The challenges of what we consume and how we share it
July 1st, 2005 Posted in MarketingSony BMG inks deal with P2P firm Mashbox
LONDON (Reuters) - Music giant Sony BMG has finalized its deal with the legal file-sharing network Mashboxx, two days after a U.S. court dealt a blow to Mashboxx’s unauthorized rivals such as Grokster.
Mashboxx, headed by former Grokster president Wayne Rosso, is a peer-to-peer file-sharing network that requires users to pay for copyrighted songs.
Grokster May Haunt Podcasting
Apple’s new podcasting service could be in a sticky situation if podcasters post copyrighted material, thanks to Monday’s Grokster decision by the Supreme Court, some experts say.
But others suggested Apple’s new podcast hub could prove to be an ideal one-stop-shop for securing music licenses for homebrew radio shows.
The Real Lesson of Grokster
It’s tempting to see the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grokster decision as technology’s loss and copyright’s gain, but that analysis misses the mark. In fact, despite having just been handed a powerful new tool to prop up a tottering business model, the entertainment industry could well wind up the biggest loser.
The high court on Monday threw out a summary judgment ruling in favor of Grokster and StreamCast Networks, ordering the companies back to trial on charges of so-called secondary copyright infringement.
That seems like a big win for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and other plaintiffs, which now stand a good chance of shutting down both contested services and bringing new lawsuits against other peer-to-peer companies. But, by helping maintain the status quo, the ruling could further delay the death of the old way of doing things and postpone the birth of new strategies that successfully build on unstoppable peer-to-peer technologies.
T-Mobile teams up with Google for mobile Internet
Deutsche Telekom’s mobile arm T-Mobile will use Web search leader Google as the starting point for surfing the Internet on its mobile phones to promote Internet usage, T-Mobile said on Wednesday.
T-Mobile, Europe’s second-largest mobile operator, is moving to provide full Internet access on its phones, abandoning the unpopular “walled garden” concept in which operators give access to their own choice of Web sites.
AOL Grows Video Content With Virtual Film Festival
In hopes of increasing online video content, AOL’s Moviefone on Thursday announced plans to launch a virtual short film festival next week.
In addition to spotlighting the featured shorts, most of which have already made the rounds at established film flings like Sundance and Tribeca, Moviefone is beginning the festival with an open call for film submissions–an invitation not unlike the one rival Google extended to users in April in an effort to grow its own video database.
Brand New World Strikes Brand New Deal, Will Create Ads For VOD, Wireless, In-Store
VIDEO PRODUCER BELIEVE MEDIA AND agency Brand New World have entered into a joint partnership to create and produce long-form content for marketers that want to advertise their brands over broadband, VOD, wireless, and in-store retail networks.
Believe Media has produced branded films for Mercedes, GMC, Cadillac, Nike, and their agencies, and was a co-creator of the original BMW films series. Meanwhile, Brand New World has been working on cross-platform advertising projects Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, AOL Time Warner, and others. The company also recently signed a deal with Interpublic Group’s Magna Global Entertainment.
And while long-form ads have generally been adopted by high-end marketers like those in the automotive category, Alan Schulman, chief creative officer of Brand New World, said that next month, the combined effort with Believe Media will unveil their first consumer goods client.
“If you’re an advertiser and you’re used to spending $300,000 to $1 million on a 30-second commercial, the fact that you could spend $300,000 to $500,000 on a 30-minute commercial or 60-minute commercial–why wouldn’t you do that?” Schulman said. “As an ‘advanced media’ creative agency, our clients are leveraging new technologies like ‘telescoping’ that ‘throw’ the viewer from a tagged 30-second spot to a longer-form film if the viewer opts-in for more information.”
Google Unveils Video Player
GOOGLE MONDAY RELEASED ITS OWN video playback feature, “Google Video Player,” an open-source-based application for use with their video search. The player allows users to stream video clips uploaded to the search giant’s video search application by their creators.
The move is “probably the most significant play in the online-on-demand video market,” said Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein. “It cuts the distance between producer and consumer,” he said, adding “that whole content distribution has been disintermediated.”
Researchers find an advertising upside to DVR’s
Evidence is mounting that digital video recorders aren’t necessarily the negative for TV advertising that many people have believed them to be. While research continues to mount that a high percentage of DVR users do skip through commercials, new information suggests there is a DVR advertising upside — including the fact that people actually use the devices to replay interesting commercials and they appear to be restoring the kind of family viewing that marketers and agencies relish.
Google Releases Free Satellite Mapping
A MONTH AFTER ANNOUNCING PLANS for a three-dimensional mapping utility, Google Tuesday released the product into beta, allowing users to download the satellite mapping program for free from the Google home page.
The feature, “Google Earth,” which accesses a vast database compiled by Keyhole–the mapping company Google purchased in October–provides high-resolution satellite maps of addresses throughout the world. Users also can obtain driving directions overlayed onto the images; in addition, the program allows users to collect locations into a personalized search folder, and access them again in the future with one click.
In addition to the free Google Earth download, Google also offers related premium programs, including Google Earth Plus, which for $20 adds GPS connectivity, a data importer, annotation tools, and higher-resolution printing. Another upgrade–Google Earth Pro–for $400 incorporates more of Keyhole’s database, including layers showing parks, schools, airports, retail, and hospital zones; Earth Pro also allows users to import site plans, design sketches, and scan blueprints. Google also offers a variable-cost enterprise version of the software, which allows companies to purchase the program in a server box, integrate their own data into the program, and other customizable features.
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