Los Angeles
– The CW drama series "Supernatural" is getting a Web spin-off called
"Ghostfacers," to be produced by Warner Bros. TV’s (NYSE: TWX) Studio 2.0 and
producer McG’s Wonderland, Variety reports. The 10-episode Web series based on
"Supernatural," which has run five seasons on the CW, will appear on
the CW’s website as well as on TheWB.com.
Related Links:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014263.html
Ann Arbor,
Mich. – Media retail store chain
Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) said on Tuesday that president and CEO Ron Marshall has resigned,
after a year on the job, to accept the role of CEO with another publicly held
retailer. The company named chief merchandising officer Michael J. Edwards as
interim CEO of Borders, and said it has retained Korn/Ferry International to
lead the search for a permanent replacement. BusinessWeek cited sources saying
that Marshall
will take over as head of Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u78ry
http://snipurl.com/u78sd
(BusinessWeek)
Washington
– The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from major record
label Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG, letting stand a lower court’s ruling that found
Launch Media’s Web radio offering was not an "interactive service" requiring
additional licensing fees, the Exclusive Rights blog reported.
Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), which
acquired Launch Media for $12 million in 2001, settled copyright infringement
litigation brought by Sony Music over the service back in 2003, agreeing to pay
damages for past use of songs and to license Sony recordings for future use on
Launch.
Sony Music had further argued that Launch Media was an "interactive"
service because users could create stations based on their preferences, or an
artist name or song title — and thus should be subject to additional licensing
fees.
The U.S.
Second Circuit Court of Appeals found last year that Launch was not an
interactive service; Sony’s appeal of that decision to the Supreme Court
was declined yesterday.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u78lg
(Exclusive Rights blog)
http://snipurl.com/u78n8
(DMW previous coverage)
Santa Monica,
Calif. – Movie studio Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) on
Tuesday announced the launch of its Lionsgate Incubator joint project with online
content creation network Massify, which the companies said will distribute resulting
short films produced by the partnership primarily on YouTube (NASD: GOOG).
The first project
from Lionsgate Incubator to appear on YouTube "will feature a
high-concept, male-driven comedy short that Lionsgate will evaluate for
development into a feature-length film."
The short film showcase will be
based on user-submitted content from Massify produced by Massify’s online
talent network.
Pitch submissions for the comedy project are open through March
8 on Massify, with a planned May 2010 start to production of the short film.
"This
collaboration signals a new step in feature film development, production and
distribution for next generation consumers," said Curt Marvis, President
of Digital for Lionsgate.
"This is a pioneering business model for
creating film projects within the online creative talent community and bringing
them to online audiences around the world. It represents the first time a movie
studio has linked a massive online community of filmmakers with a studio
development process."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u786f
San Diego
– A recent survey of 1,725 mothers found that 51% share their opinions about
products on Facebook, 39% posted reviews on retail sites like Amazon, 28% did
so on personal blogs, and another 15% used Twitter.
The survey was conducted by
ExpoTV, which recently launched a research service, but also operates a site that
lets users upload video reviews of products and services; respondents were
culled from visitors to its site.
The survey found that 89% of moms polled were
on Facebook, and 46% were on Twitter.
Some 92% of mothers said they trusted
consumer descriptions over brand descriptions, and 78% of moms said a video
review helped them in a purchasing process.
Half of respondents had uploaded a
video to YouTube, Facebook or another site, with 36% reporting having uploaded
a video talking about a brand or product.
Almost 90% said they "would"
upload a video talking about a brand or product in the future.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u78d7
http://snipurl.com/u789a
(USA Today)
San Francisco – The U.S. virtual
goods market is expected to surpass $1.6 billion this year, with social gaming
contributing $835 million of the total, according to a report from market
research firm Inside Network.
"2009 was the year that casual games like
Zynga’s popular FarmVille took over the major social platforms and changed the
way millions of people socialized with friends online," said Inside
Network’s Justin Smith.
"Casual games introduced a rich, new way of
interacting with friends on social networks, and saw the highest engagement
numbers that the online entertainment industry has ever witnessed."
"With
tens of millions of returning users, and millions of new visitors daily, it is
no wonder that the social gaming industry saw significant M&A activity: an
up-to-$400 million acquisition of Playfish by Electronic Arts, and hundreds of
millions of dollars in additional venture investments," added Charles Hudson,
vice president of business development at Serious Business, and host of the
annual Virtual Goods Summit.
"Social games are now impacting businesses
across the media landscape."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u7819
Beijing
– A Chinese court has ruled that search engine Baidu (NASD: BIDU) is not infringing the
copyrights of major record labels by providing "deep links" to
unauthorized song download files on third-party sites, TorrentFreak reported.
Warner Music (NYSE: WMG), Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Universal Music filed a $9 million copyright
infringement lawsuit against Baidu back in 2008 over its MP3 Search service.
A
statement from attorney Sun Yan cited by JLM Pacific Epoch said that the labels lost
the case because they failed to identify the third-party sites hosting the
unauthorized music downloads.
International record label trade group IFPI
previously sued Baidu in 2005, but lost in both a lower court and on appeal on
charges that Baidu was illegally offering some 200 tracks for download.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u77vr
(TorrentFreak)
http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=1621873_0_5_0_M
London – European mobile
network operator Vodafone (NASD: VOD) has attracted nearly 450,000 customers to its music
subscription services, including 100,000 in December alone, and now claims the
largest base of paying music subscribers in Europe.
The company signed DRM-free deals with all four major record labels during 2009,
and currently offers a catalog of over 2 million tracks.
The Vodafone service
plans include unlimited streaming, and monthly 10-download song bundles.
"We
are really excited by our customers’ reaction to these great music
offers," said Lee Epting, director of content at Vodafone Internet
Services.
"We expect to see continued growth in our music service
subscriptions driven by the increase in smartphone use, with their worry-free
data tariffs and great value add-ons such as music bundles."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u77re
San Bruno,
Calif. – Google’s (NASD: GOOG) YouTube will
host a live interview with President Barack Obama next week, during which he
will answer questions posed by users during YouTube’s broadcast of the State of
the Union address and in days following.
In the days following the president’s
address, to be broadcast live on YouTube’s Citizentube on Wednesday, YouTube
users will be able to vote on their favorite questions.
"We’ll bring some
of your top-voted questions to the president in a YouTube interview from the
White House, which we’ll also broadcast live on Citizentube," Steve Grove,
head of news and politics at YouTube, wrote in a blog post.
Related Links:
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/01/your-state-of-union.html
Mountain View,
Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) on Tuesday
introduced a workaround to getting its Google Voice service, which has not been
accepted by Apple (NASD: AAPL) for use on the iPhone, to work on the device.
Instead of
incorporating Google Voice into a downloadable application for the iPhone,
Google has instead designed a new HTML5 Web page that users can bookmark and
visit in order to access the service.
The trick, which also works for the Palm (NASD: PALM)
Pre, fixes problems with a previous workaround, such as displaying a user’s
Google Voice phone number on a recipient’s caller ID.
Google submitted an
actual Google Voice app to Apple for inclusion in the iPhone App Store last
summer, but has yet to receive approval from the company.
"We haven’t
heard back from Apple on this," Vincent Paquet, senior product manager for
Google Voice, told The New York Times.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u7760
(Google blog)
http://snipurl.com/u775f
(Wired.com)
http://snipurl.com/u775t
(New York Times)
