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UK 'bans' iPod radio add-on
By Tony Smith
Posted: 31/07/2003 at 12:37 GMT
Griffin Technologies' iTrip iPod add-on is illegal in the UK, British distributor A M Micro has said.
The iTrip connects to an iPod and transmits songs by FM radio to any radio receiver in the vicinity. While its operation in the US is permitted by the Federal Communications Commission, over here the device contravenes the UK Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949.
Unlike the 2.4GHz band in which 802.11b Wi-Fi operates, or 802.11a's 5HGz band, for example, the 87.7-107.9MHz band used by the iTrip is not licence-exempt spectrum, according to the WTA. As such broadcasters hoping to use that part of the spectrum need the permission of the UK's Radio Agency.
The rules state that UK broadcasters have unique access to the frequencies they have licensed, and that, say the RA, means the iTrip can't transmit on frequencies already taken in the FM band. A M Micro can't license a section of the band and dedicate it to iTrip users because all the available FM frequencies have already been licensed.
Cost isn't an issue - it's only £339 ($548) a year for VHF stations with under 100,000 listeners. That said, anyone using the iTrip would also need to cough up £500 ($808) a year to the Performing Rights Society to cover royalty payments to artists whose music is broadcast.
Of course, the iTrip broadcasts at very low power - the device itself draws all the power it needs from the iPod itself - but it's still enough to intrude on a broadcaster's licensed frequency, potentially interfering with listeners who have tuned into a specific station.
The bottom line, says A M Micro, is that using iTrip is an offence akin to operating a pirate radio station. If caught, the user faces prosecution, as does the dealer for selling him or her their iTrip. Not surprisingly, A M Micro wants to avoid that. ®
Consumer electronics firm Creative Labs on Thursday
released a new, slimmer model in its Nomad digital audio player line, the
NOMAD Jukebox Zen NX. Milpitas, Calif.-based Creative is offering a 30GB
version of the device for $300 and a 20GB version for $250.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030730/sfw063_1.html
Deja vu all over again.
China Plans Rival Format To MPEG Audio-Video Standard
Wednesday July 30, 10:37 pm ET
BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- The Chinese government is supporting an effort to develop a homegrown standard for compressing digital audio and video, in its latest attempt to assert its technological independence from the rest of the world.
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The committee developing China's standard met in Beijing Wednesday, and state- run media quoted industry officials as saying the aim is to enable domestic companies to avoid using the dominant MPEG standards, which require royalty payments.
Sounds and images have to be encoded in particular ways in order to be converted into a digital format that can be easily reproduced and transmitted - like DVDs or the popular MP3 format for computer files. The Moving Picture Experts Group, or MPEG, is the author of the most widely-used methods for doing this.
Makers of digital electronic devices, like DVD players or mobile phones capable of playing music and video, have to license the MPEG technologies to take advantage of those capabilities.
The competing Chinese standard, known as AVS, will be proposed as a national standard in 2004, the China Daily newspaper reported, citing Huang Tiejun, secretary-general of the Audio Video Coding Standard Workgroup.
Chinese manufacturers licensing that technology would pay fees in the order of one yuan ($1=CNY8.28) per device, much lower than those for MPEG, the report said. If it becomes a national standard, products of foreign companies sold in China could also have to use AVS.
Reflecting the importance of the Chinese market, the local research arms of multinationals like International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) , Royal Philips Electronics and Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) have signed up as members of the standard's working group.
Web site: http://www.avs.org.cn
-By Andrew Batson, Dow Jones Newswires; 8610 6588-5848; andrew.batson@dowjones.com
-Edited by John Viljoen
DRM Due In Handhelds Within A Year
By Mark Hachman
Discuss this now (1 posts)
Digital-rights-management solutions could be present within smartphones in as a little as a year's time, a senior executive at Philips said, one of a number of functions being added to mobile handsets.
Wireless executives speaking at the Semico IMPACT conference in San Jose said their industry continues to face the constant pressures to increase the performance of wireless handsets while still maintaining low power and a long battery life.
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Part of the problem stems from the role PDAs and mobile handsets play in society: at the high end, the devices emulate the role of a "personal communicator", emulating a personal computer that doubles as a cell phone.
"Our vision is one where every (handset) is a conduit for entertainment and services, and this will happen whether we like it or not," said Mario Rivas, executive vice president of the communications businesses at Philips' semiconductor division.
To solve the problem, the designers of the embedded microprocessors which power them have walked a narrow line, balancing power, performance, and space. Application-specific microcontrollers can perform tasks efficiently, but lack the potential for upgrades. On the other hand, implanting a powerful one-size-fits-all embedded microprocessor can reduce battery life to worthless levels.
"I kind of like the two-hour battery," Rivas joked. "It gives me an excuse to sleep. If I had a ten-hour battery, I might have stayed up on the plane here and not gotten enough sleep."
The steady march to finer and finer manufacturing processes governed by Moore's Law means that more and more functionality will be able to be placed on a wireless chip. Already, companies like NeoMagic are planning to sample chip s like the MiMagic 6 in four months' time, which includes a 220-MHz ARM 9 CPU, a flexible multimedia engine, a dedicated camera and video engine capable of digital zoom and contrast capabilities, and a pair of dual video engines. The goal? 3D graphics equal to or better than the Sony PSone game console, which NeoMagic estimates will require 300 RISC MIPS.
NeoMagic's secret is an associative processing array (APA). Conventional DSPs perform the same operation millions or billions of times a second on new data. NeoMagic's APA takes the opposite approach, using a parallel array to perform several different operations on the same piece of data, according to Sanjay Adkar, NeoMagic's vice president of corporate engineering.
The improvements in hardware functionality means that capabilities like FM radios, improved graphics, and dedicated MP3 engines are being added to phones. Over time, Rivas speculated, content providers are going to require the same sort of protection systems that are being built into the PC.
"We think that DRM is essential," Rivas said. "The last thing you want is someone saying you have digital MP3s in your handheld that are stolen."
Rivas said that he believes that DRM will be built into handsets within 12 to 18 months. However, he said he was not aware of any Microsoft reference design or initiative for a mobile version of NGSCB, formerly known as "Palladium".
Philips' Nexperia handheld processor will launch in 2004, although an early version is used in the P800 smartphone from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. The Nexperia supports color touchscreens, built-in cameras, organizer functions, Bluetooth wireless technology and Internet access.
The Nexperia will compete with the Nomadik chip from ST Microelectronics, due to sample in the second half of 2003 and enter production in 2004. The Nomadik uses an array of loosely-coupled application-specific processors, such as separate, dedicated audio and video processors. However, by only turning on the processors necessary to complete certain tasks, the overall device can save more power than a monolithic chip design, said Mark Hopkins, director of TPA platform architecture at ST. The Nomadik will only consume 20 mW when running 15-MHz QCIF video with MP3 sound, ST estimates.
Semico estimates the market for handheld processors topped $650 million in sales in 2002, or about 37.2 million units. In 2007, the firm said, approximately 406 million units should be sold, or about $8.5 billion in revenue.
Texas Instruments and Motorola are the top vendors, although Intel's XScale processor has made strong gains. In two years, according to market researcher IDC, the Xscale's market share has increased from a 0 percent market share to just about 30 percent.
In an unrelated announcement, ARM, Nokia, ST Microelectronics and Texas Instruments announced the MIPI Alliance in New York on Tuesday, designed to promote open standards for the microprocessors used in mobile devices. The MIPI alliance was formed as an industry-wide forum to embrace the OMAPI standard launched by ST Microelectronics and TI in December 2002.
OT Toshiba invests in M-Systems, licenses IP
ArchivesTOKYO — Japan's Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday (July 29) it has invested in M-Systems Inc. (Kfar Saba, Israel), a supplier of flash-based data storage products.
Tokyo-based Toshiba and M-Systems also disclosed plans to co-develop NAND flash-based data storage products. The agreement includes joint development of next-generation products as well as cross licensing of intellectual property.
The development involves M-Systems' flash-disk technology, which provides the functionality of a mechanical hard drive in a silicon chip. Toshiba has apparently licensed IP for M-Systems' DiskOnChip technology.
"Toshiba and M-Systems have worked closely together for many years," Masashi Muromachi, vice president of Toshiba Corp.'s semiconductor unit, said in a statement. "This agreement gives Toshiba important IP that allows us to further expand NAND flash memory applications."
Liked this....
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Industry key to growth of online music, exec says
27 minutes ago
By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Mercury News
NEW YORK - The Plug.IN digital music conference offered tongue-in-cheek homage Tuesday to Musicbank, MusicBuddha, Mongo Music and 57 other dearly departed digital music services.
These self-professed revolutionaries, once the staple of digital music conferences, promised to drag the century-old music industry into the digital era, only to become dot-bombs.
"Since we've whittled out the dilettantes, the debutantes and the just plain too early for their own good, it's time to get down to serious business -- selling music online," said Larry Kenswil, president of eLabs, the new-media technologies division of Universal Music Group. Kenswil delivered Tuesday's keynote address at the conference sponsored by Jupiter Research.
Indeed, after a breathless collection of flaky experiments, the recording industry heralded the spring launch of Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store -- and its more recent imitator, BuyMusic.com, as evidence of an emerging online marketplace for music. But the industry's running battle with unauthorized file-swapping services, which it blames for steadily declining sales, is hardly over.
Kenswil called on his industry colleagues to foster the growth of legitimate online music. Record labels need to release as many songs as possible, he said, as quickly as possible, so music consumers aren't forced to resort to peer-to-peer services to download the latest hits.
The industry also needs to rethink usage rules that make legitimate services unpalatable to online users. Kenswil said Universal Music lifted cumbersome restrictions that treated a digital download differently from individual tracks on a CD, which consumers are accustomed to using to make custom playlists, burn compilation discs and move to portable players. But new services, such as BuyMusic.com, remain hamstrung by confusing use rules that differ from label to label.
"The more utility that consumers derive from any product the more of it they should be willing to purchase. And the more they should be willing to pay for it," said Kenswil. "We can't possibly expect a customer to pay for music that doesn't allow him to use it in a manner consistent with his ability to enjoy the music he's paid for."
Kenswil said the record industry needs to set a reasonable price for digital downloads -- and stop worrying about whether online sales will cannibalize CDs. That may have been a relevant concern four years ago -- but the wildfire popularity of free services like Kazaa make such arguments moot.
"There is no other choice," said Kenswil. "It is simply the right thing to do for the entire business. In reality, we are supposed to cannibalize ourselves."
Well-known artist holdouts, such as the Beatles, must be convinced that withholding their music from legitimate services only serves to foster the growth of pirate services and hamper the growth of sanctioned alternatives, Kenswil said. And byzantine publishing rules -- which obstruct innovative ways of distributing music, such as pressplay's plans to preload thousands of songs onto the hard drive of new Gateway computers -- need to be updated, Kenswil said.
"If we don't work harder than ever as a unified business -- not a divided business -- to conquer these problems today, the only certainty is all of our challenges will become harder to overcome," said Kenswil.
OT Texas Instruments sees Japan as key engine for consumer electronics goals
Tue Jul 29, 4:22 AM ET Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan, the world leader in digital technology, and China, a fast-growing market, are key regions for Texas Instruments (TI) as it focuses more on consumer electronics, the US semiconductor giant said Tuesday.
"For TI, consumer electronics has been a very small part of our recent past but it is becoming a huge part of our future," Thomas Engibous, chairman and chief executive of the Dallas-based firm, told a news conference in Tokyo.
"A major part of our strategy for consumer electronics involves active collaboration with Japanese manufacturers," he said.
Texas Instruments Inc. has already teamed up with Japanese counterpart Sharp Corp. to develop parts for picture-snapping mobile phones.
"We are very interested in other collaborations, some of which are ongoing and are not public," Engibous said, without elaborating further.
"Because the growth of electronics is being driven by the growth in digital consumer electronics, we believe the Japan region for TI will be more important going forward in the next intermediate number of years than it has been in the past five to seven years."
In the three months to June just ended, TI's revenue from Japan grew the strongest worldwide -- up 10 percent from the previous quarter -- and sales in the rest of Asia increased five percent.
In contrast, revenue from Europe and the United States was basically flat.
"The heart and soul of digital consumer electronics is still in Japan," said Engibous.
Japanese firms, such as NTT DoCoMo Inc., lead the world in third generation mobile phone technology -- which offers high-speed Internet access and enables users to take photographs -- an important new business area for TI.
"The wireless (news - web sites) market in the United States lags the wireless market in Europe which lags the wireless market in Japan," Engibous said.
"The United States, from a terminal standpoint, is probably the least exciting of all the regions in the world," the chief executive said.
On the other hand, "China is the highlight (of) growth for wireless communication."
TI will continue to invest in Japan to develop its digital consumer electronics and multi-media mobile phone businesses, he said.
It will also expand sales and marketing operations in China.
However, after announcing in June a plan to build a three-billion-dollar semiconductor factory in Texas by the end of 2005, the firm has no need for a new manufacturing plant in China in the "immediate near future," said Engibous.
The Texas plant "should take us to the (latter part) of this decade and maybe through it before we need to make another major ... investment," he said.
rolingrock, the reports have been posted here many times before...SwissAir flight ### etc. I noticed you didn't comment on the 4 miles of wire used to connect up these "state of the art" Rockwell systems. Seems to me that portable IFE addresses a number of these problems in one fell swoop.
cheers
Safety fears over in-flight movies as pilots report electrical fires
Lawrence Donegan in San Francisco
Sunday July 20, 2003
The Observer
It's as much a part of the flying experience as take-off and landing, but the in-flight movie - popular with the public and a selling point for airlines - is now, say some experts, a safety hazard.
According to figures published this week, airline companies in the States have reported 60 incidents of malfunctioning entertainment systems in the past five years, causing sparks, smoke and even fires. One incident involved a Boeing 757 whose pilots were forced to divert the plane.
Thirteen such incidents have been reported to the US Federal Aviation Administration in the last six months.
The Canadian Transportation Safety Board has reported that a Swissair jet which crashed in 1998, killing 229 people, was caused by problems with the wiring of the in-flight entertainment system. Manufacturers claim that the Swissair tragedy was an aberration and that modern in-flight entertainment systems pose no threat - an assertion supported yesterday by the FAA, which, incidentally, has issued 22 orders to ban, modify or repair certain systems.
Aviation authorities in Australia last week ordered airline companies to modify the electrical wiring on systems fitted to Boeing 767 aircraft.
'The time has long past when we can consider these systems risk-free,' said Jim Shaw, a pilot and safety expert for the US Airline Pilots Association. 'I know of many instances where problems with in-flight entertainment systems created smoke and fire events.'
Alex Richman, an aviation safety software developer, said the problem was far more extensive: 'The 60 reports that are on record are probably the tip of the iceberg. More incidents probably go unreported than are reported.'
More than one-third of the world's planes carry in-flight movie systems - many of them fitted into older aircraft. Fitting new units to an aircraft adds an extra four miles of wiring. One solution would be to use fibre-optic cables instead of electrical wires.
Buy.com digital download stumbles out of gate
------------------------------------------------------------------------
posted 1:50pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003 - submitted by Christopher R. Anderson
NEWS
Buy.com's attempt to compete with Apple's extremely successful iTunes.com has had a slow and somewhat painful start: users who downloaded songs from the BuyMusic.com site have had issues transferring the songs to digital portable devices.
The problem is caused by the fact that BuyMusic.com's files are encoded in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format, which can be made to limit what can be done with the music file. The Internet retailer is planning on recoding its files to resolve the transfer issue, and will let users redownload the files.
Buy.com is the first retailer to provide a medium for Windows users to legally download copyrighted material. Buy.com has not released figures regarding how many downloads its site has had.
Read more on this topic at USAToday.
CHRISTOPHER'S OPINION
Not a great start for BuyMusic.com. It is especially embarrassing considering Buy.com sells MP3 players. Evidently the company didn't bother testing the site before releasing it.
It seems pretty obvious Buy.com rushed into this in an effort to be first to market for PC users. At least it's doing the right thing by fixing the problem and compensating users. But as opposed to allowing users to simply redownload the songs that should have worked in the first place, the company should also offer a free download.
It's amazing to see how bumbling some companies can be, and how well Apple can do the same thing. Apple has set the bar, and it looks like it will be a little while before anyone else can get close. PC users will be waiting.
USER COMMENTS 21 comment(s)
1st (1:53pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
That's too bad, I was really looking forward to trying out the service. I was under the impression that they would provide mp3 downloads without use restrictions.
Oh well, Maybe Napster 2.0 will be better - by Froggy Style
mp3 is the standard (1:58pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
why suck up to the microsoft format? - by mp3 luvr
Why Not mp3 (2:11pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
They chose wma because it has digital rights management(DRM) built into it.
They did not want to create a download once and use as you please service. At least not at first, now it looks like they are backtracking.
Another reason they don't use mp3s could be that the record companies would not license their catalogs if they used mp3. You know how sensitive those RIAA types are about the 'Evil' mp3. LOL - by Frogs are Us
Apple (2:16pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
When Apple comes out with iTunes for Windows... I hope it's as good as a product as the Mac version.
... after all.. I am a stock holder - by maximuxGeek
A better way (2:34pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
www.apple.com - by iPodder
Well, (2:36pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Buy.com is doing something new. Nothing new ends up having a perfect start. I am sure they'll get better as they go, and slowly eliminating the problems. Do not forget though, that apple's iTunes does differ from Buy.com's way of downloading and burning music, therefore iTunes doing better. Apple also puts a lot of effort for a long time in iTunes, so it makes sense that it runs better, BUT it doesn't run perfect either. It's had it's glitches here and there. I think the whole Pay for Digital download thing is new. The company i used to work for before it ran out of business in 2001 was a music company. We came up with the first such thing back then(well kind of the same): You could download the songs, or order the CD online, and you could play it four times for free. If you liked it you paid for an activation code, else you threw the CD out and didn't pay anything for it. The product was called ForePlay. I wasn't part of the original developement team, since the project was scrapped at around the time I started work there, but the damn idea was pretty good, and it generated a lot of buzz. However it was occasinally pleagued by errors etc. My point? It takes time for these new technologies to set in. What I do not understand, why does Buy.com use Windows Media file formats? Why not mp3's? - by WD
re:Frogs are Us (2:37pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
I guess that answers my last question. Thanks - by WD
Window Media is a plague (2:48pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Windows Media must be fought at every front. The success of every consumer electronics & computing movement has been thanks to the openness and company-agnostic nature of a standard file/media/transfer format. 8-track, VHS, CD's, DVD's...even the PC itself. They all were built by and approved by a consortium of companies that kept the schema for the format open and available. We are on the brink of a major turning point, where the majority of creative and communication content is delivered and digested in digital form. Who should own the keys to that content's encryption? Everyone or Microsoft? If they really want to push a superior technology for the greater good, open it. Open the file format.
We can already see that the internet is in danger of becoming a windows-only club thanks to Microsoft's encouragement of using non-standard tools and techniques. Should our communications be dictated by a company whose sole desire is to lock people into windows? They didn't invest 500 million in WM9 for nothing. It's sole purpose is to lock content into windows and microsoft solutions.
We have to fight this. Support open standards. It's our only hope.
- by Dr Alien
Neuros (2:52pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
The Neuros will soon support WMA (DRM wll not be enabled at first).
Ogg Vorbis support is already in 2nd Beta and works well.
- by Chameleon
Why is it ok (3:18pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Why is it ok to release a product for sale that has problems. I see so many comments like this these days. A product should be thoroughly tested before release. The problems that buymusic is having should have been easily found by themselves before release. Is it just because it's being sold on the internet that it is acceptable? - by dr. dude
Broken on delivery (3:36pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Is it any surprise. The entire PC culture is built on the broken on delivery, fix it with a future release mentality. And we all know who created and continues to shepard the flock in this regard....well you know, MS. This site seems like it's practically run by Microsoft.
I can't even remember how many pc products I've purchased that simply couldn't provide the functionality they advertised with updates. Sometimes they never did. Maybe someday the industry at large with have a leader that totes quality and polish over dominance. - by Dr Alien
It's ok (3:57pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Who cares if it's .wma files that you download. Just convert them to .mp3 files and no more .wma file and no more copyright restrictions that you have with the original .wma files! It's really simple to do! :) - by AroundTheSystem
every compression standard (4:06pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
removes different parts of the information. when you convert a wma in to an mp3, you lose much more quality than if you encoded into mp3 to begin with. These download services (BuyMusic.com and iTMS) are already asking us to pay for something that is flawed and of fairly low quality, but to have to convert the file and lose even more quality just to be able to use the file is, shall we say, not optimal. - by stinky pete
Re: AroundYourA$$ (4:07pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Hey mental midget, what the frick do you think DRM is FOR? The express purpose of it is to PREVENT conversion (and as above, even using it on a non-pc device). If it didnt have any restrictions, THEY COULD TRANSFER IT TO AN MP3 DEVICE ALREADY. They wouldnt NEED to use WMA if you could just go around converting it whenever you wanted. WTF do you think copyright restrictions are FOR? Get a clue numbnuts. - by TT
Sorta Question ? (4:28pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
To maintain sound quality (although this would be a pain in the ass)
Couldn't you download the music, play on your radio, via Belkin tunecast and then record it again, either by hooking the PC up to the stereo or if you had a stereo with a CD recorder.
Wouldn't that give you the same sound quaity and strip the DRM's
I am asking, cause i just though of this and i am not really an expert of the different audio formats and DRM - by Rasmuskl
numbnuts (4:32pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Stevey says clueless is goodness and he's off to make a mp3.wma.fu file to celebrate this revelation! - by Steve/XP
the conversion/way around (4:38pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
the DRM that I was thinking of was to burn a cd from the downloaded wma's, and then you could encode those aif's to whatever you want, DRM free. (I left that part out because I didn't feel the need to get slammed by all the geeks who know a better software solution.) So you go from a moderate quality at best wma to a pretty poor aif, then convert that to an mp3 that bare some general sense of the original music, but much better than listening to AM radio in a tunnel. Even if the good songs were .79, is that worth it? Nope. - by Stinky Pete
Destined for Failure (4:39pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
The use restrictions on the songs mean that buymusic.com is just like any other crap music site.
When will these companies make an effort to understand their customers?
- by Windows iTunes Plz
Unrelated... (4:41pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
I've read that the name of Kobe Bryant's accuser has been posted on the web. Anyone know where? or better yet, what's her name?
- by spud boy
RE: Sorta Question ? (4:43pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Well yeah. I can use my soudcard's "What you Hear" record feature to do the same thing. I tell it to record whatever comes out of my soundcard and then I play the song and it records it.
The basic rule is folks, if you can hear it or see it you can copy it.
It would still be a major pain in the butt to have to re-record all of the songs I just bought. It'd be wroth the 6 extra bucks to go get the CD and just rip it to MP3. - by Torrey
Sheet4BRains (4:51pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
Unrelated... (4:41pm EST Tue Jul 29 2003)
I've read that the name of Kobe Bryant's accuser has been posted on the web. Anyone know where? or better yet, what's her name?
Yep - her name is Spud Boy - by Steve/XM
Internet song swappers say legal threats won't stop them
Tue Jul 29, 8:06 AM ET
Edward C. Baig USA TODAY
NEW YORK -- Online song swappers say the fear of getting hammered with a hefty lawsuit has had little effect on their habits -- at least for now.
Just 17% of swappers ages 18 and over say they have cut back on file sharing because of the potential legal consequences, according to a survey released by Jupiter Research at the company's annual Plug.IN digital music conference Monday. And 43% see nothing wrong with online file trading; only 15% say it's wrong.
The survey was completed after the recording industry began issuing a flood of subpoenas in an attempt to discover the identities of illicit song traders. Measurements have since shown traffic slowing on some of the most popular file-swap services on the Net.
But conference participants expect it will take a number of tactics to make a difference. ''There should be a combination of a stick and a carrot,'' says Tsvi Gal, chief information officer at Warner Music. ''The likes of (Apple's) iTunes proved that there is a market for people who want to be honest.''
Adds Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association, a trade group: ''Cable service theft stopped when you saw your neighbor walking down the street with silver handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit. How many subpoenas will they have to (serve) to grandparents and parents until the parent says to the kid, 'What are you doing on my computer?' They'll shut it off fast.''
Overall, Jupiter remains bullish on the state of online music in the long haul, though it has slashed its forecasts because of industry doldrums. The ''digital channel is still in its infancy,'' Jupiter analyst Lee Black says. The online music market is expected to reach $3.3 billion in 2008, about a fourth of the total U.S. consumers will spend on music that year, and quadruple the amount consumers are currently spending online.
Other predictions:
* CDs will not be replaced anytime soon. But offline sales will continue to sag as consumers increasingly move online to shop and retailers make room on store shelves for DVDs and video games at the expense of compact discs.
* File sharing will become marginalized as consumers are put off by poor quality, ''spyware'' and ads.
* Online sales will slowly shift from discs to digital downloads. That's because downloads are cheaper and more immediate, and buyers can pick individual tracks.
Creative Introduces NOMAD MuVo NX 256MB and 128MB MP3 Players and Expands Award-Winning NOMAD MuVo Family
Tuesday July 29, 1:01 pm ET
Super Compact MP3 Players With USB Flash Drive Functionality Feature Backlit LCD, Built-in Microphone and M-PORT Compatibility for Seamless Speaker Connectivity
MILPITAS, Calif., July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Creative (Nasdaq: CREAF - News), a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products for PC users, today announced U.S. shipment of the NOMAD® MuVo® NX digital audio player, featuring up to 256MB of memory and a backlit LCD for easy on-the-go music navigation. The compact NOMAD MuVo NX is the first MP3 player to feature M-PORT(TM) compatibility enabling direct connectivity and audio streaming to any Creative I-Trigue(TM) speaker system featuring an M-PORT interface. The sleek, silver NOMAD MuVo NX with 128MB is small enough to fit on a key chain or wear around the neck, yet can hold up to four hours of music and is now shipping at an estimated street price of US$149.99. An even higher capacity NOMAD MuVo NX, featuring 256MB to hold up to an amazing eight hours of music in the same small form factor, will ship in August 2003 at an estimated street price of only US$199.99.
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"The revolutionary NOMAD MuVo MP3 player and USB flash drive all-in-one set an industry standard," said Lisa O'Malley, senior brand manager for portable audio products at Creative. "Others have tried to imitate the concept, but the NOMAD MuVo is the only player that delivers what consumers want and continues to set the standard for quality, ease-of-use and versatility. With the introduction of the NOMAD MuVo NX we've built even further on that success by adding a cool blue backlit LCD, a built-in microphone for voice recording, and a 256MB model to hold up to eight hours of music."
The lightweight NOMAD MuVo NX is so easy to use and durable it can be taken wherever one goes, and since the player features solid-state construction the user will never worry about music skipping during playback. This makes the NOMAD MuVo NX a perfect companion for any activity -- just strap the player into the bundled sports armband and enjoy. Each NOMAD MuVo NX also ships with an extra body casing accessory so that users can easily switch the color of their player whenever they choose. NOMAD MuVo NX 128MB users can dress their player in silver or dark red, while NOMAD MuVo NX 256MB users can select charcoal or sky blue. Multiple body casing accessories in fashionable colors will also be available separately so that users can change the color of their NOMAD MuVo NX at any time to match their outfit or their attitude.
The blue, backlit LCD on the NOMAD MuVo NX displays full song information from ID3 tags and shows track number, play time, play mode and EQ setting. It's easy to select favorite songs and set play modes, such as Shuffle and Resume, with the scroller button. With the built-in microphone, users can also record over 16 hours of live audio -- use it to record quick reminders, or hours of notes, lectures and conversations.
Like the original NOMAD MuVo, the NOMAD MuVo NX does not require cables and conveniently doubles as a USB flash drive. Just slide the player apart, plug it directly into the computer's USB port, and it will be automatically recognized as a removable drive. Users can transfer any file type from their PC onto the NOMAD MuVo NX and vice versa with simple drag and drop functionality. The 256MB NOMAD MuVo NX can hold up to 176 floppies worth of data, which can be transferred onto the player ten times faster than possible when using a floppy. The NOMAD MuVo NX can also be connected directly to Creative speaker systems with an M-PORT interface, such as the new Creative I-Trigue(TM) L3500 and Creative I-Trigue L3450, for instant music playback.
True to Creative's rich audio heritage, the NOMAD MuVo NX boasts superior audio quality with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 90dB -- incredible sound quality that rivals players many times its size. The NOMAD MuVo NX can play uninterrupted high-quality music for up to 11 hours on just one AAA alkaline battery.
Although the NOMAD MuVo NX does not require software, the player comes bundled with Creative MediaSource(TM) for consumers who may have never used MP3 or WMA files before. MediaSource is a full MP3 and WMA ripping and organizing application with a fresh, clean interface. The easy to use MediaSource application includes everything needed to convert a CD collection into a portable digital library that can be transferred easily to the NOMAD MuVo NX and taken wherever one goes.
More NOMAD MuVo NX information is available at www.nomadworld.com.
About Creative
Creative is a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products for PC users. Famous for its Sound Blaster® sound cards and for launching the multimedia revolution, Creative is now driving digital entertainment on the PC platform with products like its highly acclaimed NOMAD Jukebox. Creative's innovative hardware, proprietary technology, applications and services leverage the Internet, enabling consumers to experience high-quality digital entertainment -- anytime, anywhere.
This announcement relates to products launched in the United States. The product names, prices and availability are subject to change without notice and may differ elsewhere in the world according to local factors and requirements.
NOTE: Creative, I-Trigue, MuVo, M-PORT, MediaSource and Sound Blaster are trademarks or registered trademarks of Creative Technology Ltd. in the United States and/or other countries. NOMAD is a registered trademark of Aonix and is used by Creative Technology Ltd. under license.
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Source: Creative Labs, Inc.
Sorry for the caps..theirs not mine.eom
TEENS NOW SPEND MORE TIME ONLINE THAN WATCHING TV
New Study Details Media Usage Patterns of First Internet Generation
July 28, 2003
QwikFIND ID: AAO88L
By Tobi Elkin
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Teens and young adults ages 13 to 24 now spend more time every day on the Internet than they do watching TV, according to a new study
conducted by Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited.
Media habits
Commissioned by Yahoo! and Carat North America's Carat Interactive, the project polled more than 2,500 individuals in June using online and offline methods. The findings exhaustively detail the age group's media consumption habits.
The study, "Born to Be Wired: Understanding the First Wired Generation," confirms other recent reports and widespread assumptions that there has been a profound shift in the way teens and young adults treat and engage with media.
$149 billion
The 47 million people who make up the 13 to 24 age group spend an estimated $149 billion, 15% of which is spent online, and their influence on other people extends by as much as five times their spending, according to the findings.
During an average week, according to the report, 13- to 24-year-olds spend 16.7 hours online (excluding e-mail); 13.6 hours watching TV; 12 hours listening to the radio; 7.7 hours talking on the phone (including landlines and cell phones); and six hours reading books and magazines to keep up on personal interests.
Teens and young adults almost universally engage in other media-related activities while they're online: Some 68% listen to CDs or MP3s; 50% watch TV; 45% talk on the phone; 45% listen to the radio; 45% do homework; 21% read. Only 5% of those surveyed said they do nothing else while they're online.
Reveling in fragmentation
Today's media fragmentation, a headache for marketers and a frustration for adults looking to simplify their media options, presents an energizing challenge rather than a problem for most teens and young adults. They thrive on the sheer variety of choices and enjoy managing, controlling and personalizing them.
That 13- to 24-year-olds, dubbed "Milliennials," are extremely comfortable with such media multitasking was the single most striking study finding for Sarah Fay, president of Carat Interactive.
"We know they are juggling more media, making their attention spans shorter and more challenging to capture," she said.
'Millennials'
The term "Millennials" is taken from the book Millennials Rising, by Neil Howe and William Strauss (Vintage Books, 2000). According to the book, "Millennials are unlike any other youth generation in living memory. They are more numerous, more affluent, better educated, and more ethnically diverse. More important, they are beginning to manifest a wide array of positive social habits that older Americans no longer associate with youth, including a new focus on teamwork, achievement, modesty, and good conduct."
Wenda Millard, Yahoo!'s ad sales chief, thought Millennials would have used the Internet more for entertainment instead of information purposes. The findings indicate that they approach the Web with an agenda, making search engines their first stop. For example, reports about new fashion trends in print magazines routinely inspire an online search for more information and shopping opportunities.
MARKETING REVOLUTION SWEEPS THE MUSIC BUSINESS
An Ad Age Special Report on Music Industry Advertising
July 28, 2003
QwikFIND ID: AAO86V
By Marc Pollack
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Ravaged by plummeting sales, online piracy and a wide-reaching technological revolution, the music industry is rushing to reinvent the way
it sells its products. And among the areas most impacted by this frantic new quest is virtually every aspect of music-related advertising and marketing.
CD sales plummet
Consumers across all demographics are buying fewer CDs than ever. Sales are down 13% from just two years ago and continue to plummet, with no end in sight.
The industry has pinned the blame for much of the current downturn on Internet file-sharing, illegal downloading and CD-burning. And, despite the promise of "legal" sites like Steve Jobs' much-ballyhooed iTunes Music store, music companies are scrambling to find a solution that will expose and monetize their investments.
Their sense of urgency is easy to understand. Consider, for instance, the recent study of 12- to 44-year-old consumers by Edison Media Research, that found that those who have downloaded more than 100 music files report that their purchases of CDs have dropped 61% from the year before. In addition, 71% of those heavy downloaders have "burned someone else's copy of a CD instead of buying one," and 48% say they no longer buy CDs "because they download music for free over the Internet."
Grasping
In this climate, artists, managers, labels and publishing executives are all grasping for alternative revenue streams, or at least another partner to help share the ever-increasing promotional budget to launch new artists and continue to sustain career acts.
The result is an explosion of marketing campaigns and plans that intertwine musicians and product promotions in new and novel ways.
"At most record companies, the astute marketing people have been tying together artists and products for many years," says longtime industry executive Phil Quartararo, EMI Recorded Music North America executive vice president who oversees the company's new in-house marketing entity, EMI Music Marketing. However, the consumer today is more inundated than ever before by those competing for multiple advertising impressions. "The weight has been put on us to become more focused and selective in coming up with non-traditional sales relationships."
Steely Dan & GM Credit
Adds legendary music manager Irving Azoff, who has about 20 corporate deals for the summer, including Eagles and Infinity, Steely Dan and GM Credit and Christina Aguilera with Skechers, Target and Mattel: "Times are not only tough, they're getting harder. We are selling less catalog and fewer new records. With the economy as bad as it is, costs haven't gone down. We need to make up for some of these losses. These types of deals are natural."
This is nothing new, of course. Entertainment Marketing Communications Inc. founder Jay Coleman is considered the father of music marketing, launching early pairings such as Earth, Wind & Fire for Motorola and the groundbreaking sponsorship of Coty U.S.' Jovan for the Rolling Stones' 1981 tour. The struggling musk oil company paid $500,000 and, according to Mr. Coleman, "it put them on the map in a major way."
Stones and The Who
The Stones went on to cement sponsorships with Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser, Sprint, Tommy Hilfiger and T-Mobile for their most recent Euro jaunt. The Who have used Miller Genuine Draft as tour sponsors, Paul McCartney's show was promoted by Visa International and Phil Collins was presented by Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Management powerhouse The Firm, whose music clients include Mary J. Blige, Dixie Chicks, Jennifer Lopez, Michelle Branch, Enrique Iglesias and Korn, was one of the first to recognize the importance of these deals and has aggressively pursued opportunities. For example, The Firm and Maverick Records have teamed young singer/songwriter Michelle Branch with Unilever's Thermasilk, which sponsored her recent 12-city tour with a radio and online campaign. To demonstrate its commitment, the label is allowing Thermasilk to use the music for free, a tactic becoming much more prominent.
High-profile campaigns
Examples of recent high-profile ad blitzes include Celine Dion and Chrysler Group, which helped launch the diva's new album and
Sting's 2000 Jaguar comercial.
Led Zeppelin's Cadillac commercial.
Celine Dion's Chrysler commercial.
Meat Loaf's GM commercial.
Shakira's Pepsi commercial.
Rapper Common's Coke commercial.
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her much-hyped Las Vegas connection; Led Zeppelin and General Motors Corp.'s Cadillac; Jewel and Schick; Shakira and Pepsi-Cola Co.'s Pepsi; Jay-Z and Heineken USA and Reebok; Enrique Iglesias and PepsiCo unit Frito-Lay's Doritos; and Mya and Common for Coca-Cola Co.
Interscope Geffen A&M, Records Marketing/Sales Head Steve Berman, who made a cameo appearance in this year's Mya and Common spot, says the partnership between advertisers and labels is inevitable.
"Our goal is always to match up the right artist, the right brand and the right song, and time it to penetrate the marketplace from all angles, together," he says.
From radio to commercials
With the passage of the Telecommunications Act in the mid-1990s and subsequent consolidation of the radio business under monoliths such as Clear Channel Communications and Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting Corp., getting a song heard on the air has become harder than ever. Labels and artists have turned to major advertisers and TV to help reach the broader demographic audience once delivered by radio. These days, with the cherry-picking encouraged by most file-sharing services, legal as well as illegal, and the perception that many hit albums are composed of mostly filler beyond the hits, the record industry's sharp growth over the last two decades has been curtailed disastrously. And that is why the exposure music can receive on TV becomes so important.
Take, for instance, the longtime sales spike seen by Sting, when his eventual hit single "Desert Rose," which couldn't garner traditional radio airplay, was used as the theme to a Jaguar TV spot and a Compaq Computer Corp. campaign.
Dirty Vegas
Likewise, U.K. band Dirty Vegas' techno-rocker "Days Go By" became a hit only after it was exposed on a Mitsubishi car commercial. Every song on Moby's album Play was used in a commercial, helping it go multi-platinum in the process.
Universal Music Publishing Group Worldwide President David Renzer says that for the last few years, most of his company's revenue has come from synch -- licensing his songs for commercials. Still, label partners continue to urge him to be flexible on those fees to gain exposure for acts they're trying to promote, such as Andrew W.K., a new artist whose music appeared in commercials for Coors Brewing Co., Target Corp. and Nestle's KitKat.
"There's a balance between preserving the value of copyright and taking into consideration the promotional opportunities to help break an act," he says. "It's a healthy tension."
Marketing vet Mitch Litvak is the founder of the L.A. Office, a one-stop shop for brands and entertainers to strengthen their promotional-commercial ties. It hosts The L.A. Office RoadShow, a conference, which last year drew more than 600 attendees, helping introduce brand marketers to opportunities in major films, TV and music.
Correct match
"The most important thing is to know your brand's essence and match it properly to your artists," Mr. Litvak says. "So much gets messed up when you try to get an artist to fit a product or a product to fit an artist."
"Just think of bands as brands," adds Mr. Coleman. "Reinforcing that can help sell merchandise, records, tickets and content."
Although the idea of rockers shilling for commercials no longer holds the stigma it did when Nike used John Lennon's "Revolution" to sell running shoes, there are some who still condemn the practice, such as Tom Petty, U2, John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen. Neil Young parodied the practice in his award-winning video "This Note's for You," with the refrain "Ain't singin' for Pepsi/Ain't singin' for Coke/I don't sing for nobody/Makes me look like a joke."
Elvis Presley
But the tradition of rock 'n' rollers hyping products goes back to at least the mid-1950s, when the King himself, Elvis Presley, did a radio jingle for Southern-Maid doughnuts as part of his contract with the "Louisiana Hayride" show, undoubtedly arranged by his prescient manager, Col. Tom Parker. Elvis' image continues to be used in advertising, the latest a series of Keebler elves spots and National Basketball Association promos.
Ayiko Broyard, manager of music marketing for Davie-Brown Entertainment, admits any partnership between a star and an advertiser can be a gamble: "If your artist doesn't perform to expectations or reach the intended audience, then neither will your product, and the campaign will be doomed." Mr. Coleman points to the Celine Dion Chrysler TV spots, which featured the Crossfire, as a misstep. "If they were promoting a minivan or an SUV to soccer moms, like the later commercials did, it's fine," he says. "But they were promoting a sports car, which is usually a male-dominated item, and I think they turned off a great many men buyers by using her."
While the risks are great, the rewards can be even greater, especially as the partnerships become more innovative and creative. The current multimillion-dollar initiative by independent Big3 Records and Comdex Group's LidRock to promote young rock singer/songwriter Rachel Farris is a prime example of out-of-the-box thinking.
CDs in soda lid
The label, Coca-Cola, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios Theme Parks, and Anschutz Entertainment Group's Regal, Edwards and United theaters are partnered in the promotion. Starting in June and running through July, Ms. Farris' video has been played in theaters before the feature presentation, while consumers who bought a large Coca-Cola received a 3-inch, two-song CD of her music, which was embedded in the lid. The disc also includes two spots, one for Universal Studios Theme Parks and another for the new Farrely brothers-directed comedy Stuck on You, starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear and hitting theaters this fall.
Four million of the CD lids were earmarked for distribution on 7,000 screens in the top 25 markets, with more headed for Universal Studios parks in Los Angeles and Orlando. Ms. Farris' song "Soak" will be used as an accompaniment to the theme parks' water slide rides, while Fox is offering free tickets to the premiere of "Stuck on You" to registrants on Ms. Farris' Web site.
Big3 Records' president, Bill Richards, says sales of Ms. Farris' CD have tripled since the promotion began: "There has to be another way to get music in people's hands. Instead of illegally downloading music, you get it for free. If you don't hear something, how can you possibly know if you want it?"
Music as sponsored activity
With millions of dollars being spent on pairings of artist and product, it's a foregone conclusion that these partnerships will take on a larger role as the industry tries to reverse its downward slide. One wonders if music will simply become a sponsored activity, brought to you by not just the record label but third parties as well, with their own products to sell. Concludes Mr. Richards: "The music industry's regular way of doing things doesn't seem to be working. I believe, with the impressions she's getting, Rachel Farris will be a household name by the end of July. You've got to be pro-active. You have to play offense, not defense, in this business ... or you'll go out of business."
Adds Mr. Azoff: "What's good for one artist may not be right for another. ... The exciting thing about our business is we can continue to come up with new and innovative ideas to keep the checks coming in."
~ ~ ~
Roy Trakin contributed to this report. Mr. Trakin and Mr. Pollack are senior editors at Hits Magazine.
MUSIC MARKETING OBSTACLE: 30 BILLION ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS A YEAR
Legitimate Online Music Services Need High-Powered Marketing Strategies
July 28, 2003
QwikFIND ID: AAO87O
By Tobi Elkin
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The competitive landscape for online subscription music services is likely to heat up over the next six to nine months, spurred by the successway of Apple Computer's iTunes music store, which launched this spring.
As of June 23, Apple reported more than five million download sales of music tracks.
Roxio's plan to relaunch Pressplay, which it recently acquired, as Napster -- albeit as a for-pay, legal music download service -- is a further sign that momentum is building in the category. But how will subscription download services such as MusicNet, MusicMatch, iTunes, Liquid Audio, Listen's Rhapsody, Full Audio's Music Now and Yahoo!'s Launch create viable businesses and create critical mass in a world where free services Kazaa, Grokster, iMesh and Morpheus rack up millions of downloads a month?
2 billion illegal downloads
At its peak, Napster had about 1.5 million people logged in on any given day and saw 2.7 billion -- yes, billion -- downloads a month, says Lee Black, senior analyst for Jupiter Research. Globally, illegal downloads are estimated at 2 billion to 2.6 billion per month and were forecast to have hit 24 billion to 31.2 billion in 2002, says Leo Kivijarv, director of research and publications for Veronis Suhler Stevenson. ComScore Networks puts the number of U.S. computers using Kazaa in May at 7.5 million, while the number of engaged visitors to subscription-based mp3.com in May was only 920,000.
All the software encryption in the world won't eliminate illegal file-sharing and digital downloads, say industry-watchers. They say the legitimate services will need to create unique marketing propositions to differentiate themselves from one another. Marketing on the basis of ease-of-use, high-quality downloads, extra features, value-added incentives and strong customer service will all be important in coming months as the for-pay services compete for market share. Jupiter Research projects consumer spending on subscription music services will grow from $50 million in 2003 to $500 million by 2006.
The big question
The big question: Will the downloads kill the subscription services before they even get off the ground? Mr. Black wonders. The growing number of broadband Internet-enabled households is expected to help drive interest in and demand for subscription services. According to survey results from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 29% of Internet users, or about 35 million Americans, say they have a broadband Internet connection at home and 41% of these broadband consumers (about 14 million), download music -- 9% on any given day.
Subscription services charge anywhere from $3.95 to $19.95 per month, depending on the number of downloads offered and whether CD burning is part of the subscription. Apple's a la carte store charges 99¢ per digital download, while Listen's Rhapsody charges 79¢ a track for CD burning. Volume discounts are also offered.
"The sweet spot is zero," laughs Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research, when asked about the ideal price point for consumers.
While most of the services decline to specify their subscriber numbers other than to suggest they're in the "hundreds of thousands," MusicMatch is believed to have about 145,000 subscribers who pay between $3 and $5 a month, Mr. Bernoff says. The service doesn't offer CD burning and is more of a radio service.
All eyes on Windows
"The next six to nine months will be a very intense period for Windows [Microsoft Windows-based] music services," Mr. Bernoff says. The anticipated launch of Apple's iTunes for Windows PCs later this year, coupled with forays by Microsoft Corp. and Amazon into the space, is expected to stoke excitement in the category.
He projects that the period from December 2003 to April 2004 will see a rash of service launches, accompanied by high profile marketing pushes.
Mr. Black points out that subscription music services, backed in part by big record labels, have limped along for the last couple of years. They built network infrastructure, secured licenses and content and created alliances with portals and other content providers -- but there was no money for marketing to support subscriber acquisition and awareness-building. That is expected to change in the coming months. Apple's high-profile ad campaign by Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, Playa del Rey, Calif., has set the bar for rivals -- and it has begun to create category awareness.
Apple to benefit category
"Apple's marketing and media push is likely to drive awareness for the entire online music category. "The No. 1 factor is the brand," says Phil Leigh, digital media analyst at the investment firm Raymond James & Associates in St Petersburg, Fla. "The average person doesn't know Rhapsody and Full Audio and the others. ... The circumstances are almost ideal for the labels here; Apple is a brand that everyone knows."
Apple's iTunes struck a chord: "It really proved if you give consumers the rights to the downloads they want, they'll buy them," Mr. Black says. "Consumers have said as long as they can own it and copy it to other devices, they'll pay for it. ... Give them usage rights and they'll buy it."
Marketing quality
The legitimate services must try to beat the free services at their own game and market their strengths, Mr. Black contends. "The free services often have poorly encoded downloads, low bandwidth and tons of junk software. ... There will be a flight to quality service," he says. Word-of-mouth and viral marketing are considered critical to the future of online music subscription services. To date, "it has been very unclear how to position the services, but there's also been no money [for marketing]," Mr. Black asserts.
Marketing is key, Mr. Leigh maintains in a recent report: "As music shifts to Internet distribution, the value of brand recognition should not be underestimated," adding that big Internet brands like Yahoo!, Amazon, RealNetworks and Napster, repositioned from "free," will thrive.
New Napster a Hybrid of Predecessors
By Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP)—Napster may be long dead, but the name and the "kitty" logo of the pioneer online music-swapping program could return to cyberspace before the year is out.
Santa Clara-based Roxio Inc., which owns the rights to the Napster name, plans to shelve its current online music service, pressplay, and roll out Napster 2.0 by Christmas, Chris Gorog, Roxio's chairman and chief executive, told The Associated Press.
Gorog was scheduled to announce details of the venture Monday at the Jupiter Plug.IN Conference & Expo in New York.
Software maker Roxio acquired pressplay, a joint venture of Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, in May, six months after it bought the rights to Napster for about $5 million. The company hopes to generate interest and sales off what is arguably the most recognizable brand name in online music.
"Napster 2.0 has really been designed with a deep respect for the characteristics that made the original Napster so successful," Gorog said. "Consumer choice is really the biggest value that we have been able to carry over."
The new service may carry the Napster name, but it will have little else in common with the original, which provided a means for users to download music free of charge before it was forced to shut down in 2001 after losing court battles with the music industry.
Unlike its predecessor, Napster 2.0 will have the blessing of the five major record companies and many independent labels. But users will have to pay to download music files, and some of the song files will have restrictions on a variety of usage rights, such as how many times they can be burned onto CDs or moved to a portable digital music player, if at all.
Unlike pressplay and other PC-based online music retailers, which offer either a la carte music downloads or require users to pay a monthly subscription fee, Napster 2.0 will offer the option of doing both.
"This, we think, is the most significant change with what's currently out there," Gorog said.
Gorog declined to specify how much songs would cost, but said prices would not be out of line with what other online music services charge. The lowest price available now for downloading a single song at other online music retailers is 79 cents. Some services charge over a dollar to download some songs, while full album downloads can be found at under $8.
Gorog also declined to give details on what usage rights customers will have to songs downloaded from Napster 2.0.
"We're working with the labels to liberalize usage rules and we believe that they will be much more liberal that we have had in the past," Gorog said.
Restrictions on what consumers can do with music they pay to download remain an obstacle for PC-based online retailers. Only Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, which debuted in April, has so far enjoyed usage deals with the record labels that give its customers freedom to burn the songs they buy to CDs virtually without restriction. Apple users represent 3 percent of the home computer market.
Napster 2.0, however, will try to eclipse all other digital music retailers by debuting with a selection of about 500,000 tracks. The current song volume leaders, pressplay and BuyMusic.com, which opened for business last week, each say they currently offer more than 300,000 songs.
The bulk of the additional songs on Napster 2.0 will come from artists on independent labels, a Napster spokeswoman said.
The service will also have Internet radio, exclusive programming and artist interviews, Gorog said.
Nostalgia over Napster will likely drive interest in the new service, but that may not be enough for Roxio if the service doesn't deliver, said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates.
Leigh believes Apple's service, with its liberal usage rules, will likely be the standard to which consumers will hold the new Napster.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
OT Gates: Dot-com dreams to come true
By Ina Fried
CNET News.com
July 28, 2003, 11:28 AM PT
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REDMOND, Wash.--The dot-com boom wasn't a total bust, according to Bill Gates.
The Microsoft chairman said Monday that most of the advances promised during the Internet boom will eventually come true.
"Virtually everything that was discussed, even the most hyped thing" will happen, Gates told a crowd of researchers gathered at its headquarters here for the company's yearly Microsoft Research Faculty Summit. "It just takes more time."
Gates said only the most basic business processes are handled digitally today, so many of the real productivity gains still lie ahead. "Certainly less than 10 percent of that has actually been realized," he said.
The speech echoed the upbeat presentations that Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered to financial analysts last week.
Microsoft has made significant progress in getting its Windows CE operating system designed into new automobiles, said Gates. He predicted that within two to three years "about 30 percent of cars" will have a display system using the scaled-down software for non-PC devices that use embedded processors.
Microsoft has had better success with car makers in Europe and Asia than in North America, he added, noting that the idea of having people look at a screen while driving is "a bit more controversial" in the United States. For the U.S. market, Gates said the company is more focused on voice-controlled technology.
Even for a company as big as Microsoft, the chairman said, there are enough new areas of growth to keep it expanding without having to move beyond its core business.
"We see enough opportunity in software," he said. "You're not going to see us buy a consulting company...We're not going to get into the chip business."
That room for growth is the reason Microsoft is boosting its research budget for the coming year by 8 percent, to roughly $6.9 billion, according to Gates. "I've got to prove that to our shareholders by showing that we will get more than $6.9 billion back," he said.
In a question-and-answer session following his speech, Gates took issue with the notion that a decline in computer science enrollment might be related to the outsourcing of jobs overseas.
"Basically, no," he said, adding that there are plenty of job opportunities for computer science graduates, including at Microsoft. It makes sense for Microsoft to keep most of its development efforts centralized in the United States, he added.
"We will always have the vast majority of our (major) software development here," he said. "We're not about, 'Can we do the next version of Windows for 5 percent less?'"
Gates and Microsoft research head Rick Rashid did express concern that not enough women and minorities were going into computer science, with the number of women entering college computer science programs declining. "That's extremely unfortunate," Rashid said.
Gates also used the Faculty Summit event to tout the formation of Microsoft's Hardware Empowerment Program, an effort to boost the development using Windows Embedded, another embedded version of the operating system. The software is used in a variety of devices, from gas pumps to slot machines and smart golf carts. Under the new program, students and faculty will have lower-cost access to the hardware needed to develop new uses for the embedded OS.
Son of Napster
One Possible Future for a Music Business That Must Inevitably Change
By Robert X. Cringely
When I mentioned in last week's column that I would this week be writing about a legal way to do a successful music downloading business -- a business that would threaten the Recording Industry Association of America and its hegemony -- dozens of readers wrote to me trying to predict what I would write. Some readers came at the problem from a purely technical perspective, ignoring the fact that the real issues here aren't technical but legal. Some readers took a legal approach, but they tended to ignore the business model. Some were looking solely for the business model. Interestingly, nobody even came close to my idea, which makes me either a total loon or a diabolical genius. Truth be told, I'm probably more of a diabolical loon.
The reason I am even writing this column is two-fold. The biggest reason is simply because I would like people to consider lateral solutions to problems. I am pushing the concept of problem solving in a new way. There is no particular methodology here, just the underlying concept that if things aren't working the way you like, think of something different. Too often, people restrict their thinking or they somehow expect the world to change just for them, which it won't. But taking a lateral approach often yields interesting results. And once you've found an approach, maybe it can be applied to a different problem. What I am about to describe as a model for music distribution might be even better for something else. You tell me.
The second reason I am doing this is because I don't like the current situation in the recording industry where power is concentrated in the hands of executives who are doing all they can to stop the rotation of the Earth. Technology has already changed the economics of music creation and distribution, but the record companies are resisting with every weapon they have. I would too if I was in their position, which is fat, rich, and having everything to lose. But times do change, and I think the music business is ready to adopt new ways of moving forward. And once that happens, it will resume growing. But what is needed for that to happen is a catalyst, which I am attempting to provide right here.
If anyone actually does this business, don't forget where you first heard it. Of course, if you actually spend the $2 million as I suggest and lose it all, please forget my name.
The business I am about to describe has not been legally tested. I have run it past a few lawyer friends of mine, but a true legal test can only be done in the courts. Having said that, the universal response I have received from lawyers can best be described as giddiness. They get it. And the implications of this idea -- the sheer volume of trouble it could create -- gets their billing glands working.
Without having been truly tested, so far I have yet to find a lawyer who sees a serious flaw in my logic. What I am about to propose is apparently not illegal under current law, which of course means that the RIAA will throw their lobbying muscle into making it illegal, getting Congress to pass a new law specifically against my technique. The trick then is to establish the business before that can happen. Gentlemen, start your engines!
I call my idea Son of Napster, or Snapster for short.
Napster failed because it was determined by the courts to violate intellectual property rights and because it did not have a successful business model, or any business model for that matter. Any successor to Napster must be both legal (if barely) and profitable.
First the law. Snapster is built on the legal concept of Fair Use, which allows people who purchase records, tapes, and CDs to make copies for backup and for moving the content to other media. So a CD can be copied to an MP3 player, for example. But to remain legal, the MP3 player should be that of the CD owner and not that of another person. CDs can be lent, sold, or borrowed, but in order to make backup or media-shifting copies, the copier must own the original CD. If the original CD is no longer owned by the maker of the backup or media shifting copies because the CD has been sold or given away, any copies should be destroyed under U.S. copyright law.
Snapster is all about ownership. Snapster will be a company that buys at retail one copy of every CD on the market. Figure 100,000 CDs at $14 each requires $1.4 million. Snapster will also be a download service with central servers capable of millions of transactions per day. Figure $100,000 for the download system and bandwidth for one year. Throw in $100,000 for marketing and $400,000 for legal fees and the startup capital required for the business is $2 million.
Snapster has to be a public company. It would have its IPO as soon as possible after all those CDs have been delivered. It must be a public company right from the start of operations. Say Snapster goes public on NASDAQ at $20 per share. The IPO sells one million shares (10 percent of the company) netting $20 million minus underwriting fees. So almost from the beginning, Snapster has millions in the bank and a market capitalization of $200 million. What is critical here for the business success is not the price per share but the broadest possible ownership of shares. But the way those additional shares would be sold would be through stock splits, not supplemental offerings. This means that early investors would benefit greatly from being early investors and the Snapster founders would benefit most of all.
By limiting issued shares to 10 percent of total Snapster ownership, stock splits could be used to maintain the price of each Snapster share at $20. Since Napster at its peak had 60 million global users, I see that as a size to which Snapster could grow, meaning each original share would eventually be split into 60 shares. If the share price remained at $20 -- which it logically would because, as you will see below -- most investors would only need to own one share. That means investors at the IPO would see their $20 investment quickly grow to $1200 and the market capitalization of Snapster would become $6 billion.
Don't forget my founders' shares, right?
Each Snapster share carries ownership rights to those 100,000 CDs. You see, Snapster is a kind of mutual fund, so every investor is a beneficial owner of all 100,000 CDs. Each share also carries the right to download backup or media-shifting copies for $0.05 per song or $0.50 per CD, that download coming from a separate company we'll call Snapster Download that is 100 percent owned by Snapster. With one million co-owners each downloading one CD per month, gross revenue would be $6 million per year. If they download an average of 10 CDs per month revenue grows to $60 million per year. At these download volumes and with the very low cost of running the service, the $200 million market cap is justified even at the lower sales level. At the $60 million sales level, the share price ought to rise. Now grow the business to its logical size of 60 million users. At 10 CDs per user per year, Snapster download revenue would be $3.6 billion or about a quarter the size of the current recording industry, which it would effectively replace. With 90 percent profit margins, Snapster would be making $3.2 billion per year in profit. Based on a modest price-to-earnings ratio of 10-to-1 (I am choosing this low number because of the obvious legal issues involved in this business) Snapster's market capitalization is now up to $33 billion, which is more than any current record company. Investors who paid $20 at the IPO will now find each of those shares worth $33,000, which is comparable to Microsoft or Dell or Cisco in success except that Snapster would do this all in one year.
Interestingly, $33 billion represents approximately the total market capitalization of all the major record companies, which we'd have to expect would be driven down by the success of Snapster. So Snapster would be a transfer of wealth from current owners of record company shares to owners of new Snapster shares.
Now I REALLY want you to remember to send me those founders' shares!
What I have described is legal, it just leverages technology in a way that has never been done before. There are precedents for group ownership of recordings and certainly the law of mutual funds is very clear. Of course, the RIAA will have a response. They will file suit, probably claiming restraint of trade, but this simply will not stand and it is impossible to believe they could get any form of retraining order. Still, Snapster must have funds to support a vigorous defense -- a defense that has been planned well in advance. The RIAA will also try to have laws passed making Snapster illegal, so an anti-RIAA lobbying effort would also be a good idea.
You may see Snapster as a great idea or as the worst thing you have ever heard, but I see it as a method for accelerating change that was inevitable. Technology has changed the economics of the music business. Traditional record companies are dinosaurs. Thanks primarily to personal computers, musicians today can afford to make recordings in their homes that are comparable in quality to anything coming from a $500 per hour recording studio. Remember that most record contracts charge production expenses against the artist's profit share, so the performer ends up covering those expenses, not the record company. This is just one of many ways record companies set barriers to entry and take advantage of artists.
Thanks primarily to the Internet and to CD burners, artists don't really need record companies anymore for manufacturing or distribution. Under current recording contracts, the costs assigned to these functions are horribly inflated. It is cheaper to do it yourself.
That leaves marketing as the sole record company function that might retain value. So let the record companies become marketing service providers. Or let them go out of business.
But wait, that isn't fair!
Many things aren't fair in life, Virginia, but Snapster is fairer than most. Look at it from the perspective of the music consumer. Since Snapster would have only a quarter the revenue of the system it replaces, that means consumers would be getting more music for less money. And as Snapster owners, which they would have to be by definition, consumers would benefit from the many Snapster stock splits it would take to reach 60 million beneficial owners, and then the increase in stock price beyond that. This is more benefit than these same people ever got from the record companies. And since Snapster would quickly become the most broadly traded stock of all, this transfer of wealth would have a broad benefit.
But what about the poor record companies and their owners?
To paraphrase Marie Antoinette, if they have no sales, let them buy stock. There is nothing that would keep owners of record company shares from selling those shares and replacing them with Snapster shares. The earlier they do so the more they would benefit both because they'd be selling before the record company shares went completely in the tank, and they'd be buying before Snapster shares had fully appreciated. It is one thing to maintain the status quo and another to recognize the inevitability of change and benefit from it.
Investors in companies that manufactured horse drawn carriages could have tried to make automobiles illegal or they could have sold their carriage shares and bought car shares. Which makes more sense? There is more money to be made by embracing this future than by fighting it.
The questions that are left unanswered in this are what will Snapster do against competitors, and what will the company do after there are no more CDs to buy? With the barrier to entry at $2 million, Snapster will have competition, but there are advantages to being the first mover and plenty of room for price cutting, which is even better for consumers. In fact there is probably room for many Snapsters, though I'd expect the first Snapster to be the biggest Snapster.
What is more problematic is what Snapster, as essentially a repository of oldies, would do to further grow its business and maintain earnings growth. This is the same question as asking what Microsoft will do after the age of the PC is over. The company could diversify and go into other businesses. It could extend the concept of a mutual fund even further and strictly manage its excess profits as investments. Or it could find some way to plow the money back into the music business, which I think would be best, but I can't see exactly how it would be done. Still, it is a good idea.
What do you think?
Share a Song, Go to Jail?
Digital rights battle goes mainstream with media campaigns.
Liane Cassavoy, PCWorld.com
Friday, July 25, 2003
The war over digital content is hitting the airwaves in search of new troops. Both Hollywood and a digital civil liberties group are vying for public support through aggressive marketing campaigns.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is launching its "Let the Music Play" campaign with a full-page ad in the August 7 issue of Rolling Stone (currently on newsstands). Pictured are several music fans in a police lineup under the heading "Tired of being treated like a criminal for sharing music online?" The ads will run in various magazines and online for the next three months.Advertisement
Following fast onto TV and movie screens are a series of public service announcements featuring entertainment industry workers ranging from famous actors to behind-the scenes technicians. The spots show them all talking about how piracy could affect their livelihood.
Airwaves Adversaries
These are not the first ads in the digital rights debate. PC maker Gateway launched a controversial television ad earlier this year, as part of a campaign called RipBurnRespect. Aimed at supporting consumers' fair-use rights, it opposed peer-to-peer services. A year earlier, Gateway ran a television spot featuring the company's chief executive and singing cow mascot. That ad urged consumers to download music from Gateway, voicing consumers' rights to enjoy digital music legally. The CBS television network, for one, refused to run both Gateway ads. The new ads from EFF and the MPAA are just the latest proof that the digital rights conflict is moving to a new level.
For example, after years of taking the Napsters and Kazaas of the world to court, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other industry groups are going after end users of peer-to-peer file-sharing sites.
The EFF says that shift prompted its advertising campaign.
"We've noticed the game changing. The music industry is not only going after the technologists; now they're going after the users themselves," says Shari Steele, EFF's executive director. "We decided it's important to let users know it doesn't have to be this way."
The EFF says that file-sharing shouldn't be illegal and that the more than 60 million users of peer-to-peer file-swapping services shouldn't be treated like criminals. The organization has filed supporting briefs and even helped defend file-sharing sites challenged in court by copyright-holders in Hollywood and the music industry.
Now, Steele says the EFF wants to facilitate discussion.
"We shouldn't be talking about how to punish users," Steele says. "We should be talking about how to fix the copyright laws, how to compensate artists."
But the battle lines as drawn leave little room for negotiation.
"We are happy to have a debate with anyone about music piracy and how it impacts artists, songwriters, and everyone else who works to bring music to the public," says Cary Sherman, RIAA's president. But, he adds, "Proposals to 'legalize file-sharing' are not the solution."
Hollywood Strikes Back
The entertainment industry's ads are spearheaded by the Motion Picture Association of America, an RIAA ally in efforts to rein in distribution of digital content. The film and TV industries are collaborating on the series of spots they say are designed to raise consumer awareness about the threat that digital piracy poses.
The ads aired in prime time one day this week and will be shown in movie theaters. They're also available online at respectcopyrights.org, a Web site launched in conjunction with the campaign. Participants include animators, crew, and other backstage personnel.
The effort is endorsed by a number of entertainment industry unions, including the Directors Guild of America, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and Screen Actors Guild.
The ads also reflect the entertainment industry's stance that current copyright laws are appropriate and applicable to new media, a view challenged by the EFF.
"Before we jeopardize the most creative and vibrant creative community in the world for the sake of some theoretical, unproven scheme, let's give the marketplace and the copyright laws on the books a chance to work," says the RIAA's Sherman.
No Compromise?
Several solutions have been proposed to solve the dilemma of how to compensate artists while allowing users to trade files on peer-to-peer networks. One proposal calls for a virtual tip jar on sites. Another model follows the example of Apple's iTunes music store. Yet another is a compulsory licensing model, which would charge users a fixed fee, similar to a tax, perhaps on their monthly ISP bill or through a surcharge on the purchase of a CD burner.
EFF's Steele emphasizes that none of these solutions is the perfect answer, and that EFF does not endorse any one proposal. She charges that the RIAA is not open to any of them.
"They want us to make it clear that this behavior is criminal, and that file sharing systems should all be shut down," Steele says.
The RIAA has no complaint with Apple's iTunes, which lets Macintosh users download and burn tunes for 99 cents each. A comparable site for Windows users, BuyMusic.com, launched this week.
Nevertheless, Sherman says the only way the music industry can support file-sharing is by imposing compulsory licensing. But he contends that approach opens the door to government regulation, which would probably extend further than any party would like.
Conceivably, the government could set prices for music, Sherman says. "To date, the government has avoided regulating the Internet, and it shouldn't start now. When was the last time that government-dictated pricing worked better than the free market?" he concludes.
How true philo.eom
Here's a decent pic with a screenshot...
http://www.coolmacintosh.com/macworldreport071703.html
Columnist: Apple changing its basic strategy?
By Dennis Sellers dsellers@maccentral.com
July 24, 2003 1:00 pm ET
With Apple's entry into the digital music business with the iTunes Music Store, which will be made available to Windows users later this year, "a fundamental shift in Apple's strategy may be afoot," David Zeiler writes in a SunSpot.net column.
Although the music store and iPods may be a way to entice more people to the Mac platform, there may be an even more important piece in the puzzle, he adds. Analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. estimates that once Apple has the Windows version of iTunes in place, the store could capture 20 percent of the pay-per-download market. This could translate to $600 million in annual revenue and $50 million to $60 million in operating income, nearly equal to Apple's $65 million in profit for the 2002 fiscal year, Zeiler notes. And that's not even counting the increased iPod sales that should be generated.
The move makes sense because Mac sales have been "stagnant for years," the columnist says. Apple's revenue is about US$1.5 billion every quarter, with unit shipments ranging from 700,000 to 800,000. Both are down from just a few years ago, when the popularity of the original iMac helped Apple bring in more than $2 billion per quarter.
"All of this isn't to say, however, that Apple plans to stop making Macs; that day, most likely, is a long way off," Zeiler says. "But branching out into digital media delivery provides an opportunity to grow the company that it can't get by just making Macs alone. And success in the digital media arena would help sell more Macs."
He also foresees the day when Apple will sell digital video over the Internet. After all, with the iTunes Music Store infrastructure and the QuickTime multimedia technology, key components are in place, Zeiler says.
From The Show Floor - AVIAS Announces Portable Video and Audio Player
by John F. Braun
Sure, the iPod is great for taking your music on the road. And the new Power G4 12-inch is a fine machine for watching movies on the road. But what if you'd like a portable device to play both your audio and video files? The folks at AVIAS Limited may have come up with the perfect solution that fits between the iPod and a full-featured portable computer. William Choi, Business Development Director, gave us the scoop.
The MEC Station Deluxe, is a portable entertainment center with a 6.5" screen with a 16:9 screen aspect ration, perfect for playing movies. It can understand movies in MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats, including movies which use the DivX codec, and even AVI files. For those that just want to display pictures, the MEC Station Deluxe can display JPEG, GIF, BMP and TIFF format graphic files. On the audio side, the unit can play back MP3 and WMA format sound files.
MEC Station Deluxe
The MEC Station Deluxe contains a FireWire port, and appears as another hard drive when connected to your Mac, or even PC. You just copy your video or audio files to the drive, and then use the MEC navigation system to play back the file. In a pinch, you could use the MEC Station Deluxe as an external hard drive. You can also transfer data to the unit using Compact Flash media. Plus, when you're not on the road, and have access to a larger screen, you can send composite video and stereo audio to another device.
The MEC Station Deluxe is slated to be released in August. The unit with 20 GB of storage will be US$549, and with a 40 GB drive will be $629.
Now this concerns me..Avias MEC Station
Avias' MEC (short for Mobile Entertainment Center) Station may do for digital video what the iPod did for digital music. The handheld device can play back MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files, Div X movies, MP3 and .WMA audio, games and more. It features a 16:9 display, FireWire data transfer and disk-based access.
http://www.iavias.com/eng/product-mec-deluxe.htm
Hmmm..yet when another CE firm offers the same functionality they are...trailblazers?? and we missed the boat huh?
pathetic
Review: PoGo! Radio YourWay
Portable VCR for your AM/FM dial sounds sweet, so why does it flat-out stink?
Watch today at 8:30 p.m., tomorrow at 6:30 p.m., and Friday 6/13 at 7 a.m. Eastern.
By Robert Heron
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Take a portable MP3 player, make it digitally record voice and AM/FM radio, and you've got an audio lover's dream. The PoGo! Products Radio YourWay (RYW) tries to be a do-it-all VCR for radio. Unfortunately, the $150 RYW's confusing interface and poor recording quality snuff out any potential for success.
Forget recording music radio
Don't expect to upload many MP3/WMA tracks to the RYW without springing for an MMC/SD card to augment its paltry 32MB of internal storage, good for only 135 minutes of recording time at the "best" quality (twice that time at a lower-quality setting).
You can choose to record at either 16 Kbps or 32 Kbps, but both speeds are too slow for anything but talk. Recorded music at such low bitrates may leave you wondering, "What the hell is that?"
(PoGo!'s RipFlash Trio comes equipped with four times the memory, a rechargeable battery, and the ability to record directly to MP3 or WMA -- all for the same price. Heck, for $50 more you could double the memory again and have a RipFlash Pro-2.)
Conversion aversion
The RYW records audio in an RVF format compatible only with RYW-Explorer software. Unfortunately, the software's RVF-to-WAV conversion tool didn't work.
My two-hour test file played fine on the player in its native RVF format. But on my PC the conversion tool truncated the file into a 30-second WAV. Could I leave the file in RVF and still listen to it on my PC? Nope. I tested the software on two systems. Both played the first 30 seconds and then choked.
Set autorecord times
Regardless, the RYW is a capable AM/FM radio with 10 presets for each band as well as autoseek functionality for finding your favorite stations. Ten timer presets let you schedule unattended recordings.
I could learn to live with the RYW's 24-hour time format for clock and timer settings, but I can't remember the last clock-equipped device I saw without an AM/PM indicator.
Smaller than a deck of cards
The pocket-friendly and fairly rugged RYW sports the following features:
1.4-inch by 0.75-inch LCD
Hold switch on side
1/8th-inch line-in
USB 1.1 interface (cable provided)
Integrated speaker on back
Generic earbuds and headphone jack
The lack of a backlight renders the LCD useless after dark without some form of external lighting. (Where's my headlamp?)
Bust out the bug spray
The install application is a nightmare. It couldn't automatically find a file on its own disk, it launched without asking me, and it came with a confusing manual.
I discovered another limitation when I played long radio shows I had recorded. About halfway through listening to my two-hour recording, I accidentally pressed the stop button. There was no easy way to return to where I had left off, short of restarting the file and fast-forwarding. I went to my PC and tried the RYW software's "slider" to advance to somewhere close to where I left off. No dice. Moving the slider somehow messed up the software. The audio went dead, but the file appeared to still be playing.
Finding and transferring files
The included RYW-Explorer software's split-pane interface shows local PC files on the top and device files on the bottom. An attractive media player resides in the middle. But it took me a few minutes to realize that the software media player controls only work with files already transferred to the PC's hard drive. Were they trying to trick me?
On the plus side, RYW-Explorer let me easily browse my recorded files by organizing them into three types: music, data, and voice. Separate up and down buttons handle moving files between the player and the PC.
Does voice and MP3, but...
The RYW had no issues playing my CBR/VBR MP3 test tracks as well as Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. But if you like MP3 tag data for getting artist and title information, forget it. All music files are reduced to a number (1 to 99), and that's it.
Voice recording using the built-in microphone worked as expected. However, brushing the awkwardly placed function buttons produced a sound similar to rubbing a live microphone.
Summary: The RYW is a capable voice recorder, MP3 player, and AM/FM recorder. But buggy software, confusing interface, and near-useless record settings earn this $150 gizmo a lowest-possible one star.
Company: PoGo! Products
Price: $149.99
Available: Now
Platform: PC
Specs: Digital AM/FM radio tuner; 32MB internal flash storage; integrated speaker; line-in jack; MMC/SD card slot; dimensions: 2.1 inches wide, 3.8 inches long, 0.7 inches thick; requires (2) AAA batteries (included).
Posted June 9, 2003
Modified June 6, 2003
no, do you?
I believe EDIG has
applied for a patent for it's WriteBack technology. Remember PoGo products has a similar product out that has been mentioned multiple times on this site. Do try to keep up. Are they infringing our patent? Is there more than one way to skin a cat? Enquiring minds want to know...
RIAA Begins Identifying Targets In Copyright Suits
By Mark Hachman
The Recording Industry Association of America has started making available the names of potential defendants in hundreds of subpoenas the organization has begun filing with individual ISPs.
The list, available online through individual court documents available through the government's PACER electronic filing system, includes defendants who use Comcast, Charter Communications, SBC, and other carriers.
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According to court documents, the RIAA began collecting information on individual users who allegedly began illegally sharing copyrighted files around June 26 or 27, a day or two after the RIAA issued a public warning that it would target individual users. In each subpoena, the individual's username and IP address are named, as well as the time and date the alleged violations were discovered as well as several selected songs from RIAA-affiliated artists.
ExtremeTech examined several of the subpoenas filed against Comcast, one of the largest service providers in the U.S. An exact number of subpoenas is impossible to determine, as the organization is filing new documents every day the U.S. courts are open.
Users of the Kazaa file-sharing service make up the vast majority of the potential defendants. The RIAA now has to convince ISPs, through the courts or otherwise, to turn over a list of IP addresses to the RIAA, who will match them up against its own database to determine the real identities of the users.
A list of usernames targeted by the RIAA as potential defendants include: "Leahpate", "nikki", corky101", "bluemonkey18", "Benchy987", "blazel", "Jessica", "brich410", "eddieh", "clover77", "soccerdog33", "Jeff", "indepunk74", "fox3j", "Niltiak", "StolenSi", "unit984", "bigjohnhc", "Bush323", "enbbarnes", "Cortez1023", and "bigeasssy24". All of the usernames correspond to the Kazaa file-sharing network. A few others, such as Ariel167@fileshare" and "ashley@grokster" have also been added.
A more complete list of names can also be found at the TechTV site.
Changing a username frequently might not shield a user from an RIAA scan. In July 2002, security experts found a hold in Kazaa that allowed large messages to be sent to the user, essentially creatign a denial-of-service attack. The attacker needed to know the IP address of the user, and then could query port 1214, used by Kazaa, to query the username. Recent updates by Kazaa Lite and Kazaa K++ block port 1214.
The list generally includes names that could be considered aliases. However, the username list also includes several examples that could be easily tied to actual people, including "anthonybotz", "leahpate", and "felicia_alvarado".
Among the most cited songs and artists that users have allegedly infringed include Busta Rhymes "Pass The Courvoisier", U2's "I Still Haven't Found (What I'm Looking For)", Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" and Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher". Artists such as Nas, Marvin Gaye, Ludacris, Michelle Branch, and Avril Lavigne are often frequently cited amongst the songs allegedly traded.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 2:42 EDT on 7/24/2003.
Music-Sharing Subpoenas Targets Parents
By TED BRIDIS
AP Technology Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Parents, roommates - even grandparents - are being targeted in the music industry's new campaign to track computer users who share songs over the Internet, bringing the threat of expensive lawsuits to more than college kids.
"Within five minutes, if I can get hold of her, this will come to an end," said Gordon Pate of Dana Point, Calif., when told by The Associated Press that a federal subpeona had been issued over his daughter's music downloads. The subpoena required the family's Internet provider to hand over Pate's name and address to lawyers for the recording industry.
Pate, 67, confirmed that his 23-year-old daughter, Leah Pate, had installed file-sharing software using an account cited on the subpoena. But he said his daughter would stop immediately and the family didn't know using such software could result in a stern warning, expensive lawsuit or even criminal prosecution.
"There's no way either us or our daughter would do anything we knew to be illegal," Pate said, promising to remove the software quickly. "I don't think anybody knew this was illegal, just a way to get some music."
The president of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest music labels, warned that lawyers will pursue downloaders regardless of personal circumstances because it would deter other Internet users.
"The idea really is not to be selective, to let people know that if they're offering a substantial number of files for others to copy, they are at risk," Cary Sherman said. "It doesn't matter who they are."
Over the coming months this may be the Internet's equivalent of shock and awe, the stunning discovery by music fans across America that copyright lawyers can pierce the presumed anonymity of file-sharing, even for computer users hiding behind clever nicknames such as "hottdude0587" or "bluemonkey13."
In Charleston, W.Va., college student Amy Boggs said she quickly deleted more than 1,400 music files on her computer after the AP told her she was the target of another subpoena. Boggs said she sometimes downloaded dozens of songs on any given day, including ones by Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, Incubus and Busta Rhymes.
Since Boggs used her roommates' Internet account, the roommates' name and address was being turned over to music industry lawyers.
"This scares me so bad I never want to download anything again," said Boggs, who turned 22 on Thursday. "I never thought this would happen. There are millions of people out there doing this."
In homes where parents or grandparents may not closely monitor the family's Internet use, news could be especially surprising. A defendant's liability can depend on their age and whether anyone else knew about the music downloads.
Bob Barnes, a 50-year-old grandfather in Fresno, Calif., and the target of another subpeona, acknowledged sharing "several hundred" music files. He said he used the Internet to download hard-to-find recordings of European artists because he was unsatisfied with modern American artists and grew tired of buying CDs without the chance to listen to them first.
"If you don't like it, you can't take it back," said Barnes, who runs a small video production company with his wife from their three-bedroom home. "You have all your little blonde, blue-eyed clones. There's no originality."
Citing on its subpoenas the numeric Internet addresses of music downloaders, the RIAA has said it can only track users by comparing those addresses against subscriber records held by Internet providers. But the AP used those addresses and other details culled from subpoenas and was able to identify and locate some Internet users who are among the music industry's earliest targets.
Pate was wavering whether to call the RIAA to negotiate a settlement. "Should I call a lawyer?" he wondered.
The RIAA's president wasn't sure what advice to offer because he never imagined downloaders could be identified by name until Internet providers turned over subscriber records.
"It's not a scenario we had truthfully envisaged," Sherman said. "If somebody wants to settle before a lawsuit is filed it would be fine to call us, but it's really not clear how we're going to perceive this."
The RIAA has issued at least 911 subpoenas so far, according to court records. Lawyers have said they expect to file at least several hundred lawsuits within eight weeks, and copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song.
The AP tracked targets of subpoenas to neighborhoods in Boston; Chicago; St. Louis; San Francisco; New York and Ann Arbor, Mich.
Outside legal experts urged the music industry to carefully select targets for its earliest lawsuits. Several lawyers said they were doubtful the RIAA ultimately will choose to sue computer users like the Pate family.
"If they end up picking on individuals who are perceived to be grandmothers or junior high students who have only downloaded in isolated incidents, they run the risk of a backlash," said Christopher Caldwell, a lawyer in Los Angeles who works with major studios and the Motion Picture Association of America.
The recording industry said Pate's daughter was offering songs by Billy Idol, Missy Elliot, Duran Duran, Def Leppard and other artists. Pate said that he never personally downloaded music and that he so zealously respects copyrights that he doesn't videotape movies off cable television channels.
Barnes, who used the Napster service until the music industry shut it down, said he rarely uses file-sharing software these days unless his grandson visits. The RIAA found songs on his computer by Marvin Gaye, Savage Garden, Berlin, the Eagles, Dire Straits and others.
Barnes expressed some concern about a possible lawsuit but was confident that "more likely they will probably come out with a cease and desist order" to stop him sharing music files on the Internet.
"I think they're trying to scare people," Barnes said.
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Roxio Appoints Universal Music Group Executive to its Board of Directors
Tuesday July 22, 4:15 pm ET
SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Roxio, Inc. (Nasdaq: ROXI - News), The Digital Media Company®, announced today the addition of Larry Kenswil to its board of directors. Mr. Kenswil is currently President of eLabs, a division of Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group ("UMG"). eLabs is UMG's new media and technologies division, and is responsible for overseeing the company's efforts in new formats and e-commerce as well as developing strategies for protecting copyrights in the digital domain.
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Mr. Kenswil has led eLabs since its inception in January 1999. Previously, he was UMG's Executive Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs. Mr. Kenswil sits on the Board of Directors of the Recording Industry Association of America (the "RIAA") and, previously, the Board of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ("IFPI"). He is active in government affairs on behalf of the music industry, having testified before both congressional and administration committees.
Mr. Kenswil holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.S. from Boston University, and a J.D. from Georgetown University.
About Roxio
Roxio, Inc. provides the best selling digital media software in the world. Roxio makes award-winning software products for CD/DVD burning, photo editing and video editing. Roxio's family of products includes category-leading products Easy CD & DVD Creator(TM), Digital Media Suite(TM), Easy CD Creator® (Windows) and Toast® (Macintosh) for CD/DVD burning, PhotoSuite® for digital photography, and VideoWave® for digital video. Roxio also owns Napster®, the ground breaking on-line music service, and plans to re-launch it as a legal, paid service in the near future. Roxio's current installed base is in excess of 100 million users. Roxio distributes its products globally through strategic partnerships with major hardware manufacturers, in stores with the leading worldwide retailers, through Internet partnerships and also sells its products direct at www.roxio.com . Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Roxio also maintains offices in Minnesota, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Japan. The company currently employs approximately 400 people worldwide. Roxio is a member of the S&P SmallCap 600 and the Russell 2000 Index.
Safe Harbor Statement
Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this press release, in particular matters related to the development of our on-line music distribution service, are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties including general economic conditions in the US and abroad, delays in development and competition, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional information on these and other factors are contained in Roxio's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed with the SEC on June 30, 2003, copies of which are available at the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Roxio assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements included in this press release.
Copyright (C) 2003 Roxio, Inc. All rights reserved. Roxio, the Roxio tagline, Easy CD & DVD Creator, PhotoSuite, VideoWave, Napster, Pressplay and Toast are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Roxio, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks used are owned by their respective owners.
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Source: Roxio, Inc.
Cassie, from your own post...The audit of our financial statements had recently moved from the Vancouver office of Ernst & Young, where the audit has been performed for many years as a way to reduce our audit fees, to the San Diego office of Ernst & Young. During this time and including the unaudited 10-Qs that were filed for the first 3 quarters of this year, there were no disagreements with Ernst & Young on any matters of accounting principles or practices, financial statement disclosure or auditing scope or procedures. Singer Lewak provides us with a cost efficient way to further reduce our general and administrative expenses, while still providing us with the expertise and specialized accounting requirements we need as a public company.
What's New
* As of today, SDMI is still on Hiatus.
Most Recent Press Releases
* Amsterdam, May 18, 2001 - SDMI Reviews Screening Technology Needs - At its May meeting, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) plenary concluded its consideration of the current Phase II screening proposals.
It remains to be seen if Apples store will have the same loose restrictions when they make the offering to the 97% of the world on the Wintel platform...
BuyMusic.com takes on Apple
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posted 11:06am EST Wed Jul 23 2003 - submitted by Shane
BLURB
Buy.com launched its digital music service called BuyMusic.com, and the company is being very direct about it. The site has more than 300,000 songs from 5 major labels, and prices start at US$0.79 per song and $7.95 an album. Everything about the launch is aimed at hitting Apple's iTunes Music Store head-on. The commercials are very Apple-like, including the guitar in the Tommy Lee commercial. The BuyMusic.com store is built with all-things Microsoft. The site is Internet Explorer-only, and consumers will need to purchase certain devices to download the music to--Apple's iPod and Archos's portable players will not work. When exactly did Apple say iTunes would be ready for
Iomega Corporation Announces Breakthrough Miniature 1.5 Gigabyte Removable Storage Technology
Tuesday July 22, 6:01 am ET
Working Samples Released to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for Evaluation of Technology for Use in Next Generation Consumer Electronics Products
SAN DIEGO, July 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Iomega Corporation (NYSE: IOM - News), a global leader in data storage, today announced a new 1.5 GB digital capture technology (DCT) platform designed for a new generation of digital entertainment products, including camcorders and portable video players, as well as portable PCs and smart handheld devices.
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Working samples of Iomega's new breakthrough DCT drive and fully rewritable cartridge are now being evaluated by a select group of premier OEMs. The DCT cartridge, which is about the size of a half-dollar coin, weighs only 9 grams and employs a rugged stainless steel cartridge designed to protect important digital content from data loss, enabling truly mobile digital devices. Iomega's DCT platform partners include Fuji Photo Film Co. (Fujifilm), Ltd., Citizen Watch Co., Ltd. (Citizen), and Texas Instruments (TI). Iomega is working with other innovative companies with the goal to integrate DCT technology into their future products, and is progressing on a DCT development timeline that would enable potential OEMs to bring DCT- integrated products to market in the second quarter of 2004.
"Existing portable storage solutions in today's consumer electronics products are too expensive, too slow, too fragile, or too power hungry for the coming generation of mobile devices," said Werner Heid, president and CEO, Iomega Corporation. "Iomega's exciting new DCT platform is different. It is being designed to offer the industry a low-cost drive with high capacity in a convenient form factor. It is a product designer's dream because it can provide high capacity, rugged, shock resistant storage at low power consumption for small portable devices such as next generation camcorders, personal video recorders and tablet PCs."
DCT Technology Alliances
Iomega's DCT platform incorporates key enabling technologies from leading companies including Fujifilm, Citizen and TI. Such enabling technologies include a new magneto-resistive (MR) drive head design developed by Iomega and NANOCUBIC(TM) magnetic media coating technology developed by Fujifilm.
Toshio Kawamata, general manager, Technical Division, Recording Media Products Division, Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., said, "The media will provide potential recording capacity of up to 6Gb/square inch by applying Fujifilm's new NANOCUBIC technology, which will be about 10 times higher in recording density than magnetic disks that are currently available. Fujifilm is looking forward to the presentation of this high density recording media through the introduction of Iomega's DCT platform."
Toshihiko Nakai, senior general manager, Information and Communication, Products Division, Citizen Watch Co., Ltd., manufacturer of the credit-card sized drive, commented: "Consumers want lower power consumption for long battery life; they want higher data transfer rates for exciting new digital video applications; and they want higher data capacity for a new cross- platform media standard. DCT delivers on all counts."
Doug Rasor, vice president of strategic marketing, TI, said, "TI is excited to be working with Iomega to drive its new DCT technology. We are looking forward to augmenting DCT with TI's real-time digital signal processing solutions to bring richer content, higher resolution and longer battery life to consumers."
About Iomega
Iomega Corporation provides easy-to-use, high value storage solutions to help people protect, secure, capture and share their valuable digital information. Iomega's award-winning storage products include the popular Zip® 100MB, 250MB and 750MB drives, high-performance Iomega® HDD Portable Hard Drives, Iomega HDD Desktop Hard Drives, Iomega Mini USB Drives, Iomega external CD-RW drives and the Iomega Floppy USB-Powered Drive. Iomega simplifies data protection and sharing at home and in the workplace with Iomega Automatic Backup software, Iomega Sync software, HotBurn® CD- recording software, and Active Disk(TM) technology. For networks, Iomega NAS servers offer capacities of 160GB to 1.4TB. For unlimited capacity and anytime, anywhere access, Iomega offers iStorage(TM) secure online storage. Iomega also offers businesses and consumers a comprehensive data recovery services solution for recovering lost data due to hardware failure, file corruption or media damage. The Company can be reached at 1-888-4-IOMEGA (888-446-6342), or on the Web at http://www.iomega.com .
NOTE: The statements contained in this release regarding development, production and distribution of the Iomega DCT technology and product, anticipated product pricing and availability during second quarter 2004, the goal to have OEMs incorporate their product into their products, expected product performance and specifications including size, weight, capacity, ruggedness, cost, speed, mobility, power consumption and shock resistance, future applications for the new product and all other statements that are not purely historical, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements are based upon information available to Iomega as of the date hereof, and Iomega disclaims any intention or obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, technical difficulties or delays in the completion of product development and testing, market acceptance of, and demand for, the DCT product, any failure to achieve significant OEM acceptance of the DCT product, any difficulties encountered in ramping up production or other manufacturing or quality issues, including component availability and pricing, co-development, production, and distribution issues, product pricing and conformity to specifications, dependence upon third party suppliers and technical or supply difficulties at any such supplier, competition, intellectual property rights and other risks and uncertainties identified in the reports filed from time to time by Iomega with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including Iomega's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2002, and its most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Copyright© 2003 Iomega Corporation. All rights reserved. Iomega, Zip, iStorage, Active Disk and HotBurn are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Certain other product names, brand names and company names may be trademarks or designations of their respective owners.
For further information, please contact: media, Chris Romoser, +1-858-314-7148, romoser@iomega.com, or analyst/investors, Barry Zwarenstein, +1-858-314-7190, both of Iomega Corporation.
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Source: Iomega Corporation
AP Corrects BuyMusic Story
8 minutes ago
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LOS ANGELES - In a July 21 story and subsequent versions about online music downloading, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a new service by BuyMusic.com offers individual songs for 70 cents and complete albums for $7.95. The cost of a single song begins at 79 cents and ranges up to $1.29, according to the company. The cost of a full album ranges from $7.95 to $12.