Petit journal de plage anglophone

Voici le petit journal de plage que je vais imprimer avant de partir dès demain prendre quelques jours de vacances bien mérités entre Corbières et Méditerranée. Une petite revue de presse internationale à même de remettre également dans le bain ceux qui rentrent de congés.

Sony BMG’s Relationship With Radio Is Redefined

Yesterday’s settlement between Sony BMG and New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer has redefined the way the media conglomerate can do business with radio stations. In the “Exhibit B” section of the settlement, titled “Business Reforms,” the new parameters were set forth, addressing permissible and impermissible activities. (FMQB)

Indie Label Trade Group Recruiting in L.A.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s $10 million payola settlement with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is music to the ears of independent music labels. The pact, announced Monday and also likely to affect the other majors, will “definitely'’ level the field when it comes to getting songs played on radio, says Don Rose, acting president of the American Association of Independent Music, a new trade group representing small U.S. labels. (Reuters)

Samsung & Napster, Not Apple, Partner With XM Satellite on MP3 Player/Radio
Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and not Apple Computer will be the first and possibly only company to form a strategic alliance with XM Satellite Radio to develop MP3 players that will also work as satellite radios, the companies jointly announced Tuesday. XM also announced a partnership that will let XM subscribers buy and download songs through an exclusive arrangement with the online music store Napster. (Mac Observer, Mac World, Reuters, Washington Post, Digital Music News)

Motorola adds Yahoo content
Motorola Inc. Tuesday announced a partnership with Yahoo Inc. that will give wireless phone users quicker and easier access to Yahoo’s popular Internet services. The deal marks the latest of what could be many partnerships between Motorola and providers of content for phones. Motorola’s most prominent match, with Apple Computer Inc., is slated to produce a mobile phone with access to the iTunes online music store before the end of September. (Chicago Tribune, DM Europe, Net Imperative)

XM Satellite Radio and Starbucks Hear Music to Launch New CD Series
XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR - News), the nation’s leading satellite radio provider with more than 4.4 million subscribers, and Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX - News) Hear Music today announced that they will further expand their relationship with the launch of a new proprietary series of multi-artist music compilation CDs. Co-produced by XM and Hear Music, the debut CD in the series, Hear Music(TM) XM Radio Sessions, Vol. 1, features newly recorded, never-before-heard tracks from both established and emerging artists. (PR)

Digital music is going mobile
Led by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Wireless, the big phone carriers are edging toward releasing their own iTunes-like music services, aimed at persuading people to download or listen to music files over new broadband wireless networks. Slated to begin selling music perhaps as early as the end of this year, these services are prompting eager looks by record labels hungry to expand the reach of digital music. (News.com)

MSN Ups Download Wholesale Payout, More Indie Parity
Apple isn’t the only one increasing its wholesale payout on a-la-carte downloads, with Microsoft also increasing its payments to seventy cents per download. That is good news for indie artists who, until now, have been forced to accept lower payments relative to their major-label counterparts. (Digital Music News)

Dumb DRM Gets Boost From Sony Music CDs
For all their weeping and wailing about peer-to-peer piracy, sometimes it seems like the music industry giants are trying to discourage us from buying their CDs. That’s certainly the impression readers are getting from dealing with the copy protection scheme being used on recent Sony BMG Music releases. (Infoworld, Journal Gazette)

A Video iPod? Don’t Count on It
Apple fans are watching for a new device that could be to movies what the iPod is to music. But Steve Jobs seems to have other plans. The rumor mill has been buzzing of late with word of a new kind of iPod — one capable of playing videos. And that has Apple (AAPL ) watchers wondering how chief exec Steve Jobs might position the new product. After all, Jobs has downplayed the potential of such a device for years, arguing that the iPod’s small screen would make it a lousy machine on which to watch a movie. (Business Week)

AOL Prepares Dedicated, Free MP3 Download Page
AOL Music has reorganized its deck a bit with the launch of a free MP3 download page. The new area offers access to promotional MP3s for various artists, including Tommy Lee, Trapt, The Shins, and Interpol. Fans can grab as many tracks as they like, and transfer downloads to a portable device, or burn tracks to a CD. (Digital Music News)

Downloading ‘myths’ challenged
People who illegally share music files online are also big spenders on legal music downloads, research suggests. Digital music research firm The Leading Question found that they spent four and a half times more on paid-for music downloads than average fans. (BBC)

German record industry claims legal success against file-sharers
The German record industry says that it has brought 1300 cases against individuals engaging in file-sharing via peer-to-peer networks without permission from copyright holders. Individuals successfully sued by the German Phonographic Industry Association (Bundesverband der Phonographischen Wirtschaft) have been charged with payment of damages and reimbursement costs to the record companies averaging €4,000 a person, although some individuals have been forced to pay as much as €15,000. (DM Europe)

Sales of DVD duplication software blocked
Dutch Anti piracy organisation BREIN has won its battle to prevent distributor Teledirekt distributing the controversial DVD X Copy family of utilities in the Netherlands. Teledirekt refused to follow orders from BREIN to stop selling the software, despite the fact that DVD X Copy developer 321 Studios went bankrupt last year and stopped making the software. (The Register)

Research report predicts dramatic growth in Mobile Entertainment industry
Consumers are increasingly using their mobile phones to play music and games, gamble and access adult content, opening up lucrative new revenue streams for the mobile and content industries, according to a major strategic research report to be published next month. Mobile Entertainment, written by analysts from research house Informa Telecoms & Media over the last six months, predicts that the global market for mobile entertainment will be worth $42.8 billion by 2010. The value of audio-based mobile music services is set to double in the five years to 2010, by which time they will exceed $11 billion, according to the report. Although the majority of revenue will still come from ringtones, the forecast growth in the ring-back tone and full track download sectors confirms that the mobile phone is becoming a credible music device. (PR)

University of Washington to pay $24,000 for Napster deal
The financial details of the contractual agreement between the UW, Napster and Dell show the University will pay Napster $24,000 for student use licenses. The $24,000 fee will cover a $2 per month academic license fee, for 8 months, for 1,500 students. Dell will also pay $24,000 for an additional 1,500 student licenses. Dell will contribute a total of $84,087. Along with the student licenses, Dell will pay for 10 PowerEdge servers, valued at $52,887, and their installation — valued at $7,200. In exchange for their financial contribution Dell is allowed several opportunities to market to students on campus. (The Daily, The Register)

Sony launches video portal for PSP
Sony Communication Network Corp. launched a Web portal on Wednesday through which owners of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming device can download video clips. The “Portable TV” site offers at launch a small selection of movie previews, animated cartoons, entertainment, digests of TV dramas, music, lifestyle programming and sport. Content is initially available at no cost. (IT World)

In One Stroke, Podcasting Hits Mainstream
EVER since Steven P. Jobs returned to Apple Computer in 1997 after a 12-year absence, his company has thrived by executing the same essential formula over and over: Find an exciting new technology whose complexity and cost keep it out of the average person’s life. Streamline it, mainstream it, strip away the geeky options. Take the credit. So far, Apple has worked this kind of magic on digital video editing, wireless networking, online music selling, R.S.S. feeds (a kind of Web site subscription) and other technologies. Its latest attempt, however, will be music to an awful lot of ears. With its release of the free iTunes 4.9 software for Mac and Windows, Apple has just mainstreamed podcasting. (NY Times)

Revolution on the Radio
Satellite digital radio has captured the attention of consumers and investors with its billions spent and millions of paying subscribers. But a quiet digital revolution has hit the AM and FM dials as well: more than 450 stations in the United States now broadcast one or two digital channels alongside analog ones. At least 2,000 of the more than 12,000 stations in the country are committed to adding the format. (NY Times)

Counterfeit & Piracy Report
IP theft up to 42%, Internet used by 13% of counterfeiters. Counterfeit and piracy seizures and losses for June exceeded $623 Million (USD), as reported by Gieschen Consultancy. The Internet now accounts for 13% of incidents where counterfeit and pirated goods are sold. Intellectual property theft incidents (trademark infringement and copyright violations) also reached its highest level this year at 42% of all counterfeiting activity. (PR)