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Sony BMG settles with 39 states By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES - Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $4.25 million as part of a settlement with 39 states to resolve investigations into problems caused by music CDs loaded with hidden anti-piracy software.
Under terms of Thursday's agreement, which also applies to the District of Columbia, the record company will reimburse consumers whose computers were damaged while trying to uninstall the anti-piracy software.
Sony BMG also said it will no longer distribute any compact discs loaded with copy-protection software that hinders computer users from easily locating it or removing it from their PCs.
The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly took the lead in brokering the multistate agreement, which was expected to be filed Thursday in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston.
"If companies want to use technology to protect their interests, they need to be up front with consumers, and give consumers the opportunity to make informed choices about buying and using these products," Reilly said in a prepared statement.
Thirteen states that started the settlement process with Sony BMG will each receive $316,538, while the rest will get $5,000, Reilly's office said.
New York-based Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). and Bertelsmann AG, said it was pleased to reach the agreement.
It covers CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software — MediaMax or XCP. The record label began including MediaMax on some of its discs in August 2003 and introduced XCP in January 2005.
Last year, the record company shipped more than 12 million compact discs on 52 Sony BMG titles, each loaded with one of the two programs. About 4 million CDs with the MediaMax software and about 3 million CDs loaded with the XCP software were sold.
Both programs restricted the number of copies of a disc that a user could make, but the programs caused problems for some users when they played the CDs on their computers.
The XCP software concealed itself to thwart computer users from finding it and attempting to delete it. It also ended up opening a potential security hole on PCs running on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Operating System, making them vulnerable to viruses or other threats.
Some who used certain antispyware software to remove the programs ended up with a glitch that disabled their CD-ROM drives.
As word spread on the Internet in late 2005 that the CDs carried hidden software, some suggested the company was using the technology to spy on consumers.
Sony BMG maintained it did not use the software to collect personal data about consumers without their consent — an assertion backed up by an outside company commissioned by the company to audit its use of the copy-protection software.
Sony BMG ultimately recalled the discs with XCP in November 2005 and released a way to remove the files from users' computers. It also released a software patch to fix a potential security hole from the MediaMax 5.0 program.
Customers will be able to file a claim with Sony BMG to receive refunds of up to $175, but claims must include a description of how their computer was harmed and documentation of repair expenses.
The refund policy will also apply to states that were not a party to the settlement.
The latest settlement closes out the states' investigations into the problem.
On Tuesday, Sony BMG reached a separate settlement with California and Texas, agreeing to pay $1.5 million to the states and reimburse consumers for PC damage. The company earlier settled a class-action case over the episode.
In addition to Massachusetts, the states that were a party to Thursday's settlement are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. ___
Sony BMG information on settlement: http://www.sonybmgcdtechsettlement.com
It is important to note that SunnComm remains committed to the MediaMax CD enhancement and copy protection technology. Copy protection initiatives outside the U.S. remain strong and represent about 60% of total sales. After becoming the most scrutinized copy protection software in the U.S. with no known security vulnerabilities, SunnComm is in a perfect position to capitalize on several of those international markets. Before the close of this year, SunnComm intends to make its new, consumer-friendly MediaMax 6.0 CD copy protection product the #1 choice of record labels throughout the world.”
http://www.sunncomm.com/press/pressrelease.asp?prid=200605050800
That doesn't include the new products they are working on that was posted on MediaMax product web site last night.
http://www.mediamaxtech.com/FLASH/indexFLASH.html
AMX
Viral marketing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through viral processes similar to the spread of an epidemic. It is word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.
Viral marketing is sometimes used to describe some sorts of Internet-based stealth marketing campaigns, including the use of blogs, seemingly amateur web sites, and other forms of astroturfing to create word of mouth for a new product or service. Often the ultimate goal of viral marketing campaigns is to generate media coverage via "offbeat" stories worth many times more than the campaigning company's advertising budget.
The term "viral advertising" refers to the idea that people will pass on and share interesting and entertaining content; this is often sponsored by a brand, which is looking to build awareness of a product or service. These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, images, and even text.
Viral marketing is popular because of the ease of executing the marketing campaign, relative low-cost (compared to direct mail), good targeting, and the high and rapid response rate. The main strength of viral marketing is its ability to obtain a large number of interested people at a low cost.
The most difficult task for any company is to acquire and retain a large customer base. Through the use of the internet and the effects of e-mail advertising, the business-to-consumer (B2C) efforts have a greater impact than many other tools of marketing. Viral marketing is a technique that avoids the annoyance of spam mail; it encourages users of a specific product or service to tell a friend. This would be a positive word-of-mouth recommendation. One of the most successful perspectives found to achieve this customer base is the integrated marketing communication IMC perspective.
Universal Music's Bright Idea
By Alyce Lomax (TMF Lomax)
July 5, 2006
The recording industry has often seemed maddeningly unaware of some of the most interesting developments in music today. However, Vivendi's (NYSE: V) Universal Music Group is experimenting in Europe to try to boost CD sales once again. It might just be a much-needed musical makeover.
Universal Music is testing different levels of packaging and pricing for CDs. For example, a basic CD will have a low-cost cardboard case and a lower retail price to compete with cheaper digital versions. "Deluxe" editions will cost more but will include more durable jewel cases with locking mechanisms (it'll be harder to bust the jewel cases, much less the CDs inside) as well as bonus content for hardcore fans.
As news reports noted, music giants like Sony's (NYSE: SNE) BMG, EMI, and Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) have made few attempts to innovate with the CD format for the past 20 years, despite recent sagging sales. With cheaper digital music now available, it makes perfect sense for the recording industry to recognize that CDs lend themselves more toward a truly collectible experience than a costly, cookie-cutter product destined to collect dust.
Of course, Universal Music's move to get on the right track is hardly a surprise, with variations of the idea already floating around. Although I struggle with my addiction to Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes Music Store, I have definitely fallen for some higher-priced collectible CDs lately. I'm a sucker for B-side and rarity compilations, which sometimes include bonus artwork, booklets, and lyrics, as well as large cardboard covers that hearken back to the heyday of the LP, once more giving your musical taste a higher profile on the shelf. Packaging and extras like these could help the music industry lure diehard fans, especially now that the labels can also add bonuses like videos or live footage to the package. (Apple's already experimenting with a digital version of the "package deal.")
Initiatives like this might not save the CD -- digital music has clearly entrenched itself with consumers -- but it could certainly help bolster the format's lagging sales growth. The major labels' considerable bellyaching over music sales and complaints about piracy's threatening effects -- and their inevitable surprise and shock that consumers might actually pay for digital music -- only exposed them as an old-fashioned industry apparently loath to give consumers the changes they demanded. There's clearly no excuse for the industry to suppose that the old way is the right way any longer.
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06070513.htm?logvisit=y?logvisit=y&source=estmarhln001999&a...
Time will tell!
GLTA
´Next Week´ is Here – The Tiger is Quiet No Longer Quiet!
I GUESS THEY DON'T PLAN ON V6 IN THE USA AT ALL. UHGGG!
Sunday July 02, 2006
Corrupt audio discs, aka "Copy-Protected CDs"
Ever since Napster came to prominence, the music CD publishers have been looking for a way to stop people sharing MP3s extracted from their CDs, and now they think they've found it --by 'copy-protecting' the CD releases. They hope that by making CDs unplayable on computers that this will reduce the number of MP3s getting onto the internet.
However, these new CD formats are unlikely to reduce MP3 file-sharing, because you can still copy a CD via digital connections, or if all else fails through plugging an audio lead into the back of the CD player. Actually, it might turn out to be even easier than that -- software work-arounds have come to light for at least one of the formats already.
What is worse is that CDs were never designed to play on one machine better than another -- they were designed to play equally well on every CD player. So, to make a CD that will play on a normal CD player but not on a computer means bending and breaking the rules that define what a CD is. This is a very approximate art indeed, with many unpleasant side-effects.
In their attempts to create a CD that fits their aims, the record companies have tried many methods of corrupting the CD format, and then they have tested these by making secret releases into localized markets, sometimes of hundreds of thousands of CDs. Everyday people have then bought these sub-standard CDs, and have been unknowingly testing the record company's new CD protection schemes for them.
For instance, an early release made under Midbar's Cactus format in Germany reportedly had a 4% return rate. These were from people who found that these CDs didn't work on their normal CD players -- let alone in their computers. 4% is a huge return rate when you consider that many people might have found a problem with one CD player but not another, and who might have thought it was the player that was at fault rather than the CD.
Undeterred by these experiences of upsetting their customers, the record companies have continued to develop these formats and test them on an unsuspecting public, either unlabelled or with small or misleading labels. Along the way, problems with these CDs have been found on DVD players, car audio systems, older CD players, PlayStation machines, computers, laptops and several other types of devices.
To add injury to insult, several of these so-called 'copy-protection' formats actually interfere with the error-correction mechanism of the disk. This mechanism is designed to take care of scratches on the disk -- your CD player can fill in over a small number of scratches on the disk because the error correction codes tell it how to. The manufacturers found that by corrupting the error correction codes, they could make a CD that computers would reject, but that normal CD players would still manage to play. The cost of this, of course, is that your CDs are less resistant to scratches (and Philips have confirmed this). This is not too much inconvenience for the manufacturer -- but what about for everybody else?
If for no other reason, this aspect alone has been enough to provoke many people to act. It seems that the manufacturers have been showing a complete lack of respect for their customers with their actions. Many people feel that this can't be allowed to remain as a hidden half-secret any longer. The public must know!
So, why are they really doing this? To be honest, I don't know. Taking a cynical viewpoint, maybe it's the only way that the record companies' anti-MP3 guys can keep their jobs. Alternatively, maybe it's because companies like Midbar and Macrovision are hyping their copy-protection formats as real solutions for an industry desperate to find a way that they can "fight back", whilst ignoring the fact that these formats can bring many times more problems than they actually solve -- a costly inconvenience for everyday people using CDs in everyday ways. But, who am I to say?
In any case, the record companies seem determined to keep going along this path -- Universal, for instance, has said that it wants all of its CDs copy-protected within six months. We feel that they should not be allowed to get away with this. As I write this, there are still unlabelled copy-protected CDs available to buy in the shops -- the public is still being lied to and mislead. We want this issue to become common public knowledge so that the record companies can no longer get away with all these underhand tactics. Let the public decide!
-- Jim Peters
http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/
Paris Approves Law Aimed at Making iTunes Compatible With Rival Devices
E-MailPrint Reprints Save By THOMAS CRAMPTON
Published: July 1, 2006
By THOMAS CRAMPTON
PARIS, June 30 — French legislators gave final approval on Friday to a copyright law that could force Apple Computer to make songs purchased from its market-leading iTunes Music Store compatible with music players of its rivals.
The Senate and the National Assembly both voted to approve the law, which will also reduce the penalties for the illegal downloading of music to little more than a parking fine.
The law could go into effect within a month.
Legal experts and industry lobbyists said that the resulting law was a messy compromise that would make it difficult to achieve the goal of the legislation — to force Apple, or other companies with proprietary music formats, to make their offerings compatible with rivals' digital music devices. "The bill passed today has softened the core of the first proposals," said Hugo Lueders, director for public policy in Europe at CompTIA, an information technology trade association. The group commended the French Parliament for "passing a more market-oriented copyright protection bill."
While the law states that copy protection software cannot hinder access to a legally purchased digital work, there are a number of conditions that must be met before a company like Apple can change its format.
One way that Apple can protect itself from forced interoperability, for example, is by having musicians agree that music sold on iTunes can not be converted to other formats.
Additionally, rivals seeking to make their devices compatible with songs from iTunes must convince a newly created regulatory authority that interoperability will not infringe on patents or other rights belonging to Apple.
"Since American companies tend to patent everything, I am sure Apple can find a way to stop giving away information about their proprietary format," said Dominique Menard, a partner at the Lovells law firm who specializes in intellectual property. "The law is also so complex that we really need to see the application."
The vote brought to an end more than six months of heated debate that has led to a broader European discussion about governments mandating access to digital cultural content.
"This text affirms a new principle, interoperability, which makes France a pioneer country in Europe," Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the French minister of culture, told the National Assembly on Friday.
Consumer advocates in Norway, Denmark and Sweden have asked Apple to explain by Aug. 1 why songs purchased on iTunes could not be played on rival devices.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, meanwhile, released a report on Friday warning that difficulties in transferring digital files among devices hindered the development of content.
Lawmakers in Poland and Switzerland are likely to discuss the issue while updating national copyright laws this year.
Mr. Donnedieu de Vabres, who in December was given the task of aligning national copyright legislation to norms set by the European Union, instead pushed for legislation that could have far-reaching consequences for the software and entertainment industries in the Internet era.
The process was fraught with unexpected twists, including a brief moment when it seemed that peer-to-peer Internet music sharing of the sort considered illegal in most countries would be legalized in France.
Apple, which at one point described the law as equivalent to "state-sponsored piracy," declined to comment on Friday.
Jun 30, 2006 | 3:56PM
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SCMI SCMI
SUNNCOMM TECHNOLOGIES INC Other OTC
Company Details
Total Shares Out Standing (millions): 200
Market Capitalization ($ millions): $2
Institutional Ownership: 0.7%
Price (as of 6/29/2006) 0.01
Institutional Ownership supplied by EDGAR Online, Inc. Copyright 2006, EDGAR Online, Inc. All rights reserved. Insider Trading Data supplied by Vickers Stock Research (Vickers) © Copyright 2006.
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/holdings.asp?mode=&kind=&symbol=SCMI&symbol=&symbol=&s...
French Lawmakers Debate Forcing iTunes to Open to Rivals
By THOMAS CRAMPTON
Published: June 22, 2006
PARIS, June 22 — French legislators will vote next week on a proposed law that may force Apple Computer to license its iTunes song format to rival makers of portable music players, a step it has resisted taking around the world.
The final wording of the bill was set today, reconciling divergent versions of the bill passed earlier this year by the two chambers of the French legislature.
One of the most controversial aspects of the bill is a provision that would reduce the penalty for illegally downloading copyrighted music files to the equivalent of a parking ticket.
But the most heated discussion today centered on the law's stated intention of making sure that precautions against illegal file copying do not inhibit consumers' freedom to use legally downloaded files on any device they choose.
Other countries in Europe have been closely following progress on the French law. And legislators in Paris seemed conscious of its potential consequences.
"Apple will need to change the way they do business in France," said Christian Vanneste, a deputy in the French National Assembly and the spokesman for the committee that finalized the text. "Apple's business philosophy runs counter to the philosophy of this law and the direction of technology."
Apple, which has offered few public hints of its position other than a statement in March calling the bill a form of "state-sponsored piracy," offered a single sentence of comment today.
"We are awaiting the final result of France's legislative process, and hope they let the extremely competitive marketplace driven by customer choice decide which music players and online music stores are offered to consumers," Alan Hely, a London-based spokesman for Apple, wrote in an e-mail message.
While many Internet music sites sell files in a widely used format licensed from Microsoft, two leading companies — Apple and Sony sell their online music in proprietary formats that only work on their own hardware.
The law calls for the creation of an authority to balance the interests of companies that sell music in proprietary formats and rival companies that may wish to use those formats.
The principle, known as interoperability, affects all companies using copy protection measures on digital music, but it would have the greatest impact on the market leader, Apple, and on Sony.
Many younger consumers have been calling for interoperability and fewer restrictions on the way downloaded music can be used. Some of them said the final version of the bill was disappointing.
"Interoperability was key to the text of this law, but they have killed it," said Christian Paul, a French deputy from the Socialist party who on Thursday led a walkout of opposition members from the committee in protest.
The new authority to be created by the bill will have to tackle issues like patent law that will undermine the goal of interoperability, said Dominique Menard, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property issues and a partner in the Lovells firm.
"Even if the principle behind the law is clear and simple, there are many, many levels of complexity," Mr. Menard said. "Apple has not yet lost its ability to defend use of their unique format."
Apple, Sony and others will have a number of strong legal arguments to use against being forced to open their format to rivals, Mr. Menard and others said.
"Protection of patents is a very powerful defense," he said. "To force interoperability over a patent, you must show that a particular format is essential to entering the market."
In addition, Mr. Vanneste, the deputy who served as spokesman for the committee working on the bill, said that Apple could arrange for recording artists to insist that their music sold over iTunes may not be converted to other formats.
"The overarching intention is to protect the authors' rights, so if the author says it should only appear in Apple's format, then that must be respected," Mr. Vanneste said. "Authors have absolute rights over their works."
The final version of the bill may have been watered down from what proponents originally hoped, but it nonetheless raised important issues, said David Assouline, a Socialist senator on the legislative committee.
"We walked out because it was clear the government wanted to force through something that did not discuss digital civilization," Mr. Assouline said. "We might not have won, but at the very least I hope we have launched some new ideas."
Other governments in Europe, including Norway, Sweden and Denmark, have demanded that Apple justify the restrictions it places on customers, preventing them from playing music bought through iTunes on non-Apple devices.
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/business/22cnd%2Dipod.html?_r=1&ex=1237348800&en=af55a2d91...
Screamineagle
I don't know whether we have other products in the works or not, but it has been rumored for far longer than just since the BMG fiasco.
Neilbolton
That rumor has never been expressed here, not have I heard it expressed in any other forum. In fact that is the opposite to what has been officially said and reiterated by many here. Which is that we have moved from being a 1 product company. The talk of multiple products only became the official line when it became clear that CD copy protection is dead for the foreseeable future, meaning there was no possibility of any revenue coming in.
kenco
neilbolton, you have obviously done your homework on this 1, excellent posts.
11/01/2004, 07:30
MediaMax Version 5.0 Expands Business Opportunities Beyond the Protection of Audio CDs
PHOENIX, AZ – November 1, 2004 — SunnComm International, Inc. (OTC: SCMI), the developer of MediaMax™, the most widely used and accepted audio CD copy management and enhancement technology in the United States, has finalized the newest version of its technology. MediaMax Version 5 now enables SunnComm to pursue additional lucrative revenue opportunities outside the core music business initiative of protecting commercial audio CDs. These new areas include protecting and enhancing CD+G formatted Karaoke CDs, On-demand audio and video downloading from the Internet, DVD protection for movies and stand-alone music kiosks that allow consumers to create legal compilation CDs from licensed reputable online music sources, to name just a few.
http://www.sunncomm.com/press/pressrelease.asp?prid=200411010730
Posted by: corey
In reply to: Bobmn who wrote msg# 41856 Date:6/15/2006 10:29:05 AM
Post #of 41871
Yeah ok bob. Your predictions have been right on the money the last couple of years huh??.Actually niether of these companies is worth much at this point and is certainly not worth bickering over.I will say for peter and the gang to move forward with anything but a 1 for 1 merger would IMO be foolish and perhaps draw undesirable legal attention as the 14c filing stated.Remeber scmi and mmxt shareholders are the same people as alot of us hold both stocks after the repeated public claims of a merger financed with our dividends we never received.You coming on here and telling everyone that scmi is a better buy is B...S... I've spoken with the company on this issue and have been told all shareholders will be taken care of equally as it should be.As I've said before,this is hardly worth the arguement but if your gonna force your "one is worth more than the other" inside information crap on us I figured I'd respond.
What happened to that DVCD deal you told us would be announced a long time ago??Your INSIDE INFORMATION isn't very solid is it??LOL
Both a penny each bob!!
DRM Stymies Convergence
Digital protection technologies could be a $4.7-billion market if industries can resolve their differences.
June 13, 2006
Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake in the digital entertainment market, and that could mean several billion in revenue for copyright protection technologies, iSuppli reported Tuesday.
Sales of digital rights management (DRM) and conditional access (CA) technologies are expected to grow to $4.7 billion in 2010 from a $1.5-billion market last year, according to iSuppli, including both networked and mobile entertainment worldwide.
But content providers, information distributors, and digital protection makers remain at odds, possibly curtailing the “hundreds of billions of dollars” that digital entertainment represents, said iSuppli vice president of multimedia content and services Mark Kirstein.
The rivalry could also hamper the market for DRM and CA technologies.
“When it comes to DRM and CA, conflicting interests abound, both among industries and among companies,” said Mr. Kirstein. “Each industry has its own standards associations and trade groups, which have spurred an array of incompatible standards and DRM-related proposals. The diversity of interests in DRM has resulted in a competitive deadlock regarding interoperability.”
The highest-profile example of incompatible standards remains Apple’s iTunes online music and video store, whose content can’t be played on portable devices outside the iPod line (see (Euro) Trashing Apple and France Softens DRM Law).
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=17220&hed=DRM+Issue+Stymies+Convergence
Crunch time for Apple's music icon
Disable live quotes By Tom Braithwaite in Paris and Kevin Allison in San Francisco
Last Update: 1:10 PM ET Jun 13, 2006
Pressure on Apple Computerto open its closed system of the iTunes digital music store and the iPod music player is spreading across Europe.
Last week, Norway, Denmark and Sweden said Apple must make music tracks downloaded from iTunes playable on rival devices or get out of their countries. Finland is also looking at intervening.
In France, legislation that is in its final stages in parliament would force all electronic devices to be "inter-operable". Other large European countries are thought to be considering action of their own.
Francisco Mingorance, European director of policy at the Business Software Alliance, a trade body whose members include Apple, Microsoft and Dell, admits that the onslaught "seems to have legs".
In the UK, the BPI, the record industry trade body, told parliament last week that Apple needed to remove the copy protection measures that restrict the use of the tracks to its own iPod.
The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.
"Apple has been both a brilliant innovator and successful friend of the industry by coming up with both the hardware or the software," says Peter Jamieson, BPI chairman. "Sadly, it's given them an 80 per cent market share."
The pressure on Apple is coming in part from consumers. But the popularity of the iPod - which has attained iconic status for young music lovers - and the ease of connecting the device with the iTunes online store has so far proved more important.
At $13.9bn in revenues a year, Apple's company-wide market share is small compared with bigger rivals such as Microsoft ($39.8bn) or Sony ($65.7bn).
Yet in the burgeoning market for online music, Apple dominates. The iTunes music store and the iPod music player both enjoy market share of about 80 per cent in the US and the UK as well as "significantly more than half" in Europe as a whole, according to Jupiter Research. Songs downloaded from the company's iTunes music store now number well in excess of 1bn, while the iPod accounts for about 40 per cent of the company's revenues.
However, there are early signs of a concerted consumer campaign. Customers at Apple's shiny new 24-hour store on Fifth Avenue in New York were last week treated to the spectacle of men and women dressed in fluorescent radiation suits protesting against the "digital rights managment" (DRM) software that stops iTunes tracks being played on other players.
"As the largest purveyor of media infected with DRM, Apple have paved the way for the further erosion of users' rights and freedoms made possible by the technology," says DefectivebyDesign, the group behind the protests.
In the UK, the Open Rights Group, another consumer protection organisation, has been lobbying MPs to force companies to open up their DRM. "If I buy a car I expect any brand of petrol to work in it. Consumers are starting to see that they can do less with the music they buy," says Suw Charman, executive director of the group.
Apple's defenders argue it has taken the risk, spent the development money and should be free to enjoy the success of its products that have been instrumental in popularising legal digital music.
"Digital downloading wasn't merely failing to get out of the starting blocks; it's feet were firmly nailed to the starting blocks before Apple came along," says Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Jupiter Research. "Without Apple the digital music market would be half its current size."
Mr Mulligan argues that there is no objective reason why legislators and consumers bodies across Europe should target music rather than other electronic devices such as video games consoles.
Yet there is a view that Apple would be doing itself a favour by opening up its "walled garden" of digital music, ending the spread of political and legal strife and potentially selling more downloads through iTunes.
Salman Momen, head of media technology at Capgemini, believes the iPod's allure is so strong that Apple has no need to lock consumers in. "I would imagine that the iPod to iTunes integration is so tight that it shouldn't come under threat," he says.
The problem may yet be taken out of the hands of politicians, activists and Apple. According to Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner, iPod lovers may have the final say. "Consumers are likely to object rather loudly if governments force Apple's hand and it withdraws iTunes from the market," he says.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={75C9D5EE-AC3B-4506-B6A8-F71DB75405B4}&sit...
Norway sparks iTunes rebellion
By David Ibison in Stockholm
Published: June 13 2006 19:00 | Last updated: June 13 2006 19:00
It took just three young Norwegians with time to spare and a liking for “non-mainstream stuff and indie hip-hop” to bring the mighty Apple Computer to its knees in Scandinavia.
The three – a lawyer, an information specialist and a technology expert – are employed by the Norwegian Consumer Council. Aged between 29 and 31, they are tech-savvy users of digital music and backed by stringent laws to protect consumers.
“It started with our private lives,” says Torgeir Waterhouse, the lawyer. “I’ve been buying music online for some time. ITunes practically owns the market in Norway, so we started to look at them.”
From these modest beginnings emerged one of the most significant threats to the iPod phenomenon to have arisen since the iconic digital music player was launched.
The three Norwegians – members of the NCC’s Digital Consumer group – have concluded that Apple’s iTunes service breaches Norwegian law because it prevents users from playing music they have downloaded on any player apart from Apple’s own iPod.
In association with its sister organisations in Sweden and Denmark, the NCC has taken action that could eventually force courts to make downloaded songs on iTunes usable on all digital music players.
The three states argue that consumers, having purchased music on iTunes, must be permitted to listen to it on other players such as mobile phones.
If Apple ignores the court rulings, it could be fined repeatedly. Its online music store could even be closed down across Scandinavia.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/683bd702-fafb-11da-b4d0-0000779e2340,s01=1.html
Video of Anti DRM Demonstration At Apple Store.
http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/2006/06/10/video-of-anti-drm-demonstration-at-apple-store/
Apple's iTunes under new attacks in Europe: report
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Apple Computer's (AAPL : Apple Computer, Inc.
10:14am 06/09/2006
iTunes music-download service is facing fresh legal attacks in Europe, from Norway, Sweden and Britain, the New York Times reported Friday. Government protection agencies in Norway and Sweden want Apple to allow customers to play iTunes-downloaded music on devices made by other companies, as does the British recording industry's trade association. The report noted an Apple spokesman comment to a Norwegian Web site as saying the company would try to settle without closing its Scandinavian operations.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B9FE5C64F%2D1D28%2D4BCF%2D954A%2D02B0E78AAFF...
The rootkit that is mentioned is from F4I that Sony was using on CDs and was named XCP.
The settlement covers two content-protection technologies, XCP and MediaMax, which Sony BMG included on some music CD titles. The final settlement, approved by federal judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, largely follows terms tentatively agreed to in January, 2006. Under the terms of the settlement there was never any need to recall CDs containing MediaMax software. Also, Sony BMG was not required to make any cash payments to consumers on behalf of SunnComm.
http://www.sunncomm.com/press/sunngramm.asp?grammid=200605240500
AMX
Macrovision's ACP Technology Selected to Protect Next-Generation DVDs by AACS Industry Consortium; Macrovision ACP Solution to Facilitate Industry and Consumer Adoption of High Definition DVD Content
May 25, 2006
SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 25, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Macrovision Corporation (MVSN : Macrovision Corporation
MVSN22.81, +0.31, +1.4%) today announced that its analog content protection technology (ACP) has been included as a requirement in the specification for the content protection technology for next-generation optical media content such as Blu-ray and HD DVD by the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator (AACS LA). This announcement expands Macrovision's leadership in content protection for entertainment content to next-generation, high-definition media formats.
With this agreement, Macrovision's ACP will be included in the latest AACS LA protection specification release, the Advanced Access Content System, which manages content stored on the next generation of prerecorded and recordable optical media for consumer use with PCs and CE devices. Using Macrovision's ACP solution, movie studios and consumer electronics companies will be able to protect content on next-generation optical discs from analog piracy and consumers will be able to enjoy the enhanced quality of these next-generation formats.
"The goal of AACS LA is to develop, promote and license technology that will enhance the digital entertainment experience," said Michael B. Ayers, spokesperson for AACS LA. "Macrovision's ACP enables content providers, content aggregators, and device manufacturers to provide quality content for their consumers as next-generation technology such as HDTV gain market adoption."
"As next-generation optical disc formats enter the market, it is critical that that the industry be prepared to implement real-world technological strategies and standards that will create a better consumer experience while also addressing vital piracy issues," said Fred Amoroso, President & CEO of Macrovision. "We are committed to working with the AACS to help prepare the industry for the transition to next-generation optical discs, and are eager to contribute to the industry-wide conversation and collaboration to allow consumers, manufacturers and content providers to reap the benefits of these emerging formats."
Macrovision's ACP is the world's leading device-to-device analog content protection system, protecting over 4.5 billion DVDs for Hollywood and other rights owners since the format's introduction. Macrovision ACP closes the analog hole on nearly every DVD player, DVD recorder, PC, and digital video recorder. It is supported through a worldwide ecosystem which includes extensive licensing to PC, CE and IC manufacturers. In support of this worldwide content protection ecosystem, Macrovision has developed industry-accepted test and certification facilities used to support proper functioning of ACP on nearly all manufacturer's DVD players, drives, and recorders prior to market release.
About AACS LA
Founded by IBM, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric), Sony, Toshiba, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Studios, the charter of AACS LA is to enhance consumers' entertainment experience offered by the next-generation of media through flexible usage models. AACS LA also offers to content owners the enabling technology they need to confidently release their content. Content owners, service providers and manufacturers alike benefit from the ADVANCED ACCESS CONTENT SYSTEM through ease of implementation and the opportunity to reach and serve a broad cross section of consumers. For more information visit www.aacsla.com.
About Macrovision
Macrovision provides distribution, commerce and consumption solutions for software, entertainment and information content to the home video, PC games, music, cable/satellite, consumer software, enterprise software and publication industries. Macrovision holds approximately 220 issued or pending United States patents and 1,200 issued or pending international patents, and continues to increase its patent portfolio with new and innovative technologies in related fields. Macrovision is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, U.S.A. with other offices across the United States and around the world. More information about Macrovision can be found at www.macrovision.com.
This press release may contain "forward-looking" statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause Macrovision's actual results to differ from anticipated results expressed in such forward-looking statements. Such factors are addressed in Macrovision's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2005 and its latest Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2006, which are on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (available at www.sec.gov). Macrovision assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
(C)Macrovision 2006. Macrovision and ACP are registered trademarks or trademarks of Macrovision Corporation. All other brands and product names and trademarks are the registered property of their respective companies.
SOURCE: Macrovision Corporation
Macrovision Corporation Julia Hughes, 650-642-6777
700,000,000 x .017 = $11,900,000.00 market cap or 11.9M
SUNNCOMM INTL INC (Other OTC:SCMI.PK) Delayed quote data
Tuesday, April 11, 2006, 1:11PM ET - U.S. Markets close in 2 hours and 49 minutes. Dow -0.40% Nasdaq -0.80%
Last Trade: 0.017
Trade Time: 12:56PM ET
Change: 0.001 (5.56%)
Prev Close: 0.018
Open: 0.019
Bid: N/A
Ask: N/A
1y Target Est: N/A
Day's Range: 0.017 - 0.019
52wk Range: 0.01 - 0.08
Volume: 276,000
Avg Vol (3m): 1,179,110
Market Cap: 730.17K
P/E (ttm): N/A
EPS (ttm): N/A
Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)
Market cap SCMI 730.17K x .017 = 42,951,180 approx shares outstanding.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCMI.PK
MEDIAMAX TECHNOLOGY (OTC BB:MMXT.OB) Delayed quote data
Tuesday, April 11, 2006, 1:15PM ET - U.S. Markets close in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Dow -0.42% Nasdaq -0.82%
Last Trade: 0.02
Trade Time: 9:30AM ET
Change: 0.00 (0.50%)
Prev Close: 0.02
Open: 0.02
Bid: 0.02 x 5000
Ask: 0.02 x 5000
1y Target Est: N/A
Day's Range: 0.02 - 0.02
52wk Range: 0.01 - 0.12
Volume: 10,000
Avg Vol (3m): 530,541
Market Cap: 3.68M
P/E (ttm): N/A
EPS (ttm): -0.01
Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)
Market cap MMXT 3.68M x .02 = 184,000,000 approx shares outstanding.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MMXT.
AMX
Posted by: kenco
In reply to: SharonB who wrote msg# 39702 Date:3/20/2006 10:44:54 PM
Post #of 39738
SharonB, you do realize that SonyBMG is currently compensating the victims of Mediamax used on their music CDs for damages, right?, and both HD DVD and Blu-Ray are already licensing AACS, A FACT EASILY CONFIRMED with a simple google search, on the otherhand, I cant find even 1 article, PR, or any other information source clearly stating that either format is currently looking at or even considering the use of Mediamax, I anxiously await any link you can provide to prove different.
Posted by: kenco
In reply to: SharonB who wrote msg# 39683 Date:3/20/2006 10:26:30 AM
Post #of 39713
Sharon, the new DRM they are tweaking is AACS, has nothing to do with Mediamax, here, for your DD pleasure...
http://www.aacsla.com/home
Kenco, Let me help!
MEDIAMAX DEMO
Sunbird Records
DIGITAL CONTENT END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
This CD contains digital music files and related content (Digital Content) as a bonus for you, the End User (End User or you). Access to the Digital Content requires digital keys that are downloaded to your computer system via a secure digital key delivery system. Your acceptance of this End User License Agreement (Agreement or EULA) is required for these digital keys to be downloaded and for you to use the bonus Digital Content. At your option you may copy the digital content to your computer system. This audio compact disc utilizes MediaMax technology by SunnComm to deliver enhanced features to your computer. In order to properly utilize this CD on your computer, it is necessary to install a small software program on your computer hard drive. At no time will any information provided by you in connection with the installation of the software system be collected about you or your computer. If you do not agree to all of these terms and conditions you must select the "I do not accept the terms of the agreement" button on your screen and not download the digital content and software.
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
This Digital Content End User License Agreement is a legal agreement between you and Sunbird Records. Upon your acceptance of the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Sunbird Records hereby grants to you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Digital Content solely in accordance with this Agreement. By licensing and using the Digital Content, you agree that:
I.The Digital Content is for your personal, non-commercial use only;
II.You will not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise tamper with or modify the Digital Content; and
III.You will comply with and will not circumvent or attempt to circumvent the BUSINESS RULES (as defined below) or any technology designed to enforce the BUSINESS RULES.
YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS AGREEMENT MUST BE CONFIRMED BY SELECTING THE "I ACCEPT THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT" BUTTON ON YOUR SCREEN PRIOR TO DOWNLOADING THE DIGITAL KEYS. THESE DIGITAL KEYS ARE REQUIRED TO ENABLE YOU TO USE THE DIGITAL CONTENT.
http://www.mediamaxtech.com/FLASH/indexFLASH.html
......................................................
Next-gen DVD format DRM gets green light
On track for March launch, HD DVD starts promo tour
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 2/16/2006
FEB. 16 | A critical hurdle to the launch of both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats was cleared late Wednesday when negotiators reached agreement on an interim license for the AACS copy-protection system slated to be used by both high-definition formats, sources involved in the discussions said.
The interim agreement will permit hardware makers and disc replicators in both format camps to obtain the secret encryption keys needed to start pressing disc and shipping players capable of reading the discs.
Does this help you Kenco?
AMX
MediaMax Continues to Build Its World-Class Organization
Company Welcomes World-Renowned DRM Expert,
PHOENIX, AZ, Mar 02, 2006 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- MediaMax Technology Corp. (MMXT :
MMXT0.02, 0.00, -4.7%) announced today that Thomas Aidan Curran, co-founder and Director of the Digital Media Project (DMP: www.dmpf.org) and CEO of Telemos AG, a media holding company based in Munich, Germany, has accepted the position of strategic advisor to the Board of Directors, effective February 28, 2006.
Kevin M. Clement, president and CEO of MediaMax Technology, points out, "Thomas brings an advanced level of global vision and industry experience to our organization that is unrivaled. He will immediately begin to assist me and our Board of Directors in shaping the future vision of MediaMax Technology Corporation. I look forward to working closely with Thomas to ensure that our organization becomes a world-class technology company and continues to focus on delivering an unparalleled consumer-friendly experience while providing effective content solutions."
Mr. Curran adds, "I have been impressed with the company and the MediaMax technology for some time and am looking forward to working with the company as they build exciting new products while focusing on entering new markets. There are numerous possibilities for this technology both in the United States and elsewhere. As the global entertainment industry suffers from wanton piracy and intellectual property abuse, media companies continue to enlist even more advanced delivery mechanisms and MediaMax seeks to build the appropriate tools and solutions for both the US and international markets."
Mr. Curran, formerly chief technology officer and executive vice president at Bertelsmann AG, will begin assisting MediaMax with various corporate initiatives immediately. Previously, he spearheaded major programs regarding digital content distribution (Napster, MusicNet) and DRM and fostered relationships with key technology companies. In December 2003, Mr. Curran co-founded and assumed the role of a director of the Digital Media Project, a nonprofit organization based in Geneva, which aims to specify a seamless interoperable digital content distribution environment for rights-managed content.
In addition to his roles within the DMP and Telemos AG, Mr. Curran is president of Enterprise of the Future, Inc., an information and media technology think tank based in Philadelphia, and has served as an advisor and a board member to several companies involved in digital content distribution technology, including Microsoft, Entriq, Silicon Image, Simplay Labs and Mark Logic. Mr. Curran also founded Component Software in 1997 and developed e-business infrastructure software for customers including SAP, IBM, Siebel and Reuters. He worked for SAP AG in the mid-nineties for six years as the company rolled out its R/3 product line.
An acknowledged authority on enterprise software, peer-to-peer computing, the Internet and digital rights management, Mr. Curran has authored numerous articles and publications, is the series editor for Prentice Hall's "Enterprise Software" and delivers presentations at conferences and symposia worldwide. Mr. Curran graduated from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently held teaching and research positions at the Wharton Analysis Center, the International Science Center (Berlin), Berlin University of the Arts and Technical University Berlin.
Mr. Clement concludes, "I intend to build a team that is second to none. Our future requires the immediate completion and testing of new products currently under development, integration into new markets and the associated infusion of new customers and revenue. I am excited to have Thomas on board and am looking forward to working with him to build the future of MediaMax."
ABOUT MEDIAMAX TECHNOLOGY
MediaMax Technology Corporation (MMXT : mediamax technology corp com
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Last: 0.020.00-4.71%
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MMXT0.02, 0.00, -4.7%) , with its international reach, implements the delivery of digital content security products for the entertainment industry. With established long-term industry contacts throughout the world, the company understands the challenges surrounding digital content management and protection. MediaMax Technology is the exclusive sales and marketing arm for SunnComm's (SCMI : sunncomm intl inc com
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Last: 0.02+0.00+12.58%
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Sponsored by:
SCMI0.02, +0.00, +12.6%) MediaMax suite of products. For additional information about the company, please visit the Company's Web site at ( www.mediamaxtechnology.com) or contact:
Company contact: Investor contact:
Scott Stoegbauer Investor Relations
602-267-3800 602-231-0681
scotts@mediamaxtechnology.com press@mediamaxtechnology.com
ABOUT SUNNCOMM
In just five years, SunnComm International Inc. (SCMI : sunncomm intl inc com
News , chart, profile, more
Last: 0.02+0.00+12.58%
6:41pm 03/01/2006
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SCMI0.02, +0.00, +12.6%) has become the leader in digital content enhancement and security technology for audio compact disc media. MediaMax can be found on many Gold, Platinum and Double-Platinum selling Albums and has appeared on many other best-selling albums, totaling over 150 commercially released CD titles across more than 30 record labels. SunnComm was the first company to commercially release a content-protected audio CD in the United States and co-developed and implemented an early version of the Microsoft Windows Media Data Session Toolkit ( www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/jan03/01-20SessionToolkitPR.asp) For more information about the company please visit the Web site at ( www.sunncomm.com), or please contact:
Company contact: Investor contact:
Peter H. Jacobs Investor Relations
602-267-7500 602-231-0681
peter@sunncomm.com press@sunncomm.com
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Statements contained in this release, which are not historical facts, may be considered "forward-looking statements" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and the current economic environment. We caution the reader that such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Unknown risk, uncertainties, as well as other uncontrollable or unknown factors could cause actual results to materially differ from the results, performance or expectations expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
MediaMax Company contact: Scott Stoegbauer 602-267-3800 scotts@mediamaxtechnology.com Investor contact: Investor Relations 602-231-0681 press@mediamaxtechnology.com SunnComm Company contact: Peter H. Jacobs 602-267-7500 peter@sunncomm.com Investor contact: Investor Relations 602-231-0681 press@sunncomm.com
SOURCE: MediaMax Technology Corp.
mailto:scotts@mediamaxtechnology.com mailto:press@mediamaxtechnology.com mailto:peter@sunncomm.com mailto:press@sunncomm.com Copyright 2006 Market Wire, All rights reserved.
MediaMax Continues to Build Its World-Class Organization
Company Welcomes World-Renowned DRM Expert,
PHOENIX, AZ, Mar 02, 2006 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- MediaMax Technology Corp. (MMXT :
MMXT0.02, 0.00, -4.7%) announced today that Thomas Aidan Curran, co-founder and Director of the Digital Media Project (DMP: www.dmpf.org) and CEO of Telemos AG, a media holding company based in Munich, Germany, has accepted the position of strategic advisor to the Board of Directors, effective February 28, 2006.
Kevin M. Clement, president and CEO of MediaMax Technology, points out, "Thomas brings an advanced level of global vision and industry experience to our organization that is unrivaled. He will immediately begin to assist me and our Board of Directors in shaping the future vision of MediaMax Technology Corporation. I look forward to working closely with Thomas to ensure that our organization becomes a world-class technology company and continues to focus on delivering an unparalleled consumer-friendly experience while providing effective content solutions."
Mr. Curran adds, "I have been impressed with the company and the MediaMax technology for some time and am looking forward to working with the company as they build exciting new products while focusing on entering new markets. There are numerous possibilities for this technology both in the United States and elsewhere. As the global entertainment industry suffers from wanton piracy and intellectual property abuse, media companies continue to enlist even more advanced delivery mechanisms and MediaMax seeks to build the appropriate tools and solutions for both the US and international markets."
Mr. Curran, formerly chief technology officer and executive vice president at Bertelsmann AG, will begin assisting MediaMax with various corporate initiatives immediately. Previously, he spearheaded major programs regarding digital content distribution (Napster, MusicNet) and DRM and fostered relationships with key technology companies. In December 2003, Mr. Curran co-founded and assumed the role of a director of the Digital Media Project, a nonprofit organization based in Geneva, which aims to specify a seamless interoperable digital content distribution environment for rights-managed content.
In addition to his roles within the DMP and Telemos AG, Mr. Curran is president of Enterprise of the Future, Inc., an information and media technology think tank based in Philadelphia, and has served as an advisor and a board member to several companies involved in digital content distribution technology, including Microsoft, Entriq, Silicon Image, Simplay Labs and Mark Logic. Mr. Curran also founded Component Software in 1997 and developed e-business infrastructure software for customers including SAP, IBM, Siebel and Reuters. He worked for SAP AG in the mid-nineties for six years as the company rolled out its R/3 product line.
An acknowledged authority on enterprise software, peer-to-peer computing, the Internet and digital rights management, Mr. Curran has authored numerous articles and publications, is the series editor for Prentice Hall's "Enterprise Software" and delivers presentations at conferences and symposia worldwide. Mr. Curran graduated from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently held teaching and research positions at the Wharton Analysis Center, the International Science Center (Berlin), Berlin University of the Arts and Technical University Berlin.
Mr. Clement concludes, "I intend to build a team that is second to none. Our future requires the immediate completion and testing of new products currently under development, integration into new markets and the associated infusion of new customers and revenue. I am excited to have Thomas on board and am looking forward to working with him to build the future of MediaMax."
ABOUT MEDIAMAX TECHNOLOGY
MediaMax Technology Corporation (MMXT : mediamax technology corp com
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Last: 0.020.00-4.71%
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Sponsored by:
MMXT0.02, 0.00, -4.7%) , with its international reach, implements the delivery of digital content security products for the entertainment industry. With established long-term industry contacts throughout the world, the company understands the challenges surrounding digital content management and protection. MediaMax Technology is the exclusive sales and marketing arm for SunnComm's (SCMI : sunncomm intl inc com
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Last: 0.02+0.00+12.58%
6:41pm 03/01/2006
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Sponsored by:
SCMI0.02, +0.00, +12.6%) MediaMax suite of products. For additional information about the company, please visit the Company's Web site at ( www.mediamaxtechnology.com) or contact:
Company contact: Investor contact:
Scott Stoegbauer Investor Relations
602-267-3800 602-231-0681
scotts@mediamaxtechnology.com press@mediamaxtechnology.com
ABOUT SUNNCOMM
In just five years, SunnComm International Inc. (SCMI : sunncomm intl inc com
News , chart, profile, more
Last: 0.02+0.00+12.58%
6:41pm 03/01/2006
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Sponsored by:
SCMI0.02, +0.00, +12.6%) has become the leader in digital content enhancement and security technology for audio compact disc media. MediaMax can be found on many Gold, Platinum and Double-Platinum selling Albums and has appeared on many other best-selling albums, totaling over 150 commercially released CD titles across more than 30 record labels. SunnComm was the first company to commercially release a content-protected audio CD in the United States and co-developed and implemented an early version of the Microsoft Windows Media Data Session Toolkit ( www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/jan03/01-20SessionToolkitPR.asp) For more information about the company please visit the Web site at ( www.sunncomm.com), or please contact:
Company contact: Investor contact:
Peter H. Jacobs Investor Relations
602-267-7500 602-231-0681
peter@sunncomm.com press@sunncomm.com
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Statements contained in this release, which are not historical facts, may be considered "forward-looking statements" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and the current economic environment. We caution the reader that such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Unknown risk, uncertainties, as well as other uncontrollable or unknown factors could cause actual results to materially differ from the results, performance or expectations expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
MediaMax Company contact: Scott Stoegbauer 602-267-3800 scotts@mediamaxtechnology.com Investor contact: Investor Relations 602-231-0681 press@mediamaxtechnology.com SunnComm Company contact: Peter H. Jacobs 602-267-7500 peter@sunncomm.com Investor contact: Investor Relations 602-231-0681 press@sunncomm.com
SOURCE: MediaMax Technology Corp.
mailto:scotts@mediamaxtechnology.com mailto:press@mediamaxtechnology.com mailto:peter@sunncomm.com mailto:press@sunncomm.com Copyright 2006 Market Wire, All rights reserved.
Illustration by Kevin Boyles
IPods, the most popular music players with more than 70 percent of the American market, can play MP3 music files, a popular digital audio compression format. But for the most part, Apple steers its customers to songs in another format, called Advanced Audio Codec (AAC), which most non-Apple devices cannot play.
Apple's iTunes software, which runs on PC's and Macs, for example, automatically "rips," or converts, music from CD's into compressed AAC files for loading onto a computer or portable player. But users who want to convert tracks to MP3 files have to change the settings.
And downloads from Apple's iTunes Music Store come exclusively in a version of AAC that includes FairPlay, Apple's digital rights management technology, to prevent illegal copying and sharing of music. "One of the problems I see a lot is that people who are using iTunes-iPods have ripped their entire CD collection to the AAC format because that is the default setting in iTunes," said Grahm Skee, who runs the Web site AnythingButiPod.com, in an e-mail interview. "Now they are stuck with a format that can only be played on iPods."
At the same time, most of Apple's rivals use Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, which does not play on iPods. And most online music stores apart from iTunes - like Napster (napster.com), Wal-Mart (musicdownloads.walmart.com) and Yahoo Music (music.yahoo.com) - sell downloads in the copy-protected Secure WMA file format.
With many people's digital music collections locked into one of two incompatible formats, their choices for new music players are largely determined by what they bought in the past. Those who want to remain neutral in the format wars - or who want to switch sides - may spend more and endure inconveniences.
Making a Choice
So why not avoid all that trouble and just go with Apple? After all, its music players are trendsetters, and the iTunes music store offers a large collection of titles.
But the iPod's list of missing features is also noteworthy. No iPod offers a built-in FM radio, for example, or a voice recorder. These features are common on rival players from companies like Archos, Cowon Systems, Creative, iRiver and Samsung. And Apple has yet to release a device with video playback abilities like those on Creative's Zen Vision hand-held device.
Nor does iTunes offer a streaming service that lets subscribers listen to any song in its catalog for a monthly fee. Subscription sites like Napster, Rhapsody (rhapsody.com) and Yahoo Music have extended this offering by using a Microsoft technology that lets customers load tracks onto new WMA-based players and listen to them as long as their subscriptions remain current.
The bottom line is that no single music player offers everything, and no one can say what next year's models will provide. To keep their options open, some users spend extra time managing the format of their collections.
Format Flexibility Online
A few online music stores try to bridge the Apple-Microsoft gap, though none offer a perfect solution.
People whose tastes stray beyond the top 40 may have luck with eMusic (www.emusic.com), which offers a large collection in the universally playable MP3 format. Many of eMusic's current top artists - Iron and Wine, Bloc Party and Devendra Banhart - are not household names like Kanye West and Coldplay, but they are popular among indie rock fans, who purchase more than 2.5 million songs a month, according to the company. EMusic is a subscription-based service, and its offerings start at $9.99 for 40 downloads a month.
Music fans can find a more mainstream selection, although less flexibility, with Rhapsody. Long a popular streaming service, Rhapsody began earlier this year to offer music files for outright purchase and subscription download. Songs purchased from Rhapsody use RealAudio 10's flavor of copy-protected AAC, but Real's Harmony technology can convert them to either Secure WMA or Apple's FairPlay version of AAC.
The WMA conversion is done with Microsoft's blessing. But converting to Apple's format is shakier. Apple changed the iPod's built-in program in October 2004 to prevent Rhapsody songs from playing on newer iPod models. Rhapsody updated Harmony in April so that its tracks can once again play on iPods. But that may change if Apple changes its iPod software again. Apple declined to comment for this article.
The safest strategy, and one popular among audio purists, is to purchase music on compact discs and rip it to the MP3 format.
James O'Rourke, a software engineer in San Francisco who owns a 20-gigabyte iPod, said a friend told him that AAC had the best quality. "But then I thought, well, maybe I'll have a problem in the future with being able to transfer music between different players. So most of my CD ripping is now done in MP3."
That rules out the instant gratification of simply clicking "Buy Song" from an online store. And it means paying $10 to $20 for a CD rather than 99 cents a track or less for the songs you want.
Back to CD's
But CD's still offer the greatest selection. Some of the most popular music of all time - from bands like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC - is still unavailable from legitimate online stores.
Ripping CD's can also offer higher quality. ITunes and some other stores sell music encoded at a data rate of 128 kilobits per second. (EMusic, Rhapsody and Yahoo use 192 kbps.) Typical CD's are encoded at a rate of about 1,400 kbps. AAC and WMA use sophisticated data-compression technologies that allow them to maintain audio quality at lower data rates than CD's or even MP3's can, but no one claims that a 128 kbps download is equivalent to a compact disc.
Those who have already ripped a lot of CD's into either the Apple or Microsoft format have the option of converting their music from one format to another. ITunes software, for example, can find WMA files on a computer and convert them to AAC. Windows Media Player does not have a similar ability to change AAC to WMA, but other programs can handle this. For instance, Switch, a free program from NCH Swift Sound (nch.com.au) can convert more than a dozen audio formats, including AAC, MP3 and WMA.
The main drawback is that most formats require a data compression method that tosses out some audio information to make files smaller.
Quality deteriorates when ripping CD's to WMA, for example, then deteriorates further when converting the WMA file to AAC. And converters do not work on copy-protected files from online music stores - at least not without straying into troublesome legal terrain.
Some iPod owners, for example, use a program called JHymn (hymn-project.org/jhymndoc) to remove the copy protection from iTunes music downloads to convert or otherwise modify them without restrictions. The software also makes possible the sharing of copyrighted files, a use that JHymn's creators say they do not condone.
A federal law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, prohibits tampering with copy protection technologies. But JHymn's creators contend that the software, by allowing users to play songs purchased from iTunes on computers or devices that do not support Apple's system, merely enables a "fair use" allowed under traditional copyright law.
A JHymn representative, who goes only by the name FutureProof, however, acknowledged that using the software would almost certainly violate Apple's terms of service for iTunes.
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So right you are! Corey, Thanks for that update!!!,
Digital Media
Music Labels Finally Cash In On Videos
Peter Kafka, 09.27.05, 6:00 AM ET
NEW YORK - Here's a lousy deal for you--give away your product, help a new business grow from zero to multiple billions and get nothing in return. That, in a nutshell, is what the music companies did with their promotional music videos more than two decades ago when they supplied then-upstart network MTV with free programming. They've been regretting it ever since.
But new media is giving the music labels a chance to learn from their mistakes. The music video format, which no longer figures heavily on MTV's flagship network, has found new life online, where fans download or stream the mini-movies to their computers. The model is beginning to find traction on mobile phones and now the labels are beginning to cash in--or at least are trying to do so.
The most recent example is a pact announced today between Warner Music Group (nyse: WMG - news - people ) and Viacom's (nyse: VIA - news - people ) MTV in which the cable network will have access to the music company's video library to create new clips it will serve up over wireless phone networks. Terms of the deal haven't been announced and likely haven't been completely ironed out, in part because MTV has yet to decide how or how much to bill consumers for mini-videos beamed to their phones.
The real news here is that both companies have agreed that whatever revenue is generated will be shared by both sides. That's different than MTV's traditional model, where labels pay to create the videos and the network shows them for little, if any, payment to the labels.
"Unlike the economic relationship that we share in cable, in the mobile space this is a business that we will hopefully be building together," said Warner Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr.
The deal itself is fairly limited: MTV is talking not about reselling Warner's videos but creating mini-television programs that feature Warner artists. A pint-sized version of VH1's documentary-lite Driven program, for instance, could feature rock band Green Day. MTV doesn't have exclusive access to Warner's catalog, and Warner can sell its product through other avenues. It already provides content to Verizon Communications' (nyse: VZ - news - people ) VCast mobile-video service, for instance. And MTV said it hopes to strike similar deals with other music labels and content providers in general.
Still, it's a potential new revenue stream for both Warner and the music business, which very much needs one. Although digital music sales through Apple Computer's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) iTunes and other services are beginning to accelerate, traditional album sales are still foundering. After what appears to be a temporary uptick last year, CD sales are trending downward again this year, as they have since 2000.
The fact that the music labels haven't received much to date from MTV is a legacy of its birth in 1981, when the music companies essentially gave their videos to the network for free because they didn't know what else to do with them. By the time they realized the three-minute movies had more value than simply promotional films for their acts, it was too late. MTV had established a powerful brand and a near monopoly.
It has since kept the terms of its deals more or less the same, and by the late '90s, as the network began moving away from music videos to focus on reality fare like The Real World and The Osbournes, the labels had even less bargaining power.
But videos have recently found a new audience online, where viewers generally pay nothing to watch them in exchange for sitting through an ad or two, just like the original MTV format. Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) streamed 2.9 billion videos last year, up from 1.3 billion in 2003. Time Warner's (nyse: TWX - news - people ) America Online says it serves up to 3 million to 4 million per day.
Online advertising is proving more and more lucrative. Viacom Co-President Tom Freston said last week that MTV's Overdrive broadband service, which serves up videos on demand, gets ad rates that are up to four times what it commands for an equal-size audience on cable. MTV's online ads, he says, are generating between $75 million and $100 million a year.
After some jawboning, arm-twisting and legal threats, the labels are participating in some of those dollars. Though some of the terms have yet to be ironed out, Warner and other music companies, like EMI Group and Vivendi's (nyse: V - news - people ) Universal Music Group, have extracted advances from online operators like Yahoo! and AOL, and receive a payment for each video streamed.
Now, the labels hope that consumers will want to watch videos on their mobile phones as well. They already have proved eager, at least in Europe and Asia, to buy audioclips that serve as ringtones, providing a windfall for mobile operators, music companies and third-party aggregators like Infospace (nasdaq: INSP - news - people ) that sell and maintain the ringtone libraries.
Labels and carriers have recently begun to squeeze out the aggregators, either by cutting deals directly with each other or reducing their payouts to the aggregators. But MTV has obviously convinced Warner that when it comes to videoclips, it's still a worthwhile business partner--especially since this time it will share the wealth.
kenco, I hope this answers your question! LOL
MediaMax -- Now the Number 1 Solution for the Music Industry's Number 1 Cause of Decreasing Sales
BusinessWeek Online
What's the Next Verse in Apple's Song?
Tuesday September 6, 8:12 am ET
By Peter Burrows Silicon Valley
If there has ever been a textbook example of how to turn a techie backwater into a mainstream market, it's Apple Computer's (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) runaway success in the digital music business. When Apple unveiled its first iPod in Oct. 2001, the market was a smattering of little-known devices used mostly for playing songs illegally downloaded off file-sharing Web sites. That's one reason why the music labels agreed to CEO Steve Jobs' plan to sell their music for just 99 cents a song.
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Besides, with Apple's anemic 3% PC market share, few record execs figured Jobs would be able to win over anyone other than his loyal base of Mac buyers. It would be a safe little experiment, letting music execs learn about the market while Apple picked up most of the tab.
Some experiment. So far, Apple has sold more than 22 million iPods and more than 500 million songs via its iTunes Music Store. Last quarter, Apple reported that 38% of its overall $3.5 billion in sales came from its music business.
RISK OF HISTORY REPEATING. And just as Jobs promised, Apple's success has been good for its music partners as well. Digital tunes now make up around 5% of total music sales -- and it may well be the labels' most profitable segment. After all, they don't need to press, ship, or take returns of physical CDs. The labels don't even have to pay for in-store marketing -- posters, end-cap displays, and the like.
But the problem with any hit-driven business is just that: If a company is going to maintain its momentum, it must have even bigger follow-up hits. And a growing community of people -- rivals, customers, investors, and even some of those record executives -- are wondering if Apple needs to leverage the iPod to come up with another platinum-selling digital music product.
This time, instead of a laid-back market with a few cash-starved startups, Apple is going to face off against a huge crowd of well-established competitors, each with new ideas about how to sell music. If Jobs lets any of them get too much of a head of steam, he risks a repeat of what happened in the PC industry: Apple set the tune with its original Mac but soon lost its market-share lead by refusing to change its initial approach.
OWN RATHER THEN RENT. So what is Jobs' next tune? Will he create an iTunes subscription service so customers can hear, but not own, any song they want for a monthly fee? Will Apple try to extend its audio dominance into the video realm, with products to let consumers watch music videos, TV shows, or sports clips?
Or, having turned iTunes into a virtual CD-rack for millions, will Jobs now try to create gear so people can listen to their iTunes and possibly other kinds of media in the living room? Perhaps Jobs will go even further and have Apple build its own home theaters and branded TV displays? And might Jobs break from past practice and license his technology to others -- say, to allow the iPod to work with rival services from the likes of AOL, Napster (NasdaqNM:NAPS - News), Real Networks (NasdaqNM:RNWK - News), and Yahoo! (NasdaqNM:YHOO - News)?
At this point, Jobs has expressed more reasons for not making these moves than for making them. He has long argued against the subscription model, saying consumers want to own rather than rent their music. He doesn't believe people want to watch movies on portable digital players' tiny screens. And he has said Apple can do more for its customers by sticking to its proprietary approach to developing products, rather than spending time getting them to work with less popular products from others.
LOW-END iPOD? Jobs seems to be betting that Apple's current course -- pushing more iPods and music sales on iTunes -- is the best one. That may sound less than imaginative for computerdom's top innovator, but the logic is powerful: For all the talk of other new-fangled approaches, Apple is the only company with millions of customers and a proven business model. And with just a 5% market share, Apple has plenty of headroom for growth.
Now wonder Jobs is moving aggressively to support that approach. In July, Apple added a podcasting directory to iTunes, immediately making it the place where many iPod users go to subscribe and listen to their favorite podcasts (see BW, 8/15/05, "Podcasts: David vs. Goliath").
What's more, on Sept. 7 a new plank of Jobs' plan will become apparent when he gives a much-anticipated keynote at the Moscone West conference center in San Francisco. It's widely expected that Apple will finally unveil a phone, made by partner Motorola (NYSE:MOT - News), that can play songs stored in an iTunes music library.
According to one industry insider, the new phone will become the low-end model in the iPod product family, capable of storing up to 100 songs. That could appeal to current customers who want to have some tunes with them when they don't have their iPod or to millions of cell-phone users who want to give digital music a try without having to buy a separate gadget. Apple declined to comment for this article.
SHORTENED "HYPE CURVE"? And if the past is any guide, look for Jobs & Co. to have some other surprises up its sleeve. Among the obvious possibilities: A smaller version of the popular iPod mini that uses flash memory instead a hard drive, to store songs, or a version of the $99 iPod shuffle with a screen.
No doubt, Apple's announcements won't silence critics who say Jobs is leaving the door open to rival approaches. For starters, Apple has consistently said the new iTunes phone will not enable users to do "over-the-air" downloads directly to the phone. Instead, they'll need to sync it to their Mac or PC, just as they do with other iPods.
That's in contrast to carriers such as Verizon (NYSE:VZ - News), O2 Germany, and Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S - News), who are working with tech outfits such as Loudeye and MusicNet to unveil services that let consumers get songs sent directly to their cell phones. Even Cingular, which is expected to offer Motorola's iTunes phone, has plans to launch such a service, which will work with non-iTunes compliant phones.
"Over-the-air service is going to be critical to success (for digital music companies), and I don't think I'm the only one who realizes this," says Stan Sorenson, senior director of product management and marketing for Melodeo, a mobile music software maker. "The hype curve (on the iTunes phone) is going to be short on this one. People are going to say: 'I want the song I want now. Why can't I do that?'"
DOWNLOAD VS. SUBSCRIPTION. The problem for Jobs & Co. is unlike when the iPod was unveiled -- now, an army of rivals are working on a slew of new ways to get digital tunes. For example, Napster has teamed with satellite radio provider XM Satellite Radio Holdings (NasdaqNM:XMSR - News). They will launch an "XM + Napster" service in the fourth quarter, whereby XM subscribers that use an as-yet-unreleased portable player can mark songs they hear on one of the 150 channels. When the user next logs onto their PC, they'll be able to buy the marked songs from Napster's download store.
Many variations on this theme are in the works, all tied to helping consumers discover new music -- and therefore buy new songs. One small example: Manhattan-based NMK Inc. offers a service called 411-Song that lets callers of a special number hold up their cell phone to a song they like anywhere they hear it -- say, in a bar or in the waiting room at the dentist's office. Currently, the service tries to identify the song and, if successful, sends a link so the customer can buy a ringtone of the tune. As wireless networks improve and other bugs are worked out, consumers may be able to buy the actual song within the next year, says CEO Sunjay Galeria.
So far, Jobs isn't ready to sing any tune that calls for a subscription service. He has argued that until more people begin signing up for subscription services such as Real Networks Rhapsody or Yahoo's Music Unlimited, he'll remain convinced that consumers want to buy rather than rent their music. While many analysts think revenues from subscription services may someday surpass that of download stores, so far it's not a fair fight. The total number of paying members for all the subscription services is currently just a few million.
WITHHOLDING SUPPORT. Jobs refusal to apply Apple's might to develop the subscription market irks some of the company's music partners, who see it as a powerful -- and potentially highly profitable -- means to reach more consumers through digital means. And some record execs have other complaints, such as Jobs' insistence on selling songs for a fixed price of 99 cents each.
For example, Sony (NYSE:SNE - News) executives have publicly expressed support for more variable pricing, enabling them to charge more for hot new hits and less for rarely sought oldies in the archive. "The market is starting to move towards greater differentiation," says Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's global digital business group. "Why should everything be the same price? No other market in the world works like that."
Some partners are also concerned about Apple's sheer dominance. Sony customers in Japan, for example, where Apple recently launched its iTunes Music Store, can't get music from Sony or Warner Music Group. Industry sources say while these labels made their catalogs available when iTunes launched in other locales, including the U.S., concerns with Apple's strength led them to withhold support in the Japanese market. Indeed, Sony has a major stake in a music service that was the market-share leader in Japan, although it was immediately eclipsed by iTunes.
SEEKING "A WEAKER NO. 1". So, some music executives were probably thrilled when iPod rival Creative Technology (NasdaqNM:CREAF - News) announced that it had captured a patent for the user interface of its Zen Micro music player. Since the patent may also apply to the iPod's famous interface, Creative could potentially seek hefty royalties from Apple.
And Craig McHugh, president of Creative's U.S. unit, aims to use the patent to chip away at Apple's reputation for being the industry's only innovator. "When people hear we have the patent that makes these devices so easy to use, who really is the inventive company? It could cause people to reevaluate what they think (about Apple)."
It's clear some music labels would prefer if Apple would let rival services such as Rhapsody and Napster work with the iPod, so Apple isn't the only one that can use that red-hot device to promote music purchases in digital form. Says one insider: "The labels would rather see a weaker No. 1 and a strong No. 2 and No. 3."
FACING A REBELLION. Jobs is betting his perfectionist, go-it-alone approach will do more to benefit consumers -- and judging from its loyal following, he's probably right in the short term. While there's no shortage of new rival products and services being introduced, Apple offerings stand out for their ease-of-use and slick designs. Throw in Apple's world-class advertising and its retail stores, where customers can get free hands-on training, and no rival can match Apple's ability to keep digital music on the fast track in the near term.
But could Jobs move more aggressively to take Apple beyond the iPod and iTunes? Many industry insiders think so and, furthermore, see the opportunity to take their slice of the pie as the market moves towards a far grander goal: A combination of services, including downloads, subscriptions, and various other methods, to let consumers get music whenever, wherever, and to whatever device they choose. "Consumers want choice," says Mike Brochu, CEO of Loudeye, which provides the e-commerce guts used by carriers including O2 Germany and Cingular.
Still, the choice most consumers are making remains Apple -- and it's sure to gain some extra momentum with whatever slick new products are unveiled on Sept. 7. But so long as Jobs remains on his current course, Apple could face a rebellion among partners and consumers who want more alternatives and more flexibility out of digital music's current king of the hill.
Depending on how you look at it, that leaves open the opportunity for Apple to blow its lead as it once did in PCs -- or for Jobs to make plenty of surprise-filled keynotes in the years to come.
US legal music downloads up 187%
By Tony Smith
US music downloaders paid for 158m songs during the first six months of 2005, almost three times the number acquired legally in H1 2004.
However, the figures, from Nielsen SoundScan, reveal that the growth in legal downloads has yet to compensate the music industry for falling CD sales. Sales of albums were down seven per cent year on year, to 282.6m units, the researcher said.
Factor in downloads and the decline is down to 2.5 per cent, falling from 309m units in H1 2004 to 301.2m in H1 2005, SoundScan's numbers show. It puts the number of downloaded albums at the equivalent of 17.6m units, up from 6m in H1 2004.
During the first half of 2004, US music buyers downloaded 55m songs. UK-based listeners downloaded 10m songs in H1 2005, the UK music industry body the BPI said earlier this week.
The 187 per cent year-on-year increase in US download activity comes as no great surprise given the music industry's high-profile legal campaign against music sharers, but the ongoing growth in portable music player sales has probably had a greater effect. Adecdotal evidence suggests digital-music player owners are moving beyond ripping their existing CD collection and starting to buy more songs online. Others are doing so to acquire favoured songs from albums without having to buy the entire package. Growing online song catalogs are helping too.
The recent defeat of the P2P industry in the US Supreme Court is going to have an effect too, but it won't have impacted the H1 2005 figures at all. ®
Updated: 11:43 AM EDT
Apple Plans Big Announcement on New Product
AP
Apple likes to keep new products under tight wraps, but it's rumored the announcement will focus on an updated iPod Shuffle.
SAN FRANCISCO (August 30) - Apple Computer Inc. on Monday said it will announce a new product in early September and fanned expectations it will introduce an updated iPod Shuffle music player with much more capacity.
Apple is known for its marketing prowess and keeps new products under tight wraps before unveiling them at carefully staged events.
The company is widely expected to introduce a relatively roomy four-gigabyte iPod which uses sticks of flash memory, the type of storage used in digital cameras, rather than a hard disk drive. That would hold about 1,000 songs.
In an email invitation showing a picture of a jeans pocket, Apple alluded to its original 2001 announcement for the portable iPod, saying, "1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again."
Apple plans a San Francisco news conference on September 7 at 10 a.m. PDT (1700 GMT). Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment further.
Apple introduced its portable music player in late 2001 with the promise that it could hold 1,000 songs. The first iPod was powered by a hard disk drive, but this year Apple introduced the "Shuffle" with flash memory to hold data.
Industry analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies Inc. in Campbell, California, said the news could be a new 4-gigabyte Shuffle, which would have four times the memory of the current model.
"The obvious news may be the higher density iPod Shuffle," he said. "But (Apple CEO Steve Jobs) may have something else up his sleeve. Steve loves surprises," he said.
Recent analyst reports out of Asia have noted that Apple plans to buy as much as 40 percent of the flash memory chips produced by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world's second largest chip maker and the largest maker of flash memory used in music players.
Apple currently sells three types of iPods: the classic high-capacity hard-disk iPod capable of storing up to 15,000 songs on 60 gigabytes; the iPod Mini, which comes in two versions, either four- or six-gigabyte hard disk models; and the Shuffle.
Cupertino, California-based Apple has come to dominate the digital music player market, accounting for some three-quarters of industry sales this year, according to analysts estimates.
Apple shipped 6.2 million iPods in its latest quarter.
Cingular set to offer iTunes on mobile phones
By Paul Taylor in New York
Last Update:12:50 PM ET Aug. 30, 2005
Cingular Wireless, the largest US mobile network operator, is expected to announce plans next week to begin offering subscribers a new mobile phone from Motorola that will incorporate Apple Computer's iTunes software and will function like a wireless iPod.
The long-awaited Motorola iTunes phone is expected to be unveiled at a promotional event in San Francisco next Wednesday, according to industry analysts.
Ovum, the UK-based telecommunications consultancy, said Cingular, which until recently was the exclusive distributor in the US of Motorola's highly successful super-slim Razr phone, will also be the first to offer the iTune phone.
"Industry sources have told us that Cingular Wireless will launch the phone in the US," said Dario Betti, a senior analyst with Ovum.
Motorola, the US mobile handset maker, initially planned to launch the new iTunes phone earlier this summer, but is believed to have been delayed by technical issues and the reluctance of most mobile operators to relinquish control over music downloads to Apple's iTunes service.
Music downloads are seen by most wireless operators as a lucrative new revenue source and one of the keys to driving up data revenues and exploiting the capabilities of their new 3Gnetworks.
However, some fear that enabling subscribers to download full-length music tracks to mobile phones over their networks from a third-party service such as iTunes could undermine their booming ringtones business.
Several mobile phone makers including Nokia, the market leader, and Sony Ericsson have already launched 'music phones' designed to play back digital music stored either on tiny internal hard drives or on flash memory.
However, the Motorola phone is expected to be the first designed specifically to download music over a wireless network functioning effectively as a wireless iPod digital music player.
For Apple Computer, which has helped revolutionise the music industry with its iconic iPod player and iTunes download service, the move represents a significant new development.
Apple and Motorola both announced last summer they were working on bringing the popular iTunes music download service to mobile phones.
An IPod Cellphone Said to Be Imminent
By MATT RICHTEL
Published: August 30, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 - Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a long-awaited mobile phone and music player next week that will incorporate Apple's iTunes software, a telecommunications industry analyst who has been briefed on the announcement said on Monday.
Forum: Technology and the Internet
The development marks a melding of two of the digital era's most popular devices, the cellphone and the iPod, which has become largely synonymous with the concept of downloading songs from the Internet or transferring them from compact discs.
Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst with Ovum, a market research firm, said he had been told by an industry executive that the new phone, to be made by Motorola, would be marketed by Cingular Wireless. Mr. Entner said it would include iTunes software, which helps power the iPod.
The software will allow people to transfer songs from a personal computer to the mobile phone, then listen to the songs, presumably through headphones. "It's a deluxe music player now on your cellphone," he said of the device.
Apple, Motorola and Cingular declined to confirm or deny the report. But Apple did announce on Monday that it would hold a major news event on Sept. 7 in San Francisco that it indicated was music-related. Apple is routinely tight-lipped about pending product announcements, preferring to make a splash on the day of the event.
The plans outlined for an Apple phone are consistent with recent announcements by Motorola, which said in July 2004 that it planned to develop a device that would include the iTunes software.
In July of this year, Motorola said that development of the iTunes phone was on track to be unveiled by the end of September.
Jennifer Weyrauch, a spokeswoman for Motorola, declined on Monday to comment on Apple's announcement plans for next week. Ms. Weyrauch did say, generally speaking, that when Motorola unveiled a phone equipped with iTunes software, it would be a part of a line of music-oriented phones that the company calls Rokr.
The latest development is in many ways a natural evolution for mobile phones, which increasingly act as small computers with varied functions, like taking pictures and sending and receiving e-mail. Cellphone users already spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to download ring tones based on popular music.
Some phones already double as portable music players. Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, noted that within the last six weeks, the company had unveiled two phones, one made by Motorola and the other by Audiovox, onto which users can transfer songs from a personal computer.
It was not clear whether the iTunes phone would allow users to download songs directly from the Internet onto the phone, though music industry analysts said they doubted that such a capability would be immediately available. Mike McGuire, an online-music analyst with Gartner Inc., a research firm, said that so-called over-the-air downloads would first require ironing out technological and music-licensing issues.
But the day of wireless downloads of full songs is not far off, according to major wireless carriers. Sprint said on Monday that by the end of the year it planned to offer phones that allowed users to download full songs wirelessly. Mr. Nelson of Verizon Wireless said his company was also in the final stages of developing such a capability.
Mr. McGuire said a deal between Apple, Cingular and Motorola could fit in with Apple's strategy of extending its iTunes brand, while also enabling the company to get licensing revenue for having the software appear on a generation of new phones.
Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has had mixed relations with the major record labels. The spread of the iPod has helped popularize music downloading, giving record labels a new revenue stream for each song sold.
At the same time, Apple's policy of selling songs for a flat rate of 99 cents from its online store has given pause to record industry executives, who would like the flexibility for themselves and their partners to charge more for some songs.
Apple, Digital Music's Angel, Earns Record Industry's Scorn
Published: August 27, 2005
(Page 2 of 2)
The push for variable pricing is not uniform across the business. The Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal and the industry's biggest company, appears to support Mr. Jobs's desire to maintain the price of 99 cents a track for the time being. The EMI Group, the British music giant, has expressed a desire for more variation in prices but does not appear interested in a protracted fight.
Forum: Technology and the Internet
The divide among the four record companies reflects a broader philosophical argument about whether the fast-expanding digital market is stable enough to bear a mix of prices, particularly a higher top end, while millions of consumers still trade music free on unauthorized file-swapping networks.
"I don't think it's time yet," said Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Records, Universal's biggest division. "We need to convert a lot more people to the habit of buying music online. I don't think a way to convert more people is to raise the price.
"I believe that he really feels that everybody isn't hooked yet into the whole concept," Mr. Iovine said, referring to Mr. Jobs. "You make it affordable, at a reasonable price, so they can learn about it. It's not an unreasonable position."
The other main battleground in Apple's coming confrontation with the industry has to do with "interoperability" of services and devices. Mr. Jobs has so far refused to make the iTunes software compatible with music players from other manufacturers, and he has prevented the iPod from accepting music sold from competing services that use a Microsoft-designed music format. As a result, songs purchased from Napster, for example, will not play on an iPod.
Apple's critics say the strategy echoes the company's decision, in the early years of personal computers, not to license its Mac operating system software. Many computer industry analysts say that approach allowed the rival Windows system to establish itself, and consigned Apple to a far smaller share of the computer market.
Apple has said that it will benefit more from improving iTunes than from devoting resources to make it compatible with other, smaller systems.
Still, to some executives, that practice makes Mr. Jobs appear more concerned with maintaining market dominance for his high-margin iPods than with allowing a more open digital market. All of the music companies, to one degree or another, have been urging Mr. Jobs to abandon the strategy, according to executives involved in the talks.
Hilary Rosen, the former chairwoman of the Recording Industry Association of America, agrees on that point. "If Apple opened up their standards, they would sell more, not less," she said. "If they open it up to having more flexibility with the iPod, I think they'd sell more iPods. On the other hand, I don't think it's their fault that nobody else has come up with something great" to compete.
Sony BMG in particular has taken steps that may apply pressure to Mr. Jobs to make Apple's software compatible with that of other companies. The company has issued dozens of new titles - including high-profile CD's from the Dave Matthews Band and the Foo Fighters - with software to limit the number of copies that can be made from the disc.
The software is compatible with Microsoft's music software, but not Apple's, and as a result music from those Sony BMG albums cannot be transferred to iPods that are hooked up to Windows-based PC's. EMI has been test-marketing similar software with a handful of titles.
Even some music executives who favor altering the iTunes service doubt that they will be able to force Mr. Jobs' hand by withholding their music. Instead, they are counting the months until the major wireless phone carriers enter the business of selling songs to mobile phone customers. Since there are many more mobile phones in use than there are iPods, the industry thinking goes, the arrival of a broad mobile music market will erode the leverage Mr. Jobs now holds.
But Apple has also been working with Motorola to develop a phone that can import songs from an iTunes-equipped computer.
Mr. McGuire said Apple was not likely to quietly surrender its position in the market.
"I think if they're throwing down for a street fight," he said, "they may have picked somebody who's as good or better at it than they are."
Apple, Digital Music's Angel, Earns Record Industry's Scorn
Paul Sakuma/Associated PressAn Apple store in Palo Alto, Calif. Apple charges 99 cents to download songs, but two major record companies are pushing for an increase.
By JEFF LEEDS
Published: August 27, 2005
Two and a half years after the music business lined up behind the chief executive of Apple, Steven P. Jobs, and hailed him and his iTunes music service for breathing life into music sales, the industry's allegiance to Mr. Jobs has eroded sharply.
Forum: Technology and the Internet
Mr. Jobs is now girding for a showdown with at least two of the four major record companies over the price of songs on the iTunes service.
If he loses, the one-price model that iTunes has adopted - 99 cents to download any song - could be replaced with a more complex structure that prices songs by popularity. A hot new single, for example, could sell for $1.49, while a golden oldie could go for substantially less than 99 cents.
Music executives who support Mr. Jobs say the higher prices could backfire, sending iTunes' customers in search of songs on free, unauthorized file-swapping networks.
Signs of conflict over pricing issues are increasingly apparent. This month, Apple started its iTunes service in Japan without songs from the two major companies - Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group - leaving artists like Avril Lavigne, Beyoncé and Rob Thomas out of the catalog because the companies refused to license their music to iTunes, executives involved in the talks said.
That gap in the Japanese music market, the world's second biggest, is considered a harbinger of what may await American consumers as the contracts that record companies have with Apple in the United States come up for renewal early next year.
Mr. Jobs in the past has cast himself as an innovator battling established media giants like Disney and Microsoft. But these days, allies and adversaries both agree, he has more power online than Wal-Mart has in the bricks-and-mortar world.
Apple commands an estimated 75 percent of digital music sales, and roughly 80 percent of sales of MP3 players, with its market-leading iPod. While many still admire Mr. Jobs's touch - iTunes quickly established a market for paid downloads after the industry wasted years on misfires - he also inspires enmity or jealousy from others in the industry, which is back in a slump after a modest rebound last year.
Mr. Jobs' vision of simple, uniform pricing for songs and a policy of limiting Apple's music to Apple's devices are increasingly under attack.
"He'd like to continue to define the rules of the game," said Paul Vidich, a special adviser to America Online and former executive vice president of the Warner Music Group. Mr. Vidich said the digital music market, while growing, was still a fraction of the music business, but added, "I just think the music companies are now at a point where there's too much money on the table not to insist" that Apple accept variable prices.
"The question is," Mr. Vidich said, "what do they want the profile of the business to look like going forward?"
A sore point for some music executives is the fact that Apple generates much more money selling iPod players than it does as a digital music retailer, leading to complaints that Mr. Jobs is profiting more from tracks downloaded to fill the 21 million iPods sold so far than are the labels that produced the recordings.
Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony BMG, discussed the state of the overall digital market at a media and technology conference three months ago and said that Mr. Jobs "has got two revenue streams: one from our music and one from the sale of his iPods."
"I've got one revenue stream," Mr. Lack said, joking that it would require a medical professional to locate. "It's not pretty."
In a more conciliatory statement yesterday, Mr. Lack said: "I look forward to sitting down with Steve in the fall when we are scheduled to discuss Apple and Sony BMG's relations going forward. I think Steve has done a great job on behalf of the industry and in the months ahead we have lots of challenges to conquer together."
Apple has long allowed different prices for full albums sold on the service, though it believes that maintaining the 99-cent price for each song on an album acts as a natural cap. The service, which is available to consumers who download iTunes software to their computers, allows users to choose from roughly 1.5 million songs from major and independent labels. The songs, once paid for and downloaded, can be transferred to an iPod device, burned to blank discs, or played on the computer. At the price of 99 cents a song, the share of the major labels is about 70 cents.
Some analysts suggest that the willingness of the music companies to gamble on a new pricing structure reflects a short memory.
"As I recall, three years ago these guys were wandering around with their hands out looking for someone to save them," said Mike McGuire, an analyst at Gartner G2. "It'd be rather silly to try to destabilize him because iTunes is one of the few bright spots in the industry right now. He's got something that's working."
OT: MSN 'Rock Star: INXS' Web Site Attracts Growing Fan Base
Visitors Trigger Surge in Song Purchases, Streaming Video, Blog Views and Other Exclusive Content from CBS Reality TV Show
8/23/2005 12:01:59 AM
REDMOND, Wash., Aug 23, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Fans of Mark Burnett Productions' "Rock Star: INXS" have made the new reality television show's official Web site on MSN a go-to destination, with significant growth in visitors' activities throughout the interactive site at http://rockstar.msn.com . To date, MSN(R) Video has streamed 7.1 million clips of the rockers competing for the chance to become the new lead singer of INXS.
Every remaining contestant on Rock Star: INXS has appeared in the top 100 most downloaded tracks on MSN Music, and the contestant performances, along with unaired and behind the scenes footage from the show, are some of the top streamed videos on MSN Video.
The number of people voting for their favorite contestants through rockstar.msn.com is growing rapidly. Voting on MSN continued its consistent week-over-week growth as the show completed its sixth week. In addition, fans are flocking to MSN Spaces, where each rocker has a personal Web log (blog), to get the latest updates from the contestants themselves. Visits to the contestants' Spaces have more than doubled since the show's premiere, which may be because the rockers aren't keeping very many secrets when it comes to talking about their lives inside the mansion.
Beginning this week, fans who visit http://rockstar.msn.com will also have the chance to vote on the songs they'd like the contestants to sing on an upcoming encore performance show. People are wasting no time making their opinions known, casting hundreds of thousands of votes in the first 24 hours.
"This surge of activity on rockstar.msn.com attests to the outstanding talent of these performers as well as how much enjoyment fans have gained from interacting with contestants and each other through the Web site," said Mike Conte, general manager of MSN Marketplaces and Digital Media. "Our goal is to help people find what they love, so we're thrilled to be involved in exposing the great music and amazing people from 'Rock Star: INXS' to an even broader worldwide audience."
"It was just a few years ago that the only feedback producers would get would be from critics and ratings," said Mark Burnett. "Now, thanks to the Internet and specifically our relationship with MSN, very detailed feedback comes across through voting, message boards and blogs, and from the large number of video clips watched and songs downloaded. The music downloads specifically are an incredibly valuable measure of customer feedback, as there is nothing more reliable than when people vote with their pocketbooks."
"Rock Star: INXS," airing on the CBS Television Network and VH1, debuted in July with a cast of 15 rockers competing to become the new lead singer for multiplatinum band INXS. Votes cast online by visitors to http://rockstar.msn.com help determine which contestant gets dropped from the show each week. This is the first time that Mark Burnett Productions, the company behind such landmark reality TV series as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice," has used online voting to influence the outcome of a show on a weekly basis.
The Web site also gives fans unique opportunities to chat, play games and view show-themed content in real time through MSN Messenger, watch exclusive "Rock Star: INXS" content on MSN Video, purchase contestant performances on MSN Music, buy INXS merchandise through MSN Shopping, learn about the contestants' personal lives through their MSN Spaces, and more.
About MSN
MSN attracts more than 420 million unique users worldwide per month. With localized versions available globally in 41 markets and 21 languages, MSN is a world leader in delivering Web services to consumers and online advertising opportunities to businesses worldwide. The most useful and innovative online service today, MSN brings consumers everything they need from the Web to make the most of their time online. MSN is located on the Web at http://www.msn.com . MSN worldwide sites are located at http://www.msn.com/worldwide.ashx
OT: Will Google ever get into music?
Commentary: Google Tunes, why not?
By Bambi Francisco, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Aug. 23, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- For all of Google's innovation and desire to organize the world's information, it seems the search giant should find a way to manage our digital music libraries.
Google (GOOG: news, chart, profile) already collects content to fills its news, books, images and TV-search services. Google's Picasa also manages our digital photos.
Music indexing seems an obvious extension of Google's content-aggregating activities. After all, music is widely searched, downloaded, listened to, and bought on the Web.
Google has acknowledged that managing music is a service that people may want. The latest version of its desktop search product includes a sidebar toolbar with an option, or plugin feature, that lets you manage your Apple (AAPL: news, chart, profile) iTunes music collection.
The sidebar toolbar, which was launched Monday, acts as a dashboard of sorts to give people a quick glance at personalized information from the Web and their desktops. The iTunes plugin, which lets you control the song selection from the sidebar, wasn't developed by Google, but by a third-party software developer who wanted to manage his iTunes collection on Google's sidebar, said Nikhil Bhatla, a product manager at Google.
OK. It's not exactly a big Google and Apple partnership (Google's desktop search doesn't even work on Apple's Macintosh computers), nor is Google making a foray into some sort of music-search business. But this little iTunes plugin is an interesting footnote.
I won't say that Google should be exploring the opportunities in music, because it probably already is, much as the search engine is likely exploring the opportunities of launching an IM client.
See Net Stocks: Why Google needs IM.
A Google spokesperson would not comment when I asked whether the company was making an announcement this week about a communications platform of sorts.
And since I've already talked about why I think Google needs IM before, let's stick with music in this column.
Music is a hit
Music-related terms, such as popular musicians or songs, appear to be some of the most highly-searched words on the Web. For instance, "Britney Spears" was searched 2.9 million times in July, according to Yahoo (YHOO: news, chart, profile) search. Compare that with one of the most widely-searched athletes, say, "Lance Armstrong," who was searched under a million times in the same period, or movie star "Angelina Jolie," who was searched for 1.2 million times.
Music-related terms are so popular that 20% of search traffic at Baidu (BIDU: news, chart, profile) went to MP3.com.baidu.com, the Chinese search engine's MP3 platform, according to Baidu's prospectus.
Music services also seem to attract big audiences. A look at Yahoo properties in July shows that Yahoo music attracted an audience of 22.3 million vs. Yahoo messenger, which attracted 21.6 million unique visitors, and Yahoo Personals, which attracted 6.9 million, according to comScore Networks.
Music retailing also seems to be one of the promising retail categories on the Web. Traffic to retail sites rose 1% in July, but traffic to music retailers, such as iTunes and Wal-Mart Music Store, to name a few, rose 3%.
Importantly, music made Apple's shares a hit and MySpace a top-rated Web hangout.
Apple Computer shares were flat in 2001 and 2002, but began to tick up notably right after Apple's iTunes Music Store was launched in the spring of 2003. Since April of that year, when Apple shares traded at $7, the stock has soared to $45, where it trades today. Since the Music Store was launched, Apple has sold more than 500 million songs for 99 cents apiece.
Intermix's (MIX: news, chart, profile) MySpace had 1 million unique visitors back in the summer of last year. But it was the site's dedication to music -- bands and their passionate fans -- that helped drive up its traffic to 21 million unique visitors in July and ultimately sold to News Corp for $580 million in cash.
Also about 36 million Americans, or 27% of Internet users, said they download music or video files, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project, while more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players.
Finally, even though music is searched frequently, there appears to be an opportunity for Google to match the buyer of music keywords with the searcher of music keywords.
The music-related keywords do not have very good conversion rates, according to Kevin Lee, co-founder of Did-it.com, a search marketing company.
"Most general artist keywords convert poorly because of demographics as well as the search intent... [Also] the searches are often browsers looking for nothing in particular," said Kevin Lee, of Did-It.com, which manages keywords.
I'd add that another challenge for musicians, owners of music, or music merchants who advertise through search engines, like Google, is that there isn't a one-click payment solution that lets people just click on a link that says "buy-this-song" now.
Google did say that it is working on a payment solution.
Sound off: Should Google get into music search? E-mail Bambi.Francisco@dowjones.com
OT
Jobs vs. Gates. Again.
By Tim Beyers (TMF Mile High)
August 16, 2005
"Oh, please, not again."
That's the first thought that went through my mind when I learned that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) may prevent Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) from receiving a patent for the software interface that drives the popular iPod.
The hysteria originated a week ago today with this story at Web news outlet AppleInsider. Apparently, Microsoft inventor John Platt filed a patent covering the generation of "playlists for a library of media items... ." If you think that sounds eerily similar to how the iPod organizes songs, you're right. And that's a problem for Apple. The Mac maker filed its own patent covering the iPod's interface in October 2002, five months after Platt.
The apparent oversight has set off a media panic. Indeed, some stories -- including this one -- have painted visions of Apple CEO Steve Jobs essentially writing personal checks to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates for each iPod that comes off the assembly line. No doubt this paranoia stems from history. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years, you know that Microsoft helped engineer the rapid decline of the Mac in the 1990s. The implication now is that the same fate could await the iPod. But could it really?
Sure, but probably not at the hands of a Microsoft patent (at least not according to the initial reaction from the Gates camp). Don't get me wrong; Microsoft had to demonstrate the viability of its wares to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as soon as it filed. That proves Microsoft has something, even if whatever that is has yet to see the light of the mass market.
Conversely, Apple claims it created and released to the public the iPod interface before Platt field his application in May 2002. That very well could be true.
And therein lies the real irony. Apple didn't file its patent until a year after the launch of its iconic digital music player. How remarkably smug. Sure, it's obvious now that Apple should have filed its patent the minute the iPod came to market. That it didn't suggests nothing more than laziness, pure and simple. In fairness, this might not have mattered given Microsoft's developments, but the gesture should have been made regardless.
But this time Apple may have gotten lucky. An apparently kinder, gentler Mr. Softy has used its appearances in the media to talk about its long history of cooperating with Jobs. Don't expect that to last.