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"I am nearing the end of my daily alottment of posts, so if I disappear it's not because I am ignoring anyone." G'night, Doc.
Mac software opens path for music pirates
By Jon Healey
Los Angeles Times
New software from Apple Computer that lets Macintosh users buy songs from an online music store can also be used to share songs via the Internet, raising concerns among record labels and music publishers about a new avenue for piracy.
Apple's new iTunes software was designed to allow people to store songs on one Mac and play them on other Macs on the same home network. But users quickly found a way to share songs with a wider group of people over the Net. Since the iTunes software was launched two weeks ago, several Web sites have sprung up to help users find others who are sharing their songs online. Some adept programmers also found a way to let people copy the songs that iTunes users were making available through the Internet.
"It sounds as if it is a hole in the security that needs to be closed," said Cary Ramos, an attorney for the National Music Publishers Association. "I don't know what Apple can do to achieve that, but I would certainly hope that they would take steps immediately to address this issue."
Notably, the copy-protected songs that Apple sells through its iTunes Music Store apparently cannot be shared through either a home network or the Internet. Only song files that users copy from CDs or download from unauthorized online sources can be shared.
The music industry's response to the expanded song-sharing function has been tempered so far. Several record-company executives said Apple briefed them in advance about the feature, but they thought it would be confined to home networks.
Others emphasized that the success of Apple's Music Store, which sold more than 1 million downloadable songs in its first week, was more significant than the unexpected expansion of the sharing function. But these officials, who asked not to be named, are waiting to hear more from Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple about the issue.
"Sharing music with Apple's iTunes 4 is intended solely for personal use," an Apple spokeswoman said. "Apple does not support using the music-sharing features of iTunes 4 outside of these guidelines."
Until the Music Store was launched with the support of all five major record companies, Mac users faced more hurdles gaining access to online music services than their counterparts using PCs with Microsoft's Windows software. None of the services sanctioned by every major label offered Mac versions of their software; nor did the most popular systems for making unauthorized copies of songs.
With iTunes 4, Mac users have exclusive access to more than 200,000 songs at 99 cents apiece. The songs have some anti-
piracy features, but have fewer restrictions than ones offered by Windows-oriented services from the likes of Pressplay and Listen.com.
Copyright © 2003
Still see it that way, BMP?/
chwdrhed: MM's represent the interests
of their clients, which in this case can be shorting syndicates or hedge funds. Sometimes these entities are their own market maker. If one of these groups has an unannounced agreement to buy shelf shares at a discounted price, they may very well be shorting the stock that they don't own NOW, and replacing it with the soon to be acquired ss's. Those interests that accepted stock in lieu of payment from e.DIGITAL probably participated in just such a scheme.
Thinly traded? As we have seen from examples such as the Parade Magazine cover and private email hype campaigns, large volume can be created with no real fundamental justification for it, IMO.
A caution
Short sales by market makers are often "printed" at the ask. This technique has the immediate effect of creating a buying fever, and ultimately yields a greater profit for the shorting entity when the bottom drops out.
Blues and jazz......
Hey those guys'll never know. Getting screwed; that's what the blues is all about.
299 GBP's, redwing, is $479.32/
hornets, with the good info
http://investorshub.com/boards/profile.asp?User=15820
They "timed out," Duke, but
luckily you can still find Eve, here
http://www.eveselis.com/
Compressed audio, is intended
for portable devices, as I see it. High end home systems have no need to utilize it. In fact, there seems to be an undying "cult" following for (perish the thought) analog gear! In this day and age of pro tools and other hard drive recording, lots of musicians/engineers/producers still like to hit tape first. If the recording budget allows for it, I sure do.
lickily: That's very true.
Personally, I think AAC sounds great; but then again, plain ole mp3's ripped properly sound cool enough to me, as well. Maybe, as someone suggested the MS in MSNBC played a factor in this reviewer subtly panning Apple's product.
LOL, spin it, doc/
Concert CD's Sold on the Spot by a Radio Giant
By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL
Clear Channel Communications, the radio broadcasting and concert promotion giant, plans to introduce a venture today that will sell live recordings on compact disc within five minutes of a show's conclusion. The venture, Instant Live, will enable a band's still-sweating fans to leave with a musical souvenir instead of say, a pricey T-shirt or a glossy program.
Although initially modest, involving only small-audience clubs and theaters in the Boston area, the venture could eventually extend beyond radio and concerts into music distribution. And that could prove troubling to critics, who already complain that the company's rigidly formatted radio stations prevent diverse artists from reaching the airwaves and that its dominance of the concert business too often forces touring acts to accept unfavorable deals.
Josh Bernoff, a music industry analyst at Forrester Research in Boston, said Clear Channel's entry into the CD business could alter the music industry's tenuous balance of power. At the moment, no single record label dominates the market the way that Clear Channel dominates the radio and concert business.
"For the labels," Mr. Bernoff said, "that means that their most important goal is to get Clear Channel to broadcast their acts and promote their concerts." The task could become more challenging, he said, if the labels find themselves competing against Clear Channel's own CD's for air time.
But Clear Channel executives say Instant Live is not so much a foray into the CD business as it is a way to wring further revenue from live music events. And they note that it is simply a continuation of the trend among various bands and start-ups in recent years to sell authorized recordings that are available on CD or as Internet downloads soon after the event. This practice can generate additional revenue for musicians and also thwart illicit concert recordings, they said.
"We're not interested in signing artists to exclusive recording contracts," said Steve Simon, an executive vice president in Clear Channel's concert promotion unit in Cambridge, Mass.
The Instant Live venture adds an element of immediate gratification for music consumers, with towers of CD burners turning out multiple copies of the digital recordings.
"They would look at it as another trinket to sell to concertgoers when they're at their venue, whether it's a T-shirt or an instant bootleg or a hot dog," said James M. Marsh, a broadcasting analyst at the investment bank SG Cowen Securities.
And at least one long-time manager of rock bands, Irving Azoff, said he was enthusiastic about the Instant Live concept, especially at a time when concert concession sales are declining. "I, for one, would rather have a live CD of the show that I can take home than a T-shirt," he said. "So I think it's the future of the touring merchandising business."
Mr. Azoff said he was talking to Clear Channel about offering Instant Live discs during a summer tour of the vintage rock bands Journey and REO Speedwagon, provided that the company can demonstrate its ability to churn out enough discs to satisfy an arena-size audience.
Clear Channel has tested the Instant Live service at a half-dozen small-venue concerts since Feb. 27. In the first instance, people attending a performance by the alternative-rock band Machinery Hall at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston could buy a two-CD recording of that night's show for $15. So far, as many as 30 percent of the Instant Live concertgoers have purchased CD's at a given event, Mr. Simon said.
To make the discs, a master recording is made that blends music from the band's mixing board with ambient sounds, including crowd noise, from other microphones. As soon as the show ends, the master copy is taken to a small tower of CD burners, each of which can duplicate up to eight discs at a time. Fans will be able to preorder the discs when they buy tickets for the concert or place orders at any time during or after the performance.
Mr. Simon said Clear Channel would hold as many as five Instant Live concerts a month at small clubs in the Boston area. He said the venture would expand to larger venues and other cities. Clear Channel also has an exclusive distribution agreement with the Best Buy consumer electronics chain to sell Instant Live CD's in eight of its Boston-area stores and, beginning in mid-May, through its BestBuy.com Web site.
So far, the Instant Live performers have been bands like Spookie Daly Pride and Bomb Squad that do not have major record deals. The larger labels would probably frown upon a flood of Instant Live discs competing against their own official releases.
But Mr. Simon said that Instant Live's success did not depend on adding big-name acts from major labels. "It would be disingenuous to suggest that we don't want to expand the universe and do it with signed acts," he said, "but it is a business regardless." He declined to make sales forecasts.
Dan Millen, manager of Spookie Daly Pride, said the Instant Live program could be a bet on the possibility that at least one of the acts would eventually break out. In his own case, if the band lands a record deal and has a hit tune, demand for the Instant Live release would soar, he said. "If we sold 2 million copies of our album and 100,000 of our live bootleg from Clear Channel, then Clear Channel is going to significantly recoup their investment and then some," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Millen said, Spookie Daly Pride receives promotional support and radio play that it might not receive without Clear Channel's backing — even though the band is exactly the kind of indie-rock outfit that would otherwise have difficulty cracking Clear Channel's formats.
Indeed, because Clear Channel's four Boston stations do not play alternative rock music, Mr. Simon is working with two non-Clear Channel stations to promote the Instant Live acts. Mr. Simon declined to discuss how the Instant Live venture might complement Clear Channel's radio programming other than to say, "There's a panoply of alliance and bundling opportunities that this product would offer." Translated, this might mean that stations could someday offer an "Instant Live Hour," or some such program, that would promote the discs.
Mr. Simon said he could also envision making the audio recordings available at the shows as digital downloads to MP3 players or similar devices. And he said that DVD-recording technology is about 10 months away from being able to produce large numbers of concert video recordings on the spot.
Mr. Millen and other band managers said they received one-third to one-half of the $15 disc price, terms they found agreeable. And while all noted that Clear Channel's reputation among musicians is not generally high, none said they felt pressured into accepting a bad deal. "It wasn't `We want the whole farm and we'll give you this corn row over here,' " Mr. Millen said. "It was, `We'll give you a lot of the farm, and if you need anything else, let us know.' "
Although the instant CD idea may work for unsigned acts, it could pose many problems for musicians signed to major labels. Standard contracts, for instance, can stipulate that artists must produce a specific number of albums, so care would need to be taken to ensure that a week's worth of live CD's did not fulfill the band's contract obligation. And negotiating song licenses, particularly when versions of another band's tunes are involved, can also be thorny.
But the biggest obstacle to major-label acceptance could be the fear that the instant CD's would cannibalize the sales of an official release.
That is why DiscLive, a company that has also started to test the instant disc market at small clubs in New York, is taking a slightly different approach by limiting its releases to on-site sales, with no subsequent distribution planned. "What we're selling is a collector's item, a memorabilia piece," said Rich Isaacson, DiscLive's chief executive.
It is too early to know how big the market for instant concert CD's might become. Although the experience is not a direct comparison, John Paluska, manager of the jam band Phish, said that the group had already sold close to $1 million in concert-show downloads over the Internet since opening the livephish.com site in late December. The recordings are typically made available within 48 hours of a performance. So far, Phish fans have downloaded nearly 100,000 concert copies, compared with sales of 180,000 copies of the band's most recent album, "Round Room."
"In our eyes, it's been a big success," Mr. Paluska said.
But he said it would not be easy for Clear Channel to move into the instant-CD sphere. With all the legal issues involved, he said, "They're going to be surprised at how complicated it is."
Well, TOM, based on the posts to which
each of those links replied, I'd say he fabbed 'em up. BWTFDIK, eh?
How about these, Tom?
http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=867408
http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=864894
http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=864177
Who knows whether the story is true or not, but based on the above, I put little credence in acrazjo's posts.
chwdrhed: It wouldn't be
the first time he's put "words in someone's mouth."
http://investorshub.com/boards/profile.asp?user=4958
Ah, Bluesman: Good to see
you've found a home.
Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Some of the world's biggest record companies, facing rampant online piracy, are quietly financing the development and testing of software programs that would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people that download pirated music, according to industry executives.
The record companies are exploring options on new countermeasures, which some experts say have varying degrees of legality, to deter online theft: from attacking personal Internet connections so as to slow or halt downloads of pirated music to overwhelming the distribution networks with potentially malicious programs that masquerade as music files.
The covert campaign, parts of which may never be carried out because they could be illegal under state and federal wiretap laws, is being developed and tested by a cadre of small technology companies, the executives said.
If employed, the new tactics would be the most aggressive effort yet taken by the recording industry to thwart music piracy, a problem that the IFPI, an industry group, estimates costs the industry $4.3 billion in sales worldwide annually. Until now, most of the industry's anti-piracy efforts have involved filing lawsuits against companies and individuals that distribute pirated music. Last week, four college students who had been sued by the industry settled the suits by agreeing to stop operating networks that swap music and pay $12,000 to $17,500 each.
The industry has also tried to frustrate pirates technologically by spreading copies of fake music files across file-sharing networks like KaZaA and Morpheus. This approach, called "spoofing," is considered legal but has had only mild success, analysts say, proving to be more of a nuisance than an effective deterrent.
The new measures under development take a more extreme — and antagonistic — approach, according to executives who have been briefed on the software programs.
Interest among record executives in using some of these more aggressive programs has been piqued since a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled last month that StreamCast Networks, the company that offers Morpheus, and Grokster, another file-sharing service, were not guilty of copyright infringement. And last week, the record industry turned a "chat" feature in popular file-trading software programs to its benefit by sending out millions of messages telling people: "When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL MUSIC."
The deployment of this message through the file-sharing network, which the Recording Industry Association of America said is an education effort, appears to be legal. But other anti-piracy programs raise legal issues.
Since the law and the technology itself are new, the liabilities — criminal and civil — are not easily defined. But some tactics are clearly more problematic than others.
Among the more benign approaches being developed is one program, considered a Trojan horse rather than a virus, that simply redirects users to Web sites where they can legitimately buy the song they tried to download.
A more malicious program, dubbed "freeze," locks up a computer system for a certain duration — minutes or possibly even hours — risking the loss of data that was unsaved if the computer is restarted. It also displays a warning about downloading pirated music. Another program under development, called "silence," scans a computer's hard drive for pirated music files and attempts to delete them. One of the executives briefed on the silence program said that it did not work properly and was being reworked because it was deleting legitimate music files, too.
Other approaches that are being tested include launching an attack on personal Internet connections, often called "interdiction," to prevent a person from using a network while attempting to download pirated music or offer it to others.
"There are a lot of things you can do — some quite nasty," said Marc Morgenstern, the chief executive of Overpeer, a technology business that receives support from several large media companies. Mr. Morgenstern refused to identify his clients, citing confidentiality agreements with them. He also said that his company does not and will not deploy any programs that run afoul of the law. "Our philosophy is to make downloading pirated music a difficult and frustrating experience without crossing the line." And while he said "we develop stuff all the time," he was also quick to add that "at the end of the day, my clients are trying to develop relationships with these people." Overpeer, with 15 staff members, is the largest of about a dozen businesses founded to create counterpiracy methods.
The music industry's five "majors" — the Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal; the Warner Music Group, a unit of AOL Time Warner; Sony Music Entertainment; BMG, a unit of Bertelsmann; and EMI — have all financed the development of counterpiracy programs, according to executives, but none would discuss the details publicly. Warner Music issued a statement saying: "We do everything we feel is appropriate, within the law, in order to protect our copyrights." A spokeswoman for Universal Music said that the company "is engaging in legal technical measures."
Whether the record companies decide to unleash a tougher anti-piracy campaign has created a divide among some music executives concerned about finding a balance between stamping out piracy and infuriating its music-listening customers. There are also questions about whether companies could be held liable by individuals who have had their computers attacked.
"Some of this stuff is going to be illegal," said Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in Internet copyright issues. "It depends on if they are doing a sufficient amount of damage. The law has ways to deal with copyright infringement. Freezing people's computers is not within the scope of the copyright laws."
Randy Saaf, the president of MediaDefender, another company that receives support from the record industry to frustrate pirates, told a congressional hearing last September that his company "has a group of technologies that could be very effective in combating piracy on peer-to-peer networks but are not widely used because some customers have told us that they feel uncomfortable with current ambiguities in computer hacking laws."
In an interview, he declined to identify those technologies for competitive reasons. "We steer our customers away from anything invasive," he said.
Internet service providers are also nervous about anti-piracy programs that could disrupt their systems. Sarah B. Deutsch, associate general counsel of Verizon Communications, said she is concerned about any program that slows down connections. "It could become a problem we don't know how to deal with," she said. "Any technology that has an effect on a user's ability to operate their computer or use the network would be of extreme concern to us. I wouldn't say we're against this completely. I would just say that we're concerned."
Verizon is already caught in its own battle with the recording industry. A federal judge ordered Verizon to provide the Recording Industry Association of America with the identities of customers suspected of making available hundreds of copyrighted songs. The record companies are increasingly using techniques to sniff out and collect the electronic addresses of computers that distribute pirated music.
But the more aggressive approach could also generate a backlash against individual artists and the music industry. When Madonna released "spoofed" versions of songs from her new album on music sharing networks to frustrate pirates, her own Web site was hacked into the next day and real copies of her album were made available by hackers on her site.
The industry has tried to seek legislative support for aggressive measures. Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, introduced a bill last fall that would have limited the liability of copyright owners for using tougher technical counterpiracy tactics to protect their works online. But the bill was roundly criticized by privacy advocates. "There was such an immediate attack that you couldn't get a rational dialogue going," said Cary Sherman, president of the recording industry association. He said that while his organization often briefs recording companies on legal issues related to what he calls "self help" measures, "the companies deal with this stuff on their own."
And as for the more extreme approaches, he said, "It is not uncommon for engineers to think up new programs and code them. There are a lot of tantalizing ideas out there — some in the gray area and some illegal — but it doesn't mean they will be used."
I haven't owned this in quite a long time, 50+
I never bothered to look at NITE from that perspective, either. My wife once worked for a MM in the eighties that actually was a very good short-term indicator; that was LTCO, until they stopped making a market in EDIG sometime in the past year.
NITE's position, however, does show the resistance and support, quite well, because they are so HUGE. The price doesn't seem to rise unless NITE lets it run; that from several years of general observation.
My point, 50+
is that NITE controls the action on this stock.
When they are on the ask, it doesn't go higher, typically, and when they are on the bid, well, it is artificially supported.
From the NYTimes article by David Pogue
"Among the Music Store's many grace notes and pleasant surprises, the most amazing is the balance it strikes between the apparently irreconcilable interests of the three interested parties. The record companies get a reasonable amount of money. The bands get both exposure and protection. And the once-neglected customer finally gets what online music libraries should have been delivering all along: high-quality recordings, free from the viruses and deliberately corrupted files that increasingly poison the wells of free music-trading services like KaZaA; the freedom to cherry-pick songs without having to pay for a bunch of grade-B filler; the liberty to spend as little or as much as one likes, whenever one likes; and the flexibility to copy the music to other computers, iPods or CD's."
This satsumi of positive accolades for the new Apple Music Store seems to have been created by the same publicists who brought us the "liberation of Iraq," last month!
There are more than the three interested parties that Pogue cites in his claim that the Apple Music Store strikes a balance. The most important, yet always ignored interested party(s) is the music publisher who administers the PA copyrights for the writers of music. They are the ones who will lose out the most by the abandonment of the "filler" from album collections. Similarly the writers are not mentioned, and yet, they are the first ones paid under the current system of music distribution both as CD's as well as airplay. Their interest is independent of both labels and artists.
I'm very interested in the position that The Harry Fox Agency (NMPA) will ultimately take regarding multiple reproduction of the songs that seemingly are being compensated for the first copy only. I'm also curious as to the playability of AAC encoded CDs on personal CD players and not just Apple computers. Can they be integrated into compilations that also include MP3s?
porbable, but
not likely, Gil.
They're wack/
AAC is and has been the audio
codec of choice for some time now. With all of the majors signed up, Apple's service provides what the other sub. services have not been able to do. Codecs are a dead issue now, IMO.
Several players including those from Panasonic, Toshiba and Creative have offered AAC, WMA and MP3 compatible players for some time.
sdr: What does this mean?
"EDIG has already encoded all the known more popular codecs and is ready to go."
berge: You understand this issue well.
The thing about Napster that really made the whole "era" great, other than the free-access, was that you could find alternate mixes, rare (certainly unavailable for purchase, elsewhere) recordings, unauthorized concert recordings and music curios that dedicated fanatics would post on the site. It was like the internet in 1993, with a spirit of sharing that is missing from current sites both "free" as well as authorized. It is OVER, now, and the fever that once drove Napster, and made for those wild predictions about the public's desire for downloaded music is no longer an engine for change, IMO.
They turned down billions(in front)from Napster/
Sadly, the argument is unchanged from '00
Success in selling MASS numbers of SECURE downloads depends still on the mass/inexpensive availability of broadband IN THE HOMES of the people who buy music. Inflexibility on the part of the publishers on behalf of the writers of music who will not yield significantly on their royalty per download; they are already taking a major hit by losing mechanical royalties on all of the "filler" tracks that won't be sold.
These days there aren't many of those "one-tune" CD's, Matt. It's a tough battle for the listener's money and acts like 50 cent (for example) are currently charting multiple tunes from the same collection.
My prediction re Apple music service......
Doomed to fail, if downloads cost $.99 each. No news, here, but if the RIAA supports it, forget it.
Rx for Music Industry: Seek Out the Old Geezers
By HARRY SHEARER
Here's a business model with a future: sue your customers. That's what, as of this month, the recorded-music industry has been doing. It filed suit against four college students involved in Internet file-sharing (in which compressed "files" of music are swapped, Napster-style), asking for billions of dollars in damages. Yes, billions. Interestingly enough, the Bush administration, known to be opposed to frivolous lawsuits and in favor of tort reform, has weighed in on the side of the industry. Let's go after those students. That's where the money is.
This strategy would suggest that lawsuits against computer makers and the manufacturers of modems (and, for that matter, the little cables that connect your computer to the phone line) are in the offing. A calmer voice from the back row of a Business 101 course might well offer this suggestion to the industry: stop seeking as your customers the people most likely to steal from you.
The record business is clearly in a slump. The value of all music product shipments decreased from $14.3 billion in 2000 to $13.7 billion in 2001, according to figures released by the industry's trade association. This was not a one-year drop, either; it continues a recent trend. (A cautionary note: these figures are based on sales to stores and not on sales directly to consumers.)
The industry line has been that file-sharing caused these declines. Others point to the fact that boomers may have finally bought, on CD, copies of all the music they had already purchased on vinyl. And Andreas Schmidt, of the music giant Bertlesmann, said the unsayable: "We didn't put that much good stuff out."
Nobody, let's remember, twisted the arms of the record and movie industries into focusing their product and their marketing muscle almost single-mindedly (if that's not being too generous) on people in their teens and early 20's.
They seemed like a great market: easily persuaded, with the free time and the free-floating enthusiasm to see films repeatedly and line up at midnight for sneak releases of "hot" new recordings.
As events have proved, there is one crucial problem with this demographic cohort: it has much more time than money. And, if these music lovers are enrolled at a university, they probably also have access to a superfast Internet connection, which makes the usually cumbersome process of downloading music files as easy as checking your e-mail.
Many people over the age of 25 have been moaning for years, correctly, that nobody is putting out records for them. These people have families, church and community meetings to attend, golf to play and cooking to do. They have careers and disposable incomes. All this makes them far more likely to opt for the convenience of stopping by the record store than trying to figure out how to work Kazaa or Gnutella or any of the other strangely named avenues of Internet commerce avoidance.
Will people older than 25 actually buy music? Obviously. Just consider the niche audiences for re-released oldies — swing or rock. And as recently as the 50's, there was a huge adult market for something called pop music.
Arif Mardin, the producer of the hit CD by Norah Jones, said of these customers the night the disc won three Grammys, "They don't know how to download, so they go to the store and buy the record."
Sure enough, the next week, the CD was No. 1, selling half a million copies, and registering the biggest post-Grammy spike in recorded-music history.
So, before the record companies sue any more college sophomores, or go back to Congress for more legislation allowing more intrusion into the nation's private Internet behavior, perhaps they should just tweak their product and marketing strategy, and aim at the people who have at their disposal more money than time.
chwdrhed: The pearl in the Oyster! Thank you./
Oz: I do not mean to single you out
for this attitude; in fact, you have proven to be quite moderate in your zeal for the "positives," expressed here. Some time ago, before the exodus of those who were not able to influence the owners of this board with their opinions of the critics, posts like this proliferated, specifically toward me.
http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=596361
The simple solution, Oz, is to ignore
those that post repetitive information that is proving so "painful" to read through. It seems to me, however, that rather than content yourselves by not reading it, you don't want ANYBODY to read it; not newcomers, not fence sitters, not disillusioned longs and especially those who are not aware of the contents of the SEC documents.
IMO, a link to eDigital's financial filings should be posted at the top of this board, right along with the rules for acceptable posting. They are, afterall, a far more objective measure of the company's potential for success (and pps appreciation) that the endless "I just got off the phone with RP" posts.
sunsetstrip: The innovative concept of the PJB
yielded a bonanza for Apple, after it was pioneered by CPQ and others. Providing a place to store one's entire music collection and carry it along, the 6, 10 20 and ?? gig JB's gave consumers full opportunity to transport ALL OF THOSE NAPSTER files! This market was not only not dependent on the music industry adapting a downloading model, it prospered from the music industry NOT getting it together.
Had the Hytek TREO been released for sale WHEN it was promised, this company would have had better access to those consumers than Apple did.
I have no problem distinguishing between incompetent (and misleading management) and rotten luck.
Interested observers of this stock
have known for a long time about NITE. Since LTCO stopped making a market, NITE is the best indicator, IMO, of the direction the stock is heading. When they came off the bid yesterday, it didn't take long for support to collapse.
EDIG - E DIGITAL CORP
Last
Sale:
0.13
Best
Bid:
0.125
Best Bid
Depth:
5000
Best
Ask:
0.135
Best Ask
Depth:
5000
MPID Bid Size Ask Size U O/C
GVRC 0.125 5000 0.285 5000 O
WIEN 0.122 5000 0.16 5000 O
TDCM 0.122 5000 0.14 5000 O
MAYF 0.12 5000 0.27 5000 O
WDCO 0.12 5000 0.26 5000 O
HILL 0.12 5000 0.15 5000 O
SCHB 0.12 5000 0.16 5000 O
BAMM 0.12 5000 0.16 5000 O
MHMY 0.12 5000 0.15 5000 O
JEFF 0.115 5000 0.135 5000 O
PALC 0.11 5000 0.75 2500 O
PGON 0.1 5000 0.3 5000 O
PERT 0.1 5000 0.15 5000 O
NITE 0.1 5000 0.17 5000 O
PRGM 0.095 5000 0.52 2500 O
DOMS 0.09 5000 0.25 5000 O
FRAN 0.09 5000 0.3 5000 O
NATL 0.08 5000 0.25 5000 O
AGIS 0.075 5000 0.26 5000 O
FRGP 0.05 5000 0.43 5000 O
GSCO 0.04 5000 0.17 5000 O
RYCO 0.01 5000 2.95 500 O
AXCS - 0 - 0 O
BPAT - 0 - 0 O
WEED - 0 - 0 O
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is now an EDIG "free"
chat room on digichat. It is without a password and open to all who have that priviledge from ihub.
Microsoft courted by Vivendi to buy music unit-WSJ
14 Apr 2003, 03:08am ET
- - - - -
NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is among companies approached by Vivendi Universal Music Group (NYSE:V)(SBF:EAUG) executives in their bid to find buyers for the unit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The report comes a day after a Paris-based source told Reuters that talks between Vivendi Universal and Apple Computer Inc. had entered a crucial phase which could make or brake a deal for the world's largest record company.
The Reuters source played down speculation the sale of Universal Music to the firm run by California computer guru Steve Jobs -- for up to $6 billion as first reported by the Los Angeles Times on Friday -- was a done deal.
On Monday, citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said Universal Music bosses, including Chairman Doug Morris and Interscope Geffen A&M label chief Jimmy Iovine, had put out feelers for possible buyers or investors, but they now appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach.
Approaches to Microsoft were in the hope of finding a friendly investor to take over Universal Music, perhaps as part of a management-led buyout, the Journal reported.
Apple and Microsoft officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment early on Monday, and a Vivendi official in Paris declined comment.
The Journal said people close to Jobs insisted he was only interested in accessing music for Apple's new service, not in buying a record company. Universal's roster includes Eminem, U2, and Shania Twain.
Apple was aided by investment bank Morgan Stanley in early talks, and Jobs is believed to have spoken at least once by phone with Vivendi Chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou about the idea, the Journal added.
Separately, the Journal reported that Apple would be launching its own music service in coming weeks, with songs from all five major record labels.
Citing people with knowledge of the matter, the newspaper said the service was more consumer-friendly than most other legitimate online-music services, with a simplicity that makes it easy for consumers to purchase a song and move it to the popular Apple iPod devices.
Even so, it will only be available to Mac users, who comprise only about five percent of the global market. Currently, most other online music services -- including the record-label backed services pressplay and MusicNet, as well as closely held Listen.com Inc.'s Rhapsody service -- do not support Apple's Macintosh software.
friendlyfred: eDigital's entree into
the DAP field came via their association with Lucent. In fact, they were "entrusted" with the development/marketing of LU's epac codec. Unfortunately, by the spring of 2000, epac had been dismissed by the nabobs of the music industry as lacking robustivity, and AAC, ATRAC and WMA were the codecs of choice by the labels. I firmly believe that the management of eDigital was aware of this development but certainly didn't share the information. Further, they continued to hype DAPers that were supposedly being manufactured and marketed by Maycom that never did find their way to market.
I, like many others, saw the NASDAQ listing application as the "way out," and waited for the acceptance, that although promised, never materialized. By the time that the rejection was revealed by the company, the share price was under $3.00, I believe.