News written by Petteri Pyyny (June, 2000)

Company called SightSound.com, an online movie distributor, has announced that it will use Gnutella network as their way to spread their content to customers.

Security of movies (=can they be copied by unauthorized persons) is solved by Microsoft which says that no security problems are found in this distribution method. When user has downloaded a movie, we's required to purchase or rent it to be able to watch it.

SightSound has rights to publish 12 movies from Miramax online.

MP3.com's CEO Michael Robertson criticized recording industry's current business model that they use for their web businesses.

Most of the legal MP3/digital audio sites sell tracks by $2 / each or so, and this, Robertson said, doesn't work.

"What they will do is 'all-you-can-eat' buffets for 10 bucks, for 5 bucks, for 20 bucks."

By this he means that subscription services -- the model that user pays some amount of money per month and gets unlimited access for streaming media, some downloads, etc.. Just like MP3.com's classical music subscription service.

Robertson kept his keynote in Streaming Media East 2000 conference.

RIAA has filed a preliminary injunction for U.S. court to shut down the Napster's servers.

Napster's CEO Hank Barry, replied to this request with written statement explaning Napster's role as a service, not a place to download illegal music. Barry also pointed out that recording industry has allowed existence of MP3 players, CD recorders, etc.. Why to focus on file sharing technology?

Barry's reply is not official document meant for court, more like an open letter.

dMusic.com reported today that rumor is going that Yahoo! is interested to buy multimedia giant MP3.com.

This sounds like a reasonable path for Yahoo! which has been putting some major efforts trying to hit big time into music community -- their recent action was to launch their own media player, which actually does the thing pretty damn well..

dMusic.com

MP3.com Inc. settled it's copyright violation claims by two of the five big recording companies and agreed to license their songs for its online services.

Terms of the agreement with Warner Music Group (company of Time Warner) and BMG Entertainment (company of Bertelsmann) were not disclosed, but experts estimate that company had to pay $20 million to each company.

Sony, EMI and UMG are still negotiating with MP3.com. The law suit was filed in January 2000 by RIAA, an organization representing these five labels in U.S.

MP3.com's shares rose appx. 11% today to 19 3/16 on Nasdaq.

According to today's Wall Street Journal, MP3.com is close to settling it's copyright issues with Warner Music Group, one major member of RIAA.

Not more detailed info is available at the moment, but it's estimated that MP3.com would pay something between $15M and $20M for Warner Music for settling the case.

MP3.com launches a new service called "Notify Me!" which gives users an ability to get informed if some of the MP3.com's artists are having some event or show in the local area. And as usual, this service is 100% customizable, like all MP3.com's services are.

http://www.mp3.com/notifyme/

Finally this one sad episode in "Napster saga" is in happy end. Offspring and Napster have reached an agreement in the trademark issue, where Offspring sold Napster merchandise over the Internet without Napster's permission.

Now Napster has given this permission for Offspring. But Offspring doesn't keep the money itself, no. But Dexter Holland and Shawn Fanning decide later together a charity organization that gets the money from sold merchandise.

Happy end. OMG, why other people can't be as reasonable and smart as these two. Well, I'm kinda tired of this legal sh*t already.. But it goes on, we all know that.

Remember few weeks ago when this whole Napster-Metallica-Dr.Dre -mess started? Ok, now the first round is almost done -- even that I know there are whole lotta more to come.

So, Metallica forced 300k users to be removed from Napster. And 30k of those complained. And Metallica didn't sue them. And based on U.S. laws, now they've got their accounts back online. And Metallica's pissed...

That's it this time :-)

MP3Board.com, one of the biggest MP3 sites in the world, sues RIAA because RIAA has threatened to shut down the site.

MP3Board.com has very popular MP3 search engine and that's what RIAA is now targeting. MP3Board.com says "Copyright laws should not apply to sites like MP3Board.com that simply offer links to other sites, even if those sites offer pirated material."

"We're not Napster. We don't have...MP3 files. We're a mere conduit, like Lycos or Hotbot. What this lawsuit is about is whether a search engine or linking service has an obligation to edit automated links. By going after us, they are basically oppressing free speech for everybody," said attorney Ira Rothken, who represents MP3Board.

...this is going to be very interesting, since MP3 search engines are very popular and also the Big Boys are doing that business, including giants like Lycos and AltaVista. And as we all remember, mp3.lycos.com went through this same path and won in court..

Mega-popular punk/rock band Offspring has started selling Napster merchandise on their website. This contains Napster caps, T-shirts and stickers!!

Now, what makes this new twist very weird, is the fact that band doesn't have Napster's permission to sell this stuff, and forced by U.S. trademark laws, Napster has to sue band for copyright infrigements because otherwise they can lose their trademark.. But propably there is just an easy way for Napster to give Offspring legal permission to sell these items..

Offspring is the single most popular band that has publicly supported Napster and fans right to spread copyrighted music through it.

Offspring.com

DVDRip v1.15 is now officially the first program ever to reach 10,000 downloads through AfterDawn.com. Wow, that's quite something for small website like us..

Let's see when we hit the 100,000 total downloads in software archive. With the current download amount, it propably wont take very long..

Oh, if you don't have it yet -- Download DVDRip v1.15!

Despite all action around MP3.com and Napster these days -- mostly legal action.. -- some bands still point out their support for distributing their material for free. One of these bands is Mötley Crüe -- this legendary hard rock band has now set their latest single "Hell on High Heels" for free MP3 download in some of the major MP3 sites, including MP3.com.

Also, they've helped Camp Chaos to create kinda sequel for legendary "Napster Bad" (money GOOD) Metallica parody. Check it out at here.

dMusic reported today that Madonna is threatening to take legal actions against MP3-swapping program, Napster.

Reason for Madonna's anger is that MTV reported yesterday that Madonna's new single, dubbed as "Music", was stolen from her studios and spread through Internet via Napster.

dMusic.com