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PacketVideo, NTT DoCoMo Partner on Advanced Mobile Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 13, 2006 - 4:21am.
San Diego - PacketVideo, a developer of mobile multimedia delivery technology, announced on Tuesday that Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo will use its mobile media player to launch advanced mobile music services for its subscribers. The first product released under the collaboration will be a Fujitsu handset that can play multiple file formats -- including 3GPP, i-Motion and Microsoft's Windows Media Audio -- and transfer songs between the phone and a PC.
tags: Deals | Mobile | Music | PacketVideo | NTT DoCoMo | Music Services |

French Consumer Group Sues Apple, Sony Over Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 14, 2005 - 10:48am.
Paris -- A French consumer advocacy group has filed legal complaints against Apple and Sony, claiming the companies' respective digital music download stores are anti-competitive because they only support their own portable music player devices, the French newspaper Les Echos reported on Monday. "The total absence of interoperability between DRM removes not only consumers' power to independently choose their purchase and where they buy it from but also constitutes a significant restraint on the free circulation of creative works," UFC-Que Choisir said in a statement. UFC-Que Choisir has sent a court summons to the French subsidiaries of Apple and Sony; a similar effort from VirginMega last year in France to get Apple to open its iPod to competitors was unsuccessful.
tags: Sony | Apple | French | Music Services |

Yahoo Dumps LAUNCH Brand for Online Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 9, 2005 - 2:53am.
Santa Monica, Calif. -- Yahoo announced on Wednesday that it has rebranded its music destination, LAUNCH, which will now be known as Yahoo Music. Yahoo purchased LAUNCH, an early provider of online music videos and Web radio channels, in 2001 for $12 million. Since then, the company has acquired other music firms, including media player developer Musicmatch in September for $160 million, in a bid to develop its online music offerings to compete with services from Apple, Napster, RealNetworks, Microsoft and others. "The Yahoo Music brand will allow for deeper integration across the Yahoo network as we continue to develop new initiatives to expand our music services for consumers around the world," said Yahoo Music vice president and general manager Dave Goldberg. Yahoo added that it will rebrand its LAUNCH sites in Europe, Australia and Latin America in the coming months.
tags: Internet | Yahoo | Launch | Music Services |

Virgin Digital Launches In-Store Promotions for Online Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 4, 2004 - 9:04am.
Los Angeles -- Virgin Digital, the digital entertainment unit of billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group, announced on Thursday that it has begun offering Digital Music Starter Kits in its Virgin Megastores retail chain. The free software CD contains a beta release of the Virgin Digital multimedia player, which links to the Virgin Digital Megastore where users can purchase over a million songs for $0.99 each. The CD also contains a two-week free trial to the Virgin Digital Music Club, the Radio Free Virgin streaming radio service and 30 free downloads of artists on Virgin-owned V2 and LuakaBop Records. "Virgin Digital is the first comprehensive retail-driven digital music experience," said Virgin Digital president Zack Zalon. "We worked very closely with the Megastore staff on programming the service in an effort to offer consumers an incredibly compelling experience that would emulate the Virgin experience for them."
tags: Internet | In-Store | Music Services | Virgin Digital |

RealNetworks Software Makes iPod Compatible With More Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 26, 2004 - 4:38am.
Seattle -- In a bid to solve the growing incompatibility problem between the leading digital music services and various portable music players, RealNetworks on Monday released Harmony, a digital rights management translation system that supports Real's Helix DRM, Apple's FairPlay and Microsoft's Windows Media Audio digital rights management. Among other things, the technology for the first time enables songs purchased from Real's music store to play on Apple's iPod. It's unclear whether Apple, which has thwarted past attempts to circumvent its proprietary digital rights management system, will welcome Harmony. RealNetworks said that a beta test of Harmony will be available in an updated version of its RealPlayer software released on Tuesday. "Before Harmony, consumers buying digital music got locked into a specific kind of portable player," said RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser. "Thanks to Harmony, consumers don't have to worry about technology when buying music. Now anyone can buy music, move it to their favorite portable device, and it will just work, just like the way DVD and CDs work." Separately, Seattle-based RealNetworks on Monday announced that it added 100,000 new subscribers to its premium digital music services in the second quarter of 2004 and now counts a total of over 550,000 subscribers for its Rhapsody and RadioPass services.
tags: iPod | RealNetworks | Software | Music Services |

Napster Inks Deals With Six Schools for Campus Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 19, 2004 - 5:12am.
Los Angeles -- Napster, the digital music service unit of Roxio, announced on Monday that it has signed agreements with six schools to offer campus digital music services. The new deals with Cornell, George Washington University, Middlebury College, the University of Miami, USC and Wright State will complement Napster's existing agreements with Penn State University and the University of Rochester. Napster did not disclose whether students will be paying for the basic service as part of their tuition, but they will be charged $0.99 to burn tracks to CD or transfer them to portable players. Some schools will utilize Napster and IBM's "Super Peer" application, which caches the most popular Napster content on on-site IBM servers managed remotely by Napster. "Penn State's students have been thrilled with the Napster experience, downloading as many as 100,000 songs each day," said Penn State president Graham Spanier. "We see our Napster implementation as central to our effort to create a more student-centered university while at the same time offering an alternative to music piracy and copyright infringement."
tags: Deals | Napster | Schools | Campus | Music Services |

Virgin, MusicNet Partner on Digital Music Services

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 8, 2004 - 6:40am.
London -- Virgin Group announced on Monday that in August it will launch a digital music service in conjunction with MusicNet that will incorporate the company's Virgin Megastores, the Internet, mobile phones and portable devices. MusicNet, a joint venture between Time Warner, RealNetworks and labels Bertelsmann, EMI and Sony, has been offering an online music subscription service since 2001. The new Virgin Digital service will feature a download store and subscription service offering over 700,000 tracks. Virgin said that Zack Zalon, former general manager of the company's Radio Free Virgin online radio service, has been named president of Virgin Digital.
tags: Deals | MusicNet | Digital | Virgin | Music Services |

Report: IFPI Predicts Legit Music Services Will Flourish Worldwide in 2004

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 22, 2004 - 2:57am.
Geneva -- Legitimate online music services are poised to take a larger share of the market from peer-to-peer services like Kazaa during 2004, according to an annual online music report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The trade group points to the impending launch of iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody and other services in Europe, as well as the 30 existing legal sites operating there now. Industry data shows that Americans bought 30 million downloads in 2003, while Europeans purchased 3 million. The number of available songs on European services has risen 30% in the last three months to 300,000, and is expected to increase further this year. The group also credits increased awareness worldwide that most forms of file-sharing are illegal, due to the legal campaign against file-swappers, and the fact that the number of music files available on the Internet has fallen by 20% to 800 million over the last year, after peaking at one billion at the start of 2003. "For everyone working to create a successful legitimate online music business, this report reflects a new sense of optimism and evidence of real change," said IFPI chairman and CEO Jay Berman, IFPI. "We believe the music industry's Internet strategy is now turning the corner, and that in 2004 there will be, for the first time, a substantial migration of consumers from unauthorized free services to the legitimate alternatives that our industry is providing internationally." Record industry groups in both Canada and the U.K. have said they soon plan to start suing individual file-swappers in their respective countries. 
tags: Reports | IFPI | Music Services | Worldwide |