Los Angeles
– TuneCore, a provider of low-cost digital music distribution and promotional
services, on Wednesday announced a discounted rate for artists and labels
registered with the MySpace Music service. MySpace Music artists who sign up to
use TuneCore will also be given a free MyAds credit to market and support
themselves on MySpace.
Related Links:
http://www/tunecore.com/myspacemusic
London
– Worldwide recorded music sales fell 7% in 2009 to $17.03 billion, as sales of
physical products like CDs dropped 12.7% globally, according to a new report
from record label trade group IFPI. Meanwhile, global digital music revenues
were up 9.2% in 2009, to $4.31 billion; 30 countries saw double-digit growth in
digital sales, and 17 markets saw growth of more than 40%.Digital now accounts
for 25.3% of all music sales globally, and 43% of the U.S. recorded
music market.
Overall, the U.S.
and Japan
were said to account for 80% of total industry losses, as the worldwide decline
in revenues outside these two territories was just 3.2% for the year.
The
sharpest declines in revenues were seen in Italy
(-17.4%) and Spain
(-14.3%), which the IFPI said have "some of the world’s weakest legal
defenses against piracy."
IFPI noted that the best-selling album globally
in 2009 was Susan Boyle’s "I Dreamed a Dream," which sold 8.3 million
units.
Despite gains in revenues from live music, songwriters’ music copyrights
and the performance rights market, IFPI found that the broader music industry
— whose definition also includes radio advertising, live performance sales and
the sale of audio equipment — declined 8% to an estimated $140 billion in
2009.
Related Links:
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20100428.html
http://snipurl.com/vulkr
(Billboard)
Palo Alto,
Calif. – HP (NYSE: HPQ) announced on Wednesday
that it will acquire smartphone maker Palm (NASD: PALM), in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. Under
the terms, HP will pay about $5.70 per share for Palm, whose stock price closed
at $4.64 on Tuesday.
"Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal
platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience
spanning multiple mobile connected devices," said Todd Bradley, executive
vice president of HP’s personal systems group.
"And, Palm possesses
significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is
large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an
integrated device and experience command a higher share."
Other potential
suitors for Palm had been rumored to include Dell and Taiwan’s HTC.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/vulm8
London – Following
unsuccessful licensing talks with British broadcasters, video portal Hulu has
shelved plans to launch in the U.K.,
the Telegraph reports. The joint venture between News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) and
Disney (NYSE: DIS) has reportedly been in talks with U.K. broadcasters including ITV,
Channel 4 and Five for nearly a year.
Sources told the Telegraph that ITV
believed that providing content to Hulu would conflict with its own on-demand
ITV Player, while neither Channel 4 nor Five are keen on having Hulu sell
advertising inventory alongside their programming.
The Telegraph had reported last
August that ITV was nearing an exclusive deal with Hulu that would include the
broadcaster taking an equity share.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/vulia
(Telegraph)
San Francisco – San Mateo County, Calif.
prosecutors have suspended their examination of computer equipment seized from
the home of the reporter who posted a story about a prototype Apple (NASD: AAPL) iPhone 4G
left in a bar, while they examine whether their search violated laws protecting
the privacy of journalists. An attorney for Gizmodo, the blog that reportedly
paid $5,000 to the person who found the lost smartphone in a bar, told CNET
News.com the company may file suit over the handling of the search of reporter
Jason Chen’s residence.
San Mateo
County chief deputy
district attorney Stephen Wagstaffe told CNET that the journalist privacy issue
was considered before the search was conducted, but that the prosecutor
"had some good reasons why he and the judge felt the warrant was properly
issued."
Some legal spectators have posited that the privacy protection
laws for journalists don’t apply if the journalist is suspected of a crime,
while others maintain that a subpoena for the equipment should have instead been
issued, and that law enforcement is at fault.
Meanwhile, Wired.com reports that
Apple may have identified the person who originally found the lost iPhone
prototype, and that "people identifying themselves as representing Apple
last week visited and sought permission to search the Silicon Valley address of
the college-age man," citing a source close to the matter.
The source also
recounted that the finder of the iPhone attempted to notify Apple, but was
unsuccessful.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/vukyi
(San Francisco Chronicle)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20003615-37.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20003664-37.html
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/dude-apple
http://snipurl.com/vukyu
(DMW previous coverage)
Cupertino,
Calif. – Apple has acquired
chipmaker Intrinsity and iPhone application developer Siri, according to
reports in The New York Times and Scobleizer.
An analyst pegged the purchase price
of Austin, Texas-based Intrinsity at $121 million for The Times.
The company’s
technology claims to produce faster processors that consume less energy.
A
filing with the Federal Trade Commission posted on Scobleizer confirms Apple’s
purchase of San Jose, Calif.-based Siri, the developer
of a virtual personal assistant application for the iPhone.
PaidContent noted
that Siri has raised $23.5 million in financing to date, since its inception as
a project at research institute SRI.
Related Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/technology/28apple.html
http://snipurl.com/vukeg
(Scobleizer)
http://snipurl.com/vukdv
(PaidContent)
Los Angeles – Despite a press release purportedly announcing that the
domain of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay had been acquired by a
Massachusetts-based start-up on Tuesday for $10 million, the operators of The
Pirate Bay have denied that such a deal was made. On the Pirate Bay’s
blog, under the headline "More lies in the media," the operators
stated, "We have no deal with them. We have not even talked to them!"
"Since
this is quite heavy fraud and we don’t want our users to buy shares or anything
like that in a company that is claiming to work with us, we just wanted to
point out that this is a lie."
The press release distributed yesterday
indicated that a company called Business Marketing Services agreed to pay $10
million to acquire ThePirateBay.org.
The company is fronted by Hans Pandeya,
whose previous attempts to acquire The Pirate Bay through his Global Gaming
Factory X venture failed.
Related Links:
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/178
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20003632-261.html
http://snipurl.com/vujki
(TorrentFreak)
New York
– Russian Internet firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) announced on Wednesday
that it has agreed to acquire AOL’s (NYSE: AOL) instant messaging service ICQ for $187.5
million. Created in 1996 by Israeli firm Mirabilis, ICQ was acquired by AOL in
1998 for $407 million.
The service is now available in 16 languages, and counts
more than 32 million unique monthly visitors.
DST noted that ICQ is the leading
instant messaging platform in Russia
and a number of other international markets.
"As AOL continues its
turnaround effort, we’re fortunate to find a great home for ICQ with DST,"
said AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong.
DST, which has also made large
investments in Facebook and social games firm Zynga, said the deal will enhance
its business in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/vujdj
Sausalito,
Calif. – ImageSpan, the provider
of a licensing and royalty payment automation platform for media, announced on Wednesday
that it has closed a new round of financing, and appointed Kurt Garbe as its
new CEO.
The total amount raised was not disclosed; investors included previous
backers Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and CityLight Capital.
Garbe, who
was previously CEO of SolutionSet, succeeds ImageSpan founder Iain Scholnick,
who will continue with the company as chief platform officer.
Sausalito,
Calif.-based ImageSpan’s LicenseStream service lets owners of digital content
license, transact and monitor their works.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/vuj66
