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Record Numbers of Kids Surf Web for Homework, Music
16 minutes ago Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Surfing the Web for homework tips and music tracks has drawn millions of Europe's children online in the past year, making it the fastest-growing segment of the Internet population, a new study said on Tuesday.
Some 13 million children under the age of 18 in eight countries surveyed surf the web for school work, games and music, a rise of some 27 percent over last year. Four million were under age 12, market researchers at Nielsen/Netratings said.
The findings from the survey covering Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and the Netherlands. suggest that a plea from educators and politicians to add the Internet to school curricula and make high-speed Internet services cheaper as well as more accessible is paying off.
But it also stoked concerns among police and children's protection groups who caution that pedophiles are using the Internet in greater numbers to prey on children.
Last week, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) announced it would shut down its chat rooms in 28 countries saying pedophiles were lurking in their MSN chat forums to meet unsuspecting children, a decision cheered by police.
The Netratings findings triggered once again a call by watchdog groups for parents to keep a vigilant eye on how their children use the Internet.
"The Internet can be a great tool for educational purposes and many children find it fun to use. However, parents should continue to monitor their children's activities and the amount of time they spend on the Internet, especially if they are using chatrooms," said Chris Atkinson, policy advisor for National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
"The majority of kids are going online and looking at the same mainstream sites adults do. They are going online to portals (news - web sites), using email and chatting," Tom Ewing, an analyst with Netratings told Reuters.
Western Europe's largest population of Internet minors is the United Kingdom where 4.5 million children under 18 are regular surfers. Popular sites among British children are search engine Google.com and research site About.com, Netratings said.
Also, among the top five sites for UK children is file-sharing network Kazaa. Media and software companies have been trying to shut down file-sharing networks, saying they contribute to a black market of copyrighted materials.
"I would imagine there is an enormous amount of file sharing going on in this age range," Ewing added.
This statement tells the truth...
Dell connection aside, this is the first music service available for Windows with the backing of the major labels and loose usage controls. Will US$0.99 per song and US$9.99 per album be compelling enough to turn people away from the file-sharing networks? Since this is aimed at the 95% of the market that doesn't use Macs, this may very well be the litmus test of whether people will leave Kazaa behind for per song downloads with decent usage rights.
More on MusicMatch's new service...
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/3084721
MusicMatch Bows Download Store
(from Billboard.com)
Edited By Jonathan Cohen. September 29, 2003, 11:00 AM ET
MusicMatch will announce today (Sept. 29) that it is launching an a la carte download service for the Windows Media platform. The service, which goes live today, will be integrated into the MusicMatch jukebox software and will feature 200,000 tracks, including music from all five major labels and more than 30 independents. All tracks will cost 99 cents; most albums will sell for $9.99.
In a first for a Windows-based pay-per-download store, the service will feature consistent usage rules for all tracks. MusicMatch downloads can be stored on up to three PCs at once and can be transferred to compatible portable devices that support Windows files. Tracks can be burned to CDs; playlists can be burned up to five times.
San Diego-based MusicMatch claims more than 8 million active users of its software in the U.S. and 150,000 subscribers to its premium radio service Artist-On-Demand. The company plans to drive its download sales through its radio offerings: Consumers will be able to purchase tracks as they are listening to them on the radio.
MusicMatch first announced plans for the download service earlier this year. The company's offering is the first in a series of download stores for PCs that are expected to launch this fall, including services from Apple, Roxio, RealNetworks and AOL.
Meanwhile, Dell Computer is following competitors Apple and Gateway into the music space. The company said last week it plans to launch a digital music service and a portable music player later this year. Further details were not disclosed. Dell is also developing a media-management software application that will enable users to listen to digital music files, add music to photo slideshows, watch DVDs and view videoclips.
-- Brian Garrity, N.Y.
48!!! Each plane, great. How many planes does Alaska have?
I remember when all new PCs were compared to the Apple II
At some point the iPod luster will fade, imho
The only thing constant is change ~ someone
Oct 17th?
10-17
or
(10-1) 7
or
9 7
or
(5+4) 7
or
547
I should of bought some shares before I posted that...
I need some rest
imho The answer is owd547 is looking real hard for something neg. to say, and rational thinking would not stop him.
Is someone saying that these OEMs might not have the capital to do business with Dell?
give me a break
imho these two things could both be true (please don't quote my speculation)
1. Dell has no idea who e.Digital is
and
2. We will get $$ for each DJ sold.
or both not true
If 1 and 2 are true then our agreement is with an OEM that told Dell they have a designed unit that will work with DRMs and is multi codec ready to go. Our work would be with the OEM not Dell. (much like Softec told HP)(or did HP tell Disney)
And we never see a PR with Dell (much like Disney)(or was it HP)
If both are not true then nothing has changed LOL
OT~ Just went out and got a lottery ticket
I went with 547
Good point.eom
Please return to this site at 11:00 a.m. EDT to access the Web-based demo and virtual press kit.
http://www.dell.com/us/en/gen/corporate/media_conversation.htm
Looks like the Dell player is much smaller.
It's a joke
Not at all, just looking for the things that match.eom
bcaddel~Thanks a lot for that.eom
Look close at the picture and you can see it on the display.eom
I see it has voice recording, does the iPod?
"It's going to be fun to see how the consumer electronics industry evolves."~Dell President Rollins
Now let's all discuss why they would change the meeting to early Dec from what in the past has been early Nov.
Do they maybe expect lots of news in the Nov-early Dec time period?
Thats my 2 cents
I was not looking for your conspiracy theory on overall valuations only the time frame around the APS release as it related to your post and PR expectations.
But since you posted that, what on earth are you talking about?
Do you have any facts to support that post other than cassandra posts?
Do you have access to trading data and agreements between the parties mentioned? And if as you imply something smells funny why post it on this board when you could just turn the information over to someone with regulation power?
To me it sounds like a bunch of garbage.
Makers of Kazaa suing record labels
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Turning the tables on record labels, makers of the most popular Internet song-swapping network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement.
Sharman Networks Ltd., the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing the entertainment companies of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to root out users. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online messages to users.
Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network.
Trying again
Sharman's lawsuit also revives its previous allegation that the entertainment companies violated antitrust laws by stopping Sharman and its partner from distributing authorized copies of music and movies through Kazaa.
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson rejected those claims in July but last week allowed Sharman to try again. Sharman is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu with main offices in Sydney, Australia.
Firing back
The Recording Industry Association of America called Sharman's "newfound admiration for the importance of copyright law" ironic and "self-serving."
Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, a division of CNN's parent company AOL Time Warner, declined to comment on Sharman's latest lawsuit.
Recording companies sued 261 music fans this month, claiming they were illegally distributing hundreds of digital song files apiece over the Internet. The industry trolled file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and downloaded song files from users' computers.
Once the industry determined a downloaded song file was a copyright work, they issued subpoenas to Internet access providers to find out who was behind the account used to log onto the file-sharing network.
In what way? And if Shareholder expectation (as you say) was let down, why is the stock price holding?
If your talking about lack of excess press from APS then I say...
Most longs would be happy to tone down the PR excess if it means better relations with OEMs and more bottom line improvement.
It's not hype from customers that is going to keep shareholder value long term.
Most of those were before iHub was started so could not be called "here" imho
So many on this board are still living in the past.
Of late many longs gave us Alaska Air, Disney. Longs predicted increasing revenue for the past few quarters. The non-shareholers are more in the vain of I told you so regarding the years 1999-2002
Well wake up in a few months it's 2004 and many e.Digital markets are just ramping up.
LipNav?
BMG Offers Legal Song Sharing
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49456-2003Sep22.html
BMG Entertainment plans to release a compact disc today that allows consumers to download and copy a limited number of songs, the music industry's latest experiment to come up with a viable alternative to the free trading of music over the Internet.
R&B singer Anthony Hamilton's "Comin' From Where I'm From," which BMG label Arista will price at $13.98, is a CD designed to play differently on a computer than on home and car stereos, Walkmans, boomboxes and so forth.
When consumers pop Hamilton's CD into their stereos, they should notice no difference from any other CD. But when they load it into their computers, an interactive box will appear on the screen that shows Hamilton's picture, a list of 12 songs and several options for users to click on.
One option allows the consumer to copy all of Hamilton's songs from the CD onto the computer and portable devices, such as MP3 players (but not yet Apple's iPod). Once in the computer, the software lets the consumer copy the songs on up to three CDs. There is nothing to prevent those CDs from being recopied, though the next generation of the software will include such copy protection.
Another option allows the consumer to copy Hamilton's songs into an e-mail that can be sent to others via the Internet, where the music can be downloaded to a hard drive for 10 days before expiring.
"I think there is a market where the virtual world and the physical world can peacefully coexist," said Jordan Katz, senior vice president for sales at Arista, which spent the past two years testing the new CD format. "As long as there is a physical product, and there will be for a very long time, I think it's the right thing to make sure we protect artists' rights and at the same time be very, very conscious of what the general public and consumers want out of music."
Each of the five major music companies -- Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and BMG -- has experimented with various forms of copy protection on their CDs, and released some discs here and in Europe in recent years. But technology so far has mainly focused on keeping the music on the disc, as opposed to managing it in such a way that tries to protect copyright while giving the consumer some flexibility with the music.
Other music companies are waiting to see what happens with BMG's experiment, to find out how well it is received by consumers and if the technology can be easily hacked. The first test will be how quickly one of Hamilton's songs appears on a song-swapping Web site such as Kazaa, Grokster or Morpheus.
The music industry is suffering through a double-digit depression in CD sales over the past few years, which it attributes to free song sharing via Internet sites. The industry trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America, is spearheading an aggressive and wide-ranging legal defense, backing hundreds of lawsuits against song sharers, claiming damages due to copyright violation.
But the industry has been heavily criticized for suing without offering consumers workable alternatives to free song swapping on the Internet. In recent months, Internet sites outside the music industry, such as Apple's iTunes and BuyMusic.com, have begun offering digital downloads for as low as 79 cents per song and have experienced modest success.
This is not the first time BMG, owned by German media giant Bertelsmann AG, has broken ranks with the other big four music companies. Bertelsmann had made an investment in Napster and later tried to buy the name out of bankruptcy.
Hamilton's CD was picked because it was the one scheduled for release when SunnComm Technologies Inc.'s software was ready, Katz said. BMG signed a two-year deal with Phoenix-based SunnComm, allowing the music company to apply SunnComm's MediaMax technology to any of BMG's releases, SunnComm chief executive Peter H. Jacobs said. BMG/Arista will monitor sales of Hamilton's CD to decide what tweaks may be needed for future discs, and when similar ones will be released.
Sony and Santa Clara, Calif.-based Macrovision Corp. also are working on CD copy-management technology. Macrovision signed a deal in April to provide copy protection for Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
With BMG's new CD, which will ship 100,000 copies initially, the number of downloads and copies is still determined by BMG, not the consumer, which may not sit well with some file sharers.
"People may say, 'Why would you restrict me to three copies?' " said William H. Whitmore, chief operating officer of SunnComm. "Well, we could have made it zero copies. You have to balance your rights and privileges versus your obligations and responsibilities."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
The Reviewer clearly stated he was ripping MP3 files.
You can't compare the quality of a MP3 file at 128KB with the WMA format e.Digital is using at 128KB.
EDIG boards and other stock boards ie FPLY/OBJX have posted countless reviews of how the quality of a 128KB Mp3 file is more like at 96KB WMA file over the past years.
Please learn this stuff if you wish to keep up.
You can get more songs on a music player if you limit yourself to songs by the Ramones.
You should see all the songs I have on my MXP right now.
30 Days of music is correct, if pluged in and encoded at 96KB.
Do the math
Did you see the link I posted?...
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030922/225783_1.html
43,200 Min or 10,000 Songs at less then 4 1/2 min per song.
IMHO at 96KB
I saw the "Buy a VW Beetle and get an Ipod free" commercial ove the weekend.
Very cool.
Can't help but think we are on the verg of seeing lots of the under 30 crowd with DAPs in their cars.
Any chance the song playing on the picture of the Dell Player has 5:47 left to play? Just checking
Putting out PRs with profit margins is just wrong in a competitive marketplace. I for one am happy they don't.
Quarter end is the time to discuss them in general terms.
murgirl~ If it proves correct your Dot Connecting odds greatly improve .
I think Im going home now to hunker down under the battened down hatches.
Robert said I should also get Katie to Bar the Door, but I think I'll wait until either the winds get over 60mph or we get product in Best Buy.
Have a dry day, I know I won't
Ron
http://weather.noaa.gov/radar/loop/DS.p20-r/si.kakq.shtml
EDIG 0.55 +0.08 0.54 0.55 506,700 10:20:15
EDIG 0.52 +0.05 0.51 0.52 363,900 09:57:42
Very insightful, not far fetched. imho
Nice to see you finally admit you have "understanding" problems.
Since I helped you with your Digitalway understanding problem let's see if I can help you again.
The company felt they could update shareholders on the timetable for a NDA signed contract, much like they do in a Conf Call.
Why put out a PR with no named customer/partner on it? Anyone that "understands" the company knows they have deals going on that are sometimes months away from results.
A formal PR will go out when our partner/customer allows.
Since they get phone calls all the time asking "when is the next OEM going to sign" they must feel the shareholders like to be kept up to date. lol
Very much like Disney. Have you seen that PR yet?