archives

o Listen.com To Acquire Struggling File-Sharing Service Scour
o Major Labels Respond To Bertelsmann/Napster Alliance
o Random House To Sell Classic Literature As E-Books
o Samsung And Sprint PCS Release Combination Cell Phone/MP3 Player
o Amazon.com Opens Japanese E-Commerce Operations For Books
o Tribune And Knight Ridder Partner To Distribute Digital Content
o Microsoft To Launch Japanese E-Book Online Store
> Digital Media Wire Networking Event - Los Angeles
o Briefly Noted: Fandom - Cinescape, Sonicblue, Varsity Television, Video
Pipeline - Microsoft, Playboy.com - Radio Free Virgin, StreamSearch - Ask
Jeeves, Filmspeed - MSN, MeTV Network, Stream Theory - The Adrenaline
Vault
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o Listen.com To Acquire Struggling File-Sharing Service Scour

Los Angeles -- Listen.com, a downloadable music search engine and
entertainment site, will acquire the file-sharing service Scour Inc.,
which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, CNET reported on
Wednesday. Scour, which runs a file-sharing service similar to Napster
that also offers movies, was sued by both the Recording Industry
Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America for
contributory copyright infringement. San Francisco-based Listen.com will
acquire only Scour's assets, freeing it from taking on financial liability
for the lawsuits pending against the company. "We are committed to
providing the best solutions for the delivery of legal digital media,"
said Listen.com CEO Rob Reid in a statement. "By incorporating certain
Scour assets into our service, Listen.com will soon be able to provide the
most complete digital media search capabilities to our syndication
partners and consumers."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3357364.html
http://www.listen.com
http://www.scour.com
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o Major Labels Respond To Bertelsmann/Napster Alliance

Los Angeles -- The major labels voiced their support for Bertelsmann AG's
announcement Tuesday that it would partner with file-sharing service
Napster to create a membership-based hybrid, calling the partnership a
step towards securing copyright enforcement online. However, all of the
major labels said that they would not drop their litigation against the
company. "While we are concerned that Napster still has no solution to
ensure security and proper payment, we are encouraged that they are
attempting to resolve this issue and develop a legitimate business," said
Seagram's Universal Music Group, Reuters reported. "The current Napster
model, however, continues to infringe and, as such, today's announcement
does not affect the lawsuit." Time Warner's statement expressed the same
sentiment. "[The partnership] demonstrates a couple of things very
clearly," the company said. "One, that the industry is rapidly moving
toward adoption of a subscription model and two, in the online world,
artists and intellectual property rights will be protected." Statements
from Sony and EMI were very similar in tone, lauding the copyright
protection while noting that the current Napster still infringes on their
copyrights. Legal experts have said that an appellate court ruling in the
Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuit against Napster, which
could shut down the file-sharing service, could come as early as Friday.
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/580214l.htm
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o Random House To Sell Classic Literature As E-Books

New York -- Publisher Random House announced on Wednesday the launch of
its "Modern Library" program, where eleven web sites will sell 100 classic
works of literature in electronic format, The Wall Street Journal
reported. The e-books will be available in Adobe Acrobat Reader, Gemstar's
Glassbook Reader and Microsoft Reader formats. The sites, which include
large booksellers such as Barnes & Noble.com as well as start-ups like
Authorlink.com, Shakespeare.com and Pemberly.com, will sell the e-books
from a co-branded web page within their own sites. The co-branding
agreements could affect these smaller sites' relationships with industry
heavyweights like Amazon.com, because the co-branded page will take
potential sales away from Amazon that come from linking to the smaller
booksellers. "I am not going to tell Random House how to choose their
[retail] channel partners -- the marketplace will choose," said Lyn Blake,
general manager of Amazon's bookstore, in the article. "If they want to
try to with other people they'll be doing a lot of work as we make it look
simple." New York-based Reciprocal Publishing will provide digital rights
management for the new program.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3355081.html
http://www.authorlink.com/pubnews.html#rh 
http://www.randomhouse.com
http://www.reciprocal.com/pub.asp
_____________________________________________

o Samsung And Sprint PCS Release Combination Cell Phone/MP3 Player

Dallas -- Samsung and Sprint PCS released on Wednesday a cell phone that
doubles as an MP3 player. The $399 device allows users to transfer songs
in MP3 format from their computers directly to the device, and listen to
them through headphones. The MP3 player aspect of the device holds 64 MB
of data, or about an hour's worth of CD-quality digital music. A beep will
alert users of incoming calls while listening to music on the phone.
Seattle-based HitHive, a business-to-business provider of digital music
networks, is providing the music organization software for the device. The
company will also offer users 2GB of online storage space for MP3s, which
can be streamed to the device through Sprint's wireless web connection.
However, streaming music from a "digital locker" over a wireless
connection would incur access fees for users while streamed music is
playing.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001101/tx_samsung.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001101/mo_hithive.html
http://www.samsungelectronics.com/mobile/products/gsm/sgh-m100/index.html
http://www.hithive.com
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o Amazon.com Opens Japanese E-Commerce Operations For Books

Tokyo -- Amazon.com announced that is has launched e-commerce operations
for books in Japan. The Japanese-language site that will sell the books,
amazon.co.jp, will offer 1.7 million titles in both Japanese and English.
The company was already exporting books to 193,000 Japanese customers, its
largest market outside the U.S. Amazon's operations in Japan will include
offices in Tokyo, a distribution center in Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, and
a customer service center in Sapporo, Hokkaido
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001031/wa_amazon_.html
http://www.amazon.co.jp
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o Tribune And Knight Ridder Partner To Distribute Digital Content

Chicago -- Publishing companies Tribune Media Services and Knight Ridder
announced on Wednesday that they have formed a partnership to distribute
digital content on the web. Under the deal, Tribune's online content
delivery agency, NewsCom, and Knight Ridder's online photographic delivery
agency, PressLink, will be combined into a new service that will operate
out of NewsCom's Los Angeles office. Together, the two companies service
news and feature photos to more than 8,000 media customers worldwide.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001101/il_tribune.html
http://www.newscom.com
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o Microsoft To Launch Japanese E-Book Online Store

Tokyo -- Microsoft has announced that it will open an online store for the
sale of e-books in Japan. The company said it will partner with
Kinokuniya, Japan's largest bookstore chain, to develop an
English-language e-book site by next spring. A site for Japanese e-book
titles will be launched by the middle of 2001, and the company announced
it would also develop Chinese-language e-books. All e-books sold on the
sites will be available in the Microsoft Reader format.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001031/wa_microso_3.html
_____________________________________________

> Digital Media Wire Networking Event - Los Angeles

Digital Media Wire will host its first networking event on Wednesday,
November 8, 2000 in Los Angeles, for subscribers and those interested in
the convergence of entertainment, technology and the Internet. Please
feel free to spread the word to others who may be interested. Light hors
d'oeuvres will be served and there will be a cash bar. There is no charge
for the event and registration is not necessary.

Sponsors:
Netjammer
Red Road Foundation

Date: Wednesday, November 8
Time: 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Where: The Sunset Trocadero Lounge
8280 Sunset Boulevard - West Hollywood, CA

For additional details: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/dmw_event1.html
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(Santa Monica) Fandom Inc., an entertainment site for fantasy, science
fiction and horror fans, as well as online gaming, announced on Wednesday
that it has acquired Cinescape, an action, adventure and science fiction
magazine focusing on film, television and new media. Terms of the deal
were not disclosed. Santa Monica-based Fandom will also take over
Cinescape.com, which offers reviews, previews, in-depth news and
behind-the-scenes features along with opinion and analysis regarding
popular films, books and television programs, like "X-Men," "Harry Potter"
and "The X-Files."
http://www.fandom.com
http://www.cinescape.com

(Santa Clara) S3, the manufacturer of Rio MP3 players and other digital
media hardware, announced on Wednesday that it will change its name to
Sonicblue, and begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange under ticker symbol
SBLU as of November 15, 2000. The company also announced the sale of its
graphics chip division to Taiwan-based Via Technologies in exchange for
returning the 15 percent stake it had in S3 in a prior deal valued at $323
million, CNET reported.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001101/ca_s3_soni.html
http://yahoo.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-3350082.html

(Austin) Varsity Television on Wednesday announced the launch of its
Internet TV network, geared towards high school students. The streaming
network will include coverage of sports, music, on-campus activities,
talent, social life and general teen news stories. The content will be
filmed by students, with an emphasis on schools that excel in technology,
new media and television production. Varsity Television CEO Joel Shults
previously worked with MTV, was part of E! Entertainment's original
management team, and was president of Polygram Records' video division.
http://www.myvtv.com

(Haddonfield, N.J.) Video Pipeline, a provider of streaming broadband
previews of movies, music and games, announced on Wednesday that it has
partnered with Microsoft. Under the deal, New Jersey-based Video
Pipeline's streaming products will be available at Microsoft's
WindowsMedia.com. The company said it has 30 clients for its streaming
delivery service, which streamed over 900,000 previews in the month of
September.
http://www.videopipeline.com
http://www.windowsmedia.com

(Los Angeles) Playboy.com announced on Wednesday the launch of its
Internet radio station for Radio Free Virgin, called the "Playboy Lounge."
The streaming music station, which will feature each month's "Playmate of
the Month" as a guest DJ, will feature a mix of electronica, hip-hop,
rock, jazz and world music.
http://www.radiofreevirgin.com
http://www.playboy.com

(New York) StreamSearch, an aggregator and distributor of online media,
announced on Wednesday that "plain-English" search engine Ask Jeeves has
included its searchable database of 2 million streaming and downloadable
audio and video files to its search results.
http://www.streamsearch.com
http://www.askjeeves.com

(Venice, Calif.) Filmspeed, a syndicator of streaming and secure
downloadable film content, announced on Wednesday that it will provide
film content to Microsoft's MSN Entertainment Channel.
http://www.filmspeed.com
http://entertainment.msn.com

(Waterford, Conn.) MeTV Network, a developer of video on demand services,
announced on Wednesday that it will conduct a three month trial of its
proprietary service on the Internet Express private DSL network in San
Diego. Connecticut-based MeTV said that during the trial, 250 users with a
minimum connection speed of 768kbps will be able to stream full-length
feature films, music videos, promotional trailers and sports programming
to their PCs or TVs. To order streaming programs to their televisions,
consumers will use a wireless remote control connected to a
transmitter/receiver unit.
http://www.metv.com
http://www.internetexpress.com

(Moffett Field, Calif.) Stream Theory, a provider of broadband streaming
software and game previews, announced on Thursday that its previews will
be featured on The Adrenaline Vault, a software and video game
entertainment site. Moffett Field-based Stream Theory's technology allows
users to preview games and software without having to download any
programs onto their computers.
http://www.streamtheory.com
http://www.avault.com
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