DOT COMEDY
While the hype at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas might have been about Microsoft's XBox, Sony Electronics unveiled a slew of new products, including three CD players that will also play discs with MP3 tracks burned on to them. According to a Sony Electronics person quoted in Newsweek, when Sony Music heard about the new players, they were "pissed." Needless to say, these new players aren't SDMI-compliant, but Sony is quick to point out that there are plenty of legit MP3s, not just tracks downloaded from Napster. Said Sony Electronics President Ron Boire, "We're a consumer electronics company, and if we wanted to keep satisfying our consumers, we had to do it." Replied one music exec, "'Satisfying'? 'Consumers'? I'll never understand this tech jargon."
EGREETINGS GETS A WARM WELCOME FROM WARNER
EGreetings has inked a deal with Warner Bros. to create free animated music greetings featuring WMG artists. The Bunny will also display eGreetings.com music greetings on label and artist sites. Barenaked Ladies, Chris Isaak, Paula Cole, k.d. lang and Joni Mitchell are the first artists slated to be promoted. The cards use Flash animation and the like while playing excerpts of songs, and include a link so that the receiver of the card can purchase the CD. It's perfect as a condolence for your friends who were laid off from a dot-com.
MP3.COM AND RIAA AGREE ON SOMETHING, SORT OF
MP3.com has filed comments with the U.S. Copyright Office supporting the Recording Industry Association of America's request that the office look into how the Copyright Act applies to music delivered online. For those of you still awake, the netco and the RIAA have asked that the office convene a "Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel" to determine online royalties. "Current copyright laws and regulations are simply incapable of dealing with new technologies and the dynamic innovations being spawned by the new economy and its consumers," said MP3.com President/COO Robin Richards. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there was a power surge, and Michael needs to be re-booted."
LYCOS MUSIC AND BERTELSMANN SEE SPOTS
Terra Lycos has announced an advertising campaign co-sponsored by BMG and the Web giant's Lycos Music. Six 30-second spots will feature Pink, Dido, Outkast, David Gray and Christina Aguilera on MTV, VH1, E!, MSNBC and other cable channels that you'd watch if you weren't addicted to BattleBots. The two companies inked a five-year deal last year to develop platforms for the digital delivery of music, books and other entertainment content. Rumors that the Lycos dog and RCA mascot Nipper will fight over a possum carcass for prize money couldn't be confirmed.
REAL DEALS
RealNetworks, the company behind RealPlayer, RealJukebox and other cool software without spaces between the words, has signed deals with Panasonic and Texas Instruments. So as not to confuse you we'll detail them separately. The Panasonic pact makes RealJukebox the exclusive music management software for Panasonic's new line of Secure Digital Memory Card devices. This means that users will be able to record and download music into their RealJukebox and then transfer the music to their portable Panasonic DS music players. Those users who will pay for "secure" devices, that is—all eight of them. The TI deal is a strategic alliance, with Real providing Internet multimedia solutions for next-generation wireless and digital audio devices. TI, in case you didn't know, is the world leader in programmable digital signal processing. Users of TI DSP-based Internet appliances will be able to watch news or listen to music in RealNetworks formats. Watching porn on them gives new meaning to the phrase "handheld device."
PLAYJ GETS LOUDER WITH GNP CRESCENDO
Everad's music division, PlayJ, has signed up to do Internet marketing for GNP Crescendo. GNP's catalog includes Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and other jazz greats who kicked it old school, way before the Internet. PlayJ does marketing of this type for Priority and Artemis, among others. The company enables copyrighted music to be downloaded legally at no charge by displaying advertising while songs are being played. And really, what goes better with the formative sounds of swing like an ad for hemorrhoid cream?
