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From last night's MSNBC.com: "A
federal judge today granted
a temporary injunction barring Napster
Inc. from trading  music
online pending a trial.
"Federal Judge Marilyn Patel said the online company
was encouraging 'wholesale infringing' against the music industry.
Patel noted that 70 million people are expected to be using Napster
by year’s end and said 'what lures them
is the infringing use.' Patel said the injunction will
 go
into effect at 4PM Friday."
Read the full story in MSNBC.com here.
CNET's coverage of the story -- "The judge said the founders
of the enormously popular music-swapping site had 'created
a monster'" -- is available here.
The New York Times says, "Patel said the injunction
will go into effect... after the nation's largest record producers
post a $5 million bond against any financial losses Napster suffers
from being shut down pending a trial." Read that story
here.
The Industry Standard reported,
"After the ruling, Napster lawyer David
Boies argued that it would be technologically impossible to remove
the work
in question, to which Judge Patel responded, "That's the system
that's been created and you're stuck with the consequences." Read
more here.
Napster streamed a
brief live webcast
at 7PM PDT last night to
"update the Napster community on what happened in the courtroom,"
telling users to watch the Napster website (here)
to learn "how they can help."
Above: Screenshots
from last night's Napster webcast to its users.
And
if you've found an article
that you'd like to share with other RAIN readers, you can send
the URL to us here.
(And we're interested
in your insights, too.)
 |
Read
the complete testimony of the various participants in the
recent Senate judiciary committee hearings here.
(NEW!) |
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"Why
the music industry has nothing to celebrate: Napster's shutdown
will only cause a thousand alternatives to bloom..." here. |
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"Is
Napster being a two-faced company? The company may appear
to encourage a disdain for 'trade laws' where music is concerned,
but it readily invokes those same laws when its own property
is at stake..." here. |
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Webnoize
had a good review of the various legal arguments (e.g.,
"contributory and vicarious copyright infringement")
earlier this week here. |
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"It
is my sincere hope Napster will go down for good and the
example will make people think before facilitating criminality
and then hiding behind the notion that facilitation doesn't
really matter..."
here |
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More
coming soon. |
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"Celebration
is premature and misguided..."
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I'm sure that
the top brass of the music industry engaged in a lot of "ding
dong the witch is dead" kind of back slapping last night when Judge
Patel just said no to Napster. Celebration is premature and misguided,
as they probably just transferred control of their  now
infamous intellectual property from Napster to the open source community.
Why is this bad? Napster is a corporate entity controlled (effectively)
by a large, respected Venture Capital firm, who incidentally, made
it very clear that they were very interested in striking some sort
of deal with the music industry. The open source community conversely,
is a band of talented outlaw programmers who cannot be readily identified
or easily sued, as it's darned near impossible to determine who among
them is responsible for different pieces of open source projects.
Striking a deal with Napster would have undoubtedly forced
concessions that would have made the music industry unhappy, yet it
would have had the same impact on Napster. Such is the basis of compromise.
In other words, cut a deal and you're left with something and a partnership
with an entity whose goal is pretty much the same as yours -- maximization
of shareholder value. Leave it to the  outlaws
and you end up with nothing and an enemy whose goals have nothing
to do with shareholders or you.
Ironically, as the legal paper trail gets bigger and more refined,
so does the blueprint open source programmers have to use as a development
tool. What this means is that each "victory" for the RIAA in court
is actually a challenge, complete with guidelines to the open source
programming community. It's like handing a floor plan of your house
to a cat burglar...if I made my living selling music, that would make
me really nervous.
We had so much content in yesterday's issue that you may have
missed some of it. These links will take you to those stories.
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send you RAIN's e-mail news updates on a regular basis,
plus bulletins when important news breaks. (In addition, we'll
appreciate knowing that you're reading our efforts -- and
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You should be receiving
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Thanks!
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Los
Angeles radio revenues
29% ahead of last year
From Radio & Records: "For
the first six months of 2000, revenues in the market reached $428.7
million — that's  more
revenue than L.A. radio generated in all of 1993. The latest report
from Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co. for the Southern California Broadcasters
Assn. shows that revenues grew almost 20% to $78.4 million for the
month of June, powered by a 28% jump in local sales. In fact, radio's
share of the local media pie (which also includes TV and newspapers)
has been steadily increasing for the past three years: Radio commanded
15.6% of local media dollars in the first six months of 1998, 16.1%
year-to-date in '99 and 16.9% so far in 2000. L.A. revenues are coming
from 47 different categories, led by Internet/e-commerce (11.8% of
revenue as of May 31), autos (10.8%), TV (7.9%), communications/utilities
(5.9%) and financial services (4.3%).
Read more in R&R Online here.
Citadel drops out of Emmis’
Local Media Internet Venture (LMIV)
From Inside Radio: "Two reasons: 1) Consortium moving
too slow; 2) Contract problems. Citadel unable to  reach
agreement with Emmis and the other groups participating about how
revenues would be shared. Citadel CEO Larry Wilson deciding
Citadel is better off getting all 205 stations on the Internet by
itself. Has already established local portals for every property.
36 stations now being streamed by BroadcastAmerica...
Insiders say LMIV is close to launch... Agreements with the Internet
companies taking longer than expected to get off the ground. Look
for announcement from LMIV by the end of August. Groups still participating:
Emmis. Entercom. Jefferson Pilot. Bonneville. Susquehanna. Greater
Media." (Visit the new Inside Radio
website here.)
RAB chooses GetMedia for
website affiliates
From Radio Business Report: The  RAB’s
eCom Solution for radio station websites is now including GetMedia’s
online  CD
sales system. GetMedia’s real-time display of album covers/artist
information as songs are played on air allows listeners to instantly
“click to buy,” providing radio stations with a revenue share. GetMedia’s
“now playing” music store is station-branded and includes a search
engine with a library of 2M titles. Read
more in RBR.com here.
Reprinted
from yesterday's edition:
 Thanks
to RAIN interns David Don and Qianqian Zheng (top row, center,
in photo), you can now search through RAIN's News Archives
more quickly and efficiently than ever before!
To get started, simply enter a search term in the box below
and click "Search." (Our engine supports wildcards ("*")
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For example,
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We hope you find it valuable.
From the company press release:
"Katz Interactive
Marketing has signed NetRadio
Corporation as a  client
for the Katz Streaming Media Sales Network, it was announced [yesterday]
by Mike Agovino, Managing Partner of Katz Interactive Marketing.
"Under the joint agreement, the #1 seller of streaming
audio advertising will bring national advertisers to the NetRadio.com
website reaching over 2.5 million unique users per month.
"Through its premier website, NetRadio.com,
NetRadio Corporation is one of the largest Webcasters (Internet
streaming media providers) to have results reported by Arbitron...
NetRadio claimed five  out
of the six leading slots in Arbitron's
February 2000 InfoStream Webcast report, including the top two rankings...
"'This new relationship with Katz Interactive Marketing
offers us an enhanced opportunity to monetize
our advertising value as we continue to grow audience
with targeted marketing alliances and consumer campaigns,' said
Ed Tomechko, President and CEO of NetRadio."
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...
In Summer 2000, the opportunity to make money with Internet
radio is finally coming together
-- better streaming options, ad insertion capabilities, rep
firms (and other sales staffs) being built, and more.
One question I'd be curious to know if anyone has the
answer to: Who, if anyone, is selling audio ads for Spinner
and Sonicnet?
... |
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out! Explore
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