a deal last year but was rebuffed because Time Warner wasn't ready to sell. Now that federal investigations into AOL's accounting practices are nearly complete, however, Wall Street insiders believe the time is right. Some analysts say that such a deal would be attractive to Time Warner, which recently chose to drop the "AOL" from its corporate name in an effort to distance itself from the unit's financial concerns. Others, however, believe that the media giant may want to hold onto AOL, now that its business appears to be on the rebound. One industry insider, in fact, said that Time Warner is looking for "far more" than $10 billion for AOL.
tags: Internet | America | Steve Case | NY Daily News |

Report: Content Delivery Networks' Revenue Up 60% for 2003

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:56am.
Monterey, Calif. -- Content delivery network services, which provide large-scale distribution of streaming media content, delivered double or triple the streaming content in 2003 when compared with 2002, while revenue increased 60% over the previous year, according to data from Monterey, Calif.-based AccuStream iMedia Research. Content delivery networks including Akamai, Speedera, LimeLight Networks and Chaincast Networks generated an estimated $90-$115 million in 2003 from streaming video and Internet radio. The average cost per gigabyte of streaming video transferred in 2003 for these companies was $2.15, while the average price for a gigabyte of Internet radio was $1.31. AccuStream noted that AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo are in fact the largest content distributors, but usually contract directly with carrier suppliers for their bandwidth needs.
tags: Reports | Revenues | Delivery Networks |

AOL Claims 250,000 Subscribers for MusicNet@AOL Service

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:55am.
Dulles, Va. -- America Online said on Tuesday that it has signed up 250,000 subscribers for its MusicNet@AOL on-demand music subscription service. By contrast, MusicNet rival Rhapsody, distributed by RealNetworks, said that it hit the 250,000-subscriber mark in October 2003. MusicNet, a joint venture between AOL, Time Warner EMI and Bertelsmann, offers a library of over 600,000 for streaming and "tethered" download for $8.95 per month. AOL also on Tuesday announced the launch of a new download store for MusicNet@AOL subscribers, which will sell songs for $0.99 each.
tags: Subscribers | AOL | MusicNet@AOL |

Study: Three-Quarters of 18-34 Year-Olds Are Online

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:53am.
Reston, Va. -- Nearly three-quarters of all Americans aged 18-34 have Internet access, the highest percentage of any age group, according to a new study from ComScore Networks and the Online Publishers Association. While the group comprises only 24% of the total U.S. population, it accounts for 38% of the total time spent online and 40% of the total pages viewed. The skew is even more pronounced among men in this age group. "Eighteen to 34 year-olds feel a perpetual need to stay connected. This group expects to get online whenever they choose and wherever they are," said Michael Zimbalist, the executive director of the Online Publishers Association. "When taken overall, this first installment of our research into 18 to 34 year-olds clearly shows that the Internet has become the dominant medium in the lives of this highly sought after group."
tags: Internet | Study | Three-Quarters |

Report: 28 Million Digital Video Recorders to Ship in 2008

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:53am.
Framingham, Mass. -- Aided by heavy investment by satellite and cable TV providers in set-top boxes that offer digital video recording, worldwide unit shipments of digital video recorders are forecasted to climb to more than 28 million in 2008, with a compound annual growth rate of 46.9% between 2003 and 2008, according to a report from Massachusetts-based market research firm IDC. At the end of 2003, there were 3.2 million U.S. households with the devices, with manufacturer TiVo owning 39% of the market. "For the first time the DVR vendors are getting through to people and showing them that these devices are more than just high-priced VCRs," said IDC senior research analyst Greg Ireland. "The pay TV providers can take a lot of the credit, and reap the rewards, for finally breaking through to consumers." IDC noted that devices that combine a digital video recorder with a DVD recorder -- which allows programs to be burned to DVD -- will account for nearly 40% of the market by 2008, shipping a projected 11.3 million units.
tags: Reports | Releases | Digital Video | Recorders |