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Mark Hefflinger

Google Book Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval; Hearing in 2010

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 11:02am.
New York - The judge overseeing the settlement agreement between Google (NASD: GOOG) and authors and publishers over the direction of its massive book-scanning project has pushed a hearing on a revised settlement back to Feb. 18, while at the same time granted preliminary approval to the new deal. "The preliminary approval order sends a positive initial message; this agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form," Google said in a statement.
tags: Law | Lawsuits | Google | Copyright | E-Books | Publishing | Books | Authors Guild | Google Book Search |

eBay Completes Sale of Skype Unit to Investor Group

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:34am.
San Jose, Calif. - Nearly three months after first announcing the deal, online auction giant eBay (NASD: EBAY) said that it has completed the sale of a majority stake in its Skype Internet telephone business to an investment group headed by Silver Lake Partners. Under the deal, the investor group -- which also included Joltid Limited, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz -- paid $1.9 billion and a $125 million note in exchange for a 70% stake in the unit.
tags: Deals | eBay | Acquisitions | Skype | Silver Lake Partners | Andreessen Horowitz | Canada Pension Plan Investment Board | Joltid | Janus Friis | Niklas Zennstrom |

MySpace to Acquire imeem Music Streaming Service

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 9:29am.
Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace has agreed to acquire streaming music service imeem for an undisclosed sum, although sources told CNET News.com that the deal is valued at about $8 million. The deal reportedly includes a payment of $1 million in cash, as well as earn outs and accounts receivable.
tags: Deals | Social Networking | Music | MySpace | Acquisitions | News Corp. | Imeem |

AOL to Cut One-Third of Staff; Voluntary Layoffs to Begin Dec. 4

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 8:51am.
New York - Needing to drastically trim costs as it prepares to separate from parent company Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), AOL said on Thursday that it plans to trim its workforce by about one-third -- approximately 2,300 workers -- through a combination of voluntary and involuntary layoffs. The company said that the goal of the restructuring is to reduce its annual operating costs by $300 million.
tags: AOL | Layoffs | Time Warner |

Studios Sue Swedish ISP, Demand Closure of OpenBitTorrent

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 18, 2009 - 11:54am.
Los Angeles - Several Hollywood movie studios have filed suit against a Swedish ISP that is hosting OpenBitTorrent, an independent BitTorrent file-sharing tracker site that was launched in the wake of the The Pirate Bay's announced sale to Global Gaming Factory, TorrentFreak reported. The studios sued hosting provider Portlane, demanding that it shutter the OpenBitTorrent website.
tags: Video | Law | Lawsuits | P2P | Music | Copyright | The Pirate Bay | OpenBitTorrent | Portlane |

"Call of Duty" Generates Record $550 Million in First 5 Days

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 18, 2009 - 11:26am.
Santa Monica, Calif. - Video game publisher Activision Blizzard (NASD: ATVI), a unit of Vivendi, announced on Wednesday that its "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" has become "the biggest entertainment launch in history," racking up $550 million during its first five days on sale. The previous five-day sales record for a video game was set last summer by "Grand Theft Auto IV," which sold 6 million units and made $500 million; the largest five-day opening worldwide box office gross is held by "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" ($394 million).
tags: Games | Retail | Vivendi | Activision Blizzard | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 |

Time Warner to Spin Off AOL Dec. 9 With $3.5 B Valuation

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 11:39am.
Dulles, Va. - Media giant Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) announced on Monday that it plans to spinoff its AOL unit on Dec. 9. Shareholders of Time Warner will be given one share of AOL stock for every 11 shares of Time Warner they own. Time Warner said in a statement that the spinoff "will result in the complete legal and structural separation of the two companies." After the transaction, AOL will have a market value of about $3.5 billion, based on current share prices.
tags: Deals | AOL | Time Warner | Spin-Off | TMZ |

The Pirate Bay Permanently Shutters File-Sharing Tracker

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 8:41am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Marking "the end of an era," the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay on Tuesday shut down their BitTorrent tracker, which grew over six years to become the largest hub for finding copyrighted materials for download in the world, TorrentFreak reported. "Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It's the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date," the Pirate Bay wrote on its blog. "We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well."
tags: Video | Law | P2P | TV | Music | Movies | Sweden | Copyright | BitTorrent | The Pirate Bay |

Report: MySpace in Talks to Acquire Music Streamer imeem

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 8:23am.
Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace online social network is in "late stage negotiations" to acquire the music streaming service imeem, TechCrunch reported, citing multiple unnamed sources. Founded in 2003, San Francisco-based imeem started off as a music-focused social network application, but later shifted focus to concentrate on music streaming.
tags: Deals | Social Networking | Music | MySpace | Acquisitions | News Corp. | Imeem |

Nokia Lays Off 330 Research and Development Staff

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 10:23am.
Espoo, Finland - Cell phone maker Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced on Friday that it will lay off up to 330 employees from its research and development operations, representing about 2% of its global research and development staff of 17,000.
tags: Mobile | Nokia | Layoffs |

Report: Video Viewing on Social Media Sites Doubles in Year

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:56am.
New York - Internet users now spend nearly double the amount of time watching videos on social networking sites than they did just one year ago, according to newly released figures from Nielsen.
tags: Video | Social Networking | Reports | MySpace | Facebook | Nielsen | Research | Stickam |

Details Emerge About AOL's Massive Workforce Reductions

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:50am.
New York - A day after AOL announced plans to cut one-third of its workforce -- up to 2,500 employees -- details are beginning to emerge about specifics of the plan.
tags: AOL | Layoffs | Time Warner |

Online Marketer QuinStreet Files for $250 Million IPO

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:40am.
Foster City, Calif. - QuinStreet, a provider of online marketing services, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to raise up to $250 million in its initial public offering (IPO).
tags: Deals | Marketing | IPOs | QuinStreet |

Mobile Broadcast Firm IPWireless Lands $15.5 Million

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 8:08am.
San Francisco - IPWireless, a San Francisco-based developer of mobile broadband and broadcast technology, said on Wednesday that it has raised $15.5 million in its first round of funding, led by Spark Capital.
tags: Deals | Mobile | VC | IPWireless | Spark Capital |

Chegg.com Gets $57 Million for Online Textbook Rentals

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 8:06am.
Santa Clara, Calif. - Chegg.com, an online textbook rental company, said on Thursday that it has raised one of the largest funding rounds for a Silicon Valley tech company this year, landing $57 million in its fourth round.
tags: Deals | VC | Publishing | Insight Venture Partners | Chegg.com |

Digital Media Association Head Jon Potter Resigns

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:09pm.
Washington - Jonathan Potter has resigned as executive director of the Digital Media Association (DiMA), a trade group representing the interests of larger webcasters and technology firms that he founded in 1998. "I am grateful to DiMA's member companies for allowing me to serve them -- and their innovative technologies and services and their passionate people -- for so long and in so many exciting ways. I hope that my next adventure is as challenging and rewarding," said Potter. DiMA general counsel Lee Knife will serve as interim executive director while the organization searches for a replacement.

tags: Law | Policy | Music | Moves | DiMA | Webcasting | Jonathan Potter |

Report: U.S. Labels Concerned on Spotify Premium Conversions

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:02pm.
London - The major record labels are reportedly concerned about the percentage of U.S. users likely to pay for ad-supported streaming music service Spotify's for-pay premium version, the Financial Times reported. Spotify, which is available in several European countries, had planned to launch in the U.S. in the fall, but recently said it would delay the launch to 2010. "We think Spotify is a great service but they're going to have to convince us they can convert enough people from free to paid subscriptions to make it worth our while," one label executive told FT.

tags: Advertising | Music | Spotify |

YouTube Debuts Automated Closed Captioning

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:01pm.
Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Thursday that it has combined its automatic speech recognition technology with the YouTube close captioning system, to offer automatic captioning of YouTube videos. The company acknowledged that the automatic captions "will not always be perfect," but can improve accessibility and help translate videos into other languages. YouTube also added automatic caption timing, so that users captioning videos by hand can simply create a text file, and let Google's automatic speech recognition sync their captions to the video.

tags: Video | Google | YouTube |

Wall Street Journal Counts 30,000 Kindle Subscribers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:00pm.
New York - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) The Wall Street Journal currently counts around 30,000 subscribers via Amazon's (NASD: AMZN) Kindle e-book reader, PaidContent reported, citing comments made by Down Jones head Les Hinton on Thursday. With a subscription fee of $15 per month, that translates to about $5.4 million in annual revenues -- although PaidContent notes that Dow Jones's cut would be less than half that figure.

tags: Newspapers | E-Books | News Corp. | Publishing | Amazon.com | Kindle | The Wall Street Journal |

Susan Boyle CD Breaks Amazon.com Pre-Order Record

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 11:58am.
Seattle - Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) said on Thursday that reality TV singing star Susan Boyle's forthcoming album, "I Dreamed a Dream," has become the largest global pre-order CD in the company's history. Boyle racked up millions of views on YouTube for her performances on "Britain's Got Talent."

tags: Music | Retail | Amazon.com | Susan Boyle |
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