Snapshot 5/22/07

Apple-EMI Music Deal in Peril?
http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/05/appleemi_music_.html?section=money_technology
The assumption was that if Warner got hold of EMI's huge back list -- which includes everyone from Norah Jones to the Beatles -- you could kiss those DRM-free downloads goodbye. But the sighs of relieve may have been premature.

First of all, the Terra Firma buyout is by no means assured. It has to be approved by the shareholders, who could still be swayed by a higher offer from Warner's Edgar Bronfman. EMI's shares rose yesterday to 271 pence, topping Terra Firma's offfer of 265 pence a share -- reflecting investor sentiment that the company is still in play. And today the Wall St. Journal reports on speculation that if Terra Firma's Guy Hands gets hold of EMI, he might very well break it up, holding on to the still-profitable music publishing division and selling the recorded-music division -- along with the Beatles and the rest -- to Bronfman's Warner Music.


Circuit City offers DVD-ROM gift card
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6445230.html?nid=2840
Circuit City is offering a unique DVD-ROM gift card to consumers who purchase either of Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s Pirates of the Caribbean Blu-ray Disc releases. The card can be redeemed for $15 worth of products at Circuit City stores. In addition, it carries 15 minutes of content related to the Pirates films, The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest.

Viewers can download Pirates wallpaper, take an exclusive Pirates aptitude test and access Web links to purchase movie-related merchandise. The card, created by digital publisher Serious, is playable on DVD players, Windows and Mac drives and game consoles, including PlayStation 2, Xbox and Xbox 360. The item is designed to look and feel like a standard gift card, with a magnetic strip that can be swiped at cash registers. The card’s underside, however, is like a DVD and carries 180MB of content.


Military Grade DRM?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070521/143246.shtml
A company that has built a type of DRM technology for software used by the Defense Department is now trying to take that same technology and hit the commercial market as well. It's relatively expensive, so don't expect to see it on your next music CD or copy of Microsoft Word just yet. Of course, the company likes to claim that since its technology is useful in protecting Defense Department technology, it must be useful in protecting commercial software as well. However, they leave out a few things. First, while the article doesn't go into great detail on the technology itself, it sounds rather cumbersome to implement. That also likely means it's fairly cumbersome to use. That might be fine in some environments, but it limits how useful this product actually would be. Second, the DRM is quite expensive to license, meaning that for any software company worried about margin, it seems unlikely to be very interesting.


Digital music's ultimate player
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/05/01/8405663/
John MacFarlane wants to fill every room in your house with tunes. Does that make Sonos a game changer -- or takeover bait?

MacFarlane knows that Apple, having conquered the portable media market, has its sights set on the home. Yet here he believes that Jobs's company is handicapped by the iTunes pay-per-download model. As broadband connectivity becomes ubiquitous, MacFarlane sees an inexorable shift to the music dial-tone model -- which is more conducive to a raft of innovations, such as social networking and recommendation engines, that are currently unfolding.


Music industry offers deal to small Webcasters
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6185836.html
Facing an outcry over imminent royalty fee increases for Internet radio operators, the music industry body that lobbied for the changes has attempted a peace offering.

SoundExchange, the nonprofit group that collects the fees on behalf of hundreds of major and independent record companies, said on Tuesday that it would give "small" Webcasters the option of paying "below market" royalty rates on the songs they play--that is, by keeping the required royalty rates essentially the same as they are under a 2002 law called the Small Webcaster Settlement Act. "The net result of this proposal is that small Webcasters would be guaranteed no increase in royalty payments for 13 years, from 1998 to 2010," SoundExchange general counsel Michael Huppe said in a statement.